Pakistan and the United Nations

Islamic Republic of Pakistan
United Nations membership
Membership Full member
Since 1947
UNSC seat Non-permanent
Ambassador Masood Khan

Pakistan officially joined the United Nations (UN) on 30 September 1947 just over a month after its independence from the British Empire. Today, it is a charter member and participates in all of the UN's specialised agencies and organisations. Pakistan has been elected a number of times into the UN Security Council (see List of members of the United Nations Security Council). It is also one of the countries which has had a diplomat, Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, serve a term as the President of the United Nations General Assembly.

Representation

Pakistan maintains a permanent mission to the UN, which is currently headed by Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon in New York. There is a second mission based at the UNO office in Geneva, Switzerland.

Peacekeeping

The Pakistani military has played a key role in the UN's peacekeeping programme in different parts of the world, most prominently in Somalia, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Congo and Liberia. Currently, Pakistan stands as the largest contributor of troops to United Nations peacekeeping missions in the world, and is followed by Bangladesh and India.[1]

Politics

Pakistan's Mission

The Kashmir dispute is the oldest unresolved international conflict in the world today. Pakistan considers Kashmir as its core political dispute with India. India's occupation of the State of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947 is the main cause of the dispute. India claims to have ‘signed' a controversial document, the Instrument of Accession, on 26 October 1947 with the Maharaja of Kashmir, in which the Maharaja obtained India's military help against popular insurgency. The entire world considers The state of Jammu and Kashmir divided into three parts occupied by India, Pakistan (PoK) and a part by China. The fact is that all the principles on the basis of which the Indian subcontinent was partitioned by the British in 1947 stated that all the former Princely States had a choice of either joining India or Pakistan.

The Maharaja initially fought back but appealed for assistance to the Governor-General Louis Mountbatten, who agreed on the condition that the ruler accede to India. Maharaja Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession on 26 October 1947, which was accepted by the Governor General of India the next day. Once the Instrument of Accession was signed, Indian soldiers entered Kashmir with orders to evict the raiders. India took the matter to the United Nations. The UN resolution asked both India and Pakistan to vacate the areas they had occupied and hold a referendum under UN observation. The holding of this plebiscite, which India initially supported, was dismissed by India because the 1952 elected Constituent assembly of Jammu and Kashmir voted in favour of confirming the Kashmir region's accession to India. The United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) was deployed to supervise the ceasefire between India and Pakistan. UNMOGIP's functions were to investigate complaints of ceasefire violations and submit findings to each party and to the U.N. secretary-general. Under the terms of the ceasefire, it was decided that both armies would withdraw and a plebiscite would be held in Kashmir to give Kashmiris the right to self-determination. The primary argument for the continuing debate over the ownership of Kashmir is that India did not hold the promised plebiscite. In fact, neither side has adhered to the U.N. resolution of 13 August 1948; while India chose not to hold the plebiscite, Pakistan failed to withdraw its troops from Kashmir as was required under the resolution. •The popular Kashmiri insurgency demonstrates that the Kashmiri people no longer wish to remain within India"[citation needed]. Pakistan suggests that this means that Kashmir either wants to be with Pakistan or independent"[citation needed] " According to the two-nation theory, which is one of the theories that is cited for the partition that created India and Pakistan, Kashmir should have been with Pakistan, because it has a Muslim majority.[citation needed]

•India has shown disregard to the resolutions of the UN Security Council and the United Nations Commission in India and Pakistan by failing to hold a plebiscite to determine the future allegiance of the state. Pakistan has noted the widespread use of extrajudicial killings in Indian-administered Kashmir carried out by Indian security forces while claiming they were caught up in encounters with militants. These encounters are commonplace in Indian-administered Kashmir. The encounters go largely uninvestigated by the authorities, and the perpetrators are spared criminal prosecution.

Kashmir conflict

The UN continues to remain a keen observer of the Kashmir conflict between Pakistan and India, centring around the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir. Since the transfer of power to both countries in 1947 of the divided territory, the UN has played an extensive role in regulating and monitoring the dispute.

UN Security Council resolutions concerning Pakistan

See also

References

  1. ↑ UN says peacekeepers overstretched, Al Jazeera English, 27 Jan 2009

External links