[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 139 (Tuesday, October 16, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1901-E1902]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   INDIA FIRING ON KASHMIR OPPORTUNITY TO BRING FREEDOM TO SOUTH ASIA

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, October 16, 2001

  Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, last year when former President Clinton 
visited India, 35 Sikhs were massacred in the village of 
Chithisinghpora. Two independent investigations have shown that the 
Indian government carried out this massacre. Now Secretary of State 
Powell is visiting India and Indian troops are firing on Kashmir. I 
can't help but wonder why the sudden outbreak. It seems odd these 
incidents occur when American officials visit the country.
  Mr. Speaker, this could be an opportunity for the people and nations 
seeking freedom in South Asia. The Council of Khalistan has put out an 
open letter saying that now is the ideal time for the people of 
Kashmir, Khalistan, Nagaland, and the other minority nations of South 
Asia to claim their freedom.
  Clearly, India is taking advantage of the U.S. war on terrorism to 
advance its own hegemonic agenda. The fact that Sikhs, Kashmiri 
Muslims, and other minorities are going to be casualties of this 
strategy is apparently of no importance to them. It's just another 
opportunity to take down their enemy, Pakistan, which has been an 
active supporter and participant in the U.S. antiterrorist coalition.
  America was founded on the idea of freedom. It is that freedom that 
the terrorists are trying to destroy. One of the best ways to fight the 
terrorists is to help spread freedom to new corners of the world.
  Mr. Speaker, the time has come to cut off U.S. aid to India in light 
of its human-rights abuses and its opportunistic use of the 
antiterrorist effort to promote its narrow interest. It is also time to 
put the U.S. Congress on record in support of the freedom movements 
around South Asia in the form of a free and fair plebiscite on their 
political status. These measures will help spread freedom and undermine 
the efforts of the terrorists to destroy our principles.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to place the Council of Khalistan's open 
letter on the Indian attack on Kashmir into the Record for the 
information of my colleagues.

Indian Attack on Kashmir Provides Opportunity for Freedom; India Is Not 
                               One Nation

       Taking advantage of the U.S. war on terrorism to advance 
     its own agenda, India has begun shelling Azad (Free) Kashmir. 
     This action brings the war over Kashmir out into the open 
     just as Secretary of State Colin Powell is arriving in South 
     Asia. Unfortunately, there will undoubtedly be casualties, 
     and most of them will be Kashmiris, Sikhs, and other 
     minorities. The only party that benefits from this is the 
     Indian government, which has murdered over 250,000 Sikhs 
     since 1984, over 200,000 Christians in Nagaland since 1947, 
     more than 75,000 Kashmiri Muslims since 1988, and tens of 
     thousands of Dalits (dark-skinned ``Untouchables,'' the 
     aboriginal people of South Asia), Tamils, Bodos, Assamese, 
     Manipuris, and others.
       This act by India shows who America's real allies are, and 
     which country is the real supporter of terrorism. Once again, 
     India is claiming that it is going after terrorism, despite 
     India's own record of terrorism.
       In November 1994, the Indian newspaper Hitavada reported 
     that the Indian government paid the late governor of Punjab, 
     Surendra Nath, approximately $1.5 billion to organize and 
     support covert state terrorism in Punjab Khalistan, and in 
     Kashmir. The book Soft Target, written by journalists from 
     the Toronto Star and the Toronto Globe and Mail, shows that 
     the Indian government blew up its own airliner in 1985, 
     killing 329 innocent people. According to India Today, the 
     Indian government created the Liberation Tigers of Tamil 
     Eelam (LTTE) and put up LTTE leaders in New Delhi's finest 
     hotel. The LTTE were created to stop a U.S. broadcast tower 
     in Sri Lanka. Then the Indian government turned on the LTTE 
     because the LTTE seeks an independent country for Tamils.
       The Indian government sentenced Devinder Singh Bhullar to 
     death because he advocated Khalistan, yet Ribeiro, Ray, 
     K.P.S. Gill, Swaran Singh Ghotna, and the other police and 
     political officials who committed genocide against the Sikhs 
     are not punished. In June a train carrying Sikh religious 
     pilgrims was attacked by militant Hindu fundamentalists. On 
     May 27, several Indian soldiers were caught red-handed trying 
     to set fire to a Gurdwara and some Sikh homes in Kashmir. 
     Sikh and Muslim residents of the village overwhelmed the 
     troops and stopped them from carrying out this atrocity.
       A report issued in April by the Movement Against State 
     Repression (MASR) shows that India admitted that it held 
     52,268 political prisoners under the repressive ``Terrorist 
     and Disruptive Activities Act'' (TADA). These Sikh political 
     prisoners must be released immediately. These prisoners 
     continue to be held under TADA even though it expired in 
     1995. Persons arrested under TADA are routinely re-arrested 
     upon their release. Cases were routinely registered against 
     Sikh activists under TADA in states other than Punjab to give 
     the police an excuse to continue holding them. The MASR 
     report quotes the Punjab Civil Magistracy as writing ``if we 
     add up the figures of the last few years the number of 
     innocent persons killed would run into lakhs [hundreds of 
     thousands.]'' As General Narinder Singh has said, ``Punjab is 
     a police state.'' U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher has said 
     that for minorities like the Sikhs, the Muslims of Kashmir, 
     and others, ``India might as well be Nazi Germany.''
       It is not just Sikhs who are being targeted by Indian 
     terrorism. In 1997, a Christian religious festival was broken 
     up by police gunfire. Since Christmas 1998, Christians have

[[Page E1902]]

     been subjected to a reign of terror which has seen the murder 
     of priests, the rape of nuns, the burning of churches, 
     attacks on Christian schools and prayer halls, and other 
     incidents carried out by supporters of the pro-Fascist 
     Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the parent organization of 
     the ruling BJP, which was formed in support of the Nazis. RSS 
     activists also burned missionary Graham Staines and his two 
     young sons, ages 8 and 10, to death while they slept in their 
     jeeps. The killers gathered around the jeep chanting 
     ``Victory to Hannuman,'' a Hindu god. Prime Minister Atal 
     Behari Vajpayee told an audience in New York last year, ``I 
     will always be a Swayamsewak.''
       India is also anti-American. According to the May 18, 1999 
     issue of the Indian Express, the Indian Defense Minister met 
     with the Ambassadors from terrorist countries Iraq, Libya, 
     and Cuba, as well as Red China, Russia, and Serbia, to set up 
     a security alliance ``to stop the U.S.'' India voted with the 
     dictatorships to throw the United States off the UN Human 
     Rights Commission. It votes against America at the United 
     Nations more often than any country except Cuba. It voted to 
     suppress a U.S.-sponsored resolution critical of China's 
     human-rights violations. It was a strong Soviet ally.
       This is an ideal opportunity to begin a Shantmai Morcha and 
     form a Khalsa Raj party to achieve independence for Khalistan 
     and to liberate the other countries seeking their freedom 
     from Indian occupation. Remember the words of former Akal 
     Takht Jathedar Professor Darshan Singh: ``If a Sikh is not 
     Khalistani, he is not a Sikh.'' Self-determination is the 
     right of all people and nations.
       Pro-Khalistan handbills were handed out at the Golden 
     Temple on June 7 during the commemoration of Gallughara Divas 
     and Sant Bhindranwale's martyrdom. Ajmer Singh Lakhowal, the 
     head of the Bharat Kisan Union, has called for self-
     determination for the Sikhs. The flame of freedom bums bright 
     in the hearts of the Sikhs.
       When we liberate Khalistan, we will be more respected, 
     appreciated, and understood by Americans and throughout the 
     world. We must take this occasion to renew our commitment to 
     free Khalistan. Every Sikh should put a bumper sticker on his 
     or her car saying ``INDIA FREE KHALISTAN.'' This sticker is 
     available from this office
       In 1947, when India was divided, the cunning and deceitful 
     Hindu leadership promised that Sikhs would have the glow of 
     freedom in Punjab and that no law affecting Sikh rights would 
     be passed without Sikh consent. As soon as the transfer of 
     power had occurred and India was free, those promises were 
     broken. Instead, India began its effort to wipe out the Sikh 
     people, the Sikh Nation, and the Sikh religion.
       Sikhs gave over 80 percent of the sacrifices to free India 
     from the British. At that time, they were only 1.6 percent of 
     the population. Sikhs are the ones who suffered the most 
     after the freedom and partition of India. Fifty percent of 
     the Sikh population had to migrate from the Pakistan side of 
     Punjab to the Indian side of Punjab. Sikhs were prosperous 
     farmers in West Punjab. They lost their fertile farming land. 
     When they were allotted lands in Indian Punjab, everyone got 
     a cut between 25 and 95 percent of their acreage.
       In a free Khalistan, there will be economic prosperity. The 
     Punjab farmers will be able to sell their produce at high 
     prices in the international market and buy cheaper 
     fertilizers, insecticides, and seeds. Farm produce will not 
     lie in the market for weeks without buyers as it did during 
     the sale of the rice crop last year.
       We must have a full, free, and fair plebiscite on the 
     status of Khalistan and we must launch a Shantmai Morcha to 
     liberate our homeland. India is not one nation. It has 18 
     official languages. Let us take this opportunity to bring 
     freedom to our homeland and all the countries of South Asia.

     

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