No UN men, India tells Thant bluntly
From Our Special Correspondent, NEW DELHI, Aug, 2.-India, communication to the UN Secretary-General, has today asked the international community to help restore normaley inside East Bengal through a political settlement and take “credible measures” for the safe return of seven million refugees from India.
India has, at the same time, rejected outright the SecretaryGeneral’s suggestion for the posting in India of representatives of the U. N. High Commission for Refugees.
The communication, delivered in New York today by Mr. Samar Sen, Permanent Representative at the U. N., is in reply to the aid memoire, U Thant had addressed to India and Pakistan on July 20.
“Mr. John Kelly, representative of the U. N. High Commission for Refugees, has arrived in Dacca to take up his post there, Radio Pakistan said today, according to UNI.
(Some recent reports had said that Mr. Kelly would head a group of “observers” to be stationed on the East Bengal side of the IndiaBangladesh border.)
In strongly-worded paragraphs. India resented the insinuation that she had been preventing refugees from returning to East Bengal.
The four-page closely typed letter quoted a number of authorities, including the UNHRC report, to back the Indian stand that she had not prevented refugees from returning. Rather the continued military atrocities and influx of fresh refugees into India were among the reasons for it.
“The crux of the problem is the situation inside East Bengal where an army from a distant territory is exercising control by sheer force and brutality. If the international community is serious about the need for the return of refugees to East Bengal, the first step that has to be taken is to restore conditions of normalcy inside East Pakistan through a political settlement acceptable to the people of East Bengal and their already elected leaders and take such internationally credible measures as would assure the refugees their safe return without reprisals.” India told U Thant.
India pointed out how she had been taking care of the refugees despite her own economic burden, while Pakistan had been continuing unabated her military repression and decimation of the Bengali-speaking people. This had been recognised by the international Press, too.
Hence, an “improved political atmosphere in East Pakistan is an indispensable pre-requisite for the return of the refugees from India. The conflict between the principles of territorial integrity of States and self-determination is particularly relevant in the situation prevailing in East Pakistan where the majority of the population is being suppressed by a minority military regime which has refused to recognise the results of the elections held by them only in December last year.
“Unless this basic cause for the influx of refugees into India is removed, all attempts to solve this problem by unrealistic experiments are bound to fail. Not only will they fail but they will tend to divert attention from the main issue and so encourage the continuation of military repression undertaken in so wide and horrifying a manner as in East Bengal,” the Indian reply stressed.
India told U Thant that already senior officers of the UNHRC were located in New Delhi and they had been given all facilities to visit refugee camps. Thousands of foreign correspondents had recorded that the refugees had taken shelter in India from military oppression in Bangladesh.
It was bluntly pointed out by India that “in the light of the information available to the Government of India and to the interested Governments and organisations, that the time is past when the international community can continue to stand by, watching the situation deteriorate and merely hoping that the relief programmes, humanitarian efforts, posting of a few people here and there, and good intentions would be enough to turn the tide of human misery and potential disaster.”
Contrary to what the External Affairs Minister had told Parliament recently, the UN Secretary-General members to consider the deteriating situation in the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent in the wake of the continuing refugee influx and the political deadlock, formally or informally.
As already known, U Thant had addressed a letter to the Security Council President on July 19 last on India-Pakistan refugee problem. Excerpts had seen the light of the day. But a full version was released in Delhi by the External Affairs Ministry along with India’s reply to U Thant’s side-memoire to India and Pakistan.
The sum and substance of U Thant’s communication to the Security Council President is this. The situation in Indo-Pakistani subcontinent was a “potential threat to peace and security” and hence the members of the Security Council themselves should decide if the “consideration of the problem should take place formally or informally, in public or private.”
“The Security Council, the world’s highest body for the maintenance of international peace and security is in a position to consider with the utmost attention and concern the present situation and to reach some agreed conclusions as to measures which might be taken,” he added.
Despite the unbalanced stand taken by the Secretary-General who, it seemed, had bracketed India and Pakistan and even sought to make the entire problem (which is what Pakistan desires), Security Council members had mostly rejected the suggestion for a formal or informal meeting of the Council.
It is also learnt that most of the Council members had told U Thant verbally they did not find any reasons for a formal or informal meeting. A couple of countries, however, had supported U Thant.
Neither the Council President nor the Secretary-General had taken the initiative to call any meeting, formal or informal. Both of them knew that any anti-India stand in the Council would be vetoed by the Soviet Union.
U Thant deplored that while India had to bear the burden of refugees for an “unforseeable period of time,” there had been lack of “substantial progress towards a political reconciliation.” The process, he said, had been tampered, moreover, by the consequent effect of law, order and public administration in East Pakistan.
He referred to problems of self-determination and territorial integrity in general items and to the Indo-Pak conflict of 1965. He thought that “border clashes, clandestine raids and acts of sabotage appear to be becoming more frequent” in East Bengal and that there would prevent refugees from returning to East Bengal.
“I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that the time is past when the international community can continue to stand by, watching the situation deteriorate and hoping the relief programmes, humanitartah efforts and good intentions will be enough to turn the tide of human missery and potential disaster,” the Secretary-General added.
He repeatedly referred to “the tragic situation” developing between India and Pakistan. Not for once he considered it an issue between Pakistan and East Bengal though he did not deny the need for a political settlement.
Meanwhile, the US Government has made informal suggestions to the posting of UN observers both in East Bengal and on the Indian side of the border, the Deputy Minister for External Affairs, Mr. Surendra Pal Singh, confirmed to the Lok Sabha today.
“The Government,” Mr. Singh said, “has made it clear that it will on no account agree to the stationing of UN observers on Indian territory and that any proposal to that effect will be regarded as an unfriendly act.”
The refugee camps in India, he pointed out, were being visited almost daily by officials of the UN High Commission for Refugees and other foreign nationals, and “not a single one of them has reported that India is preventing or obstructing the refugees from returning to their homeland.”
“The refugees, he said. “Can be persuaded to return only when have the confidence that they can do so in safety and without fear and under credible guarantees for the security of their person and property. This can be ensured only through a political settlement acceptable to the people of East Bengal and their already elected leaders.”
Meanwhile, the foreign Office of the Bangladesh Government has reacted sharply to the reported move by the USA to place a group of international aid experts in Bangladesh under the U. N. patronage.
A Foreign Office spokesman said that this was nothing but a calculated move to give breathing time to Gen. Yahya’s regime so that it could eliminate the Bengali nation with greater barbarity.
Reference: Hindustan Standard 3.8.1971