Nightmare's Children
By Sorit Gupto
16 July, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Yasmin, a 15-year-old girl of Srinagar , Kashmir, and many other young girls like her is forced to serve government officials of India, ministers, police and security forces officials of the rank of SSPs, DSP, and DIG as sex slave or comfort women a phenomenon which we are fairly known during the WWII, Vietnam war and so on , However Yasmin was luckier than of Abeer Qassim Hamza, a sixteen year old Iraqi girl Mahmoudiya , who was raped and then killed by the 'liberators' US marine. Her body was then set on fire to cover up their crimes, her father, mother, and sister murdered.
The coincidences are strikingly similar in these two regions though geographically they are thousands of kilometers apart from one another. In Iraq the US and allied forces are doing atrocities on the common citizen and here in Kasmir the same thing is being materialize by Indian security forces. India is now deploying more than 700,000 troops in the valley in the name of War Against Terrorism, whereas US has deployed tens of thousands of troop to 'liberate' the Iraqi people from Tyranny.
It is simply the game of jargons, the use and disuse of certain terms , evolving new words and replaced it with the word of their choice. For example replace the word "overthrowing tyranny" and "liberation" with the word "War against terrorism" and you will transform Kashmir into Iraq and vise-versa.
Rape continues to be a major instrument of Indian repression against the Kashmiri people while the majority of casualties in Kashmir are civilians. There were more than 200 incidents of rape in Doda in January 1994 alone. Rape is used by the Indian security forces to attack Kashmiri women suspected of sympathizing with Freedom Fighters. Through rape, the security forces are aiming to punish and humiliate the entire community.
The Indian security forces are well equipped with not only sophisticated arms but also with the various like laws like TADA, Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, The National Security Act which allowed the Indian security forces to detain citizens up to one year without formal charges, due process of law, or any formal trial. Above all The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (Jammu and Kashmir) empowers the armed forces to search houses without warrant, arrest Kashmiri citizens without warrant, destroy houses and villages and shoot at unarmed civilians on the streets to kill. For any of these actions, Article 7 of the act, any member of the armed forces who conducts the above described human rights violations - summary executions of unarmed civilians, burning down homes and villages, torture and arbitrary arrest - can do so with immunity from prosecution.
Like Indian army and security forces the coalition forces are also guarded by decrees issued by former US Civil Administrator Paul Bremer. One decree issued 18 June 2003 stipulates that, "No Iraqi court has legal authority over any member of the coalition regarding any issue, be it civil or punitive."
Stephen Green, a former member of the 502nd infantry regiment, was charged last week in a US court with rape and murder. Mr Green, a former private, was granted an honourable discharge from the military for a personality disorder before the alleged rape and murder came to light.
Is this a mere coincidence that the reported gang-rape of nine women at Shopian in October 1992 by an army unit was dismissed off-handedly after investigation by army and police, the very units charged with the crime, despite solid medical evidence to the contrary; no independent investigation by an impartial agency was carried out.
The reported mass rape of over 20 women at Konan Poshpura in February 1991 was also handled in a similar evasive manner; the complaint was not investigated in a timely manner by an impartial agency and the medical evidence was dismissed without good cause; one of the victims who was nine months pregnant during the incident delivered a baby with a fractured left arm.
After the massacre in Haditha when it became clear that the civilians had been shot by US soldiers, the marines switched to saying that the deaths were the fault of insurgents who "placed non-combatants in the line of fire as the marines responded to defend themselves", just like the massacre of 35 Amarnath pilgrim In August 2000, where it has come to light that most of the people were killed in fact by the panic-stricken CRPF jawans who continued firing for another 20 minutes after the two suspected militants were killed.
According to the PTI release of 13 september 1998some 2477 civilians had been killed by the Indian forces in the period 1990-1998 .Killing at Gawakadal bridge, in Sopore, Biejbehara ,Brakpora, Panchalthan, Pahalgam… the list is endless.
One has so many choice to name a Haditha of India.
Civilians suspected of having information about militants, many of them innocent, are routinely detained, tortured and killed in custody. Methods of torture include severe beatings, electric shock, crushing the leg muscles with a wooden roller, and burning with heated objects.
The above paragraph is a part of the report of Amnesty international on the Kashmir , but can't it be fitted perfectly with any prison of Iraq?
Renegades are former militants who have surrendered and changed sides to the Indian forces. Since the 1989 insurgency in Kashmir, renegades have been used for extra judicial executions of militants (besides human right activists, journalists and other civilians) and later conveniently dismissed as "inter group rivalries". Many of these groups have been responsible for grave human rights abuses, including summary executions, torture, and illegal detention as well as election-related intimidation of voters. They are never arrested or prosecuted and go scot-free.
Replace the word renegade by death squads or The national guard and you will get the picture of Iraq.
In the name of Liberation, US has devastated a country by humiliating, repressing and endangering the common people of the country like Iraq and Indian state is doing the same thing with a little difference as she is doing same thing with in her own territory.
US is doing every thing to make the world a safer place to live in and the logic behind the Indian atrocities in Kashmir was Unity and Integrity till few years back, now the cause has changed .Now Indian state is using the same language and that is 'Fight against terror'
Now at least a section of US society is out openly against their own state and at this juncture we the Indian people are lagging behind. We are still disillusioned with blind nationalism. The coffins of our soldiers and tourists killed in Kashmir do not make us to raise demand of withdrawal of our soldiers from Kashmir. We are providing our full support to our ruthless and rouge state .
Just imagine yourself as an individual of Iraq or Kashmir. Your sister or mother is raped, your brother or father is murdered or imprisoned, you are living under constant fear, your home is bombarded. The humiliation ,cold blooded murder, rape and above all the immunity provided to the criminals has virtually transforms the places like Kashmir and Iraq as breeding ground for counter attacks, the revenge.
The incidence of 9/11 and recently happened 7/11 , the train attacks of Madrid or Mumbai and a countless incidence has proved that we the common people are the only target to all such attacks and that's why we are being tagged as "soft Target".
It is up to us whether really want to make our world a safer place to live in, to live with dignity and respect or become the counterpart of 'terrorist' attack victims of Madrid, Tel Aviv, Mumbai or New York .
