Have you forgotten what India did to
Nepal and Kashmir, Mr Ashraf Ghani?
By Shakir Lakhani Published: December 6, 2016
Pakistan could
have looked the other way, like India did, but because Afghanistan is our
brotherly Muslim neighbour, we did everything in our power to help your country
regain its freedom.
We
were not very surprised when you, Mr Ashraf Ghani, at the Heart of Asia conference in India,
conveniently forgot how much Pakistan has done for your country. You criticised
Pakistan viciously and blamed it for the problems that you are facing and are
not able to resolve.
You must have been a
young man when the Soviet Union invaded your country in 1979 and ruled it
for nine years.
While Pakistan immediately condemned the invasion, along with most
of the civilised world, India supported the Soviets. When most
countries, including Pakistan, refused to send their teams to the Moscow
Olympics, India sent its athletes and won the hockey gold metal, owing to
Pakistan’s boycott. Yet you still want to maintain cordial relations with India? Not only that,
you are bending over backwards to support India’s vicious campaign to isolate
Pakistan, which is meant to deflect the attention of the international
community from its brutal treatment of Kashmir’s freedom fighters.
Have you already
forgotten that it was Pakistan which organised the liberation of Afghanistan
and compelled the invaders to leave your country? Pakistan could have looked
the other way, like India did, but because Afghanistan is our brotherly Muslim neighbour, we did
everything in our power to help your country regain its freedom. At least
remember this, Mr Ghani, the next time you open your mouth to blame Pakistan
for your troubles.
For the past 30 years,
Mr Ghani, Pakistan has hosted three million refugees from your country,
giving them shelter and jobs, thus causing many of its own citizens to be
unemployed. One of the refugees, Mr Ghani, was your former boss and president
of Afghanistan himself, Hamid Karzai. Owing to our hospitality, we
have seen unlimited weapons and drugs flowing into our country, as well as terrorists causing the deaths of over
50,000 innocent people.
But of course all this
doesn’t mean anything to you. In fact, you even refused to accept Pakistan’s generous offer to give your country half
a billion dollars. And you have the audacity to advise Pakistan to spend it on
curbing terrorism, which you say is emanating from Pakistan– even though you are harbouring many terrorists yourself, to
cause devastation in Pakistan.
So, why don’t you
advise Modi to keep the billion dollars he wants to give you and
spend it to provide toilets for poor Indians? Oh, no, you can’t do
that; you can’t afford to offend a man responsible for Muslim genocide, can
you? Have you already forgotten what happened to Dr Mohammad Najibullah, who couldn’t be saved
when the mujahideen took over Kabul?
Afghanistan is a
land-locked country dependent upon Pakistan for transit trade. We allow you to import whatever
you want, and quite a lot of your imported goods find their way illegally into
our markets, causing many of our industries to collapse, threatening many
others with closure.
Do you know how India
treats its land-locked neighbour Nepal? India charges custom duty on all Nepalese imports at its
sea-ports, then refunds to Nepal the duty amount collected at the end of the
financial year. This way, India is able to use all that money for its own
purpose for a whole year. But that is not all. Since Nepalese importers don’t
want to suffer the hassle of their money being blocked in this manner, they are
forced to buy only Indian manufactured goods. Only when they
require goods not manufactured in India do they import from other countries.
Would you like it if
Pakistan imposed the same conditions on Afghanistan? And how would you react if
Pakistan asked all Afghan refugees to leave the country
immediately and go back to Afghanistan?
Gratitude is something
which crude and ill-mannered people like you cannot feel. It’s time to be
grateful, Mr Ashraf Ghani. It’s time to speak the truth and admit that you said
what you did and blamed Pakistan for your problems because
Mr Modi asked you to do so.
Shakir Lakhani
Engineer,
former visiting lecturer at NED Engineering College, industrialist, associated
with petroleum/chemical industries for many years. Loves writing, and (in the
opinion of most of those who know him), mentally unbalanced. He tweets
@shakirlakhani (twitter.com/shakirlakhani)
http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/43697/have-you-forgotten-what-india-did-to-nepal-and-kashmir-mr-ashraf-ghani/
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