06091965 Text of the speech made by Mr. Amjad All (Pakistan) in the Security Council meeting No. 1238 held on 6 September 1965.
06091965 Text of the speech made by Mr. Amjad All (Pakistan) in the Security Council meeting No. 1238 held on 6 September 1965.
The invasion of Pakistan by India is an event to which there is no parallel in the history of the United Nations. It is not only a brazen aggression on the territory of a Member State; it is a deliberate transgression of the very purposes and principles of the United Nations. Not since the combined strength of the allied nations vanquished Hitler's hordes has the world been witness to a Power as crazed and cruel and contemptuous of the rights and existence of small nations as India under its aggressive and militant regime. What Hitler and the Nazis did in Europe, India has taken upon itself to do in Asia.
This morning. India flung down the gauntlet to all the nations and peoples of the world who value freedom and abhor war. If Pakistan has accepted this challenge, it has done so not only on its own behalf but also on behalf of every nation which has a stake in the principle of independence, equal sovereignty and self-determination of peoples. The severe test which my nation faces now is what will bring it glory in the eyes of those who would die rather than surrender before a perverse and predatory Power.
I can pledge to you, on behalf of my Government, that we will not capitulate. We will not surrender one inch of our territory, one fraction of our rights, one iota of the principle of self-determination of peoples which we have tried to uphold here in the Security Council through eighteen long years.
Pakistan is one-fifth India's size. This is one basic fact which should not be forgotten on this occasion. I repeat Pakistan is one-fifth-India's size and immeasurably smaller in military capacity and economic potential. This fact has been an element in our constant, collective awareness. That we have never lost sight of it is proof enough of the utter absurdity of any notion that we could even secretly harbour aggressive designs upon India. Our President has, time and time again, in public and in private, expostulated with his own people and with the leaders of India about the insanity of war between India and Pakistan. But while we are, and have always been, conscious that we are much smaller than India, and can much less boast of armour, we have not on that account been prepared to countenance India's usurpation of Kashmir. Geographically small and militarily weaker though we may be, we are not craven. We have never hesitated to challenge India's annexation of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, which is against the wishes of its people and in utter contempt of the solemn, international agreement contained in the resolution of 5 January 1949 that the accession of the State to India or to Pakistan shall be determined by a free and impartial plebiscite conducted under the direction and control of the United Nations. In times of tranquility as much as in times of turbulence, we have knocked at the doors of the Security Council, asking nothing but that this agreement be implemented, this pledge be fulfilled, this trust not be allowed to be betrayed. And while we have too often been disappointed, we have never denied the assurance to the downtrodden people of Kashmir that they will not be abandoned to a fate of oppression under India's colonial rule. We have reminded them again and again that there is a United Nations, that there is such a thing as the sanctity of international agreements, that all the world Powers are committed to the principle of self-determination of peoples, that these Powers have vowed the liquidation of colonialism, and that the pledge of allowing the people of Kashmir to decide their future without any pressure or intimidation from outside is a pledge as much from the Security Council as from India and Pakistan. We have assured them that, in this day and age, decency is bound to prevail in international affairs and that this pledge will not be dishonored.
If this is a crime, we plead guilty. And we willingly submit ourselves to the bar of public opinion in the world.
The treachery of the attack that we have suffered today is self-evident, Far more eloquently than any words I can summon, each event, each development, as reported in the world, will proclaim the aggressor's shame. Let not this treachery be lessened in the world's eyes if I say that, to us in Pakistan, it has come as the culmination of a series of planned, perfidious, provocative acts of the Government of India, which started as early as December 1964.
The first manifestations of this policy of the Indian Government were political. It will be recalled that the Security Council held a series of meetings on the India-Pakistan question in early 1964, during which Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, the leader who advocates the right of the people of Kashmir to determine their destiny, was released. The Security Council welcomed this development and all members expressed the hope that Sheikh Abdullah's efforts would be allowed to bear fruit in a just and honourable settlement of the Kashmir dispute and a reconciliation between India and Pakistan. At the end of its series of meetings, the Council appealed for a climate of modern nation between the two countries. On our part, the Foreign Minister of Pakistan even offered a moratorium on all contentious issues between India and Pakistan so that the new leadership in India would have time to settle down. Somehow, we encouraged a birth of hope in Pakistan that sane counsels would prevail in India and that the dark shadows hanging over the subcontinent might now be heightened.
What was India's response? How did India react to these currents of good will from our side ? It first started a propaganda barrage against Sheikh Abdullah. Then on 4 December, the Home Minister of India announced that nis Government had decided to annex Kashmir to India in such a manner as to make it impossible for the people of Kashmir ever to exercise their right of self-determination. The protests of the people of Kashmir, and our own, were answered in May by India's act of putting Sheikh Abdullah back in prison.
This was just the political prelude to military moves which soon followed. The Indian Prime Minister, Mr. Shastri, stated in Lok Sabha on 28 April that "If Pakistan does not listen to reason"-implying that if Pakistan does not accept Indian dictation in the Rann of Kutch dispute- "Indian Army will decide its own strategy and the employment of its manpower and equipment in the manner which it deems best." This threat was repeated by other Indian leaders. Following these open threats, Indian troops massed in offensive positions along the borders of west Pakistan and East Pakistan. These warlike preparations and hostile moves against Pakistan were taking place whilst negotiations were in progress for a peaceful settlement of the Rann of Kutch dispute. In order to facilitate these negotiations, Pakistan restrained its forces in the Rann of Kutch from advancing to the 24th parallel-where the India-Pakistan border lies-following the surrender of Biar Bet by Indian forces on 27 April. It is important to remember that India had publicly threatened to take military action against Pakistan at a time and place of its own choice.
On 17 May, India's forces deliberately crossed the cease fire line in Kashmir in the Kargil area and occupied three posts of the Pakistan side. This threat, as well as the act of moving a brigade from the Aksai Chin front-and-a maintain division. from the Nefa area, where Indian forces were supposed to guard India on the Chinese border, were two clear pointers to Indian designs on Kashmir.
All this had nothing to do with the so-called infiltration of armed men into Indian-occupied Kashmir. What was the truth about this so-called infiltration? We declared solemnly. before the Secretary-General that no troops of Pakistan or Azad Kashmir crossed the cease-fire line. India alleged otherwise. But we vindicated our stand when we suggested that Mr. Ralph Bunche, the personal representative of the Secretary-General, proceed with an unrestricted mandate to both parts of Kashmir and examine the situation for himself. If there was any truth in India's allegations, why did India fight shy of the proposed mission of Mr. Bunche ?
The fact is that this alibi that Indian action in Kashmir in August had the limited objective of stopping the so-called infiltrators was meant only to delude that outside opinion which is not conversant with the realities of India and Pakistan. Otherwise, how did it happen that India mounted an offensive in Kashmir which far exceeded the action of the freedom fighters in Kashmir ?
As the Security Council is well aware, the cease-fire line in Kashmir had been in a state of agitation for almost a year, with numerous violations on both sides. A technical report from the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) could not bring out the relative magnitude of these incidents. It is one thing for the cease-fire line to be violated; it is another for the part of Kashmir on one side of the cease-fire line to be invaded. There is a difference between violation and invasion.
It was India that staged an invasion in Kashmir and thus reduced the cease-fire line to a nullity. This was done with public fanfare. On 14 August, India's agent in Kashmir Ghulam Muhammad Sadiq, whom it designates as Prime Minister of Kashmir, said that the invasion of Azad Kashmir could not be ruled out. On 22 August, the Prime Minister of India said that India would carry the fight to the Pakistan side. On 23 August; the Defence Minister of India stated in the Indian Parliament that Indian troops had in the past been crossing the cease-fire line and would do so again if necessary. The same day, Indian forces shelled the village of Awan Sharif in West Pakistan, killing twenty civilians and wounding thirteen, including women and children. On 24 August, the Defence Minister of India announced in the Indian Parliament that India had crossed the cease-fire line in Kashmir. That announcement was greeted by cheers and thumping of desks in the Indian Parliament and screaming headlines in Indian newspapers. The same day Indian forces seized two posts in Azad Kashmir in the Tithwal sector and, later, overran the Haji Pir Pass. On 28 August, an official spokesman of the Government of India said: "The only effective measure we can take at the moment is advance and that advance carries us across the cease-fire line."
As The Times of London reported on 2 September: "India has for the past few weeks been enjoying accounts of the victorious advance into Pakistan territory."
Faced with this clear aggression, what did Pakistan do ? We remained patient for two weeks. Our army refrained from crossing the cease fire line. We even refrained from giving air support to isolated posts in the Uri-Poonch sector, which faced overwhelming Indian forces unaided.
But India was not stopped from its deliberate course by our moderation and restraint. When we found that our controlled reaction could not bring sanity to India and we were forced to take defensive action in the Chamb area of Kashmir to forestall further aggression. India was the first to throw aircraft into combat and thus make another move towards the escalation of the conflict.
This brief account clearly shows that until yesterday. there were the following outstanding facts of the present conflict between India and Pakistan: India was the first to destroy the atmosphere of moderation which was sought to be established between the two countries; India offered gratuitous provocation to Pakistan as much as to the United Nations when in December 1964 it proceeded to annex Kashmir so as to thwart forever the self-determination of the people of Kashmir; India committed a blatant act of aggression when, in May, it seized three posts on the Pakistan side of the cease-fire line in the Kargil area of Kashmir; India announced on 29 April that its army would choose a place advantageous to it directly to strike Pakistan; India was the first to cross the cease-fire line in Kashmir; India was the first to bring aircraft into fighting and thus enlarge the conflict.
These were the outstanding facts of the Indian-Pakistan situation until yesterday. But they are exceeded, though not eclipsed, by today's events. On these events, I can do no better than quote the words of my President in his broadcast to the nation today, 6 September:
"All India's military preparations during the last eighteen years have been directed against us. They exploited the Chinese bogey to secure massive arms assistance from some of our friends in the West who never understood the mind of the Indian rulers and permitted themselves to be taken in by the Indian avowal that once they were fully armed they would fight the Chinese.
"We always knew that these arms would be raised against us. Time has proved this to be so.
"Now that the Indian rulers with their customary cowardice and hypocrisy have ordered their armies to march into the sacred territory of Pakistan without a formal declaration of war, time has come for us to give them a crushing reply which will put an end to India's adventure in imperialism.
"The brave people of Lahore have been chosen as the first to confront the enemy. They will remain in history as the people who delivered the last blow to destroy the enemy. The hundred million people of Pakistan will not rest until India's guns are silenced forever."
The actual events reported so far are that the Indian Army launched an attack on Pakistan territory on the Lahore front early this morning. This was preceded by heavy artillery. shelling. Indian Air Force strafed a stationary passenger train near Wazirabad railway station. The President of Pakistan has described this outrage as a grim sequel to India's wilful acts of aggression. I should like to quote from paragraph 4 (g) of the Secretary-General's report [S/6661] :
"General Nimmo reported in the early morning of 6 September that the following information had just been received from the CGS Pakistan Command: 'On 6 September 1965, at 5 a.m. Indian troops have attacked across the West Pakistan border from Jassar Bridge (Pathankot area and south to Sulaimani). Major attacks Lahore, Sialkot from Jassar and Kasur from Ferozepur (all in Pakistan). Estimated strength of the whole Indian Army is less than four divisions.'
I understand from news reports that India is making use of several pretexts to justify its treachery. One of these is that a Pakistani plane strafed an Indian base in Amritsar yesterday. I totally and vehemently deny that allegation. Another is that our forces crossed the "international frontier" into Jammu and Kashmir. Let me make it clear that there is no international. frontier between any part of Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan. Jammu and Kashmir is not a State or province of the Indian. Union but a territory in dispute whose disposition is yet to be determined according to the law of the United Nations. There in no international frontier between Pakistan and Indian-occupied Kashmir Any more than there is an international frontier between Pakistan and Azad Kashmir.
But, in sheer disingenuousness, the inventive capacity of India's rulers is inexhaustible. One of the statements made. today and reported in news dispatches is that India has not declared war on Pakistan but is only launching a limited action on the territory of Pakistan to destroy bases of operation in Kashmir. The world is all too familiar with the pretexts chosen by aggressors for their invasions of other nations' territories. Did Hitler ever lack an excuse? The rulers of India are, and have always been, adept practitioners of Nazi craft. They invaded and overrun Junagadh in 1948 and called it a police action. They invaded and overrun Hyderabad in the same year and called it a police action. They conducted a campaign of genocide against the brave Naga people in the north-east and called it a security action. They invaded Goa-even though their claim to Goa could be justified on other grounds-and called it a police action. It was on this occasion that the representative of India came to this table and definitely said, "Charter or no Charter, Council or no Council". And, now, India has invaded Pakistan again under the cover of a police action.
But no such cover or excuse can possibly hide the nakedness of India's aggression today. Its record of four initiatives towards war is not, and cannot be, matched by any other nation today. Indeed, few nations in history could boast of this accomplishment in a span of eighteen years, except in conditions of general war. Underlying these brazen acts of use of force is India's consistent attitude in the Kashmir dispute. It is the attitude of thwarting every mpt, resisting every move, spurn ing every offer ignoring every Security Council resolution which would facilitate the implementation of the international agreement enshrined in the two resolutions of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan of 13 August 1948 and 5 January 1949, jointly accepted by India and Pakistan. The agreement makes it the firm obligation of India and Pakistan to demilitarize Kashmir and enable a free and impartial plebiscite there.
This is the full picture of India's policy towards Pakistan and other neighbouring peoples. We have known since the establishment of India and Pakistan as two sovereign States that the mentality of Indian rulers has always sought to undo the partition of British India, affected by agreement in 1947, and to annex Pakistan. They have always given hints to this, sometimes blatant, sometimes subtle. Their occupation of Kashmir, as we have demonstrated time and again in the Security Council, is but a vital part of their-designs of eventually crushing Pakistan. These designs have been brutally brought to our notice whenever it suited India's policy to intimidate us. At other times they have been concealed. We had not yet established ourselves in 1947 when India did its level best to ensure that the new State of Pakistan died in its infancy. We then passed through fire. At that time, the founder of our State, Quaid-I-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, said and I quote: "God is great, No surrender until they lift us bodily and throw us into the Arabian Sea. No surrender."
I can assure you that every soul in Pakistan echoes these words today.
At this grave hour Pakistan appeals to all free and freedom loving countries to give us their full support in the exercise of our inherent right of individual and collective self defence, recognized in Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. As the Foreign Minister of Pakistan has said in his message of 6 September [S/6669] to you, Mr. President, Pakistan will exercise this right until the Security Council has taken effective measures to restore international peace and security by vacating India's aggression against Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir, which India has forcibly and illegally occupied in violation of the United Nations resolution. The aggression unleashed by India against our country poses for the United Nations one of the most serious challenges to its very basis. The situation calls for action by the Security Council immediately, including enforcement action to put an end to the Indian aggression and to restore international peace and security on the basis which I have just stated. This is the only way to secure a lasting peace in the region.