00001976 Pakistan Prime Minister Z.A. Bhutto s interview of 1976 Published in Tehran Journal.
00001976 Pakistan Prime Minister Z.A. Bhutto s interview of 1976 Published in Tehran Journal.
Question: This distinction between the line of peace and the international line has been made in Kashmir. But you have said you can't compromise on Kashmir. I recall a magnificent speech made in August 1973, when you became Prime Minister. You said that it needed courage to face realities and that it was time for the country to get rid of the Bangladesh syndrome. Now what about the Kashmir syndrome?
Answer: There is a very big difference between the two, Bangladesh was one thousand miles away and originally the Lahore Resolution spoke of two states. It was later on in 1946 that the leadership of Muslim Bengal insisted upon a Federation rather than a Confederation and they changed the original Lahore Resolution at a convention which was held in Delhi.
Kashmir on the other hand is geographically contiguous to Pakistan. Our rivers which you see so full of mischief these days have their water-sheds in Kashmir, the Indus passes through the state of Jammu and Kashmir, and the Chenab also flows through the disputed state. So our rivers are linked and our economy is linked: We are linked by race, by culture and by religion. Therefore, there is a distinct difference between the two situations which you described as syndromes.
1947 the areas forming West Pakistan were Muslim majority areas and they voted against exploitation and perpetual domination to come together. The Kashmir people have never had the opportunity to vote on the question, although the United Nations, Pakistan and India promised them that right in the form of a plebiscite. In the State of Jammu and Kashmir, apart from geography, there are additional and of blood. So many people in Punjab are from Kashmir. They came a generation or two ago and are still known as Kashmiris. Allama Iqbal himself was of a Kashmiri family settled in Punjab. These factors did not exist between Bangladesh and Pakistan. So I think there is a world of a difference between the two positions. That is why in Simla, although we were at that time in the midst of our worst crisis and hardly in a position to be able to negotiate, hardly in a position to be able to resist, Pakistan did not compromise on Kashmir. Since we did not compromise on Kashmir in Simla, I fail to understand why we should compromise on such a fundamental issue now. As I said the other night there are some issues on which a compromise can lead to a greater complication.
We are quite prepared to have bilateral negotiations with India, on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, within the framework of the Simla agreement. I am quite prepared, whenever the Indian Government is ready-and by that I do not mean that we are going to wait for another generation but for a reasonable period of time-in the foreseeable future to discuss the matter. India should recognize reality and come to grips with this problem. India cannot avoid having discussions with Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. reality, it has existed all these years but attempts to resolve it have failed. We should try again.
In the reasonable, foreseeable future-let us say soon after the elections that are to take place in India and Pakistan -with fresh electoral mandates we should take up this issue and hold discussions on it. I have said we are prepared for bilateral negotiations, and you know I have great faith in bilateralism. I believe it to be the most efficacious method of resolving disbutes.
If these bilateral negotiations fail, we are prepared to consider other peaceful avenues for the settlement of the dispute even going to the United Nations although our experience there, for about a quarter of a century, has made us somewhat cynical about the outcome of its resolutions. There are other methods we can consider, arbitration, mediation, or informal good office. Peaceful methods have been tried in equally complicated problems in the past. They have been tried with success by other states. So all these peaceful methods are open to India and Pakistan to arrive at a solution and that is why, since we are concentrating on a peaceful solution, we can contemplate no war over Jammu and Kashmir, that is why I call it a line of peace, the line of war. It will remain a line of peace but I do not say that it is going to become an international frontier. There is a difference between a line of peace and an international frontier. If I had said that the Ceasefire Line was going to become the international frontier then it could have been interpreted to mean. that I had conceded the part of Kashmir which is held by India. I did not use those world "line of peace" in contrast to the line of war but, it, nevertheless, remains a ceasefire line. They are holding their side of the line and we are holding our side of the line. The ceasefire line is not being hotted up as it was sometimes in the past.
Question: Having demarcated the boundary of control, is it not logical to keep the momentum of rapprochement? by allowing over-land trade across what you call the line of peace.
Ans: Who are professionals in negativism? They thrive on negativism and they thrive on contradictions and on misrepresentation. They try to exploit the people. They think that the world has not moved since 1936 or 1948 or 1958 or 1968. Ye, in terms of the calendar they might think that we are in 1976, but the concept of how the world is moving today is completely alien to them. They are not in it, not part of it because they don't have a broad vision. They have not seen the world. Some of them have seen the world as tourists but not as observers, scholars or political analysts. They have not been abroad to study problems. They have not, for instance, studied the German problem, they have not seen how Willy Brandt and the Germans overcame their difficulties. They do not seem to be aware of the Trieste question and how it was approached and resolved. They have not observed how the Shahanshah has overcome the question of the Iran- Iraq difference. They have not studied how the European Economic Community came into being.
You know that in politics you have to study various developments that take place. As I said in Quetta, the other day, it is we who form part of the world and not the. world that forms part of us. We cannot be oblivious to the trends and the tendencies that emerge in the world from time to time, how powerful is the impact they have on various events and situations Taking a lesson from something that has been done elsewhere in the world does not mean that we are compromising on our principles. They are sacrosanct. But, apart from basic principles there are other issues which can be resolved. We should go in search of a solution on the basis I have outlined, and this means also that we should discard a colonial or a clerical outlook.
Some people get worked up about joint communiques. They think that the problems of the whole world can be settled in joint communiques, such people have complexes. Some of them in our country do not want Pakistan to move forward. They do not want Pakistan to form part of today's civilized world which is marching ahead. They want to tie down to the past to retain the past slogans, retain the past hatreds and to retain the past bitterness. As I said they are professional negativists and they tell lies. If for instance, in our relations with India we have adhered to the Simia agreement, we have no secret agreement with India at all. If there were one, the secret would be out by now teen out. What is it that remains secret in the world of today? Is it possible to keep an agreement secret for your years?
Recently, Kissinger talked to me here on the nuclear reprocessing plant and the next morning there were stories about it in newspapers in London and Paris. So it is quite absurd to think that secrecy can be maintained as fundamental matters four yours. But they keep telling our people that secret agreements also were concluded at Simla between India and Pakistan.
This sort of thing used to happen in the days of secret diplomacy, in the era of Bismark when agreements were made above and under the table.
This does not prevent our critics from repeating that we are selling out Pakistan's sovereignty to India. Perhaps, they also think that the era of repeating big lies is not yet over.
Pakistan regards Iran a friendly and fraternal country, it purchased some onions and potatoes which are perishable commodities from India and it wanted us to see that the potatoes and onions reached Iran without perishing because your people needed those commodities. I received an urgent message from His Imperial Majesty's Government saying that they needed vegetables urgently. We said: Yes, of course? After all we are brothers, we must both act like brothers and show we are brothers. So we said we would allow transit of the goods even though they were Indian goods. We said we would allow Iranian trucks to take these goods into Iran. What a fuss was made over it by our opponents and how virulent was the propaganda they carried on: They said that this concession was only the beginning and after Iran there would be India, and once India came into the picture there would be disaster. But who has given India permission to send its trucks over our roads, Atapour: Is the option open to the people of Jammu and Kashmir to become an independent state or join either India or Pakistan ?
Bhutto: Now you are talking about an independent state. We are placing our case on two principles of international law. One is the right of self-determination and the other, which is more important, the agreement between two parties That agreement says that the Kashmir dispute would be settled by the exercise of the right of self-determination by the people whether the state of Jammu and Kashmir should accede to India or to Pakistan. We attach the highest importance to international agreements.
If the international agreement between India and Pakistan was of a different nature, then that would have taken. precedence over the general principle of international law. The principle of general international law, as you know very well, is always superseded by an agreement. It so happens that in this case the agreement did not go against the right of self determination.
The agreement says that the right of self-determination is to be exercised but that the choice is confined to accession by the state of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan and there is no third choice. If we allow a third choice, we break the agreement. To us that agreement has more value than the general principle of self-determination. The general principle of self-determination also has a value and we are glad that this general principle, this universal principle, has been incorporated in the agreement. So there is inconsistency and we would not like to break the agreement. Why should we break it ? Should we do it for something vague, for some flimsy notion which will be brushed aside, in time, and with it Pakistan's moral position which is the main pillar of Pakistan's case. And we will have also lost the legal basis of our case and for what? Not for a settlement: then why should we break that agreement and toy with an adventuristic notion ? Answer: The agreement is not open to negotiations. We say that the agreement is binding and the agreement binds us to the right of self-determination for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. It is for them to choose between India and Pakistan. If we say that a third choice is open then we will be breaking the agreement.
Question: What I meant to ask Mr. Prime Minister was that if there is a new agreement.
Answer: Even if there is a new agreement we shall not abandon the principle of self-determination. We will not give up that general principle. We say that the new agreement has to be based on that general principle.
Question: Would it not, in all fairness, be more logical to have for example, a separate referendum in Kashmir and a separate referendum in Jammu.
Answer: This is a hypothetical question and not at all relevant to a practical solution of the problem. First of all, in spite of the agreement and in spite of the general principle the UN Resolution remains defied. Why then open a Pandora's box and go into the realm of fantasy and discuss hypothetical questions? When this clear-cut, simple resolution is being defied by India, what makes you think that India will be in a better frame of mind to agree to something different? Why should we encourage India to break the agreement which contains one of the most important principles of international law? If international agreements are to be broken, we will not fall back on arbitrary considerations or arrangements made for expediency. We stay with the principle that the right of self determination should remain with the people.
Question: When do you think relations between India and Pakistan will resemble those that exist between Sweden and Norway, an analogy that you, Mr. Prime Minister, have drawn in your book The Myth of Independence ?
Answer: That can happen once the Kashmir dispute is resolved. I see no difficulty. There should be an enormous the Kashmir improvement in our mutual relations once the dispute is resolved. It is a great tragedy that the Kashmir dispute has prevented us. from opening up new vistas of boundless cooperation and I firmly believe that once we have found a satisfactory solution to the Kashmir dispute we shall. respond whole-heartedly for good relations with India. That when the original concept of Pakistan was envisaged by Quaid i-Azam, he did not want Pakistan to be in perpetual enmity with India. He did not create a state so that it could always be at war with india. His whole concept was to the contrary. Quaid-i-Azam said and felt that since we could nor live together in one country, it would be better for us to separate to form two sovereign states, to get our psychological, political and economic security by the formation of those two separate states and then to live as equals as brothers and friends. Pakistan to him was the basis of creating equality between the Hindu community and the Muslim community. Equality alone would result in a most congenial relationship between the two countries. Do you know he even envisaged that he could go after independence and live in his house in Bombay? He had spoken to many people about this. And said that we will be living on the basis of equality as brothers and have a house here and sometimes in winter go and live in a house there.
He did not expect the carnage and bloodbath that took place when the subcontinent was partitioned. Nor did he expect the two countries to be in a perpetual turmoil and conflict. His whole concept was of India and Pakistan as two equal sovereign states with the necessary psychological and political security to live like Sweden and Norway. But then the Kashmir issue came in and upset everything.
Question: Sir, referring to your book The Myth of Independence and recalling Dr. Kissinger's speech in Lahore, one is bound to say that your China policy of the 1960's was real pioneer statesmanship. From the perspective of history, however, can it be said that your opening up to China was inspired by strategic considerations vis-a-vis India?
Answer: No, not vis-a-vis India. This is what the Indians have said and this is an unfair change. So much so that not once but twice. Once as Foreign Minister and once as President of Pakistan I told the Indians that if they thought in that vein they could ask us to use our good offices to improve their relations with China. I made this offer to Swaran Singh when he was the Foreign Minister and to Mrs. Gandhi at Simla. I said: Please do not think that our relations with China are based on the exclusive considerations of our relations with India. This is not the position. But if you think this to be so, there is a test. There is an acid test and that acid test lies in the fact that we are prepared to lend a hand, in improving your relations with China.
We certainly did take into account China's strategic importance but not in the context of India, but in the context of Asia, the much larger perspective of China's role both as a Pacific power and as a continental land mass adjacent to the Soviet Union, adjacent to Pakistan and as I said, having its specific orientation and a population of 700 million people. We felt that it would not be possible to have a successful United Nations, an effective United Nations without the participation of the real China. We felt it unrealistic that the major issues of Asia at least should not be resolved without the full participation of China. And this is what happened. For example, the Vietnam war came to an end.
We felt that on the larger plague there could not be disarmament, real disarmament, universal disarmament and complete disarmament if fever it is to come, with China excluded from the disarmament negotiations. We felt that questions like apartheid and segregation could not really. be resolved without the full force and support, in international forums and in other regional forums, of the People's Republic of China. So, our motivation for improving relations with China, was not only that it was a neighbour of Pakistan having a common border or about 370 miles through some of the most difficult and rugged terrain of the world but also because of the other factors outlined by me. Our relations apart from relations with Iran, our other neighbour, were not as good as we would have liked them to be. We wanted a better relationship with our neighbours. This also was among the much bigger considerations which I have already stated.
Answer: He failed over China because-and I am putting it very mildly and very briefly in 1962 he precipitated a war with China. You see he did not grasp the realities of the situation. He thought China was irritating him by trying to straighten out the boundaries and that he should throw them back from the boundaries. If you read all the documents of those days you will find them confirming that conclusion. In Madras he made a speech. He said: "I have ordered my forces to throw the Chinese out". Then he went to Colombo and he was asked by Madam Bandarnaike whether he really meant to do that and he replied that the time had come when India must throw the Chinese out of its border area.
Chou En-lai had gone to India, before that to negotiate a peaceful settlement and to arrive at some 'no war agreement'. He had laid down the principles on which negotiations could take place. Nehru rejected all of them. You might have also come across this in a well written book by Neville Maxwell, India's China War. In those days the United States Joint Chief of Staff was General Maxwell Taylor who also said that the Indians took the initiative and started the war, the boundary conflict. But the world opinion at the time was so much in the hands of those who wanted to make India look the victim that they gave a distorted picture of the position and said that China had invaded India. wise: India had ordered its armed forces under General Kaul. The fact was another to throw out the Chinese from what it regarded to be Indian territory and what the Chinese regarded as disputed territory.
Question: The Chinese had moved into that area.
Answer: The Chinese had moved much earlier. Ladakh and the Indians had even participated in their road building ceremony. There was a ceremony when the road was completed and the Chinese invited the Indians to participate in that ceremony. And the Indians participated in that ceremony. Later on the Indians claimed the territory of Aksai Chin. They saw the road being built and they participated in the ceremony and then promptly claimed it to be their own territory.
But even if India had claimed the territory, it did not mean that she should have gone to war over it.. The Chinese told them repeatedly Let us not fight over it: do not try to use your guns: do not try to muscle into the territory: we can. come to a negotiated settlement. But Nehru misjudged the whole situation and he thought that he was capable of just pushing the Chinese back and that they would do nothing.
China at that time was isolated and the Sino-Soviet differences had also arisen. This was not then known to the world but was known to Nehru. In 1962 China was not what China is today. Nehru really thought that he would teach the Chinese a lesson, and it turned out to be a lesson in reverse because China hit back, and China hit back hard and the Indians came rolling down the hills, and when they came rolling down the hills then there was complete panic. The Chinese, very wisely, declared a unilateral ceasefire, withdrew their forces, returned all the weapons and equipment to the Indians, and even put petrol in their tanks and trucks.