‘Pakistan shouldn’t have bartered self-respect under US pressure’

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan should not have succumbed to American pressure to “barter its self-respect” by taking Indian assistance for flood relief when the Kashmiris’ “hugely successful” struggle is being repressed, an editorial in a Pakistani newspaper said Sunday.

“The Pakistan government has under American pressure decide to accept India’s offer of $50 lakh for flood relief. Such a decision comes at a time when India is using all the means of state power available to it to crush the people of occupied Jammu and Kashmir but the sacrifices made by our Kashmiri brethren are bearing fruit and their dream of determining their future is close to reality,” the editorial in the Nawa-i-Waqt said.

It said Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who is currently on a tour of the US, had revealed during an interview to Indian news channel NDTV that the Pakistani government had decided to accept the Indian offer and “our shameless foreign minister had even termed the Indian offer a good indication”.

“Pakistan had not initially responded to the Indian offer but when a US State Department spokesman urged Pakistan to accept the Indian offer and not make it a political issue, the very next day, the foreign minister announced the acceptance of the Indian offer,” the editorial said.

It alleged the floods were due to India releasing excess waters into the Chenab, Jhelum and Indus rivers, while its “agents” in Afghanistan did the same in the Kabul river, thus resulting in the “most destructive floods ever seen in Pakistan this century or the last” and “whose devastating effects were still being felt”.

It said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who inspected some of the affected areas, said the devasatation was even greater than in the 2004 tsunami, or even the 2005 earthquake in northern Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir and appealed for the nations of the world to render assistance as generously they could.

“His appeal is bearing fruit and when many fraternal nations are rushing to provide us all sorts of assistance, what is the need to accept help from our traditional and implacable enemy? We should instead endeavour to expose its real face to the world and its philosophy of ‘Munh mein Ram bagal mein churi’ (The name of Ram on the lips, and a knife concealed in the hand)’,” the editorial said.