BALTIMORE SUN, SEPTEMBER 29, 1971
Editorial
PAKISTAN INTERNAL
Six months after the West Pakistan government and army struck out at East Pakistan, the effects of that action still felt, and grown worse. Now the chaos of Pakistan has been brought to the attention of the United Nations; not as an item on the agenda but in the general debate as the statements of position with which the session of the General Assembly ordinarily open.
They seldom open with so vehement an exchange of charges as those expressed on Monday between Swaran Singh, Indian Foreign Minister on the one side, and Agha Shahi and Mohammad Ali of Pakistan on the ether. Swaran Sing’s attack was bitter. He accused West Pakistan of having set off a reign of terror in East Bengal, which is East Pakistan, and of continuing its ‘deadly activities”. He called the “civilian government” lately set up in East Bengal a group of figure-heads, and West Pakistan’s repeated proclamation of amnesty a fraud, since Mujibur Rahman, leader of the outlawed Awami League and others elected to National Assembly in the voting. West Pakistan refused to accept, are On trial for treason.
Agha Shahi’s demand that Swaran Singh be ruled out of order, assigning it the internal affairs of another country, was denied Mohammad Ali’s more orderly reply in procedural terms was devoted to a charge that India has instigated and was abetting the East Bengalis in a “well planned military effort” to break up Pakistan.
In this West Pakistan once again reveals the weakness of its case. It is true that after the events of March some in India were for open belligerency against Pakistan, and it is obviously true that in the subsequent months India has made contingency military plans. But to call India a conspirator in a revolt against the government is simply absurd. India is involved because it is in India that the refugees from the terror, now numbering some 8 million, have sought safety.
This is why to India and to many outside India, the situation is hardly an. internal Pakistani affair and why the West Pakistan government, unless it altogether changes its course cannot make it seem so.