NEW DELHI: Russia believes that Kashmir is not a human rights issue but a political problem which is being manipulated by Pakistan and Kashmiri separatist militants for achieving their own objectives that include the disintegration of India, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry Official has said.
Oleg Malghinos, first Deputy head of the Russian foreign Ministry’s Department on International Humanitarian Cooperation and Human Rights, said in an interview, “Our opinion was and is that this issue is being artificially politicized and that human rights slogans are being used for non human rights ends.”
This is the most categorical supping from Moscow yet for India’s position on Kashmir since the collapse of the Soviet Union and ac- quires particular significance with Prime Minister Narasimha Rao scheduled to visit Russia at the end of this month.
“We think that Kashmir is not a human rights issue. It is a political problem and we are in favor of its solution in direct talks between India and Pakistan on the basis of the Shimla Agreement.” said Malghinov, who was a member of the Russian delegation at this year’s session for the Commission of Human Rights in Geneva, where Pakistan withdrew its bid to press for a vote on the human rights situation in Kashmir
“Taking into consideration the previous history of Kashmir, it is difficult to view the human rights situation in one part of an independent and sovereign country being raised by another interested party in the dispute purely as a human rights issue,” he said
In what is perhaps that first time that a Russian official has publicly stated Moscow’s position so clearly on Kashmir, Malghinov added, “We are for the integrity of India and we think that manipulation human rights slogans to give an additional argument by those who stand for its disintegration is a bad practice.”
They indicated a congruence of views between Moscow and New Delhi on measures to promote peace and stability in two large countries which share a multi-ethnic and multi-religious social fabric along with worries over their ability to withstand repost ring moves. Malghinov stressed. “We have the same problems here in Russia. We cannot encourage separatists who us pseudo-democratic slogans.”
“We stand for the adherence to human rights but sometimes these issues have been used by unfair and not very clean politicians just to come to power. We have no obvious example of this in Afghanistan,” he added, referring to the brutal civil war which has been unleashed by rival religious and ethnic actions after the toppling of the Najibullah government in 1992
However, there are also differences of approach between Russia and India on the scope of human rights as an instrument of international relations with the post Cold War trend in Moscow strongly in favor of transparency and willingness to admit to scrutiny by other countries and multilateral organizations
New Delhi has been far more circumspect on this issue, voicing its concern-along with other Asian countries over selective and intrusive inspections which can affect national sovereignty.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 24, 1994
