Pravda

THE conflagration on the Indian subcontinent is still raging. Looking at the bloody glow over India and Pakistan, two of the largest Asian countries, people demand with justified anxiety the speediest ending of this dangerous clash and insist on a political settlement of the causes which led to this situation.
However, forces interested not in a relaxation of tension but in steadily stepping up tension till it reaches the dangerous point of explosion put one on guard. These forces are today speculating in a criminal way on the general desire for a peaceful settlement. They advance clever projects and dubious schemes which are peaceful in form but are actually charged with dynamite! Their implementation could only aggravate the situation.
The attempts which have been lately stepped up to focus attention only on an appeal for a ceasefire and to ignore the reasons which led to the conflict have precisely these aims. It is generally known that in recent days the American and Chinese diplomats exerted energetic efforts in this direction in the United Nations, evoking great joy among the most rabid reactionaries.

Fishing in Troubled Waters

Indeed, how can one appraise the most outspoken comments with which the New York Daily News responded to these efforts on December 7. Obviously our only policy should be to grab for ourselves all possible advantages from this mess, the paper blurts out the coveted intentions of the forces of reaction and war. These advantages, the paper adds, could well be large and first-rate and we would go down in history as idiots if we failed to use these opportunities.
I am sure that many of those who, influenced by the artificially aimed hysteria and misinformation in the UN lobbies and hall, on that day voted for the resolution which at a first glance appeared to them as being peace-loving but actually contained the seeds of further aggravation of the conflict, as there was not a single word in it about a political settlement of the crisis in East Pakistan, thought that they had done a good deed. However, they obviously had failed to take into account that this resolution, objectively speaking, only facilitated those who wished to grab for themselves all possible advantages from this mess.
Therefore, it is highly important today to calmly and patiently explain again and again the real crux of the tragic events in the Indian subcontinent, and to resolutely expose those, who, while parading as peace-makers, are actually attempting to exacerbate the situation.

Two Sides of One Question

As was justly pointed out by Comrade L. I. Brezhnev in his speech at the 6th Congress of the Polish United Workers' Party the military conflict in the Indian subcontinent had been engendered by the bloody suppression of the fundamental rights and the clearly expressed will of the East Pakistani population. Such are the two sides of this question. That is why the Soviet Union has persistently proposed that all sides concerned should immediately cease fire and stop all military operations and, simultaneously (note—simultaneously) with this, the Government of Pakistan should take effective measures aimed at a political settlement in East Pakistan, immediately recognising the will of the population of East Pakistan expressed in the December 1970 elections. Both these points are linked up inseparably.
The Paris daily L'Humanite noted on December 9 with regret that the UN General Assembly had adopted "recommendations which ignore the fate of the Bangalees" and fail to take into account "the problem which is the cause of this war: the reprisals perpetrated by the Pakistani army against the Bengali population". Therefore, the paper justly declared, "to eliminate the war it is necessary to eliminate its cause."
It is only in this way that the conflagration can be extinguished. Otherwise, in case of a ceasefire, East Pakistan would again be turned over to the punitive troops to be completely torn to pieces. Since March 25, 1971, these troops have been waging an undeclared and an unprecedentedly bloody and brutal war against the 75-millionstrong people whose only crime was that they came out through the ballot-box for their elementary rights. (According to the Morning Star, during the period of reprisals the Pakistani troops murdered one million people and deprived 30 million others of shelter.)
This, on second thought, is what the "peace project" comes to, the project which is actively championed by the American and Chinese diplomats, who are persistently trying to make things look as if there is no East Pakistan problem and as if there is nothing but an armed conflict between two neighbouring states. At the same time they are stubbornly trying, though in vain, to accuse India of aggression, although it is clear from the report submitted by the UN Secretary General U Thant that the Pakistani armed forces were the first to encroach upon Indian territory.

Sober Voices

The American public, watching with growing alarm the developments on the Indian subcontinent, is demanding more often and more insistently that the Administration should give up the dangerous stand it has taken, because such a stand is not conducive to peace and runs counter to the national interests of the USA.
Joseph Kraft, a Washington Post observer, wrote on December 7 that the Nixon Administration's attitude to the Indo-Pak crisis was distinguished by a strange combination of moral blindness and absence of political realism. He reminds his readers that the present events on the Indian subcontinent are rooted in the decision taken by the Pakistan Government back in mid-March to suppress the people's movement in East Pakistan by force of arms. He stresses that this decision resulted in a great moral crime. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people were killed by Pakistani troops, and millions were forced to cross over to India as refugees.
Referring to a statement made by official US Government spokesmen in which India is blamed for the military operations, Anthony Lewis wrote in the New York Times on December 6 that bearing in mind the degree to which India was concerned and the unbearable burden placed on it, that country has shown great restraint.
Senator Edward Kennedy, who came out on December 7 with a sharp condemnation of the hypocritical and dangerous stand of the Republican Administration, said that while throughout the past eight months the US Government had been refusing to condemn the cruel and regular persecutions carried out in East Bengal by the Pakistani army it was now condemning India for having reacted to the situation on its eastern frontiers.
And Senator Kennedy asked with alarm whether the USA wanted to quarrel with one-sixth of the human race living in India, a democratic state? He pointed out that the US Government's policy in regard to the crisis in South Asia was difficult to understand. Such sober voices resound ever louder in the United States. However, it does not look as if the men in Washington intend to heed them. For instance, on December 6, replying to President Yahya Khan's invitation to visit Pakistan on his way to Peking, the US President thanked him and expressed the hope that the USA's "close cooperation" and "friendship" with Pakistan would continue in the future, too.

What Does Peking Want?

World public opinion has these days been pointing out that the Peking leaders have been using the UN rostrum not for seeking a peaceful settlement of the conflict between India and Pakistan but for fanning hatred and hostility, aiming the poisoned arrows of their propaganda against India and the USSR.
L'Humanite in its issue dated December 7 carried editorial comments under the heading "China and US Go On With Their Duet Directed Against USSR and India", saying that the speeches made by the PRC delegate in the UN "testify to Peking's complete indifference to the tragic fate of the 10 million Pakistani refugees as well as towards the fate of the population of East Bengal subjected to violence". L'Humanite, taking up the subject once again, stressed that "on the strength of its anti-Sovietism and because of its hostile attitude towards India, the Peking Government acted jointly with the Washington Administration."
Many newspapers of the Communist and Workers' Parties carry similar comments thee days, pointing out that the nationalistic narrow-mindedness of the Maoists, with their great-power stand of disregard for the fate of tens of millions of people, who have fallen victim to a military conflict, leads them to betray the cause of proletarian internationalism.
Even the bourgeois press points out these days—not without concealed glee—how monstrous is the stand taken by Peking. The New York Post declared on December 6 that had the situation been less serious, it would have looked like a political comedy. Peking, which had proclaimed itself to be the leader of "liberation struggles'', the paper went on, has openly supported Pakistan's attempts to suppress the aspirations of Bangla Desh for freedom. But this was a tragedy rather than a comedy. And the New York Post states that the US, in agreement with Peking, is subjecting Delhi to a heavy propaganda barrage in such fateful hours.

Demagogy and Inexorable Reality

However, all this shameful demagogy, with the aid of which attempts are being made during these alarming hours to use discussions on the most important question of war or peace for political intrigues, is powerless in the face of inexorable reality—the firm resolve of the 75-million people of East Pakistan to uphold their lawful rights.
Such is the reality. That is why the only way out of the dangerous situation that has taken shape on the Indian subcontinent lies in simultaneously ensuring an immediate ceasefire and the adoption of effective measures for a political settlement.
(APN, December 11, 1971)