Yashwant Raj

Attack refers to China preventing terrorist tag on JeM founder Masood Azhar

From page 1 India has launched a blistering attack on the “opacity and lack of accountability” of a United Nations body that has been prevented by China from designating Masood Azhar, head of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad and mastermind of the 2016 Pathankot attack on an air force base, as a terrorist.

 “In an age where informed publics increasingly demand transparency from public institutions, the Sanctions Committees are the most egregious examples known to multilateralism in terms of their opacity and lack of accountability,” Indian permanent representative to the UN, Syed Akbaruddin, said during an open debate at the UN on multilateralism and the role of the world body on Friday.

Referring to the unanimous vote required for designating sanctionable entities, Akbaruddin added that “they do not inform us that due to a negative vote cast by any of their 15 members, they have decided not to sanction an entity or individual proposed by any Member State”.

Though no names were mentioned, the reference was clearly to China for repeatedly and single-handedly preventing a committee set up by the UN Security Council from designating Azhar without ever citing a credible justification for it. Beijing has vaguely sought more evidence and cited lack of consensus.

Akbaruddin’s criticism is of the decision-making process that enables China’s unilateral actions — the unanimous vote required from all 15 members of the committee, which do not need to explain their reasons. A negative vote can block what all the other 14 want.

The ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) and al Qaeda Sanctions committee, also called the UN 1267 Committee after the Security Council resolution constituting it, listed Jaish-e-Mohammad way back in 2001, describing it as an outfit “based in Peshawar and Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, but members conduct terrorist activities primarily in Kashmir”.

Azhar founded the outfit with support from Osama bin Laden of al Qaeda the Taliban and others, the listing said. But the committee has been prevented from designating Azhar by China.

Beijing has blocked three specific proposals moved separately first by India; then jointly by the United States, United Kingdom, and France and the third, earlier this year by the United States alone. All other 14 members are for designating the JeM founder. It is widely acknowledged in New Delhi and Washington DC that Beijing is acting on behalf of Azhar’s host and sponsor Pakistan. But it has cited a lack of consensus as the reason, which, curiously, it has itself caused.

“There were different views with no consensus reached,” a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said to reporters in July. There was still no consensus — “the conditions are not yet met for the Committee to reach a decision”.

So, he had added, “China has put the request on technical hold, to allow the relevant parties more time to consult with each other. This is also in line with the rules of the relevant resolutions of the Security Council and the rules of the discussion of the Committee.”

Those are the rules India has felt frustrated about. “Even as the (Security) Council has spawned an entire range of subordinate bodies, the functioning of this ‘subterranean universe’ of subordinate bodies has become Byzantine,” said Akbaruddin.

While the all-powerful Security Council grants veto powers only to the five permanent members, all 15 members “are bestowed with a veto in the ‘subterranean universe’ of Sanctions Committees”.

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Courtesy: Hindustan Times: 12th Nov, 2018