In a show of solidarity with Pakistan, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) issued a statement condemning the “killing of innocent people of Jammu and Kashmir” in “Indian Occupied Kashmir”. The statement came hours after Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi called on the international community to intervene in the Kashmir problem.
The General Secretariat of the OIC condemned the “terrorist act” by Indian forces where “direct shooting” at “demonstrators” in the Pulwama region claimed the lives of “innocent citizens”. Further, it called for the international community to play its role in order to reach a just and lasting solution to the conflict of Kashmir.
The OIC is an organization of Islamist countries with 57 member nations, representing the “collective voice of the Muslim world” which aims to “safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world”. The collective stand of Muslim countries is echoed by the OIC and the OIC has been clear about its support to Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. In 2017 in Islamabad, the OIC secretary-general Yousaf Ahmad Al-Othaimeen said “Kashmir has always been on the top of the agenda of OIC” and that there is a need to put “pressure” on India on the issue of alleged human rights violations in Kashmir.
The OIC has been briefed by India in the past on how Pakistan sponsored terrorism affects Kashmir. The Indian forces in Kashmir toil to maintain peace in the region and to eliminate terrorists that infest a few districts of Kashmir. In the recent incident in Pulwama, Indian forces did not open fire on demonstrators. Rather it was the stone pelters that placed themselves before fire during an ongoing operation against militants, so as to obstruct Indian forces and give leeway to militants. It is a classic act that Indians are aware of. Because of this, the difficulty of carrying out such operations is magnified. One Jawan was martyred and three terrorists were killed in the same operation in Pulwama.
However, the OIC termed this operation as a terrorist act by Indian forces. Finding OIC in its vocal form in solidarity with fellow Islamist country Pakistan, we are tempted to excavate the other times when the OIC reluctantly condemned the “terrorist acts” of fellow Muslim nations or other superpowers.
Be it the alleged murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi involving Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Bin Salman or the Yemen civil war which has reduced Yemen into a battlefield for a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, or even the alleged involvement of the USA in providing logistics support to Saudi Arabia while it carries out aerial bombings in Yemen’s civilian areas- these gross human rights violations failed to make it to the top of OIC’s agenda. It is reported that about 85 thousand children alone have died of starvation or disease epidemics in Yemen.
The OIC has had an abysmal role in preventing the war in Syria or the mass civilian deaths, neither could it stand against the USA when it backed ISIS rebels in Syria to achieve its “greater” goal of overthrowing Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The OIC instead suspended Syria from the Organisation and supports the efforts in overthrowing the Syrian government. OIC is surprisingly yet to condemn China’s treatment of its Uighur Muslims, who are being stripped off of their religion. About one million Uighurs in Xinjiang province of China, have been reported to be detained and placed in “re-education” camps where they are known to be forced to eat pork, drink alcohol and renounce their religion to join the Chinese mainstream. Pakistan who finds its closest ally in China has also kept mum on the situation.
Coming to Pakistan, the OIC has never condemned Pakistan for its systematic persecution of Ahmeddiyas, a sect of Muslims whom the state Pakistan does not recognize as Muslims. Human rights violations by Pakistan in PoK, Gilgit, Baltistan, and Balochistan have also not warranted the attention of the OIC. The prevalence and control of the Taliban in more than 40 percent of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s camaraderie with the Taliban has also not made it OIC’s agenda, wherein the Taliban continues to terrorize the Afghani government and civilians.
Pakistan has harbored and nurtured Jihadi terrorists on its soil with a hope to use them as a weapon to achieve its interests in the region. It has been pumping terrorism into India and Afghanistan. In Kashmir, the Jihadi movement is alien to the culture of Kashmiris but has been successful at gripping the youth posing a direct threat to India’s national security. The OIC must acknowledge the root of the problem in Kashmir which is Pakistan sponsored terrorism.