07051959  Letter dated 7 May 1959 from the representative of Pakistan Agha Shahi to the President of the Security Council

 Letter dated 7 May 1959 from the representative of Pakistan Agha Shahi to the President of the Security Council

Under instructions from my Government, I have the honour to refer to the letters dated 4 March 1959 and 5 March 1959, from the permanent representative of India, which have been respectively issued as documents S/ 4169 and S/4170.

We regret that these two letters signify yet another attempt on the part of the permanent representative of India to revive all those arguments which have been long since refuted in the Security Council and which have found no acceptance from impartial public opinion throughout the world.

The arguments advanced by the permanent representative of India in his letter of 4 March 1959, for example, are precisely those which have been heard from his predecessors before, and rejected by the Security Council. These include that interesting exercise in semantics' which related to the two terms ``situation and dispute". I have no wish to join in this hair-splitting or to elaborate the points in reply by means of this correspondence. Pending a further discussion of the subject in the security Council itself, I would only rely on the Council's own record and knowledge of its deliberations as providing the most effective reply to all the assertions made by the Indian representative.

There is, however, one simple aspect of the matter of which it is my duty to remind the Council. The arguments advanced by the permanent representative of India are, at best, based entirely on his Government's own interpretation of the jointly accepted resolutions of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan of 13 August 1948 [S/1100, para 75]. and 5 January 1949 [S/1196, para. 15]. This interpretation is, of course, opposed to the sense of the resolutions as it has been read and construed by all the mediators appointed by the Security Council. But apart from that, its truth or falsehood can be determined only by impartial arbitration. Three Important proposals for arbitration upon the meaning and implementation of the agreed resolutions were made by the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan on 29 August 1949 (endorsed by President Truman of the United States and Prime Minister Battle of the United Kingdom), by the Security Council in its resolution of 30 March 1951 [S/2017) Rev.1] and by Mr. Gunnar Jarring during his mission. in 1957. We accepted all these proposals. Uniformly, India rejected them. There is no possible explanation of these rejections except that India knows that its interpretation of the international agreement about Kashmir is wrong, wilfully misconceived, and incapable of carrying conviction to any impartial authority.

As regards the contents of the letter of the permanent representative of India, dated 5 March 1959, my Government trusts that the Security Council will take full note of the aggravating effect which Sheikh Abdullah's imprisonment unavoidably creates on the situation in Kashmir. The situation constitutes the subject of an international dispute of As this which the United Nations is cognizant. We are confident that the Security Council cannot regard the imprisonment of Sheikh Abdullah as an internal matter. The permanent representative of India has alleged that we have taken contradictory positions in the matter of Sheikh Abdullah's trial. Actually These different positions are directly caused by the self-contradictions in India's own word and deed. From 9 August 1953, Sheikh Abdullah was kept in jail for four and a half years without trial: we deplore this grave injustice. After being set free for only fifteen weeks, he was rearrested on 29 April 1958: we naturally again protested this high-handed act. On the second occasion, the puppet Premier of Kashmir said that Upon the Sheikh Abdullah would not be brought to trial: we naturally brought the fact to the notice of the Security Council in our letter of 6 May 1958 (S/4003). Now he is being brought to a stage-managed trial which is a mockery of civilized law: we cannot fail to remonstrate again and to ask that impartial public opinion as symbolized by the United Nations should intervene and cause India to desist from a course of action which will prove ruinous to its own interests as much as to those of Kashmir and Pakistan.

I request that this letter be circulated to the members of the Security Council document.

(Signed) Agha Shahi

Acting Permanent Representative of Pakistan

to the United Nations

(Source: UN Document S/4185)