UNITED NATIONS: A United Nations report pinpointed a sequence of actions taken by India within the disputed area of Kashmir through the years which have impaired the peacekeeping duties of the Navy Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), which screens the Line of Management (LoC), and referred to as for measures to beat these challenges.
“On the Indian facet [sic] of the LOC and (Sialkot) Working Boundary, UNMOGIP army observers haven’t any freedom of motion to conduct operational duties,” in line with the group’s audit report.
“UNMOGIP army observers and worldwide workers expertise lengthy delays in acquiring visas to journey to the” occupied Kashmir, the report added.
The group, now numbering 44 observers, was established in 1949 as a peacekeeping mission by the Safety Council to behave on its behalf as an instrument to protect and maintain peace within the area.
“Additional,” the report stated, “UNMOGIP has not been receiving complaints of alleged ceasefire violations from India since 1972.”
“On the Pakistan facet of the LoC and Working Boundary,” the report stated the mission performed 666 statement submit duties: 259 in 2020 and 407 in 2021, obtained 149 complaints of alleged ceasefire violations; 140 in 2020 and 9 in 2021, and investigated 141 complaints; 132 in 2020; and 9 in 2021.
As well as, the group stated it obtained 32 petitions from native authorities in Pakistan: 20 in 2020 and 12 in 2021.
“Whereas UNMOGIP supplied weekly, month-to-month and annual stories on its work to DPO (Division of Peace Operations), there was no proof of any motion taken on these stories,” the report identified.
“The report confirms Pakistan’s major contentions, together with that Jammu and Kashmir is a world dispute, not a bilateral difficulty between India and Pakistan, a lot much less India’s inner affair,” Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram advised APP.
Akram stated the report additionally endorses Pakistan’s stand that the Safety Council has approved the stationing of the UNMOGIP to look at the ceasefire, pending the decision of the dispute via a plebiscite.
Additional, it confirms that whereas Pakistan is extending all doable cooperation to UNMOGIP, India was doing the whole lot doable to impede and frustrate the mandate of the group authorised by the Safety Council, he added,
As well as, he stated the report helps Pakistan’s view that UNMOGIP’s power (44 observers) is just not ample to conduct its mandate successfully and ought to be enhanced, and that violations of the ceasefire alongside the LoC have to be reported clearly and comprehensively to the UN headquarters and the Safety Council.
“We stay up for the implementation of the audit report’s suggestions by the UN, by UNMOGIP and the 2 ‘host’ States, India and Pakistan,” the envoy added.
On account of Indian restrictions on the motion of UNMOGIP officers, the report stated the group was constrained to ascertain solely 11 area stations, with a number of of them having just one army observer deployed to observe and report the ceasefire violations.
It additionally stated the curbs have additionally stretched UNMOGIP’s operational bills as New Delhi shut down the Working Boundary Crossing Level (BCP) at Jammu and Sialkot in March 2020, forcing UNMOGIP to make use of a for much longer route from Wagha Border to succeed in its area stations in Jammu.
The measure led to further prices, together with for gas at a time when world power costs are excessive. India, the report stated, has not responded to repeated requests by the UN, together with in New York, to resolve the difficulty by reopening the BCP.
Not solely that India has additionally withdrawn its in-kind contributions corresponding to logistical services and free meals rations to army observers performing their duties within the area stations. Since 2013, India has collected a number of hundred thousand rupees from UNMOGIP each month in lieu of lodging and meals rationing services, the report stated.
India’s measures, in line with the report, have led to UNMOGIP paying over $1 million within the interval between September 2013 and December 2021. Whereas UNMOGIP has been making these funds, the report stated it’s doing so “underneath protest” as a approach to specific its disagreement with the costs levied by the Authorities of India.
On this context, the report referred to as on the UNMOGIP to discover methods to supply periodic suggestions to each Pakistan and India, in addition to the Secretary-Basic on the findings of varied investigations, together with for ceasefire violations. The advice is geared toward strengthening the accountability mechanism.
Lastly, the report stresses the necessity to guarantee UNMOGIP’s optimum operational power within the area, a suggestion that helps Pakistan’s name for bolstering the group to boost its operational capabilities and effectiveness.