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Clinton urged to

take up Kashmir

issue with India

WASHINGTON: US Congressman John Doolittle has urged US President Bill Clinton to raise the issue of Kashmiris' right to self-determination during his upcoming visit to India.

He also made these remarks while addressing the House of Representatives.

He said, "America is a country founded on the idea of freedom. I Arge President Clinton to raise the issue of freeing the political prisoners during his current visit to India."

He added, "I also urge him to bring up the question of self-determination. It is time to speak out for freedom.

Doolittle said recently regional parties won elections in two states in India. Neither the ruling BJP nor the opposition Congress Party was able to pull off a complete victory.

"These results only increase the instability that already plagues India, he maintained.

To retain control of the government, he said, the BJP had to assemble a coalition of 24 parties. "Clearly, the days when a national party could dominate India's government are gone."

While the political instability increases, he said, there are 17 freedom movements within India's borders. Many experts on the situation in South Asia have predicted the disintegration of India. "From these results it looks like that disintegration is closer."

Another US Congressman Edolphus Towns has urged US President Bill Clinton to forcefully raise the issue of human rights violations of Kashmiri people as well minority communities in India.

"While he is there, one important thing that he should do is to press the Indian government on the subject of human rights," he said while addressing House of Representatives.

The Congressman from New York said, "if we do not support the human rights of all the people of South Asia, who will?

"I was distressed to read an article in the Washington Times that the government of India's state of Orissa is now requiring anyone converting to Christianity to set a government permit."

He added, "it is just the latest chapter in the ongoing religious tyranny in India."

He said thousands of Sikhs languish in Indian jails without charge and without trial. "These Sikhs are political prisoners in the World's largest democracy."

Towns said "many of them have been in prison illegally since the Indian government attacked the Sikhs' holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, in June 1984."

The Congressman recalled that the BJP, which runs the central government, destroyed the most revered mosque in India, the mosque at Ayodha, intending to put a Hindu temple on the site. Radical Hindu affiliated with the BJP's parent organisation, the RSS, burned a Christian missionary and his two sons, aged 6 and 10, to death in their jeep while they slept. "The mob charted "Victory to Hannuman", a Hindu god while putting the jeep to fire."

He said RSS-affiliated Hindu extremists have burned down Christian churches, schools, and prayer halls. "They have murdered priests and raped nuns."

He recalled in 1997, the police broke up a Christian religious festival with gunfire.

Towns said the Indian government has sent over 700,000 troops to Kashmir and half a million to Punjab, Khalistan, to suppress the freedom of the Muslim and Sikh populations there. "It has killed tens of thousands of Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, Assamese, Manipuris, Dalits, and others."

"I call on the President to raise these issues in the strongest terms."

The Congressman said, "we should cut off aid to India until it observes the basic standards of human rights for all and we should support freedom for the people of South Asia by going on record in support for self-determination for the people of Punjab, Khalistan, Kashmir, Nagaland, and the other nations of South Asia that now live under occupation."