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Kashmiri leaders call for end to violence
Indo-Pak talks on nuclear confidence measures begin
India, Pak agree for joint survey of Sir Creek from January 3
3 more Afghan prisoners
die in US custody
Mullah Omar's security chief held
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Kashmiri leaders call for end to violence
Kathmandu, December 14 The first meeting on divided Kashmiris for the first time in 57 years is seen as the biggest achievement of the conference, general secretary of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Ghulam Rasoor Dar Eiddie said. The conference provided us a platform to meet and interact, for finding solutions to their problem for the first time after the problem erupted in 1947. “It proved to be a platform for interaction and discussing about our difficulties,” he said. The idea of the conference was to encourage the people from Indian Kashmir and Pakistan administered Kashmir to engage in dialogue for a peaceful settlement of the dispute, said Abbas Rashid, member of the Nobel Peace Prize winning Pugwash. Newspapers quoted Rashid that both the governments — India and Pakistan — had taken cognizance of the conference, with the participation of officials from both countries as observers. “Pugwash doesn’t want to exclude governments,” he said. The conference has generated a momentum for the solution of the Kashmir issue, Rashid said. “The people from both the Kashmirs were very much comfortable with each other.” He said one of the results of the meeting is that it has recognised the Kashmiris as party to the solution of the problem. They also recognised the complexities of the situation, The Kathmandu Post quoted him as saying. “We want trilateral talks (between India, Pakistan and the Kashmiris),” Eiddie said. “India and Pakistan cannot decide our fate. If it is only up to them to decide over us, it won’t be acceptable,” the paper quoted him as saying. He added, “We are very optimistic about the conference and we fully support it.” Dar also said the next conference may be held sometime in March/April. The conference was organised for the first time in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, which was attended by around 60 participants from Kashmir, India, Pakistan, and representatives of organisations of Britain and the
USA.— UNI |
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Indo-Pak talks on nuclear confidence measures begin
Islamabad, December 14 The talks in Islamabad between the Foreign Ministry experts are part of a cautious peace process relaunched under international pressure early this year. The two sides will discuss proposals aimed at building mutual confidence about each other’s nuclear arsenals to avoid any miscalculations and try to formalise an agreement to notify each other in advance of missile tests — a practice they already follow informally. “I look forward to a result-oriented process which will be in the interest of both our people and our governments,” Meera Shankar, Additional Secretary at the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, told reporters. Analysts do not expect any major breakthroughs. On Monday, Pakistan objected to India raising Pakistan’s plans to acquire conventional arms from the USA as an issue, given India’s own arms-buying programme. India said last week any US arms sales to Pakistan would affect its relations with the USA, and the slow-moving India-Pakistan peace process. At a news conference on Monday, Pakistani Foreign Ministry-spokesman Masood Khan called the Indian statement “disturbing”. Khan called Pakistan’s programme “modest” compared with that of India, which was spending tens of billions of dollars to acquire sophisticated weapons from around the world.
— Reuters |
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India, Pak agree for joint survey of Sir Creek from January 3 Islamabad, December 14 “Both sides positively understood each other’s points of view and a consensus generally emerged,” a Pakistan Defence Ministry statement said at the end of the first day of the two-day talks between senior defence officials of the two countries. The meeting discussed various modalities for conducting a joint survey of the boundary pillars laid in the past in the land portion of the Sir Creek area, it said. Officials said both sides agreed for a joint survey of the pillars erected in 1924 by the then authorities of Sindh and Kutch from January 3. An announcement in this regard was expected to be made at the end of the talks tomorrow. The two sides have held eight round of talks so far and they now have agreed to jointly survey the 7-mile Creek. The Sir Creek issue was among the eight contentious subjects being discussed under the Composite Dialogue process. “As part of the ongoing composite dialogue process, the talks were held in very cordial and friendly atmosphere,” the statement said. Sir Creek is a small strip of water along the Rann of Kutch (in India) and Sindh (in Pakistan). Officials said both countries were keen to acquire it as it is particularly considered to be rich in oil and natural gas. Both sides need to show some urgency in reaching a settlement as they have to resolve the issue by 2009, failing which the UN would declare it as international waters. The Indian delegation at the talks was headed by Brig Girish Kumar, Deputy Surveyor General of India, and the Pakistani side was led by Major General Jamil-ur-Rehman Afridi, Surveyor General of Pakistan. “It was agreed that the concluding session of the talks will be held on December 15, 2004, in the Ministry of Defence,” the statement said. Later, Kumar met Rear Admiral Ahsanul Haq Choudhary, Additional Secretary in Pakistan’s Ministry of Defence, and discussed matters of mutual interest. The two sides noted that such visits and interactions were beneficial for them, it said. Choudhary told the Indian delegation that it was in the interest of both countries to proceed further with the dialogue process.
— PTI
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3 more Afghan prisoners
die in US custody
New York-based Human Rights Watch has presented evidence of three new cases of prisoner deaths at U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan. The group says these cases highlight the Bush administration’s continuing failure to establish accountability for abuses by American soldiers.
A total of six detainees are now known to have died in U.S. custody in Afghanistan, including four known cases of alleged murder or manslaughter. The United States has announced only a handful of criminal investigations into abuses and deaths in Afghanistan, and has publicly charged only two persons with any crime. The newly uncovered cases include that of Sher Mohammad Khan who was arrested on September 24 this year during a raid on his family’s home near Khost. Hedied the next day at a U.S. military base. A new case from 2003 involves the death of Jamal Naseer, a soldier in the U.S.-backed official Afghan Army, who was allegedly killed in March, 2003, after he and seven other soldiers were mistakenly arrested by U.S. forces and then taken to a base in Gardez and tortured. In the third case, Human Rights Watch cites evidence of an alleged murder of a detainee by four U.S. military personnel in or before September 2002. This death is believed to be the earliest known death of a detainee in U.S. custody in Afghanistan. In a December 13 letter to U.S. Secretary of Defence Donald H. Rumsfeld, Human Rights Watch Director Brad Adams said in most cases the Department of Defence launched criminal investigations only after particular abuses received media attention. “These investigations have proceeded extremely slowly and in excessive secrecy,” he said, adding, an internal Pentagon investigation of detention operations in Afghanistan, conducted by Brig. Gen. Charles H. Jacoby, while completed, remains classified, unlike similar reports on abuses in Iraq. Mr Adams said the failure to investigate and prosecute abuses had created a “culture of impunity” among some interrogators, and allowed abuse to spread. Several military guards and interrogators implicated in earlier abuses in Afghanistan, before the Iraq war, were later sent to work at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison located on the outskirts of Baghdad and the scene of horrific violations of prisoners’ rights by their U.S. guards. Some of these personnel have been implicated in the abuses at Abu Ghraib. The breakdown in respect for the prohibition of torture is “almost complete when senior administration officials authorize stripping, isolating, hooding, using stress positions and sensory deprivation and no one is publicly held accountable for the deaths of prisoners subjected to this ill-treatment,” said Dr William F. Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. “The administration must not only extinguish the green light they gave to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, but make clear that no-one who authorized or inflicted such treatment will escape criminal liability,” he added. Through 2004 the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) has received numerous complaints about mistaken arrests, arbitrary detention, and mistreatment and beatings of detainees by U.S. forces. |
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Mullah Omar's security chief held
Kandahar, December 14 The capture of the head of Mullah Omar's household security could help US and Afghan forces track down his boss, one of the most wanted fugitives in the US-led war on terror. "We have arrested top Taliban figures Toor Mullah Naqibullah Khan and Mullah Angar on the way between Arghandab and Kandahar. They were carrying a satellite telephone and some important documents," said one Kandahar official, who requested anonymity. "We are hopeful we will arrest more Taliban figures and we hope that we can arrest their leader Mullah Omar," he said. Spokesman for the provincial government Khalid Pashtun confirmed the arrests. Toor Mullah Naqibullah Khan was unarmed when he was arrested with Mullah Angar, another Taliban commander. The security official said they were picked up following a tip-off from a Taliban insider.
— Reuters |
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