Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-17-Speech-4-184"
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"en.20051117.21.4-184"2
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".
Mr President, following the earthquake in Kashmir, I saw an appalling headline in one newspaper, which read: ‘Even the earthquake cannot end the hostility between India and Pakistan’. What this headline shows is that it is the people, God help them, who suffer when political tensions are in play, even in this extremely dire situation.
When Germans think of the artificial division of countries, they unfailingly think of Berlin. I myself have seen places in the heart of Berlin where people drowned in canals because nobody on the wall could help them, or was allowed to. What that means is that people had to refrain from doing something perfectly rational – that is, saving a person from drowning – because, at that time, the Iron Curtain was in place and political considerations prevented them from doing so.
That sort of thing gives you a feel for what is going on in Kashmir. Let us not lose sight of the fact that this earthquake is already a terrible human catastrophe, but a winter is looming in which there will be mass mortality among the civilian population unless the powers-that-be on both sides at last get the better of their inability – which is to some extent their unwillingness – to cooperate and help one another, and unless aid gets to where it is needed.
Kashmir is a victim of India’s refusal, at the time of its own foundation, to accept the country’s right of self-determination. There are now problems with Pakistan as well. The conclusion we should draw from this is that Kashmir is not merely a bilateral problem involving these two states, but also, and primarily, a problem for the Kashmiri people, and hence also for us. Not only should we carry on dialogue with both the powers there – important though they are as nuclear powers and major states – but we should also step up direct contact with the Kashmiri people and their representatives, particularly those on the local level, which is what this humanitarian catastrophe offers us an opportunity to do.
First, we must help these people in a way that owes nothing to ideology; then we must work towards a solution for the region."@en1
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