Pakistan’s cash-for-Kashmir trail reached even Obama

Barely days before Barack Obama was elected President in 2008, his campaign received a donation from a resident of Virginia. It wasn’t a large donation: it was only $250, a mere drop in the ocean of money that the youthful President-elect had raised for his campaign promising Hope and Change. But Obama might today want to seriously consider giving away that $250. That’s because the donation, it now turns out, was tainted: it was made by the Pakistani government — and perhaps the Inter Services Intelligence — using an unauthorised conduit set up in the US to lobby US elected officials and organise events promoting the cause of Kashmiri self-determination and other anti-India causes. [caption id=“attachment_44884” align=“alignright” width=“380” caption=“Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai (R) with Pakistan PM Yousuf Raza Gilani. Screen grab from Kashmirwareness.org”] [/caption] The man who made that $250 donation to the Obama campaign, Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai , a US citizen who hails from Kashmir, was arrested overnight by the FBI for “participating in a long-term conspiracy to act as agents of the Pakistan government in the US without disclosing their affiliation with the Pakistani government as required by law.” One other person, Zaheer Ahmad, 63, was charged with the same crime, but is believed to be in Pakistan. (The chargesheet can be accessed here .) If convicted, the two face only five years in prison. But what the case has exposed is the dirty money network that the Pakistani government and the ISI have set up in order to lobby elected representatives in the US, the UK and in continental Europe to carry on an anti-India separatist campaign specifically targeted at Kashmir. It is a slap on the face of the bleeding heart liberals and politicians who have shamefully accepted money from the Pakistani government in order to hector, embarrass and impose sanctions on India on alleged human rights charges. According to Neil MacBride, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Fai is accused of a “decades-long scheme with one purpose—to hide Pakistan’s involvement behind his efforts to influence the US government’s position on Kashmir.” The Pakistani government paid British MP George Galloway ¢135,000 from a secret fund for promoting its case on the Kashmir issue. Fai’s handlers in Pakistan “allegedly funneled millions (of dollars)” through a non-profit organisation called the Kashmiri American Council (also known as the Kashmir Centre) to “contribute to US elected officials, fund high-profile conferences, and pay for other efforts that promoted the Kashmiri cause to decision-makers in Washington.” [caption id=“attachment_44889” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The Pakistani government paid British MP George Galloway ¢135,000 from a secret fund for promoting its case on the Kashmir issue. Reuters”] [/caption] The Kashmir Centre also has offices in the UK and in Belgium, and similarly lobby parliamentarians in those countries in the cause of Kashmiri separatism. For instance, a Pakistani parliamentary committee was told earlier this year that the P akistan government paid British MP George Galloway ¢135,000 from a secret fund for promoting its case on the Kashmir issue. In the US, the Kashmir Centre’s goal was to persuade the government to push India to allow a plebiscite in Kashmir to decide its future. It was also looking to counter Indian lobby by targeting members of the Congressional committees that focus on foreign affairs and staging activities that would keep the Kashmir issue alive in the media. The small donation to Obama is the least of it. Dan Burton , a Republican Congressman from Indiana, who has a long track record of sponsoring anti-India legislative efforts in the US Congress and supporting the Khalistani movement, received by far the largest donations from Fai and Ahmad. In return for such largesse, Burton formed a Kashmir caucus in the US Congress, travelled more than once to Kashmir for events sponsored by Fai, and spoken on Pakistan’s behalf on Kashmir issues. According to Congressional records , Burton said in 1995: “The Indian Government is one of the world’s worst human rights abusers… Since 1947, India has killed over 200,000 Christians in Nagaland; 250,000 Sikhs in Punjab from 1984-1992; and 53,000 Muslims in Kashmir since 1988.” And in February 2002, he said:

“India… blames Pakistan for the attack on its parliament, even though India has a record of committing acts of terrorism in the guise of various minorities. India has also been guilty of terrorism against the minorities within its own borders.”

More recently, travelling to Islamabad in 2009, Burton said

“Since 1948, the people of Kashmir have been offered and promised a plebiscite and that’s something that has not happened…The number of Indian troops that are still up there and keeping everything under wraps…they are patrolling the streets and there are still some horrible tragedies that are taking place. I heard of gang-raping of young women, I’ve heard of murders and tortures."

After hearing of Fai’s arrest overnight, Burton said sheepishly that he “was deeply shocked” and that although he’d known Fai for 20 years, he “had no inkling of his involvement with any foreign intelligence operation and had presumed our correspondence was legitimate.” He said he still believed that any political contributions he may have received from Fai over the years were “completely legal”, but that if there was “any doubt about the origin of these contributions, I will donate those funds to the Boy Scouts of America.” The Boy Scouts of America? Really? No, Congressman. Since your venomous words have over the decades provided the political cover for Pakistani-sponsored terrorism in Kashmir and the forced displacement of Kashmiri Pandits from the State, the least you owe is to make over those campaign funds to the Kashmiri Overseas Association USA , which among other things provides assistance to displaced Kashmiri Pandits.