http://www.deardeath.com/death_rituals_across_cultures_.htm
Pygmies (African Congo)
The Pygmies appear to be sort of uncomfortable with death. When a person dies, they pull down his hut on top of him, and move their camp while relatives cry. Then the dead person is never mentioned again.
Chukchee (Nothern Siberia, Russia)
A three day silent watch was kept to insure the soul then departs. The dead were removed from their huts via special holes cut in the side and then immediately sewn to prevent the spirit from returning and bothering them. The bodies were burned or just taken to a seculded spot.
Maoris (New Zealand)
The Maoris have an elaborate ritual. When people are dying they are placed in huts which are later burned. The corpse is sat up and dressed in nice clothes to be viewed by the public, and the mourners wear wear wreathes of green leaves, cry out and cut themselves with knvies. They chant praises and then have a feast where they give the dead's relatives gifts. After a few years, the bones are cleaned, covered in red earth and put in a special cave.
Solomon Islands
In the Solomon Islands the dead were laid out on a reef for the sharks to eat. At a different point in their history, they stored skulls in fish-shaped containers.
Intuit (Alaska)
Some Inuits covered the corpse with a small igloo. Because of the cold body would remain forever, unless it was eaten by polar bears.
Estonia
Estonians of eastern Europe who follow the old folkways like to throw banquets in their graveyards and eat with the departed. They put a few delicacies on each tombstone to share their food. On certain days when the dead return home for a visit, bathrooms are kept heated and food is laid out in festive array. In this way, bonds are preserved and strengthened between loved ones on both side of life's gate.
Tibet
Tibetan views, in synch with other Bhuddist views in Asia, on death are most cogently expressed in The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Essentially, they feel that death must be confronted to truly achieve spiritual progress. In fact, knowledge of the steps occurring at the time of death is acquired through study, in the hopes that the confrontation will be so directed toward virtuous thoughts to allow enlightment, the achievement of Bhudda status rather than continuing the cycle of rebirth. Meditation occurs on the topic of death, event. Relatives present at the time of death attempt not to distract from this confrontation, and a lama may be present to offer advice and read sacred texts, helping the living as well as the dying. Tibetans reportedly even hacked up their dead for bird food because they had no respect for the body.
Jamaica
Although practices have changed, they still involve celebrating nine night, which is a celebration to support the relatives of the dead and provide for the body's safe journey to the next part of life. It is held in a veranda or a bamboo and coconut tent next to a house. Fried fish and, cake and bread sits on a central table and is left until midnight, so that the spirit of the dead can drop by for a snack. The ceremony also involves dancing, extensive singing and 100-proof rum. It ends nine nights after the death, though additional singing must occur 40 nights later, when supposedly the soul has ceased roaming and will no longer pester the living. Journey cakes ("johnnycakes") are also laid with corpses, and often obedah or vodoo ceremonies will occur to help put souls to rest. Previously, sexual images often were present on tombstones, and burial occured near homes.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Some quotations on Death :)
AMELIA BURR:
Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.
ANAIS NIN:
People living deeply have no fear of death.
CHARLIE DANIELS:
A brief candle; both ends burning
An endless mile; a bus wheel turning
A friend to share the lonesome times
A handshake and a sip of wine
So say it loud and let it ring
We are all a part of everything
The future, present and the past
Fly on proud bird
You're free at last.
written en route to the funeral for his friend, Ronnie Van Zant of the band, Lynyrd Skynyrd.
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN:
It is told that Buddha, going out to look on life, was greatly daunted by death. "They all eat one another!" he cried, and called it evil. This process I examined, changed the verb, said, "They all feed one another," and called it good.
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN:
Death? Why this fuss about death. Use your imagination, try to visualize a world without death! ... Death is the essential condition of life, not an evil.
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN:
Human life consists in mutual service. No grief, pain, misfortune, or "broken heart," is excuse for cutting off one's life while any power of service remains. But when all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one.
(Suicide Note, August 17, 1935)
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY:
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
ELIE WIESEL:
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.
(Oct. 1986)
EMILY DICKINSON:
My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
EMILY DICKINSON:
Death is a Dialogue between
The Spirit and the Dust.
"Dissolve" says Death—The Spirit "Sir
I have another Trust"—
Death doubts it—Argues from the Ground—
The Spirit turns away
Just laying off for evidence
An Overcoat of Clay.
EMILY DICKINSON:
All but Death, can be Adjusted—
Dynasties repaired—
Systems—settled in their Sockets—
Citadels—dissolved—
Wastes of Lives—resown with Colors
By Succeeding Springs—
Death—unto itself—Exception—
Is exempt from Change—
EPICURUS:
Thus that which is the most awful of evils, death, is nothing to us, since when we exist there is no death, and when there is death we do not exist.
ERNEST BECKER:
The irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we must shrink from being fully alive.
ERNEST BECKER:
The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity - designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny of man.
ERNEST BECKER:
[W]e now know that the human animal is characterized by two great fears that other animals are protected from: the fear of life and the fear of death... Heidegger brought these fears to the center of his existential philosophy. He argued that the basic anxiety of [humanity] is anxiety about being-in-the-world, as well as anxiety of being-in-the-world. That is, both fear of death and fear of life, of experience and individuation.
F. FORRESTER CHURCH:
Religion is the human response to being alive and having to die.
FELIX ADLER:
Religion is a wizard, a sibyl . . .
She faces the wreck of worlds, and prophesies restoration.
She faces a sky blood-red with sunset colours that deepen into darkness, and prophesies dawn.
She faces death, and prophesies life.
FLORYNCE KENNEDY:
I think we should look forward to death more than we do. Of course everybody hates to go to bed or miss anything but dying is really the only chance we'll get to rest.
GILDA RADNER:
I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW:
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
and things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art; to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
ISAAC ASIMOV:
If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.
JAMES F. BYMES:
Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem to be more afraid of life than death
JOHN MUIR:
Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT:
Beth could not reason upon or explain the faith that gave her courage and patience to give up life, and cheerfully wait for death. Like a confiding child, she asked no questions, but left everything to God and nature, Father and Mother of us all, feeling sure that they, and they only, could teach and strengthen heart and spirit for this life and the life to come.
in Little Women, chapter 36
MARGARET J. WHEATLEY:
Destroying is a necessary function in life. Everything has its season, and all things eventually lose their effectiveness and die.
NORBERT CAPEK:
It is worthwhile to live
and fight courageously
for sacred ideals.
PAUL ANKA:
And now the end is near
And so I face the final curtain,
My friends, I'll say it clear,
I'll state my case of which I'm certain.
I've lived a life that's full, I've travelled each and evr'y highway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way.
RABBI ZUSYA:
In the world to come, I shall not be asked, "Why were you not Moses?" I shall be asked, "Why were you not Zusya?"
ROBERT FULGHUM:
I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge -- myth is more potent than history -- dreams are more powerful than facts -- hope always triumphs over experience -- laughter is the cure for grief -- love is stronger than death.
ROMAN TOMBSTONE:
Do not pass by my epitaph, traveler.
But having stopped, listen and learn, then go your way.
There is no boat in Hades, no ferryman Charon,
No caretaker Aiakos, no dog Cerberus.
All we who are dead below
Have become bones and ashes, but nothing else.
I have spoken to you honestly, go on, traveler,
Lest even while dead I seem loquacious to you.
SCOTT ALEXANDER:
All good is hard. All evil is easy. Dying, losing, cheating, and mediocrity is easy. Stay away from easy.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE:
...when we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings.
THOMAS F. HEALEY:
Don't strew me with roses after I'm dead.
When Death claims the light of my brow,
No flowers of life will cheer me: instead
You may give me my roses now!
TONI MORRISON:
Birth, life, and death -- each took place on the hidden side of a leaf.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM:
Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
WINSTON CHURCHILL:
I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
BILL MAHER:
Suicide is man's way of telling God, "You can't fire me - I quit."
WILFRED SHEED:
Suicide is... the sincerest form of criticism life gets.
Sources: http://www.wisdomquotes.com & http://www.quotegarden.com
Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.
ANAIS NIN:
People living deeply have no fear of death.
CHARLIE DANIELS:
A brief candle; both ends burning
An endless mile; a bus wheel turning
A friend to share the lonesome times
A handshake and a sip of wine
So say it loud and let it ring
We are all a part of everything
The future, present and the past
Fly on proud bird
You're free at last.
written en route to the funeral for his friend, Ronnie Van Zant of the band, Lynyrd Skynyrd.
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN:
It is told that Buddha, going out to look on life, was greatly daunted by death. "They all eat one another!" he cried, and called it evil. This process I examined, changed the verb, said, "They all feed one another," and called it good.
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN:
Death? Why this fuss about death. Use your imagination, try to visualize a world without death! ... Death is the essential condition of life, not an evil.
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN:
Human life consists in mutual service. No grief, pain, misfortune, or "broken heart," is excuse for cutting off one's life while any power of service remains. But when all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one.
(Suicide Note, August 17, 1935)
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY:
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
ELIE WIESEL:
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.
(Oct. 1986)
EMILY DICKINSON:
My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
EMILY DICKINSON:
Death is a Dialogue between
The Spirit and the Dust.
"Dissolve" says Death—The Spirit "Sir
I have another Trust"—
Death doubts it—Argues from the Ground—
The Spirit turns away
Just laying off for evidence
An Overcoat of Clay.
EMILY DICKINSON:
All but Death, can be Adjusted—
Dynasties repaired—
Systems—settled in their Sockets—
Citadels—dissolved—
Wastes of Lives—resown with Colors
By Succeeding Springs—
Death—unto itself—Exception—
Is exempt from Change—
EPICURUS:
Thus that which is the most awful of evils, death, is nothing to us, since when we exist there is no death, and when there is death we do not exist.
ERNEST BECKER:
The irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we must shrink from being fully alive.
ERNEST BECKER:
The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity - designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny of man.
ERNEST BECKER:
[W]e now know that the human animal is characterized by two great fears that other animals are protected from: the fear of life and the fear of death... Heidegger brought these fears to the center of his existential philosophy. He argued that the basic anxiety of [humanity] is anxiety about being-in-the-world, as well as anxiety of being-in-the-world. That is, both fear of death and fear of life, of experience and individuation.
F. FORRESTER CHURCH:
Religion is the human response to being alive and having to die.
FELIX ADLER:
Religion is a wizard, a sibyl . . .
She faces the wreck of worlds, and prophesies restoration.
She faces a sky blood-red with sunset colours that deepen into darkness, and prophesies dawn.
She faces death, and prophesies life.
FLORYNCE KENNEDY:
I think we should look forward to death more than we do. Of course everybody hates to go to bed or miss anything but dying is really the only chance we'll get to rest.
GILDA RADNER:
I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW:
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
and things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art; to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
ISAAC ASIMOV:
If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.
JAMES F. BYMES:
Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem to be more afraid of life than death
JOHN MUIR:
Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT:
Beth could not reason upon or explain the faith that gave her courage and patience to give up life, and cheerfully wait for death. Like a confiding child, she asked no questions, but left everything to God and nature, Father and Mother of us all, feeling sure that they, and they only, could teach and strengthen heart and spirit for this life and the life to come.
in Little Women, chapter 36
MARGARET J. WHEATLEY:
Destroying is a necessary function in life. Everything has its season, and all things eventually lose their effectiveness and die.
NORBERT CAPEK:
It is worthwhile to live
and fight courageously
for sacred ideals.
PAUL ANKA:
And now the end is near
And so I face the final curtain,
My friends, I'll say it clear,
I'll state my case of which I'm certain.
I've lived a life that's full, I've travelled each and evr'y highway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way.
RABBI ZUSYA:
In the world to come, I shall not be asked, "Why were you not Moses?" I shall be asked, "Why were you not Zusya?"
ROBERT FULGHUM:
I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge -- myth is more potent than history -- dreams are more powerful than facts -- hope always triumphs over experience -- laughter is the cure for grief -- love is stronger than death.
ROMAN TOMBSTONE:
Do not pass by my epitaph, traveler.
But having stopped, listen and learn, then go your way.
There is no boat in Hades, no ferryman Charon,
No caretaker Aiakos, no dog Cerberus.
All we who are dead below
Have become bones and ashes, but nothing else.
I have spoken to you honestly, go on, traveler,
Lest even while dead I seem loquacious to you.
SCOTT ALEXANDER:
All good is hard. All evil is easy. Dying, losing, cheating, and mediocrity is easy. Stay away from easy.
SOGYAL RINPOCHE:
...when we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings.
THOMAS F. HEALEY:
Don't strew me with roses after I'm dead.
When Death claims the light of my brow,
No flowers of life will cheer me: instead
You may give me my roses now!
TONI MORRISON:
Birth, life, and death -- each took place on the hidden side of a leaf.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM:
Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
WINSTON CHURCHILL:
I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
BILL MAHER:
Suicide is man's way of telling God, "You can't fire me - I quit."
WILFRED SHEED:
Suicide is... the sincerest form of criticism life gets.
Sources: http://www.wisdomquotes.com & http://www.quotegarden.com
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Devadasi System in India
A good reference material
http://www.sikhspectrum.com/052007/Devadasi.htm
Some links within the earlier one are:
Photo Sources
http://www.sikhspectrum.com/052007/Devadasi.htm
Some links within the earlier one are:
References
1) Devasi-http://theglimpse.com/newsite/printarticle2.asp?articleid=198
2) http://uk.geocities.com/dalitsnuk/dalitrights/issue6.html
3) http://www.infochangeindia.org/archives1.jsp?secno=1&monthname=June&year=2002&detail=T
4) http://ambedkar.org/buddhism/Devadasies_Were_Degraded_Buddhist_Nuns.htm
5) http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring02/Chattaraj/genesis.html
6) http://www.newint.org/features/2005/07/01/combatting_caste/
7) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1072-2362622,00.html
8) http://www.paklinks.com/gs/archive/index.php/t-54857.html
9) http://www.boloji.com/wfs5/wfs630.htm
10) http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring02/Chattaraj/plight.html
Photo Sources
http://theglimpse.com/newsite/printarticle2.asp?articleid=198
http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring02/Chattaraj/genesis.html
http://www.boloji.com/wfs5/wfs630.htm
http://www.newint.org/features/2005/07/01/combatting_caste/
http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring02/Chattaraj/plight.html
Friday, January 30, 2009
Gaza-Israel conflict, This article gives a good human rights perspective
Israel, Gaza and international law
Conor Gearty
The way Israel has conducted its military operations in Gaza extends a wider and dangerous trend towards state unilateralism, says Conor Gearty.
21 - 01 - 2009
Conor Gearty is the director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the London School of Economics. Among his books are Civil Liberties (Oxford University Press, 2008) and Essays on Human Rights and Terrorism (Cameron May, 2008). His forthcoming books are on Liberty and Security (Polity) and Social Rights (Hart). His website is conorgearty.co.ukThis article, with minor editorial variations, first appeared in the Tablet (17 January 2009)Also by Conor Gearty in openDemocracy:"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the next sixty years" (10 December 2008)
The Israeli attack on the Gaza strip in has exposed the relative impotence of international law in the face of determined sovereign action. On 8 January 2009, the United Nations Security Council called for "an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza." It also urgently insisted on the "unimpeded provision and distribution throughout Gaza of humanitarian assistance, including of food, fuel and medical treatment."
On 9 January the UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, told a special session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) that "international human-rights law must apply in all circumstances and at all times." The high commissioner strongly urged the parties to the conflict "to fulfil their obligations under international humanitarian law to collect, care for and evacuate the wounded and to protect and respect health workers, hospitals, and medical units and ambulances." Pillay also called on each side "to allow the deployment of independent human-rights monitors in both Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory to document any violations of international-human rights and humanitarian law."
In reminding the HRC that "violations of international humanitarian law may constitute war crimes for which individual criminal responsibility may be invoked", she suggested that the council "should consider authorising a mission to assess violations committed by both sides in the conflict in order to establish the relevant facts and ensure accountability." In its resolution on 12 January, the council said that it "strongly condemns the ongoing military operation carried out ... in the occupied Gaza Strip, which [has] resulted in massive violations of human rights of Palestinian people and systematic destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure"; it decided to send "an urgent independent international fact-finding mission" to investigate what is going on.
The practice of war
The anger evident in all this UN activity, and in particular the passion evident in the high commissioner's choice of words - reflected too by the secretary-general himself during his visit to Gaza on 20 January - is founded upon the blatancy of the disregard of the law that has been evident in Gaza.
This is not solely or even mainly about whether the operation was justified; the concern is rather with how it was conducted. International humanitarian law requires all parties to a conflict of this nature carefully to distinguish between combatants and others, targeting only the former. It also requires that the wounded and sick must be collected and cared for by the party to the conflict which has been within its power. Methods of warfare which are likely to cause unnecessary losses or excessive suffering should not be used.
The Human Rights Council was particularly exercised by what its resolution refers to as the "targeting" of UN facilities in Gaza. Even the normally discreet International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued what was for it a highly unusual statement to make in the course of a conflict. This condemned the Israeli military for having breached international humanitarian law in having failed to allow access to a neighbourhood within which were later found four small children, starving among twelve corpses (including those of the children's mothers): according to the ICRC, the Israel Defence Forces had delayed four days before allowing the organisation's medical teams into the area. It would be wrong to say that none of this international activity has had any effect at all: there can be little doubt that Israel has felt some diplomatic and possibly even economic pressure arising from the way in which it conducted its operations in relation to Gaza. But in the absence of any kind of enforcement mechanism, the legal effect of all this international noise has been for all practical purposes zero.Indeed, without any kind of international adjudicative body to which Israel is required to defer, the media spokespeople deployed to justify Israel's actions to the world, together with their supporters in the world community of academic "terrorism experts", have been able to argue that the attacks are legitimate under international law.
The argument - based on the right of national self-defence in Article 51 of the UN charter, together with the alleged use by Hamas of civilian areas from which to launch rockets on Israel - might not be able to survive a few hours in a court of law; but all it needs to withstand is at most five minutes' interrogation in the media, and it is more than fit for this purpose. The Israeli leaders were able to declare their operation a success before it was allowed to become an embarrassment to Barack Obama on his 20 January 2009 inauguration; they can hope that within a few months this dirty little war will have faded into a background already littered with a succession of such disproportionately violent encounters.
The response of law
Many lessons should already have been learned from these earlier episodes. There are two fresh ones. First, the United States attack on Libya in April 1986 - ostensibly based on an alleged right of pre-emptive self-defence supposedly to be found within Article 51 - was an event in the history of international law from which (it is now clear) the subject has yet to recover. President Reagan's decision to bomb Tripoli opened the door to a unilateralism in international affairs that has shed more and more of its UN camouflage as time has gone on, and without any apparent ill-effects for those who practice it.
This is clear in the way that, as things stand, Navi Pillay's warnings about individual criminal responsibility are empty threats. The Israelis have not the slightest intention of subjecting themselves to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court anytime soon. So while the UN and the ICRC are attacked in Gaza and civilians die in their hundreds, the restricted functionaries at The Hague continue with their decent work unearthing yet further evidence of past wrongdoing by deposed African tyrants. It is for this among other reasons that so many of the less powerful nations are so opposed to agreeing a definition of terrorism at the UN: imagine how fortified Israel would be by a UN convention which condemned attacks on them but had nothing to say about Israel's own military operations.
Second, therefore, there should be no UN movement on a comprehensive anti-terrorism convention until there is both international agreement to clarify the remit of Article 51 and a collective decision properly to enforce international humanitarian law. If the new president of the United States were privately torn between his response as an empathetic human to the onslaught on Gaza and his concern not to tackle powerful interests so early in his term of office, he could do worse than launch an international campaign to restore faith in international human rights and international humanitarian law. If this really meant something - and if it were made clear that the United States's most loyal allies were expected to lead the way - then that would make the military planners in Tel Aviv very nervous.
Conor Gearty
The way Israel has conducted its military operations in Gaza extends a wider and dangerous trend towards state unilateralism, says Conor Gearty.
21 - 01 - 2009
Conor Gearty is the director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the London School of Economics. Among his books are Civil Liberties (Oxford University Press, 2008) and Essays on Human Rights and Terrorism (Cameron May, 2008). His forthcoming books are on Liberty and Security (Polity) and Social Rights (Hart). His website is conorgearty.co.ukThis article, with minor editorial variations, first appeared in the Tablet (17 January 2009)Also by Conor Gearty in openDemocracy:"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the next sixty years" (10 December 2008)
The Israeli attack on the Gaza strip in has exposed the relative impotence of international law in the face of determined sovereign action. On 8 January 2009, the United Nations Security Council called for "an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza." It also urgently insisted on the "unimpeded provision and distribution throughout Gaza of humanitarian assistance, including of food, fuel and medical treatment."
On 9 January the UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, told a special session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) that "international human-rights law must apply in all circumstances and at all times." The high commissioner strongly urged the parties to the conflict "to fulfil their obligations under international humanitarian law to collect, care for and evacuate the wounded and to protect and respect health workers, hospitals, and medical units and ambulances." Pillay also called on each side "to allow the deployment of independent human-rights monitors in both Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory to document any violations of international-human rights and humanitarian law."
In reminding the HRC that "violations of international humanitarian law may constitute war crimes for which individual criminal responsibility may be invoked", she suggested that the council "should consider authorising a mission to assess violations committed by both sides in the conflict in order to establish the relevant facts and ensure accountability." In its resolution on 12 January, the council said that it "strongly condemns the ongoing military operation carried out ... in the occupied Gaza Strip, which [has] resulted in massive violations of human rights of Palestinian people and systematic destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure"; it decided to send "an urgent independent international fact-finding mission" to investigate what is going on.
The practice of war
The anger evident in all this UN activity, and in particular the passion evident in the high commissioner's choice of words - reflected too by the secretary-general himself during his visit to Gaza on 20 January - is founded upon the blatancy of the disregard of the law that has been evident in Gaza.
This is not solely or even mainly about whether the operation was justified; the concern is rather with how it was conducted. International humanitarian law requires all parties to a conflict of this nature carefully to distinguish between combatants and others, targeting only the former. It also requires that the wounded and sick must be collected and cared for by the party to the conflict which has been within its power. Methods of warfare which are likely to cause unnecessary losses or excessive suffering should not be used.
The Human Rights Council was particularly exercised by what its resolution refers to as the "targeting" of UN facilities in Gaza. Even the normally discreet International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued what was for it a highly unusual statement to make in the course of a conflict. This condemned the Israeli military for having breached international humanitarian law in having failed to allow access to a neighbourhood within which were later found four small children, starving among twelve corpses (including those of the children's mothers): according to the ICRC, the Israel Defence Forces had delayed four days before allowing the organisation's medical teams into the area. It would be wrong to say that none of this international activity has had any effect at all: there can be little doubt that Israel has felt some diplomatic and possibly even economic pressure arising from the way in which it conducted its operations in relation to Gaza. But in the absence of any kind of enforcement mechanism, the legal effect of all this international noise has been for all practical purposes zero.Indeed, without any kind of international adjudicative body to which Israel is required to defer, the media spokespeople deployed to justify Israel's actions to the world, together with their supporters in the world community of academic "terrorism experts", have been able to argue that the attacks are legitimate under international law.
The argument - based on the right of national self-defence in Article 51 of the UN charter, together with the alleged use by Hamas of civilian areas from which to launch rockets on Israel - might not be able to survive a few hours in a court of law; but all it needs to withstand is at most five minutes' interrogation in the media, and it is more than fit for this purpose. The Israeli leaders were able to declare their operation a success before it was allowed to become an embarrassment to Barack Obama on his 20 January 2009 inauguration; they can hope that within a few months this dirty little war will have faded into a background already littered with a succession of such disproportionately violent encounters.
The response of law
Many lessons should already have been learned from these earlier episodes. There are two fresh ones. First, the United States attack on Libya in April 1986 - ostensibly based on an alleged right of pre-emptive self-defence supposedly to be found within Article 51 - was an event in the history of international law from which (it is now clear) the subject has yet to recover. President Reagan's decision to bomb Tripoli opened the door to a unilateralism in international affairs that has shed more and more of its UN camouflage as time has gone on, and without any apparent ill-effects for those who practice it.
This is clear in the way that, as things stand, Navi Pillay's warnings about individual criminal responsibility are empty threats. The Israelis have not the slightest intention of subjecting themselves to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court anytime soon. So while the UN and the ICRC are attacked in Gaza and civilians die in their hundreds, the restricted functionaries at The Hague continue with their decent work unearthing yet further evidence of past wrongdoing by deposed African tyrants. It is for this among other reasons that so many of the less powerful nations are so opposed to agreeing a definition of terrorism at the UN: imagine how fortified Israel would be by a UN convention which condemned attacks on them but had nothing to say about Israel's own military operations.
Second, therefore, there should be no UN movement on a comprehensive anti-terrorism convention until there is both international agreement to clarify the remit of Article 51 and a collective decision properly to enforce international humanitarian law. If the new president of the United States were privately torn between his response as an empathetic human to the onslaught on Gaza and his concern not to tackle powerful interests so early in his term of office, he could do worse than launch an international campaign to restore faith in international human rights and international humanitarian law. If this really meant something - and if it were made clear that the United States's most loyal allies were expected to lead the way - then that would make the military planners in Tel Aviv very nervous.
Gaza-Israel conflict
An article in Guardian:
How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe
Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state's legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine
How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe
Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state's legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine
Some links for the discussion on Tuesday
Some recent headlines
Where will it end?
▫ http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12903402
Turkish PM storms off in
▫ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/davos/7859417.stm
US Envoy Warns of Setbacks Ahead in
▫ http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-01-30-voa27.cfm
▫ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7861076.stm
EU envoy lays Gaza blame on Hamas
▫ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7851545.stm
The Devastation of
▫ http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1874539,00.html
IAF strikes
▫ http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1059156.html
A long and bumpy road
NY Times
The Bullets in My In-Box , by Ethan Bronner
▫ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/weekinreview/25bronner.html?_r=1
Parsing Gains of
▫ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/world/middleeast/19assess.html?ref=world
Q. and A. With Taghreed El-Khodary in
▫ http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/q-a-with-taghreed-el-khodary-in-gaza/?ref=middleeast
Others
Chomsky's stance (and partial response to Bronner)
▫ http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20090119.htm
Authors & Politics
▫ http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/10/david-grossman-middle-east-conflict
BBC refuses to broadcast charity appeal for
▫ http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/01/25/bbc.gaza.advert/index.html
Letter to Gaza Citizen: I Am the Soldier Who Slept in Your Home (
▫ http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129674
Videos
Has peace in the
Time Line of the Israel-Palestine Conflict - as per BBC
| http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/ |
| THE ISSUE |
| The struggle between the Israelis and the Palestinians is one of the most enduring and explosive of all the world's conflicts. It has its roots in the historic claim to the land which lies between the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan river. For the Palestinians the last 100 years have brought colonization, expulsion and military occupation, followed by a long and difficult search for self-determination and for coexistence with the nation they hold responsible for their suffering and loss. For the Jewish people of Israel, the return to the land of their forefathers after centuries of persecution around the world has not brought peace or security. They have faced many crises as their neighbours have sought to wipe their country off the map. BBC News Online highlights some of the key dates of recent Middle East history and looks back at the origins and development of the Arab-Israeli conflict. |
Ancient times
The land that now encompasses Israel and the Palestinian territories has been conquered and re-conquered throughout history.
Details of the ancient Israelite states are sketchy, derived for the most part from the first books of the Bible and classical history. Some of the key events include:
Biblical times
- 1250 BC: Israelites began to conquer and settle the land of Canaan on the eastern Mediterranean coast.
- 961-922 BC: Reign of King Solomon and construction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Solomon's reign was followed by the division of the land into two kingdoms.
- 586 BC: The southern kingdom, Judah, was conquered by the Babylonians, who drove its people, the Jews, into exile and destroyed Solomon's Temple. After 70 years the Jews began to return and Jerusalem and the temple were gradually rebuilt.
Classical period
- 333 BC: Alexander the Great's conquest brought the area under Greek rule.
- 165 BC: A revolt in Judea established the last independent Jewish state of ancient times.
- 63 BC: The Jewish state, Judea, was incorporated into the Roman province of Palestine
- 70 AD: A revolt against Roman rule was put down by the Emperor Titus and the Second Temple was destroyed. This marks the beginning of the Jewish Diaspora, or dispersion.
- 118-138 AD: During the Roman Emperor Hadrian's rule, Jews were initially allowed to return to Jerusalem, but - after another Jewish revolt in 133 - the city was completely destroyed and its people banished and sold into slavery.
- 638 AD: Conquest by Arab Muslims ended Byzantine rule (the successor to Roman rule in the East). The second caliph of Islam, Omar, built a mosque at the site of what is now the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem in the early years of the 8th Century. Apart from the age of the Crusaders (1099-1187), the region remained under Muslim rule until the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the 20th Century.
1890’s
1897: First Zionist Congress
The First Zionist Congress met in Basle, Switzerland, to discuss the ideas set out in Theodor Herzl's 1896 book Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State). Herzl, a Jewish journalist and writer living in Vienna, wanted Jews to have their own state - primarily as a response to European anti-Semitism.
The Congress issued the Basle Programme to establish a "home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured by public law" and set up the World Zionist Organisation to work for that end.
A few Zionist immigrants had already started arriving in the area before 1897. By 1903 there were some 25,000 of them, mostly from Eastern Europe. They lived alongside about half a million Arab residents in what was then part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. A second wave of about 40,000 immigrants arrived in the region between 1904 and 1914.
1910’s
1917: Shifting sands
At the time of World War I the area was ruled by the Turkish Ottoman empire. Turkish control ended when Arab forces backed by Britain drove out the Ottomans.
Britain occupied the region at the end of the war in 1918 and was assigned as the mandatory power by the League of Nations on 25 April 1920.
During this period of change, three key pledges were made.
In 1916 the British Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, had promised the Arab leadership post-war independence for former Ottoman Arab provinces.
However, at the same time, the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement between war victors, Britain and France, divided the region under their joint control.
Then in 1917, the British Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour committed Britain to work towards "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people", in a letter to leading Zionist Lord Rothschild. It became known as the Balfour Declaration.
1920’s – 1930’s:
Arab discontent
The Zionist project of the 1920s and 1930s saw hundreds of thousands of Jews emigrating to British Mandate Palestine, provoking unrest in the Arab community.
In 1922, a British census showed the Jewish population had risen to about 11% of Palestine's 750,000 inhabitants. More than 300,000 immigrants arrived in the next 15 years.
Zionist-Arab antagonism boiled over into violent clashes in August 1929 when 133 Jews were killed by Palestinians and 110 Palestinians died at the hands of the British police.
Arab discontent again exploded into widespread civil disobedience during a general strike in 1936. By this time, the militant Zionist group Irgun Zvai Leumi was orchestrating attacks on Palestinian and British targets with the aim of "liberating" Palestine and Transjordan (modern-day Jordan) by force.
In July 1937, Britain, in a Royal Commission headed by former Secretary of State for India, Lord Peel, recommended partitioning the land into a Jewish state (about a third of British Mandate Palestine, including Galilee and the coastal plain) and an Arab one.
Palestinian and Arab representatives rejected this and demanded an end to immigration and the safeguarding of a single unified state with protection of minority rights. Violent opposition continued until 1938 when it was crushed with reinforcements from the UK.
1940’s
1947: UN partition of Palestine
Britain, which had ruled Palestine since 1920, handed over responsibility for solving the Zionist-Arab problem to the UN in 1947.
The territory was plagued with chronic unrest pitting native Arabs against Jewish immigrants (who now made up about a third the population, owning about 6% of the land). The situation had become more critical with the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Jews fleeing the Nazi persecution in Europe. Some six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust during World War II.
The UN set up a special committee which recommended splitting the territory into separate Jewish and Palestinian states. Palestinian representatives, known as the Arab Higher Committee, rejected the proposal; their counterparts in the Jewish Agency accepted it.
The partition plan gave 56.47% of Palestine to the Jewish state and 43.53% to the Arab state, with an international enclave around Jerusalem. On 29 November 1947, 33 countries of the UN General Assembly voted for partition, 13 voted against and 10 abstained. The plan, which was rejected by the Palestinians, was never implemented.
Britain announced its intention to terminate its Palestine mandate on 15 May 1948 but hostilities broke out before the date arrived.
The death of British soldiers in the conflict made the continuing presence in Palestine deeply unpopular in Britain. In addition, the British resented American pressure to allow in more Jewish refugees - a sign of growing US support for Zionism.
Both Arab and Jewish sides prepared for the coming confrontation by mobilising forces. The first "clearing" operations were conducted against Palestinian villages by Jewish forces in December.
1948: Establishment of Israel
The State of Israel, the first Jewish state for nearly 2,000 years, was proclaimed at 1600 on 14 May 1948 in Tel Aviv. The declaration came into effect the following day as the last British troops withdrew. Palestinians remember 15 May as "al-Nakba", or the Catastrophe.
The year had begun with Jewish and Arab armies each staging attacks on territory held by the other side. Jewish forces, backed by the Irgun and Lehi militant groups made more progress, seizing areas alloted to the Jewish state but also conquering substantial territories allocated for the Palestinian one.
Irgun and Lehi massacred scores of inhabitants of the village of Deir Yassin near Jerusalem on 9 April. Word of the massacre spread terror among Palestinians and hundreds of thousands fled to Lebanon, Egypt and the area now known as the West Bank.
The Jewish armies were victorious in the Negev, Galilee, West Jerusalem and much of the coastal plain.
The day after the state of Israel was declared five Arab armies from Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq immediately invaded Israel but were repulsed, and the Israeli army crushed pockets of resistance. Armistices established Israel's borders on the frontier of most of the earlier British Mandate Palestine.
Egypt kept the Gaza Strip while Jordan annexed the area around East Jerusalem and the land now known as the West Bank. These territories made up about 25% of the total area of British Mandate Palestine.
1960’s
1964: Formation of the PLO
Since 1948 there had been fierce competition between neighbouring states to lead an Arab response to the creation of Israel. That left the Palestinians as passive onlookers.
In January 1964, Arab governments - wanting to create a Palestinian organisation that would remain essentially under their control - voted to create a body called the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
But the Palestinians wanted a genuinely independent body, and that was the goal of Yasser Arafat who took over the chairmanship of the PLO in 1969. His Fatah organisation (founded in secret five years earlier) was gaining notoriety with its armed operations against Israel.
Fatah fighters inflicted heavy casualties on Israeli troops at Karameh in Jordan in 1968.
1967: The 1967 War
Mounting tensions between Israel and its Arab neighbours culminated in six days of hostilities starting on 5 June 1967 and ending on 11 June - six days which changed the face of the Middle East conflict.
Israel seized Gaza and the Sinai from Egypt in the south and the Golan Heights from Syria in the north. It also pushed Jordanian forces out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Egypt's powerful air force was put out of action on the first day of fighting when Israeli jets bombed it on the ground in a pre-emptive strike.
The territorial gains doubled the area of land controlled by Israel. The victory heralded a new age of confidence and optimism for Israel and its supporters.
The UN Security Council issued resolution 242, stressing "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security". The resolution called for the "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict". It also called for an end to "all claims or states of belligerency and respect for... the sovereignty... of every state in the area and their right to live in peace... free from threats or acts of force".
According to the UN, the conflict displaced another 500,000 Palestinians who fled to Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
1970’s
1973 Yom Kippur war
Unable to regain the territory they had lost in 1967 by diplomatic means, Egypt and Syria launched major offensives against Israel on the Jewish festival of the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur. The clashes are also known as the Ramadan war.
Initially, Egypt and Syria made advances in Sinai and the Golan Heights. These were reversed after three weeks of fighting. Israel eventually made gains beyond the 1967 ceasefire lines.
Israeli forces pushed on into Syria beyond the Golan Heights, though they later gave up some of these gains. In Egypt, Israeli forces regained territory and advanced to the western side of the Suez Canal.
The United States, the Soviet Union and the United Nations all made diplomatic interventions to bring about ceasefire agreements between the combatants.
Egypt and Syria jointly lost an estimated 8,500 soldiers in the fighting, while Israel lost about 6,000.
The war left Israel more dependent on the US for military, diplomatic and economic support. Soon after the war, Saudi Arabia led a petroleum embargo against states that supported Israel. The embargo, which caused a steep rises in petrol prices and fuel shortages across the world, lasted until March 1974. In October 1973 the UN Security Council passed resolution 338 which called for the combatants "to cease all firing and terminate all military activity immediately... [and start] negotiations between the parties concerned under appropriate auspices aimed at establishing a just and durable peace in the Middle East".
1974: Arafat's first UN appearance
In the 1970s, under Yasser Arafat's leadership, PLO factions and other militant Palestinian groups such as Abu Nidal launched a series of attacks on Israeli and other targets.
One such attack took place at the Munich Olympics in 1972 in which 11 Israeli athletes were killed.
But while the PLO pursued the armed struggle to "liberate all of Palestine", in 1974, Arafat made a dramatic first appearance at the United Nations mooting a peaceful solution.
He condemned the Zionist project, but concluded: "Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand."
The speech was a watershed in the Palestinians' search for international recognition of their cause.
A year later, a US State Department official, Harold Saunders, acknowledged for the first time that "the legitimate interests of the Palestinian Arabs must be taken into account in the negotiating of an Arab-Israeli peace".
1977: Israel's resurgent right wing
Hardline Irgun and Lehi groups may have been instrumental in the creation of Israel in 1948, but their heirs in the Herut (later Likud) party failed to win an Israeli election until 1977.
Until this time Israeli politics had been dominated by the left-wing Labour Party. Likud ideology focused on extending Israeli sovereignty in the whole of the earlier Britsh Mandate Palestine, as well as claiming Jordanian territory as part of the "Greater Israel" of Biblical times.
The new government, led by former Irgun leader Menachem Begin, intensified Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza with a view to creating "facts on the ground" to prevent any future territorial compromise over the areas captured in 1967.
Agriculture minister Ariel Sharon spearheaded this movement as chairman of the ministerial committee for settlements until 1981.
1979: Israel and Egypt make peace
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat stunned the world by flying to the Jewish state and making a speech to the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem on 19 November 1977.
Sadat became the first Arab leader to recognise Israel, only four years after launching the October 1973 war (known as the Yom Kippur war in Israel). The war was indecisive after Egypt and Syria had attacked Israeli forces occupying Sinai and the Golan Heights. It ended with the issuing of UN Resolution 338 calling for "a just and durable peace in the Middle East".
Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David accords in September 1978 outlining "the framework for peace in the Middle East" which included limited autonomy for Palestinians. A bilateral Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty was signed by Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin six months later in March 1979.
The Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had seized in the 1967 war, was returned to Egypt.
Arab states boycotted Egypt for breaking ranks and negotiating a separate treaty with Israel.
Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by Islamist elements in the Egyptian army, who opposed peace with Israel, during national celebrations to mark the anniversary of the October war.
1980’s
1982: Israel invades Lebanon
The Israeli army launched a massive military incursion into Lebanon in the summer of 1982. Operation "Peace for Galilee" was intended to wipe out Palestinian guerrilla bases near Israel's northern border, although Defence Minister Ariel Sharon pushed all the way to Beirut and expelled the PLO from the country.
The invasion began on 6 June, less than two months after the last Israeli troops and civilians were pulled out of Sinai under the 1979 treaty with Egypt. The action was triggered by the attempt on the life of Israeli ambassador to London Shlomo Argov by the dissident Palestinian group Abu Nidal.
Israeli troops reached Beirut in August. A ceasefire agreement allowed the departure of PLO fighters from Lebanon, leaving Palestinian refugee camps defenceless.
As Israeli forces gathered around Beirut on 14 September, Bashir Gemayel, leader of the Christian Phalange militia, was killed by a bomb at his HQ in the capital. The following day, the Israeli army occupied West Beirut.
From 16 to 18 September, the Phalangists - who were allied to Israel - killed hundreds of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps as they were encircled by Israeli troops in one of the worst atrocities of nearly a century of conflict in the Middle East. Mr Sharon resigned from his post as defence minister after a 1983 Israeli inquiry concluded that he had failed to act to prevent the massacre.
1987: Palestinian intifada
A mass uprising - or intifada - against the Israeli occupation began in Gaza and quickly spread to the West Bank.
Protest took the form of civil disobedience, general strikes, boycotts on Israeli products, graffiti, and barricades, but it was the stone-throwing demonstrations against the heavily-armed occupation troops that captured international attention.
The Israeli Defence Forces responded and there was heavy loss of life among Palestinian civilians. More than 1,000 died in clashes which lasted until 1993.
1988: PLO opens door to peace
Despite its military might, Israel was unable to quell the intifada which started in 1987 and was backed by the entire Palestinian population living under Israeli occupation.
For the PLO - based in Tunis since its expulsion from Lebanon in 1982 - the uprising threatened the loss of its role as the main player in the Palestinian "revolution" as focus shifted to the occupied territories and away from the diaspora population.
The Palestinian National Council (a government-in-exile) convened in Algeria in November 1988 and voted to accept a "two-state" solution based on the 1947 UN partition resolution (181), renounce terrorism and seek a negotiated settlement based on Resolution 242, which called for Israel to withdraw from territory captured in the 1967 war, and Resolution 338.
The US began dialogue with the PLO. But Israel continued to view the PLO as a terrorist organisation with which it would not negotiate. Instead, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir proposed elections in the occupied territories before negotiations on a self-rule agreement.
1990’s
1991: Madrid Summit
The 1991 Gulf War was a disaster for the PLO and its leader Yasser Arafat whose support for Iraq alienated his wealthy supporters in the Gulf.
With Kuwait liberated from Iraqi control, the US administration devoted itself to Middle East peacemaking - a prospect more appealing to the financially weakened and politically isolated Arafat than Israel's hard-line Likud prime minister Yitzhak Shamir.
Numerous visits by the US Secretary of State James Baker prepared the ground for an international summit in Madrid. Syria agreed to attend, hoping to negotiate a return of the Golan Heights. Jordan also accepted the invitation.
But Shamir refused to talk directly with PLO "terrorists", so a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation was formed with prominent Palestinian figures- who were not from the PLO - taking part. In the days before the summit, Washington withheld $10bn of loan guarantees from Israel in a rare moment of discord over the building of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.
A worldwide audience watched the historic summit begin on 30 October. The old enemies were each given 45 minutes to set out their positions. The Palestinians spoke of a shared future of hope with Israel, Shamir justified the existence of the Jewish state, while Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara dwelled on Mr Shamir's "terrorist" past.
After the summit the US set up separate bilateral meetings in Washington between Israel and Syria, and with the Jordanian-Palestinian delegations.
1993: The Oslo Peace Process
The election of the left-wing Labour government in June 1992, led by Yitzhak Rabin, triggered a period of frenetic Israeli-Arab peacemaking in the mid-1990s.
The government - including the "iron-fisted" Rabin and doves Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin - was uniquely placed to talk seriously about peace with the Palestinians. The PLO, meanwhile, wanted to make peace talks work because of the weakness of its position due to the Gulf War.
Israel immediately lifted a ban on PLO participants in the stalemated bilateral meetings in Washington. More significantly Foreign Minister Peres and his deputy Beilin explored the possibility of activating a secret forum for talks facilitated by Norway.
With the Washington bilateral talks going nowhere, the secret "Oslo track" - opened on 20 January 1993 in the Norwegian town of Sarpsborg - made unprecedented progress. The Palestinians consented to recognise Israel in return for the beginning of phased dismantling of Israel's occupation.
Negotiations culminated in the Declaration of Principles, signed on the White House lawn and sealed with a historic first handshake between Rabin and Yasser Arafat watched by 400 million people around the world.
1994: Birth of the Palestinian Authority
On 4 May 1994 Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation reached an agreement in Cairo on the initial implementation of the 1993 Declaration of Principles. This document specified Israel's military withdrawal from most of the Gaza Strip, excluding Jewish settlements and land around them, and from the Palestinian town of Jericho in the West Bank. Negotiations were difficult and were almost derailed on 25 February when a Jewish settler in the West Bank town of Hebron fired on praying Muslims, killing 29 people.
The agreement itself contained potential pitfalls. It envisaged further withdrawals during a five-year interim period during which solutions to the really difficult issues were to be negotiated - issues such as the establishment of a Palestinian state, the status of Jerusalem, Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories and the fate of more than 3.5 million Palestinian refugees from the 1948 and 1967 upheavals.
Many critics of the peace process were silenced on 1 July as jubilant crowds lined the streets of Gaza to cheer Yasser Arafat on his triumphal return to Palestinian territory. The returning Palestinian Liberation Army deployed in areas vacated by Israeli troops and Arafat became head of the new Palestinian National Authority (PA) in the autonomous areas. He was elected president of the Authority in January 1996.
1995: Oslo II and the assassination of Rabin
The first year of Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and Jericho was dogged by difficulties. Bomb attacks by Palestinian militants killed dozens of Israelis, while Israel blockaded the autonomous areas and assassinated militants. Settlement activity continued. The Palestinian Authority quelled unrest by mass detentions. Opposition to the peace process grew among right-wingers and religious nationalists in Israel.
Against this background, peace talks were laborious and fell behind schedule. But on 24 September the so-called Oslo II agreement was signed in Taba in Egypt, and countersigned four days later in Washington.
The agreement divided the West Bank into three zones:
· Zone A comprised 7% of the territory (the main Palestinian towns excluding Hebron and East Jerusalem) going to full Palestinian control;
· Zone B comprised 21% of the territory under joint Israeli-Palestinian control;
· Zone C stayed in Israeli hands. Israel was also to release Palestinian prisoners. Further handovers followed.
Oslo II was greeted with little enthusiasm by Palestinians, while Israel's religious right was furious at the "surrender of Jewish land". Amid an incitement campaign against Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a Jewish religious extremist assassinated him on 4 November, sending shock waves around the world. The dovish Shimon Peres, architect of the faltering peace process, became prime minister.
1996-1999: Deadlock
Conflict returned early in 1996 with a series of devastating suicide bombings in Israel carried out by the Islamic militant group Hamas, and a bloody three-week bombardment of Lebanon by Israel.
Peres narrowly lost elections on 29 May to the right-wing Binyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, who campaigned against the Oslo peace deals under the motto "Peace with Security".
Netanyahu soon enflamed Arab opinion by lifting a freeze on building new settlements in the occupied territories and provoking fears about undermining Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem by opening an archaeological tunnel under the compound of al-Aqsa mosque - one of Islam's holiest sites.
Despite his antagonism towards the existing peace process, Netanyahu, under increasing US pressure, handed over 80% of Hebron in January 1997 and signed the Wye River Memorandum on 23 October 1998 outlining further withdrawals from the West Bank.
But his right-wing coalition collapsed in January 1999 in disarray over the implementation of the Wye deal. He lost elections on 18 May to Labour's Ehud Barak who pledged to "end the 100-year conflict" between Israel and the Arabs within one year.
The five-year interim period defined by Oslo for a final resolution passed on 4 May 1999, but Yasser Arafat was persuaded to defer unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood to give a chance for negotiations with the new administration.
2000’s
2000: Second intifada
Initial optimism about the peacemaking prospects of a government led by Ehud Barak proved unfounded. A new Wye River accord was signed in September 1999 but further withdrawals from occupied land were hindered by disagreements and final status talks (on Jerusalem, refugees, settlements and borders) got nowhere. Frustration was building in the Palestinian population who had little to show for five years of the peace process.
Barak concentrated on peace with Syria - also unsuccessfully. But he did succeed in fulfilling a campaign pledge to end Israel's 21-year entanglement in Lebanon.
After the withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, attention turned back to Yasser Arafat, who was under pressure from Barak and US President Bill Clinton to abandon gradual negotiations and launch an all-out push for a final settlement at the presidential retreat at Camp David. Two weeks of talks failed to come up with acceptable solutions to the status of Jerusalem and the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
In the uncertainty of the ensuing impasse, Ariel Sharon, the veteran right-winger who succeeded Binyamin Netanyahu as Likud leader, toured the al-Aqsa/Temple Mount complex in Jerusalem on 28 September. Sharon's critics saw it as a highly provocative move. Palestinian demonstrations followed, quickly developing into what became known as the al-Aqsa intifada, or uprising.
2001: Sharon returns
By the end of 2000 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak found himself presiding over an increasingly bitter and bloody cycle of violence as the intifada raged against Israel's occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.
With his coalition collapsing around him, Barak resigned as prime minister on 10 December to "seek a new mandate" to deal with the crisis. However in elections on 6 Febuary, Ariel Sharon was swept to power by an Israeli electorate that had overwhelmingly turned its back on the land-for-peace formulas of the 1990s and now favoured a tougher approach to Israel's "Palestinian problem".
The death toll soared as Sharon intensified existing policies such as assassinating Palestinian militants, air strikes and incursions into Palestinian self-rule areas. Palestinian militants, meanwhile, stepped up suicide bomb attacks in Israeli cities.
The US spearheaded international efforts to calm the violence. Envoy George Mitchell led an inquiry into the uprising, while CIA director George Tenet negotiated a ceasefire - but neither initiative broke the cycle of bloodshed.
2002: West Bank re-occupied
Palestinian militants carried out an intense campaign of attacks in the first three months of the year, including a hotel bombing which killed 29 on the eve of the Jewish Passover holiday.
In response, Israel besieged Yasser Arafat in his Ramallah compound for five weeks and sent tanks and thousands of troops to re-occupy almost all of the West Bank.
Months of curfews and closures followed as Israel carried out operations it said were aimed at destroying the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure.
Controversy raged as Israeli forces entered and captured the West Bank city of Jenin in April. A UN report later refuted Palestinian claims of a massacre, but Amnesty International concluded that the Israeli army had committed war crimes in Jenin and also Nablus.
May saw a five-week stand-off between the Israeli army and a large group of militants and civilians sheltering inside Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity.
In June, US President George Bush called for Palestinians to replace their leader with one not "compromised by terror", and outlined a timetable for negotiations which would later become the plan known as the "roadmap".
Israel began building a barrier in the West Bank, which it said was to prevent attacks inside Israel, although Palestinians feared an attempt to annex land.
Mr Arafat faced heavy pressure to reform the Palestinian Authority and rein in the militants.
Palestinian attacks continued, met with periodic Israeli incursions and a ten-day siege which reduced much of Mr Arafat's compound to rubble.
2003: Road map hopes
After several Palestinian attacks in January, Israel stepped up operations against Hamas, killing the militant group's founder.
With the US and Israel continuing to refuse to deal directly with Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader appointed Mahmoud Abbas as his prime minister.
In late April, the US published the much-delayed roadmap, which outlined a step-by-step timetable towards a negotiated Palestinian state, with the first phase contingent on an end to Palestinian violence and Israeli incursions and settlement activity.
In May, the Israeli cabinet endorsed the plan, though it put on record several reservations.
At a summit with the US president in Aqaba, Jordan, in June, Mr Abbas called for an end to the armed intifada, while Israeli President Ariel Sharon declared his support for the creation of a "democratic Palestinian state at peace with Israel".
Further negotiations led to pull-backs of Israeli forces in Gaza and Bethlehem. Mr Abbas secured a temporary cessation of violence from Palestinian militant groups.
In August, after seven weeks of relative calm, the truce disintegrated with a spate of tit-for-tat Palestinian suicide bombings, Israeli raids and targeted killings.
After a long-running power struggle with Mr Arafat over control of the Palestinian security apparatus, Mr Abbas resigned in early September. He was replaced by Arafat loyalist Ahmed Qurei.
Construction of the West Bank barrier continued throughout the year despite growing international criticism.
The Israeli cabinet voted to "remove" Mr Arafat and in December Mr Sharon told the Palestinians he would implement a policy of unilateral separation unless they halted violence.
2004: Arafat dies
Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli air strikes continued. Israel provoked outrage among Palestinians by killing Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in a targeted missile attack in March.
A second senior leader, Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, was killed a month later.
In April Ariel Sharon revealed a "disengagement plan" which included the withdrawal of all 8,000 settlers and the troops that protect them in the Gaza Strip, and from three small settlements in the northern West Bank.
Construction of the West Bank barrier continued, despite increasing protests and changes to the route in response to a verdict in the Israeli High Court.
In July, the International Court of Justice in The Hague pronounced the barrier illegal, but Israel dismissed the non-binding ruling.
Intra-Palestinian political turmoil broke out over the summer as Yasser Arafat, Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei and various Palestinian factions battled over reform of the security forces.
After three bombings in August and September and numerous Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli towns, Israel launched a major and bloody incursion into northern Gaza.
In late October Arafat was taken ill and flown to France for emergency treatment. He died of a mysterious blood disorder on 11 November.
The news was met with an outpouring of grief among Palestinians. Emotional crowds engulfed Mr Arafat's compound in Ramallah as his body arrived by helicopter to be buried.
Mahmoud Abbas, who had spent a brief spell as prime minister in 2002, was confirmed as Arafat's successor as chairman of the PLO.
2005: Gaza pullout
Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority after a landslide victory in January elections.
But post-election attacks by Palestinian militants immediately threatened to derail hopes for renewed peace talks.
However, Mr Abbas deployed Palestinian police in northern Gaza and by February had persuaded Hamas and Islamic Jihad to begin a temporary, unofficial cessation of violence.
Mr Abbas and Mr Sharon went on to announce a mutual ceasefire at a summit in Egypt, although the militant groups stopped short of making their fragile – and far from watertight - truce official.
Preparations for – and controversy over – Ariel Sharon's planned pullout from the Gaza Strip continued, with the Israeli Prime Minister securing cabinet backing and fending off calls for a referendum from opponents.
Despite widespread protests by settlers, the withdrawal went ahead in late August and early September, with emotional scenes as Israeli troops removed some settlers by force.Tuesday, December 9, 2008
A short [and incomplete] history of Kashmir
[This is an attempt to quickly summarize the history of Kashmir without personal opinions or judgment. This note is intended as a starting point for the Open Mike discussion on issues with J&K and potential solutions.
– Vinod.]
Provincial map of Kashmir
Disputed Area map of Kashmir
Pre 1947
- Kashmir was one of the largest princely states in British India, with a spread out thin population.
- It primarily composed of five regions -- (a) the Hindu dominated Jammu in the south, bordering Punjab with large arable land; (b) Valley of Kashmir, to the north of Jammu, largely Muslim in demographics; (c) Ladakh, to the east of the Valley, bordering Tibet, largely Buddhist; (d) Gilgit and (e) Baltistan, both west and north of the Valley, mostly Muslim but Shia and Ismaili rather than the Sunni dominated Valley.
- Many historical texts credit the Mauryan king Ashoka as the founder of the city of Srinagar. Kashmir was definitely under the Mauryan rule in 3rd century B.C. and later the Kushanas.
- The Gonandiyas ruled Kashmir for many centuries, with a break in the 5th century A.D. when Kashmir was ruled by the invading Huns (Toramana and Mihirakula).
- After the Gonandiyas, there were the Karkota, Utpala, Kutumbi, Divira, and Lohara, [14] until Muslim rule came into Kashmir in 1349.
- Then followed 4 centuries of Muslim rule under Durrani (from Afghanistan), the Mughals, and the Afghans.
- All these Kashmir territories were brought under one kingdom (state) in the mid 1800s by the Dogra Rajputs.
- Following the two Anglo-Sikh wars [18] and the subsequent cash payment deals with the East India Company, part of Kashmir remains with the Sikhs and part is ceded to the East India Company.
1947-1948
- The importance of Kashmir in the whole story of independence of India and Pakistan is primarily because of its geographically strategic location.
- Sharing borders with Afghanistan, China, Tibet, separated by a small piece of land from USSR, and of course wedged between India and Pakistan, Kashmir was of everyone's interest.
- The story of Kashmir is the story of Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah [10].
- Lowly born Abdullah received his Master of Science degree from Aligarh Muslim University, and led the revolt against Raja Hari Singh's rule in Kashmir.
- He founded the National Conference (earlier known as All Jammu Kashmir Muslim Conference) which included Hindus and Sikhs, and fought against the princedom asking for a representative government based on universal suffrage.
- National Conference closely aligned with Indian National Congress, following close friendship between Abdullah and Nehru
- In 1946, Hari Singh imprisons Abdullah and plans on keeping Kashmir independent from India and Pakistan
- 1947, Lord Mountbatten visits Kashmir and tries to convince Hari Singh to accede to one or the other nation, but fails
- Gandhi visits Kashmir after that, but only meets workers and students who want Abdullah released
- Come Aug 15, 1947, Kashmir offers a "standstill agreement" to allow free movement of people and trade through the state; Pakistan signs it, India still waiting and watching.
- Prime Minister Nehru (himself an ethnic Kashmiri) wants Kashmir to accede to India; Home Minister Patel although initially inclined to let Kashmir accede to Pakistan, changes his mind in Sep 1947 when Jinnah accepts the accession of Hindu-majority Junagadh. That instrument of accession was violated, and finally Junagadh reversed its decision. More details on Junagadh in an article by A.G. Noorani at this link [19].
- End of Sep 1947, Abdullah is released, and he immediately demands a government of the people in Kashmir, in his words, "A popular government, not of any one community; a joint government of the Muslims, the Hindus, and the Sikhs. That is what I am fighting for."
- Pakistan expects a Muslim-majority Kashmir to naturally join them, while India with its religion-is-irrelevant-secular ideals expects Kashmir to join India due to the closeness between Indian National Congress and the non-sectarian National Conference.
- In Oct 1947, Hari Singh still wants an independent Kashmir, and the deputy PM of Kashmir is quoted to say "The only thing that will change our mind is if one side or the other decides to use force against us".
- In two weeks, end of Oct 1947, Pathans from the North Western Province (now part of Pakistan) invade Kashmir from the North.
- Even today, there is no clear answer to why-they-came, or who-supported-them.
- Its just called the "tribal invasion of Kashmir" and no historians or anthropologists are able to answer this question.
- However, at the time, India believed Pakistan had supported this invasion. Pakistan disclaimed all responsibility and said this might be a spontaneous support of the Pathans for fellow Muslims being persecuted in a Hari Singh led Hindu kingdom.
- In two days the invasion had pushed its way through to the Valley.
- In Baramula they lost sight of the larger goal, and decided to loot and rape [and lost their standing claim for fighting a holy war]
- Even strategically that cost the invaders since it delayed their access to Srinagar [capital of maharaja Hari Singh]
- Hari Singh, in 2 days, asked the Indian government for military assistance.
- Sheikh Abdullah also urged that the Indian government send troops immediately to push back the invaders.
- Lord Mountbatten suggested that India should get Kashmir's accession before committing any forces to its defense.
- This was acted upon and the Instrument of Accession was signed [15].
- Indian troops [and Air Force] managed to push back the invaders. A more detailed version with step-by-step map of force movements is well documented in a Wikipedia article [17].
1948-1951
- Upon Nehru and Gandhi's endorsement and insistence, Hari Singh appoints Sheikh Abdullah the Prime Minister of Kashmir.
- For both Nehru and Gandhi, Abdullah is the face and symbol of secularism and interfaith harmony; not so much for Pakistan and Liaqat Ali Khan who openly denounce Abdullah as a pawn of the Indian government.
- In 1948 Nehru takes the Kashmir issue to the United Nations.
- Sir Zafrullah Khan presents a great case for Pakistan and Kashmir is cast as unfinished business of the Partition now
- The Security Council alters the "Jammu-Kashmir Question" agenda to "India-Pakistan Question" -- a symbolic defeat for India
- Pakistan demands withdrawal of all armed forces and a plebiscite
- India agrees to that under National Conference's agenda; only after withdrawal of all armed forces from all parties and the resolution is signed [16].
- Abdullah's government formalizes the accession to India in 1951.
- No plebiscite for the people to decide formally if they want to join India, Pakistan, or be independent
- In all fairness, full withdrawal of armed forces has not occurred either
- Ramachandra Guha in "India After Gandhi" [1] says this about Abdullah --
- Whether or not Abdullah was India's man, he certainly was not Pakistan's. In April 1948 he described that country as 'an unscrupulous and savage enemy.' He dismissed Pakistan as a theocratic state and the Muslim League as 'pro-prince' rather than 'pro-people.' In his view, 'Indian and not Pakistani leaders. . . had all along stood for the rights of the States' people.' When a diplomat in Delhi asked Abdullah what he thought of the option of independence, he answered that it would never work, as Kashmir was too small and too poor. (91-92)
- Although Abdullah accepted the accession to India, he always thought of Kashmir as a Nation. The full text of his speech to the J&K Constituent Assembly [12] (always read Nation as Kashmir here) after his election in 1951 makes a very interesting read and gives an insight into Abdullah's ideas for the Nation of Kashmir.
- He continues to call for the plebiscite even after 1951.
- Later in life, when asked what he thought of the option of Independence, Abdullah answered that it would never work, as Kashmir was too small and too poor. Besides, said Abdullah, "Pakistan would swallow us up. They have tried it once. They would do it again." [in Y.D. Gundevia, The testament of Sheikh Abdullah [13]]
- Abdullah deliberated enough, and even worked with the ambassador from United States on whether the US would support an independent Kashmir.
- By then, the US had allied itself with Pakistan, given its critical geographical proximity to the USSR, and any openly anti-Pakistan move would not be supported by them.
- Finally, Abdullah rejected the option of independence as impractical.
- The option of joining Pakistan as immoral (he called it a "landlord ridden feudal theocracy").
- But, Kashmir would join India on its own terms -- including retaining its state flag, and the designation of its head as Prime Minister.
1952-1963
- April 10th 1952, Abdullah in a public speech says his party would accept the Indian constitution "in its entirety once we are satisfied that the grave of communalism has been finally dug. Of that we are not sure yet." He also says that the Kashmiris "fear what will happen to them and their position if, for instance, something happens to Pandit Nehru."
- The Praja Parishad Party [consisting largely of Hindus from Jammu] opposes the two-flags, two-constitutions, and two-prime-ministers system and vociferously protest.
- Abdullah saw the Praja Parishad movement as way to force a solution of the entire Kashmir issue on communal lines.
- Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee leads the Praja Parishad and campaigns heavily for Kashmir to be wholly part of India.
- In a subsequent arrest, Mookerjee falls ill, and later dies of a heart attack while in jail.
- This triggers a much larger protest and the Jan Sangh in India heavily oppose the Nehru government's support to Sheikh Abdullah.
- It is purported that Sheikh Abdullah is seeking independence for Kashmir (not clear which part of Kashmir since Jammu was clearly controlled by the Praja Parishad, and the Northern Areas were already part of Pakistan) and in a move supported by the Indian government, the head of state Karan Singh (son of Maharaja Hari Singh) dismisses Sheikh Abdullah from his Prime Minister's position.
- He is also arrested within two hours of that, and jailed, while his deputy Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed moves into power. Later biographers explain this as a way by which Abdullah was kept "quiet and safe" in prison, because as a free man he would easily mobilize popular sentiment in his favor. Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed starts his role of Prime Minister in a populist style, holding darbars to hear the grievances of the public. Among things he did, he raised the procurement price of paddy; made school education free; approved new state sponsored engineering and medical colleges; and abolished customs barriers between J&K and rest of India.
- More development in the works, as Rajendra Prasad (then president of India) visits Srinagar to inaugurate a hydroelectric project on the Jhelum river.
- The State's own Constitution comes into force on January 26, 1957 under which the elections to the State Legislative Assembly are held for the first time on the basis of adult franchise the same year. This Constitution further reiterates the ratification of the State's accession to Union of India.
- The Sheikh is suddenly released in January 1958, after no charges were brought against him since his arrest in August 1953.
- He makes his way back to the Kashmir Valley, where he is met with a stunning reception.
- Within 3 months, in April 1958, he is arrested once more; and this time on the charge of plotting with Pakistan to break up India, create communal ill-feeling and disharmony, and receive secret aid from Pakistan in the form of money and bombs.
- Although the Sheikh may have contemplated independence for Kashmir, it is clear to all that the charges are easily exaggerated.
- In his trial, the Sheikh says that he stands for a single objective: the right of self-determination for the people of J&K. Also repeats his commitment to secularism, admiration to Gandhi, and once strong friendship with Nehru, who even now "would not deny the right of the people as the final arbiters of their fate".
- While the Sheikh is in prison, Nehru personally (financially) takes care of educating the Sheikh's son Farooq Abdullah in Jaipur.
1964
- Post China war, Nehru's position in the political sphere of India is heavily undermined. Many signs that the man is failing in health as well.
- In April 1964 Nehru decides to put an end to the matter of the Sheikh, and after obtaining the consent of the Chief Minister of J&K orders the release of Sheikh Abdullah from a decade in the prisons.
- Sheikh Abdullah in his first speech on the day after his release, says the two pressing problems of communal strife and Kashmir should be solved during Prime Minister Nehru's lifetime; and that after him a solution of these problems would become difficult.
- Abdullah travels through out the Kashmir valley and is cheered heavily; before traveling to New Delhi to meet with Nehru.
- The Congress party as well as the Left party (and of course the Jan Sangh) are very concerned about the prospects of talks between Nehru and Abdullah, as they all see Abdullah as one with a design to detach Kashmir from India.
- Nehru receives support from two unexpected sources – the radical socialist and Sarvodaya movement leader Jayaprakash Narayan; and Nehru's former political opponent and one-time close associate C. Rajagopalachari.
- Rajaji openly says that the freeing of Abdullah should act as a prelude to allowing the people of Kashmir to exercise their human right to rule themselves as well as they can.
- Meanwhile in Kashmir, the open corruption of the Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed's government had turned popular sentiments against India.
- April 29, 1964, Abdullah meets with Nehru for a week and discusses many details of a solution for Kashmir with Nehru and his deputy (officially he was a minister in the Cabinet without any portfolio) Lal Bahadur Shastri (also a fellow Kashmiri).
- Rajaji writes to Shastri urging that Kashmir be given some kind of autonomous status. Rajaji described the self-determinatino of Kashmir seems to be a lesser issue than reducing Indo-Pak jealousy.
- Abdullah visits Rajaji on May 5th and after a long meeting and are purported to have come up with an ideal solution for the Kashmir issue. The Hindustan Times carries the headline: "Abdulla, CR, evolve Kashmir formula: Proposal to be discussed with PM".
- May 6th, Abdullah returns to Delhi and has long discussions with Nehru. It is not clear what exactly this plan was, although there were hints at a possible condominium over Kashmir by both India and Pakistan (along the lines of autonomous Andorra, whose security was guaranteed by both France and Spain).
- Abdullah openly says he wants to visit Pakistan with more than one alternative.
- Rajaji in an article writes that asking Field Marshal Ayub Khan to cede Azad Kashmir will scuttle the entire plan; and probably the Sheikh should focus all his attention on Kashmir valley, leaving Jammu as a counterpoise to Azad Kashmir, to be presumed to be integrated to India without question.
- On May 11, Abdullah openly asserts that despite his weakness (in health), Nehru is the symbol of India, and that after Nehru he did not see anyone else tackling these problems with the same breadth of vision.
- May 16th, Nehru talks about these alternatives, and says that unless we succeed, India will carry the burden of conflict with Pakistan with all that this [these alternatives] implies.
- May 22nd, Nehru declines to disclose the details of all the alternatives saying he does not want to prejudice the Sheikh's mission to Pakistan. Just says that his government is prepared to have an agreement with Pakistan on the basis of their holding on to that part of Kashmir occupied by them.
- May 25th, Sheikh Abdullah meets with Ayub Khan in Rawalpindi for over 3 hours and end of it says he found in Rawalpindi, the same encouraging response as in Delhi; and that there is an equal keenness on both sides to come to a real understanding.
- May 26th, another long meeting between the Sheikh and Ayub Khan, and the Sheikh is seen coming out beaming. He informs the crowd, that on the basis of these talks, the Pakistani president has agreed to a meeting with the Prime Minister Nehru in the mid-June.
- Dawn, Pakistan's written forum for its intelligentsia, complains that Abdullah had taken up a role of an apostle of peace and friendship between Pakistan and India, rather than that of the leader of Kashmir, whose prime objective should have been to seek their freedom from India.
- May 27th, Nehru dies, and with him, these campaigns for peace.
- Hindustan Times quotes a Pakistani newspaper as, "The death of Nehru meant the end of a negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue. Whoever succeeded Nehru would not have the stature, courage and political support necessary to go against the highly emotional tide of public opinion in India favouring a status quo in Kashmir."
1964 – 1982
- After Nehru's death, the Sheikh is interned from 1965 to 1968 and exiled from Kashmir in 1971 for 18 months. The Plebiscite Front is also banned. This was allegedly done to prevent him and the Plebiscite Front which was supported by him from taking part in Elections in Kashmir.
- 1965, the Indo-Pak war ends in a stalemate, and following a UN-negotiated ceasefire, the Line of Control is still maintained.
- 1971, another Indo-Pak war, this time for the freedom of East Pakistan – Bangladesh is formed.
- Sheikh Abdullah watching the alarming turn of events in the subcontinent realizes that "for the survival of this region there was an urgent need to stop pursuing confrontational politics and promoting solution of issues by a process of reconciliation and dialogue rather than confrontation".
- Abdullah starts a dialogue with the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, being keenly aware of [as he put it] imminent danger of the breakup and balkanisation of both India and Pakistan with disastrous consequences.
- In 1974, the Sheikh-Indira accord [20] is signed, whereby the Sheikh gives up the demand for a plebiscite in lieu of the people being given the right to self rule by a democratically elected Government rather than the puppet government which till then ruled the State. Following this Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah becomes the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir.
- Congress Party withdraws its support and mid-term elections are called again in J&K.
- Abdullah's National Conference again wins with overwhelming majority, and Sheikh Abdullah becomes the Chief Minister again, and remains the CM until his death in 1982.
Post 1982
- Dr. Farooq Abdullah, son of the Sheikh, is elected CM after his father's death, and remained CM until 1984.
- Ghulam Mohammad Shah succeeds Farooq Abdullah as the CM between 1984 and in less than a year, President's rule imposed on J&K.
- Farooq Abdullah returns as CM in 1986 and remains CM until 1990, when another term of President's rule is imposed, this time for 6 years.
- Again between 1996 and 2002, Farooq Abdullah returns as CM, after President's rule is lifted for 6 more years.
- Following the instability after the Kargil conflict of 1999, President's rule returns to Kashmir in 2002, and continues to be in place even as of today.
- During this post-82 period, much infiltration by jihadis and a lot of atrocities by the army of the Indian Union are documented all over the valley and along the Line of Control.
An extended reading list: [that this document heavily draws upon]
[1] Ramachandra Guha. India after Gandhi – The history of the world's largest democracy. [http://www.amazon.com/India-
[2] Romila Thapar, A history of India. [http://www.amazon.com/
[3] Romila Thapar, Harbans Mukhia, Bipin Chandra. Communalism and the Writing of Indian History.
[4] A. L. Basham. A cultural history of India.[http://www.amazon.com/
[5] Wikipedia article on Kashmir. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
[6] BBC News In-Depth – The future of Kashmir. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/
[7] Kashmir Information Network. [http://www.kashmir-
[8] Maps of Kashmir. [http://www.lib.utexas.edu/
[9] Conflict in Kashmir – selected Internet resources. UC Berkeley Libraries. [http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/
[10] Wikipedia article on Sheikh Abdullah. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
[11] A comprehensive note on Jammu & Kashmir – the Indian government's stance. From the web pages of the Indian Embassy in Washington D.C. [http://www.indianembassy.org/
[12] Full text of Sheikh Abdullah's speech to the J&K Constituent Assembly, 1952. [http://www.kashmir-
[13] Y. D. Gundevia. The testament of Sheikh Abdullah. [http://www.amazon.com/
[14] Kalhana. Rajatarangini – Early history of Kashmir. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
[15] Instrument of Accession executed by Maharajah Hari Singh on October 26, 1947. [http://www.jammu-kashmir.com/
[16] Resolution adopted by the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan on 13 August 1948.
(Doc No.1100, Para. 75, dated 9th Nov, 1948). [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/
[17] Wikipedia article on the First Kashmir war. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
[18] Wikipedia article on the Anglo-Sikh wars. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
[19] A.G.Noorani. Of Jinnah and Junagadh. In the Quaid-e-Azam Papers, Volume 5. [Chronicled in two parts in the Frontline reviews. Part1: http://www.hinduonnet.com/
[20] Wikipedia stub on Sheikh-Indira accord. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Links from Austin's Thursday Open Mike discussion list:
[21] Arundhati Roy. Land and Freedom. [http://www.zcommunications.
[22] Yogi Sikand. Rethinking Kashmir politics. In The South Asian. [http://www.thesouthasian.org/
[23] BBC News In-Depth – Kashmir Flashpoint. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
[24] Yogi Sikand. Dangerous portents in Jammu & Kashmir: A view from Doda. In The South Asian. [http://www.thesouthasian.org/
[25] Yogi Sikand. Dreams of Harmony once dreamt. In The South Asian. [http://www.thesouthasian.org/
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