THE United Nation’s General Assembly (UNGA) has vehemently rejected Russia’s military intervention in parts of Ukraine, terming it an act of forced occupation. This tug-of-war between Russia and the West, has reminded one some past annexations by India and Israel that have been largely ignored by the West.

Israel has annexed Syria’s Golan Heights, Palestinian East Jerusalem, and the whole of West Bank. India, on its part, has annexed Jammu and Kashmir, which had been under its occupation since 1948, unilaterally revoking Article 370 of its own Constitution illegally on Aug 5, 2019, which is in violation of relevant UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.

Igor Sutyagin, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, has drawn quite interesting parallels between India-occupied Kashmir and Ukraine. “We have another Kashmir in the middle of Europe … this European Kashmir will lead to several years of conflicts. There will be clashes from time to time,” he told delegates at a global security seminar organised by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, while referring to the occupied territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

The strong and ‘vehement’ rejection by UNGA makes one think, and quite logically, why the UNGA never rejected the annexations of Kashmir by India and Syrian and Palestinian territories by Israel.

Is it because Ukraine’s population has blond hair and blue eyes, whereas Kashmiris and Palestinians do not have them? Is it not racism on the part of the United Nations that is lorded over by the Western ‘civilised’ powers? Looks like it pretty much is the case.

Abid Mahmud Ansari
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, November 3rd, 2022