Aiming at Pakistan, Sushma Swaraj, India’s Minister for External Affairs told the UN that the world must isolate Nations exporting terror. External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday, September 26th gave a stinging response to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s “tirade” on Kashmir at the UN General Assembly and asked him to look at what is happening in Balochistan.
Calling for global isolation of Pakistan, Sushma Swaraj said that “countries that nurture, peddle and export terror should have no place in the comity of nations. In our midst, there are nations that still speak the language of terrorism, that nurture it, peddle it, and export it. To shelter terrorists has become their calling card. We must identify these nations and hold them to account,” Swaraj asserted in her nearly 20-minute speech. “These nations, in which UN designated terrorists roam freely, lead processions and deliver their poisonous sermons of hate with impunity, are as culpable as the very terrorists they harbour. Such countries should have no place in the comity of nations,” Swaraj said, in essence making a call to the international community to isolate such nations. “The terror apparatus that was behind 26/11 and Uri was also behind a number of terror attacks all over the world,” she said.
In a strong rebuttal of the “baseless allegations” made by Sharif from the podium of the General Assembly about human rights violations by India in Kashmir, Swaraj said, “I can only say that those accusing others of human rights violations would do well to introspect and see what egregious abuses they are perpetrating in their own country, including in Balochistan. The brutality against the Baloch people represents the worst form of state oppression.”
Swaraj, speaking in Hindi, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had extended the hand of friendship to Pakistan by inviting his counterpart Nawaz Sharif to his swearing-in ceremony in May 2014, and also visiting Lahore last December in a goodwill gesture.
“But what did we get in return? Pathankot, Uri, Bahadur Ali,” she said, referring to the January 2 terror attack on an air force base in Pathankot that left seven soldiers dead, and the Uri attack of September 18 in which 18 soldiers died, and the capture of Pakistani terrorist Bahadur Ali.
Taking aim at Pakistan’s role in nurturing terrorism, India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj made a stirring call Sept. 26, in her speech to the United Nations General Assembly, for isolating Islamabad if it does not join a global strategy against the “malevolent” force threatening the world.
Warning the world that “we do not know who this Frankenstein’s monster will devour next”, said Swaraj, delivering her speech in Hindi. “If we want to defeat terrorism, there is only one way: that we unite across our differences, add steel to our resolve and inject urgency in our response. And if any nation refuses to join this global strategy, then we must isolate it,” she said.
Outside the UN the Pakistani protest against India over Kashmir failed to materialize in time for Swaraj’s speech. Only three protesters were at the barricades while she spoke. One of them said that they were expecting “two to three hundred protesters” from Washington and other places later in the day.
Swaraj also hit out against what she termed as Sharif’s “baseless allegations about human rights violations in my country. I can only say that those accusing others of human rights violations would do well to introspect and see what egregious abuses they are perpetrating in their own country, including in Balochistan,” she said. “The brutality against the Baloch people represents the worst form of State oppression.”
While speaking of terrorism – “the biggest violation of human rights” – and its facilitators, Swaraj said, “It is important to ask, ‘Who is behind this and who benefits from it?’ Terrorists do not own banks or weapons factories, so let us ask the real question: who finances these terrorists, who arms them and provides sanctuaries?”
“Despite the blood and tears of innocent victims, attacks this year alone in Kabul and Dhaka, Istanbul and Mogadishu, Brussels and Bangkok, Paris, Pathankot and Uri as well as daily barbaric tragedies in Syria and Iraq, remind us that these malevolent forces are yet to be defeated,” she added. Swaraj spoke on the last day of the annual Assembly summit. The order of speakers is determined by the hierarchy of leadership and foreign ministers are among the last on the roster.
She also emphasised India’s commitment to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which she said, were “matched by the development vision of my government, which is geared towards the achievement of these same objectives”. Several schemes of the Indian government dovetailed with the SDGs, such as the Swachh Bharat, Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao, Make in India and Digital India campaigns.
While India will play a leading role in combating climate change through measures such an international solar alliance, it expects developed nations to hold up their end of the bargain by providing finance and technology transfers.
