VIENNA(PTI): World Human Rights Conference, has yet to reconcile differing perceptions of governments on the right of international action against sovereign countries and the nature of universal nondiscriminatory norms of human rights.
With the virtual marginalization of the NGOs’, the bones of contention would be thrashed out between ‘nations and regional north south blocs, feedback from various delegations indicated. The two most populous nations, China and India have already agreed on a concerted opposition to any move by the west of seek to impose their human rights values and related conditionalities for aid on the developing countries.
John Shattuck, 2 spokesman of the official U.S. Delegation, was hopeful that the global meet would “out rhetoric” and draft a final declaration acceptable to government’s worldwide.
India rejects outside intervention the issue of safeguarding human rights within its territories, leader of the official Indian Delegation, Federal Finance Minister, Dr.Manmohan Singh, said:
“We do not feed outside goading” on this subject, Dr.Singh told newspersons.
By and large, the Indian government had upheld the democratic norms and the quest of the people for human rights and was now striving to establish a human rights commission, Dr.Singh said. “We are an open book and would gradually like to increase access to human rights organizations like the Amnesty International he noted.
Legislatures from several western countries had visited Punjab without hindrances, while American and British diplomats had officially gone to the border state, the finance minister said, a large number of foreign scribes toured Kashmir, he said.
Reiterating his belief that external agencies need not be overtly anxious about human rights in India, Dr Singh said Indian constitution had inbuilt safeguards for human rights and the establishment of women and minorities commissions had given “teeth to the human rights aspirations” and strengthened protective mechanisms at the institutional level. Dr.Singh said India would spell out its concern about how terrorism had affected human rights, democracy and secularism without indulging in “a slanging match” with the neighbors. India submitted to the world conference on human rights that the principle of self-determination could not be applied to create subversion and disruption of existing states. In a rejoinder to Pakistan’s demand for “effective self-determination in U.N, recognized disputed territory,” the deputy leader of Indian Delegation and India’s high commissioner to the UK, Dr.L,.M.Singhvi, drew the attention of the conference to UN resolutions which clearly laid down that “secessionist conspiracies and terrorism could not be allowed to masquerade as liberation struggles.”
“The bomb bias is in Bombay on March 12 had exemplified India’s suffering at the hands of unscrupulous terrorism unleashed upon it,” Dr. Singhvi said. He said terrorism undermined friendly relations between neighbors. In a veiled reference to Pakistan, Dr.Singhvi said a particular country was advocating an outlandish view of self-determination contrary to accepted canons of international Jaw and those decided at the recent human rights preparatory meet of the U.N. Asian group in Bangkok, The diplomat said “excessive interference and political pressure of the military forces also tended to undermine democracy and human rights in a particular country.”
India has thwarted a determined bid by Pakistan at the world human rights conference to refer the Kashmir issue to the UN security council and petition par with the Bosnian tragedy. Leader of the Pakistani delegation, Begum Nusrat Bhutto earlier goaded India on the Kashmiri peoples right to self-determination setting the stage for a major clash at the rights conference.
‘The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party urged the Narasimha Rao government to launch a vigorous movement at the international arena to counter Pakistan’s “vicious and malicious disinformation” campaign on human rights violations by India in Punjab and Kashmir.
BJP senior leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee told reporters that there would not have been any so called human rights violation in these 5¢cessionism battered states had there been no aiding and abetting of terrorism by Pakistan, Vajpayee, who came down on Kashmir harping on human rights violations in Kashmir and Punjab said India needs no lessons from Pakistan in this regard since the performance of that country on human rights was “dismal.” He said the country had nothing to hide on either Kashmir or Punjab and it had its own nongovernmental agencies to take up cases if human rights were violated.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 25, 1993
