Neighbours isolate Pakistan at UN
WASHINGTON:Pakistan has staged the act before at the UN: lament about “violation of human rights” in Kashmir – throw in the phrase “war crimes”, play a victim of terrorism and not its chief sponsor, accuse India of holding back peace efforts and beseech the world for trust and respect.
Scrapping with India creates some buzz and plays big back home, presumably with assorted constituencies.
Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi did all that, but was not shrill enough to drown out sharp criticism of Pakistan from Bangladesh and Afghanistan that laid bare its growing isolation in South Asia, where it seems to be at odds with its neighbours on the west and the east.
Afghanistan was the first to go at it. “We now…have an opportunity for a dialogue with our neighbors on how we can work together earnestly to eliminate terrorism and contain extrem- ism,” President Ashraf Ghani told the UN General Assembly.
“I call upon Pakistan to engage with us on a comprehensive stateto-state dialogue on peace, security and regional cooperation leading to prosperity.”
And he added that “moving forward, we ask for a change of perspective from our international partners. For too long the conflict in Afghanistan has been viewed through the prism of civil war. But this war is not within our soil, it is over our soil.”
Ghani’s public appeal was a barely public rebuke of Pakistan’s role in harboring terrorists operating in Afghanistan, the Haqqani Network, for instance, one of the most sophisticated insurgent groups that has targeted Afghan and US-led forces. It operates from Pakistan’s North Waziristan, with the backing of the security establishment.
A stung Pakistan lashed back, exercising its right to reply. “Instead of blaming others for its problems and failures,” it fumed, “(Afghanistan) should focus on eradicating safe havens for terrorists in its ungoverned spaces and deal with its war economy and narco-state that is a major threat regional peace and stability.”
Next up was Bangladesh. After speaking passionately about Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told the world body about the “extreme form of genocide” perpetrated in her country during the nine-month war of liberation against Pakistan in 1971 - “3 million innocent people were killed and more than 200,000 women were violated. The Pakistan military launched the heinous ‘Operation Searchlight’ on 25th March which was the beginning of the 1971 genocide”.
The Bangladesh government recently declared March 25 “Genocide Day” and plans to ask the UN to endorse it.
“I urge the international community to take collective actions to prevent recurrence of such heinous crimes anywhere anytime,” Hasina said.