Our loyalty should be with the ideology

Dr Shabir Choudhry                 17 April 2008

While addressing a team of senior JKLF members in Birmingham Dr Shabir Choudhry a senior leader of JKLF said, 'Our loyalty should be with true ideology of JKLF and not with self centred leaders who have compromised ideology and sacrifices of the people.'

He further said, 'In - fighting and disunity has immensely damaged the cause of united and independent Kashmir, and top leaders of all JKLF groups should, for sake of unity abandon ego centric approach to politics and selfish attitude, as this is harming our cause and the movement'.

This meeting of senior JKLF members was held in Birmingham, England to discuss and analyse the situation regarding the unity process between the JKLF groups. Sabir Ansari, President of Azad Kashmir zone of JKLF Yasin Group, came to UK in December 2007 as a special envoy of Yasin Malik and disbanded his group of JKLF in UK.

This move raised hope of people and many thought that it will result in unity among all JKLF groups leading to revitalization of the nationalist struggle. Abbas Butt who has recently come back from Azad Kashmir and have had meetings with the leaders of the other group reported back outcome of his talks to members.

It was noted with regret that despite many years of patience and sincere efforts it appears there is no progress in this matter. JKLF members felt that there were powerful forces at work to ensure that there is no unity between the JKLF groups; and because of this we find this stalemate in this process.

This meeting was convened to review the situation and formulate a future strategy. Zubair Ansari said, 'To us ideological clarity is very important. We can proudly claim that we still adhere to the true ideology of JKLF; and as for as party is concerned it is only a vehicle to promote that ideology; and when people feel that the vehicle is faulty it can be changed to advance the cause.'

The JKLF leaders said that 'We have worked for unity for a long time, and we can further wait till 2^nd of May - the new date given to us by the other side - but we cannot wait indefinitely. If no positive decision is reached by that date then we will take a decision which will be suitable to us and our ideology.

The meeting was also addressed by Nazam Bhatti, Ehsan Ansari, Masoom Ansari, Mumtaz Mirza, Aslam Mirza, Nawaz Majid, Choudhry Sarwar Hussain, Waseem Ansari and Asim Mirza.

The meeting elected a committee of five members to review the situation in first week of May and take appropriate decisions to advance the cause of united and independent Kashmir. The following are members of the committee: Dr Shabir Choudhry, Abbas Butt, Zubair Ansari, Nazam Bhatti and Chaudhry Sarwar Hussain.