Novosti Press Agency (APN)

INDIAN SUBCONTINENT NEEDS PEACE
A. MASLENNIKOV and V. SHURYGIN,
Pravda Correspondents
OF late the news agencies have been reporting increasingly alarming developments on the Indian subcontinent. It is said, for instance, that large concentrations of regular troops are massed on either side of the Indo-Pak frontier and that there are daily exchanges of fire involving artillery and mortars, resulting in casualties, among civilians, too. The situation has been aggravated to such an extent that it endangers the cause of peace in this part of the world.
The main reason for the political crisis in East Pakistan has been the refusal of the Pakistani military administration to hand over power to the civil representative bodies elected during the first general elections in December 1970. Both in the course of the poll and during mass demonstrations after the elections the people of East Pakistan clearly showed that they want that their legitimate rights and democratic aspirations should be respected. But instead of heeding the opinion of the people the Pakistani military authorities tried to find a way out of that political crisis through armed suppression and mass reprisals.
Army units, artillery and tanks were thrown against the civilian and unarmed population. The Pakistani army, according to eyewitness accounts, did not have to storm fortified areas or besiege fortresses held by the "enemy". Artillery shelling was directed against schools and universities, while the tracks of tanks smashed dilapidated huts of peasants and ordinary city dwellers. It was not surprising, therefore, that millions of East Pakistanis were compelled to leave their homeland and to flee from their country to save their lives. Whatever may be claimed today by those who try to justify the policy of repression, the number of refugees who crossed the Indian frontier speaks for itself. Every seventh inhabitant of East Pakistan has fled to India. Millions of people would not have left their homes, land and the property acquired by the efforts of generations and would not have fled to another country if they could have led a normal life in their own land.
The tragedy that befell the people of East Pakistan evoked the deep sympathy of the Soviet people. The USSR was among the first states in the world to call on the Pakistani leaders to listen to the voice of reason and to put a stop to the reprisals against the civilian population.
"We consider it our duty," N. V. Podgorny, President of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, said on April 2 in a message to Yahya Khan, "to address to you, Mr. President, on behalf of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, with an insistent appeal for the adoption of the most urgent measures to stop the bloodshed and repressions against the population in East Pakistan and for turning to methods of peaceful settlement."
Soviet public opinion has strongly condemned the campaign of political terror against and judicial trial of the lawfully elected representatives of the people, and above all of the leader of the Awami League, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. At the same time the Soviet Union highly assesses the humanistic position of the Government and the people of India who provided shelter for almost ten million East Pakistani refugees and who are sustaining the huge burden of supplying these refugees with foodstuffs, clothes, medical aid, etc.
The Soviet newspapers Pravda, Izvestia and other organs of the Soviet press have from the very beginning regularly informed their readers of the events in East Pakistan. The Soviet press has carried numerous articles and commentaries, reportages and dispatches giving detailed account of the selfless efforts of government and public agencies and ordinary people of India to help millions of East Pakistanis who have temporarily found themselves away from their homeland.
Soviet people are well aware of the complications which this problem poses before India. The Soviet Union has consequently rendered material assistance to ease the lot of the East Pakistani refugees in India. Soviet organisations have dispatched foodstuffs, clothing and medicines to India; Aeroflot planes have helped in carrying refugees into the hinterland of India.
One can only agree with the statements of the leaders of India and many other countries that the problem of East Pakistani refugees has become, both in scale and in nature, an international problem. The point is not only that the maintenance of millions of these people, who are not Indian nationals, diverts vast material resources earmarked for the fulfilment of the programmes of economic and social development of the country. The mass exodus of East Pakistani refugees to India and their pursuit by the units of the Pakistani army inevitably creates growing tension in relations between the two states and poses a direct threat of a military conflict between them.
There is no need to prove that the peoples of India and Pakistan are interested in peace. Only in conditions of peaceful development is it possible to solve the principal socio-economic problems facing these countries—the implementation of measures to increase production, improve living standards, eliminate unemployment, raises the cultural level, to democratise the social and political life, etc. An armed conflict would lead to untold sufferings, destruction of material values and human casualties whose scale is difficult to guess today. It must not be forgotten that the destructive power of modern means of warfare has increased to such a degree that the distinction between the front and the rear is practically obliterated. In such circumstances the economic and social consequences of an armed conflict might appear heavier than the difficulties now experienced by these countries.
It is hard to foresee all the political consequences of such a course of events. Historical experience suggests that the atmosphere of enhanced military passions is usually employed by the right-wing reactionary forces to mount an offensive against the political and social gains of the working masses. Nor can one fail to see that attempts are being made by the enemies of the Indian and Pakistani peoples, the corner-stone of whose policy is to utilise contradictions between these two neighbouring states, to cash in on the tension in the Indian subcontinent.
All this urgently calls for a political solution of the existing crisis. Statements by India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that India wants to avoid a military conflict with Pakistan and would prefer a peaceful political settlement of the refugee problem have been met with satisfaction in the Soviet Union. Sober voices have also been heard of late on the part of individual politicians and statesmen in Pakistan. This holds out the hope that in the end statesmanship will prevail in relations between India and Pakistan and a peaceful solution will be found to the problems that have arisen.
The interests of safeguarding peace, says the joint Soviet-Indian statement on Mrs. Indira Gandhi's visit to the Soviet Union, demand the adoption of urgent measures to arrive at a political solution of the problems that have arisen in East Pakistan and to ensure a speedy and safe return of the refugees to their homes in conditions where their honour and dignity would be safe.
Of late the Pakistani leaders have repeatedly stated that they are ready to admit back all "genuine Pakistani citizens" and reception camps have been set up for those wanting to return. But at the same time attempts are being made to create the impression that the solution of the refugee problem is obstructed by the Indian authorities which, they claim, are stopping the East Pakistanis from going back.
But the facts show that while the reception camps in East Pakistan are virtually empty, thousands of refugees continue to cross daily into India. Reports coming from East Pakistan reveal that the amnesty which was proclaimed there covered only an insignificant number of people, while the bulk of political prisoners arrested during the repression campaign still languish in prison. Ignoring world public opinion, the Pakistani authorities continue their travesty of a trial of Mujibur Rahman.
What is more, as is clear from reports in the Pakistani press itself, demonstrations under the provocative slogans of starting a "holy war against India", etc., were quite recently inspired in some cities of West Pakistan. Some statesmen and politicians in their public statements try to distort the peaceful aims of Soviet foreign policy and to question, contrary to obvious facts, the Soviet Union's position aimed at the preservation of peace and security in the Indian subcontinent.
The facts, thus, show that the question of providing conditions for a political solution to the problems that have arisen, including the return of the refugees, still awaits solution.
"The situation that has arisen in the Indian subcontinent in connection with events in East Pakistan arouses the anxiety of the Soviet Government," said the Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, A. N. Kosygin, speaking at a luncheon in honour of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. "We clearly comprehend the complexity of the questions that have emerged as a result of these events in the relations between India and Pakistan. It is impossible to justify the actions of the Pakistani authorities which have compelled millions of people to leave their country, the land and property and to seek refuge in neighbouring India ...
"The task is to prevent the straining of relations between India and Pakistan."
"To ease the situation, it is necessary, above all, that an opportunity is given to the refugees of returning home, that the Pakistani authorities give them full guarantee that they will not be persecuted and that they will have an opportunity of living and working peacefully in East Pakistan. The peace-loving public of all countries, all friends of India and Pakistan expect from the Pakistani authorities an early political settlement in East Pakistan which would take into account the legitimate interests of its population, would safeguard its normal development and eliminate the threat of further aggravation of Pakistani-Indian relations. Such an approach, we are convinced, would accord with the interests of the Pakistani people and the cause of peace in that region."
(APN, November 26, 1971)