Organized by: Interfaith International
16th March 2010
Room XXVII, Palais des Nations, Geneva
Honourable Chair, distinguished guests and my fellow human rights activists
On behalf of World Sindhi Congress I am grateful to Interfaith International to provide us this opportunity to deliberate on the situation of human rights of minorities in South Asia. To us minorities here mean smaller nations within the context of multinational states. We also believe that nations are social entities formulated over the historical processes of thousands of years. We believe that people of Balwarastan are a nation, like Sindhis and Balochs are nations.
I have been fortunate enough to visit extensively various parts of Balawaristan, including Gilgit, Hunza, Skardu. These are one of the most beautiful valleys on earth inhabited by wonderful, very secular and tolerant people. We are aware that against the international law and agreements and the genuine wishes and demands of people of Balawaristan, Pakistani establishment has embarked on a course of complete annexation of Balawaristan by ruthless force and deceit.
[pe2-image src=”http://lh3.ggpht.com/-mYs-S4_0Qgc/S6_eh88gZfI/AAAAAAAAFCI/W3SnLYyHiNI/s144-c-o/111-1.jpg” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/113538058767567617502/WSCDelegatesAtUNBriefingOrganizedByUNPOAndINterfaithInternationalMarch2010#5453822348645918194″ caption=”” type=”image” alt=”111-1.jpg” pe2_img_align=”right” ]For our Balawaristani friends there are also few lessons to be learnt from the current situation of Sindh. Over the period of six decades Pakistani establishment’s ruthless loot of our enormous natural wealth and systematic denial of social, cultural, economic, political, lingual development and orchestrated demographic changes have brought our historical existence of thousands years as a civilized, prosperous and secular nation at stake. They have brought more than 15 million immigrants to Sindh. How many do they need to turn 2 million Balawaristanis in minority. In Sindh that produces more than 70% wealth of Pakistan, among Sindhi people poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, unemployment and disease is endemic. Poverty is such that people are dying of malnutrition and selling their children to feed remaining children or abandoning as they are unable to feed them.
We understand that MQM has also started meddling in the politics of Balawaristan. We want to warn people of Balawaristan that they could never be your well-wishers or friends. It was only the great Sindhi people who gave them refuge, houses, lands and properties when Punjab did not allow them even to stop there. These are the same people who under the patronage of military dictators such as Zia al Haq and Musharaf have gained excessive power. They have denied the right of Sindhi people to study in the institutions of Sindh’s capital Karachi, they have made the Sindhi youth non-eligible even to apply for multinational jobs in Karachi, they have bulldozed hundreds of years old Sindhi and Baloch villages in Karachi, they have closed hundreds of Sindhi schools in Karachi, there have been killings of scores of Sindhi and Baloch people to harass them to surrender to the designs of ethnic control of Karachi. During Musharaf era they divided our historical Hyderabad district into four districts and combined five districts of Karachi in one, to serve their narrow ethnic designs. Now they dream to play with the geography and history of Sindh. They are systematically working to divide Sindh. We want to tell them that Sindhi people will not allow them to divide Sindh.
[pe2-image src=”http://lh5.ggpht.com/-CzcaveAQSbk/S6_ejRoMgDI/AAAAAAAAFCM/X51fVF9cdGQ/s144-c-o/119.jpg” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/113538058767567617502/WSCDelegatesAtUNBriefingOrganizedByUNPOAndINterfaithInternationalMarch2010#5453822371377741874″ caption=”” type=”image” alt=”119.jpg” ]We believe that the occupation and annexation of would change the strategic balance in favour of Pakistan as Balawaristan sits at a very important location between India, China and Pakistan. We believe the loot of your natural resources resulting from your occupation would enormously strengthen forces that have denied historical, political and human rights of Sindhi people. Therefore your struggle to gain control of your fate is our struggle. We demand right to self determination for Sindhi, Baloch and Balawari people. We request international community to support our struggle for right to self determination to bring stability, prosperity and peace for the people in the region and for the globe that they rightfully deserve.
Lakhu Luhana
World Sindhi Congress