25111948 Text of the Speech made by Sir Mohammed Zafrullah Khan (Pakistan) in the Security Council Meeting No. 382 held on 25 November 1948
25111948 Text of the Speech made by Sir Mohammed Zafrullah Khan (Pakistan) in the Security Council Meeting No. 382 held on 25 November 1948
I apologize for asking to intervene at this stage. If I do so, it is not out of any desire either to prolong the discussion this afternoon in any manner or to do anything which might obstruct or delay the efforts of the Commission to secure a peaceful settlement of this dispute which has been pending so long. My desire is to draw attention to just one limited aspect of the problem which, if not advertised to at this stage, might contribute to causing the very obstruction and delay, and possibly even the failure, of the efforts on which the Commission is at the moment engaged.
In the first place, I should like to express my tribute and that of my Government to the anxiety, diligence and devotion which the Commission has brought to bear upon the very delicate and very important task upon which it has been engaged.
As the Chairman of the Commission has already intimated to the Security Council, the Commission has very recently handed to the representatives of the two Governments a set of what I might describe as proposals-very informal at this stage -which, in the view of the Commission, might enable the parties to bridge the differences between them which at the present moment are obstructing a settlement. In order that Those proposals may have a chance of being calmly considered and that there may be the maximum possible chance of their being agreed to as a basis for carrying the work of the Commission further; it is absolutely essential that the atmosphere between the two Governments should continue to be as unruffled as possible.
It will be recalled that, under the instructions of my Government, I have recently addressed a letter to the Security Council through the Commission. I followed the procedure of submitting that letter to the Security Council through the Commission for the very reason that, when I received the directions to present that letter to the Security Council, I knew that the Commission was then engaged upon the elaboration of those proposals which have recently been handed to the representatives of the two Governments, and I was therefore very anxious that nothing should be done which might in any manner interrupt or, as I have said, obstruct the very delicate stage of the work upon which the Commission was engaged. But that document, as the Security Council is aware, related to the actual military situation as it has recently developed on the front. No doubt, no one single phase of the military development is more directly concerned with the work of the Commission than the whole problem is; and, even in drawing attention to that, I wish to make it quite clear that it is not my desire in any manner to take any aspect of the problem out of the purview of the Commission, as it were, and to try to bring it before the Security Council. I should be perfectly happy if the Commission were to continue to deal not only with the aspects of the problem upon which it is at present engaged, but also with any ad hoc or urgent emergency questions that might in the meantime arise.
However, this particular situation is such that, if something is not done immediately, in some manner, to stop it from deteriorating and to stabilize it, the very efforts upon which the Commission is engaged might unfortunately prove fruitless. I am anxious to prevent that from happening and that has prompted me to ask permission to intervene in the discussion, at this stage.
The letter to which I have drawn attention, and which is now nearly a week old, sets out briefly the military situation as it has developed. I have since received further communications one of which was handed to me at this table a few moments ago -which show that the delicacy of that situation is now indeed extreme, in the sense that the military situation has resulted in a large number of refugees from certain areas in Kashmir being actually on the march in order to reach and find safety in Pakistani areas. The Chairman of the Commission has just informed the Security Council that his information from Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai is that the action upon which the Indian military is engaged is of a somewhat formal character, to secure one or two objectives in the field.
I am afraid that is not so. No doubt the Chairman of the Commission has been informed to that effect. I have got the material here on the basis of which, if it were necessary, I could substantiate by reference to chapter and verse that that is an entirely wrong picture of what is actually happening. In the first place, the very increase of the numbers and the armour on the Indian side indicates that that is not so. But apart from that, look at two aspects of it. The main military action is being taken in two areas.
First of all it is being taken in the South, where during the last few days, an advance of at least fifty miles has been made, resulting in the occupation of over one thousand square miles of area populated entirely, down to the last individual, by Muslims, at least fifty thousand of whom-as I have already submitted-are on the march towards Pakistan and a minimum of another fifty thousand have been cut off by the advance of the Indian Army and prevented from reaching Pakistan. That does not show that the action taken is one of a purely formal kind aimed at correcting a situation that might have arisen, even if by any stretch of imagination the Indian action could be so described. The situation that is sought to be corrected in that sector, has been in existence for many months.
In the Ladakh area in the North, the advance amounts, by this time, to at least fifty miles, although there the area being sparsely populated-such large numbers of the actual population are not concerned. But that advance has cut off a certain number of Azad troops. If action of that kind can be called purely corrective, on the other hand it might be taken as an attempt to secure a release of those troops that have been cut off.
The situation is bound to continue deteriorating. This morning's issue of the Continental Daily Mail contains an item of news which I found very distressing from the point of view of the chances of reaching a peaceful settlement of this very important but delicate question between the two Dominions. It is said there that artillery duels had taken place all along a line between Tithwal and Jhangar in West Kashmir. That is practically the whole line, in the South, along which troops are facing each other.
If nothing happens almost immediately to prevent, in some manner, the further deterioration of this situation, one of two consequences is bound to follow.
On the one hand, Pakistan may be compelled to oppose this all-out effort by an all-out effort on its own, which would mean a complete flare up on all fronts. I may remark parenthetically that during the first half of May, Pakistan, as the result of similar action then taken by the Indian military forces had to send in its troops to halt the Indian forces a certain points beyond the Pakistan borders to stop streams of refugees that had started pouring into Pakistan, and to protect certain Pakistan interests inside Azad territory, for instance, the Mangla Head Works, which feeds one of the main irrigation canals of West Punjab.
Up till now, during the six months that have elapsed, since the entry of Pakistan troops into the State, Pakistan has altogether refrained from using either its armour or its air force in the hope that such defensive action that it had to take would continue to be limited to the two objectives that I have pointed out. Pakistan has so far shown great restraint, but during the last week, the situation has been such, and has rapidly developed in such proportions that Pakistan cannot afford to continue to look on and let the situation deteriorate. We are passionately anxious that a way should be found for the peaceful settlement of the problem, but we cannot overlook the situation as it is actually developing on the spot.
If, while efforts are being made to find a peaceful solution and we are cooperating with the Commission to find such a solution and, as I have said, we hope nothing will be done which I in any manner handicap the progress of the negotiations that are now underway as the result of the proposals recently made by the Commission-the military situation on the spot leads to a full-scale conflict between the two countries, then the Security Council can itself appreciate what chance will be left of reaching a peaceful settlement. That is one consequence that might flow from the unfortunate situation that has developed.
The second consequence may be that if Pakistan merely continues in a defensive role, as it has done so far, then, shortly, no scope may be left for any kind of peaceful settlement of the problem.
India has, from the very beginning, been anxious to score a military decision in Kashmir. When that is achieved, no scope will be left for any settlement by mutual discussion, or any agreement on a scheme for a peaceful solution to this problem. I appreciate the observations that have fallen from the lips of some members of the Security Council that the problem should continue to be dealt with by the Commission-and I heartily endorse these observations. There is no other way of dealing with the problem and in any case, the Commission has reached a stage when it is within sight of a possible settlement by peaceful means. The Council or the Commission, as the case may be, are under the urgent necessity of first addressing this question: what is to be done to stabilize the military situation? If it is correct-assuming that it is-as has been reported by the Chairman of the Commission and by Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai, that the action taken by the military forces of India in the State was only of a formal or a corrective nature, in spite of
the serious deterioration of the situation which has already taken place, why should there now be any difficulty-that action having been taken, and taken more than completely successfully, whatever the objective may have been and having resulted in a situation which is likely to prove another serious jolt to the economy of Pakistan as the result of the refugee problem-why should there be any difficulty in reaching an understanding that things should stay as they are until the Commission's proposals have had a chance of being calmly discussed and, let us hope, accepted by the parties, so that the solution of this problem along peaceful lines may be achieved?
As I have said, the military situation is very dynamic. I have just received a telegram from Karachi with regard to the latest military developments. The telegram relates only to one sector, and one single item will show the Security Council how delicate the situation is.
Following the capture of Mendhar, in the Poonch sector, the telegram states the following:
"Fifty thousand refugees are reportedly cut off. Large numbers of additional refugees with sheep and cattle are moving westward. Further reports of Royal Indian Air Force attacks on them."
Compare this with the second telegram. That telegram stated, as I have already said, that fifty thousand refugees were already on the move from this area towards Pakistan. This means that large numbers of additional refugees with sheep and cattle are moving westward, that they are being attacked from the air, and that fifty thousand refugees on the other side of the line established by the Indian military forces have been cut off.
The telegram adds:
"Indian broadcasts on 24 November described operations as 'more or less offensive' and laid much stress on the welcome which the Indian Army received from Muslims in the liberated areas."
I do not want to raise the purely technical point of whether Sir Girja Bajpai was or was not accurate in describing the situation to the Chairman of the United Nations Commission as being merely corrective. But what I want to do, with all the earnestness that I can command, is to submit that whether the action is described as corrective or defensive or offensive, that is the situation, and, if the situation is allowed to continue as it is, the members of the Security Council can themselves visualize the alternative with which the Pakistan Government and even the United Nations Commission would be faced.
I hope that the members of the Security Council will forgive me for my intervention. I do not wish to prolong the discussions or my submission to the Security Council, but if it would be considered necessary that I should submit any material, I have it all here. I have described what the situation is. It threatens on the one hand to blow up into a full scale conflict, with consequences which are too terrible to imagine, or, on the other, to render absolutely futile and fruitless the very diligent efforts upon which the Commission is now engaged to bring about a solution of the dispute.