Periscope on Pakistan

Poll boycott an anti-India vote: SartajNation: Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz has said the boycott of so-called elections in Indian-held Ka...

Poll boycott an anti-India vote: Sartaj

Nation: Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz has said the boycott of so-called elections in Indian-held Kashmir by the vast majority of Kashmiris clearly demonstrates the complete alienation of Kashmiri people from Indian rule. He said the boycott has once again demonstrated the Kashmiri rejection of the Indian occupation and their determination to continue their struggle for their right self-determination. In a statement issued here on Monday, Sartaj said, 8220;This boycott also exposes India8217;s false propaganda campaign that the Kashmiri struggle is being sustained by infiltration from outside.8221; The lowest-ever turnout in these sham elections should once again focus international attention on the reality of the issue.

What does the world say now?

Nation: Had Pakistan said the elections being held in occupied Kashmir were a fraud, the Indians would have denounced it and the world called it biased comment. But what has India and the world now to say tothe international media reports giving the same verdict. Facts remain facts which even the coloured glasses that the West tends to wear while looking at India, cannot hide. Coming from the US Press where the Indian lobby has so far been doing a massive cover up job to project India as a model country and painting Pakistan in the blackest colours, here is what The Washington Post has to say: 8220;No one in a city of 500,000 Srinagar plans to vote,8221; because 8220;a larger reason is that major opposition groups have called for a boycott of the vote, labelling the process a fraud aimed only at proving to the world that India is a democracy and that Kashmir is a happy participant in it.8221;

The paper goes on: 8220;Indeed many Kashmiris are so alienated from Indian authority that they need neither intimidation nor rabble-rousing speeches to persuade them not to vote.8221; In more than 30 interviews the paper8217;s reporter conducted, 8220;Almost every person said he or she had at least one relative killed by Indian securityforces.8221;

Agence France Presse AFP has released pictures of empty polling booths and in one case where the Army had lined up five or six year old children to vote, presumably in place of their elders. Every election is either a vote of confidence for its rulers or an indictment against them.

The boycott of polls, if successful, is always an indictment. That indictment is now there for every one to see.