• Thursday, March 28, 2024

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‘Pakistan exports terror’

Sushma Swaraj at the Heart of Asia conference in December 2015

By: JurmoloyaRava

INDIA’S FOREIGN MINISTER SLAMS NEIGHBOUR’S FAILURE TO COMBAT MILITANTS

INDIA’S minister of external affairs, Sushma Swaraj, addressed the 72nd session

by SUSHMA SWARAJ India’s minister of
external affairs

of the Unit­ed Nations General Assembly last Saturday (23) and its recently inaugurated president, Miro­slav Lajcák.

“Mr president, India welcomes your efforts to place people at the heart of international diplo­macy as you shape policy and lend direction to world affairs. I thank you for the theme you have chosen: ‘Focusing on people: Striving for peace and a decent life on a sustainable planet’. People, peace, decency, sustenance and focus define a noble objective.

The United Nations was established for the welfare, security, harmony, rights and economic progress of the people of our world. India fully supports your efforts in this great mission.

Our contemporary world is trapped in a del­uge of troubles of which, surely, the most dan­gerous is the relentless rise of violence, terror­ism and the ideas that engineer this evil, which are spreading at the pace of a conflagration.

We are completely engaged in fighting pover­ty; alas, our neighbour Pakistan seems only en­gaged in fighting us. On Thursday (21), from this dais, Pakistan’s prime minister Shahid Khakan Abbasi wasted rather too much of his speech in making accusations against us. He accused In­dia of state-sponsored terrorism and of violating human rights. Those listening had only one ob­servation: “Look who’s talking!” A country that has been the world’s greatest exporter of havoc, death and inhumanity became a champion of hypocrisy by preaching about humanity from this podium.

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi greets then prime minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif

Pakistan’s prime minister claimed that his na­tion’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah had be­queathed a foreign policy based on peace and friendship. I would like to remind him that while it remains open to question whether Jinnah Sa­hab actually advocated such principles, what is beyond doubt is that India’s prime minister Narendra Modi has, from the moment he took his oath of office, offered the hand of peace, and friendship. Pakistan’s prime minister must an­swer why his nation spurned this offer.

Prime minister Abbasi has recalled old resolu­tions that have been long overtaken by events. But his memory has conveniently failed him where it matters. He has forgotten that under the Shimla Agreement and the Lahore Declara­tion India and Pakistan resolved that they would settle all outstanding issues bilaterally. The real­ity is that Pakistan’s politicians remember every­thing, manipulate memory into a convenience. They are masters at “forgetting” facts that de­stroy their version.

Pakistan’s current prime minister spoke of a “comprehensive dialogue” between our two

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres with Pakistan’s prime minister Shahid Abbasi

countries. I would like to remind him that on December 9 2015, when I was in Islamabad for the Heart of Asia conference, a decision was made by his leader Mian Nawaz Sharif, then still prime minister, that dialogue between us should be renewed and named it a “Comprehensive Bi­lateral Dialogue”. The word “bilateral” was used consciously to remove any confusion or doubt about the fact that the proposed talks would be between our two nations and only between our two nations, without any third-party present. And he must answer why that proposal with­ered, because Pakistan is responsible for abort­ing that peace process.

I would like today to tell Pakistan’s politicians just this much, that perhaps the wisest thing they could do is to look within. India and Pakistan became free within hours of each other. Why is it that today India is a recognised IT superpower in the world and Pakistan is recognised only as the preeminent export factory for terror?

India has risen despite being the principal destination of Pakistan’s nefarious export of ter­rorism. There have been many governments under many parties during 70 years of Indian freedom, for we have been a sustained democ­racy. Every government has done its bit for In­dia’s development. We have marched ahead, consistently, without pause, in education, health and across the range of human welfare. We es­tablished scientific and technical institutions which are the pride of the world. But what has Pakistan offered to the world and indeed to its own people apart from terrorism? We produced scholars, doctors, engineers. What have you pro­duced? You have produced terrorists. Doctors save people from death; terrorists send them to death. If Pakistan had spent on its development what it has spent on developing terror, both Pa­kistan and the world would be safer and better-off today.

Terrorism is at the very top of problems for which the United Nations is searching for solu­tions. We have been the oldest victims of this terrible and even traumatic terrorism. When we began articulating about this menace, many of the world’s big powers dismissed this as a law and order issue. Now they know better. The question is: what do we do about it?

We must all introspect and ask ourselves whether our talk is anywhere close to the action we take. We all condemn this evil and piously resolve to fight it in all our declaratory state­ments. The truth is that these have become ritu­als. The fact is that when we are required to fight and destroy this enemy, the self interest of some leads them, towards duplicity.

This has been going on for years. Although In­dia proposed a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) as early as in 1996, two decades later the United Nations has not been able to agree upon a definition of terror­ism. If we cannot agree to define our enemy, how can we fight together? If we continue to differen­tiate between good terrorists and bad terrorists, how can we fight together? If even the United Nations Security Council cannot agree on the list­ing of terrorists, how can we fight together?

Through you, with utmost sincerity I would like to request this august assembly to stop see­ing this evil with self-defeating and indeed meaningless nuance. Evil is evil. Let us accept that terrorism is an existential danger to hu­mankind. There is absolutely no justification for this barbaric violence. Let us display our new commitment by reaching agreement on the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism this year itself.”

This is an edited transcript of the speech

[TheChamp-Sharing]

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