The Invasion and the Veto Speech at the Security Council, New York, December 12, 1971

The Pakistan delegation has come to the Security Council at a time and moment of crucial and dire importance not only to Pakistan but to the world community and the United Nations.

I am aware of the urgency of the situation, and I would not like unnecessarily to waste either your time, Mr. President, or that of this august body, which is primarily responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. Time is running out. I too could go into the genesis of the Indo-Pakistan dispute. I could start from the time of the Emperor Ashoka and go down the lanes of history to the conquest of the Indian subcontinent by Mohammed Bin Qasim and the thousand years we have had of a most unfortunate and tragic conflict in our subcontinent between its two predominant, profound cultures. We have sought to resolve them in the spirit of contemporary times.

At the present moment I cannot make an elaborate comment on all the issues that have been raised by the Foreign Minister of India, Sardar Swaran Singh, whom I know very well and with whom I have worked in the past on these very disputes. In 1962 we had six months of negotiations for the settlement of India-Pakistan disputes. Sardar Swaran Singh was, I think, then Minister of Railways and I was the Foreign Minister of Pakistan. We had six months of painstaking and sincere discussions for bringing about a settlement of Indo-Pakistan disputes based on equity and justice. We made an effort; we tried and endeavored hard. As far as we are concerned, I can assure you that it was a sincere effort, and I assume it was an equally sincere effort on the part of India. But. unfortunately, we always seemed to reach an impasse. And so I shall not now go back to the past. The past is known to India; the past is known to Pakistan.

We are part of the same subcontinent. The past is in part known to the members of the Security Council because it is their problem also. It is their responsibility to know of these grave issues. So from that point of view we expect them to know of the basic causes of the differences that divide India and Pakistan.

I am not going to indulge in glib rhetoric or semantic contrivances because the situation is far too serious. The fat is in the fire, and the time has come for us to act either individually as separate states defending their sovereign integrity and national unity or collectively for restraint as members of the United Nations acting in and through the Security Council which is charged with the primary responsibility of maintaining peace and security in the world. Either we act individually or we act collectively. Those are the two basic options open to us.

Secondly, I do not attempt—and I never will—to speak in a spirit of recrimination or to put the blame on one party or the other. My effort will be to invoke the basic objective principles and point to the basic objective realities involved in the situation rather than to inject a subjective character into the dispute that today is burning the subcontinent and that has led to fratricidal warfare.

I am not going to assume a sanctimonious attitude. From the outset I am quite prepared to accept that we have made mistakes. Man is not infallible. Mistakes have been made everywhere—not only in the subcontinent. Mistakes have been made by the Roman Empire, by the British Empire, by every state of the world. But states are not penalized for their mistakes. I admit that certain mistakes have been made by us, as they have been made by others. We are prepared to rectify those mistakes in a civilized spirit, in a spirit of understanding and cooperation, in conformity with the highest principles of international law and international norms. I am not going to deny that tremendous and tragic blunders have been made.

We all make blunders—all of us in Africa, Asia, Europe; the East and West. It is not that we have been oblivious of or blind to these factors. Everywhere there have been blind spots and tragic developments. But the effort must be always to try to repair the damage. We are quite prepared to try to repair the damage.

So I do not say that we did not make mistakes; I do not say that mistakes have not been made in the subcontinent in the past. It is not a new phenomenon; it goes back to ancient times. It is rooted in history, and I am not going back into the historical factors involved in the situation. I am trying to confine myself to the relevant propositions involved in the present crisis.

And what are the issues involved in the present crisis? There are certain basic and important issues involved in the present crisis that has brought about a catastrophic situation in our subcontinent. In my opinion the primary and fundamental issue is that the world community, the United Nations and people at large, will not accept the fact that the unity of a state brought into being through its own efforts, brought into being by its own struggle, brought into being by its own personality, is to be subjected to dismemberment by the use of force. That is the important basic issue.

Pakistan was not created by force. Please remember that the establishment of Pakistan was a great historic phenomenon. Pakistan came into being in the face of the opposition of the Indian Congress and of the British who were the masters not only of the subcontinent but of an empire on which the sun did not set. Since such powerful forces were opposed to it, the creation of Pakistan could not have occurred without the pressure of historical forces and the force of a people’s will. Pakistan crystallized as a sovereign, independent state in 1947, but the germs and seeds of Pakistan were there much earlier. They were there from the time when Mohammad Bin Qasim set foot in the subcontinent. The theme and the message of Islam came into the subcontinent: the message of equality of fraternity, of brotherhood. The seeds of Pakistan were sown much earlier than the creation of Pakistan.

If Pakistan might seem to be destroyed physically today by a predatory neighbor, by a military juggernaut, it will still last, because Pakistan is an ideal. Pakistan is not a mere physical reality: Pakistan is an ideal. It will last even if it is physically destroyed. We are prepared to face that physical destruction. We are prepared for the decimation of 120 million people. We will then begin anew and build a new Pakistan. But we will never accept subjugation by brute force. This is the reality. This is the situation: the ideal, the dream, the concept, the vision of Pakistan can never be destroyed by a military juggernaut. It can never be destroyed by force and by the preponderance of military power.

This is what I would like my Indian friends to recognize—I refer to them as friends while fighting is going on. They recognized it in 1947 when they conceded the inevitability of the establishment of Pakistan. Their great leaders are still respected in Pakistan. They had stood for an ideal They stood for a united India. But they recognized that that could not be maintained in the face of historical factors and the diversity of cultures. Finally, in 1947, the Indian Congress accepted the creation of Pakistan as an independent, sovereign state after years and years and years of opposition.

There was a great Prime Minister, the first Prime Minister, the father of the present Prime Minister of India, who said, “We were too old, we were too tired to oppose Pakistan, and Pakistan had to come into being. But we hope that one day we will get together again.” I too hope so, not that Pakistan will emerge as subservient to India but in the sense that we will get together again as equal friends, in a common fraternity, living in a common subcontinent and sharing the common effort of seeing that poverty, ignorance and misery are wiped out. If there are any two countries in the world that are the poorest in the world, they are Pakistan and India. Our resources might be tremendous, but the fact is that we two are the poorest in the world. Yet, in the last 24 years, we have gone to war three times. Three times there has been conflict in the subcontinent. I remember the Prime Minister of the Soviet Union once telling me that even rich nations try to avoid war; poorer nations should make a greater attempt to avoid war.

We are too poor. There is too much misery. There is too much squalor. You should know, Mr. President, as the representative of an African country, that our basic problem is to fight poverty, to bring about social justice, to bring about equality, to bring about a sense of fraternity, to progress, to try and keep pace with the progress of other countries, of other continents. It is unfortunate that today we should be pitted against each other and one of us should dream semi-barbarically of the liquidation and annihilation of another. There can be no liquidation. It is not possible today. Even the great powers cannot do it. Even they have found that hegemony and domination do not last. Does India think that today it is going to become a great power in Asia? It is simply not possible, because then India will be pitted against 120 million people, valiant people with a great past fighting for their independence, fighting for their dignity, fighting for their self-respect.

So I offer a hand of friendship to India. I would have offered a hand of greater friendship to India if we were not at war. India knew that we were prepared to offer that hand of friendship to India as soon as a civilian government returned to Pakistan. Perhaps they preempted that development, unfortunately for the subcontinent. But I shall come to that later.

So the issue, the basic issue involved today is that a state, a sovereign state, brought into being by the will of its. own people, freely, without let and hindrance, without interference, should not be dismembered by force. This will be a tragic precedent for the world at large. It will be a terrible precedent. Today, I speak not only for Pakistan but for a principle. I speak for a basic principle which affects Asia, Africa and Latin America. That is why the Third World overwhelmingly supported the cause of Pakistan in the historic resolution adopted by the General Assembly on December 7.

If I had spoken only for Pakistan, I would have been isolated, because India is. a bigger country than Pakistan. Power politics would have come into play. Pakistan’s cause succeeded on December 7, because it was based not on the interests of Pakistan conceived selfishly and subjectively but on a world principle—universally accepted, universally recognised—that a sovereign state, brought into being by its own blood and toil and sweat, cannot be dismembered by a predatory neighbour wanting to tear it apart limb by limb. Today it is Pakistan; tomorrow it will be other pans of the world. Please accept that position. Please remember, we are not fighting the war for Pakistan alone; we are fighting the war for a cause, for a just cause; the cause that involves a state which came into being by its people’s volition and whose establishment was recognised by India.

The British were the departing power in 1947. What interests did they have? If the subcontinent wanted to be fragmented into six states, the British would not have bothered. They would have said: all right, let there be six states; if there are to be four states, let there be four states. They were leaving the subcontinent. Why did the British create the two states of India and Pakistan? The British left the subcontinent with two states because the people of the subcontinent at that time, 400 million, wanted two states, and not three, or four or five states. One was India that was called Bharat, and the other was Pakistan. And it was the people of East Bengal who played a valiant role, a predominant role in the creation of Pakistan. If the Bengalis, the East Bengalis—over whom my friend Sardar Swaran Singh waxes eloquent and sheds crocodile tears now—had wanted a separate state, the British would have granted a separate state and there would have been a separate state of Bengal—not only for Pakistani Bengal, but of Indian Bengal as well, and of Assam. There would have been a third state—and perhaps a fourth state as well.

So there is a basic issue involved. Stripped of all the frenzy and eloquence of Sardar Swaran Singh, it is that states which have been created by their people through a struggle and in the teeth of formidable opposition, cannot be dismembered by physical force by a neighboring state which is physically more powerful in military might. So please remember what we are fighting for. We are not fighting just for Pakistan. We are fighting for a cause that affects all of us, everyone of us: either states are to remain independent, sovereign, free, or else they will be dismembered at will whenever a great power or a semi-great power, or a seemingly semi-great power wants to do it.

Today it is in the subcontinent, tomorrow it will be in other parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America; it can be anywhere. So it is a basic issue which is involved in the present situation.

And I ask you, Sir, as President of the Security Council: Is it not a challenge to the United Nations, to the United Nations Charter? I am out of touch with the United Nations Charter because for the last five and a half years I have been struggling internally for the restoration of democracy and social justice in my country. After five and a half years I have come to the Security Council, after a very big struggle for democracy and social justice in my land. Is the present situation not a challenge to the United Nations itself? There is another basic issue involved. Is the United Nations going to permit this kind of mutation by physical force?

There are many Articles in the Charter. The Indian Foreign Minister referred to Articles 55 and 56. I shall not refer to the Articles. But representatives know the responsibility of the United Nations, and especially that of the Security Council, which is entrusted with the primary responsibility for maintaining peace and security in the world. So I repeat: This is a challenge to the United Nations itself.

Today it is Pakistan, tomorrow it will be Bhutan—indeed Bhutan is already in the bag; Sikkim is already in the bag; Nepal is not yet in the bag, but it is going to be in the bag very soon if Pakistan is dismembered. Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, Ceylon, Afghanistan and Iran: Pandora’s Box has not opened for Pakistan alone. It has opened for many countries, and in a very decisive way. So, it is a challenge to all members who have to see whether this kind of mutation can be permitted to take place in the world through physical force, physical blackmail and physical intimidation.

The Indian Foreign Minister has given a long list of events to try to show that we are the aggressors. Now, I appeal to your common sense and logic. India is five or six times larger than Pakistan. We are about 120 million, they are about 500 million; our foreign exchange earnings and resources are so much more limited. One of the reasons why we wanted to create Pakistan was so that we could get into our own little corner and live in peace with a bigger neighbor. But the bigger neighbor did not accept that position. And so we have been accused of aggression. Can Denmark be accused of aggression against Germany? Can Mexico be accused of aggression against the United States of America? Can Holland be accused of aggression against France?

So, basically, I am dealing with the wider issue involved. The first principle is that a sovereign, independent state brought into being by its own free will and volition cannot be dismembered by force. The second principle involved is that there is a responsibility for the United Nations, embodied in the Charter, undertaken because of the consequences of the Second World War, and through all failures and successes, maintained for the last 25 years.

In this connection I shall have to tell the Council that the United Nations has failed Pakistan in the past as well, because we are smaller than India. We came here in 1947 and 1948. We came here pleading for the exercise of the right of self-determination which both India and Pakistan had accepted. And the then Prime Minister of India, the father of the present Prime Minister of India, had himself said that Kashmir was a disputed territory and that the future of Kashmir would be determined by the free will of the people of Kashmir. That was in 1948, but until today the Kashmir dispute has not been resolved and a territory that would have formed a legitimate part of Pakistan has been denied to Pakistan.

Then we came here in 1965—the Foreign Minister of India referred to that—and at that time I was representing my country and I remember that we were told in the resolution which was adopted that the underlying cause of the conflict would be resolved. If we had really gone into the causes of the conflict about which the Foreign Minister of India spoke so much this evening, if we had really gone into the basic causes of the conflict in 1965, today we would not be facing a greater tragedy. At that time the President of the Security Council was Mr. Arthur Goldberg, Permanent Representative of the United States of America. He told me that that resolution was a Bible—I wish I had asked him whether it was the Old Testament or the New Testament—and we believed in that Bible, because people believe in a sacred document. He said, “We will see to it that it is implemented”. That was in 1965. It has not been implemented. So a further deterioration has taken place and today we find ourselves facing an even greater catastrophe. And if the world does not seize the problem, if the world does not have the courage and the moral fiber to say that these issues must be resolved and the full force of the international community, its might and power must be brought to bear on them, then Indo-Pakistan problems will become even more complicated. And who will suffer? The poor people of India and Pakistan will suffer—and I am not a friend of only the poor people of Pakistan; I am a friend of the poor people of India also. We have more poverty than any other people in the world.

We want to put an end to armed conflict. We want to put arms a side. We want a period of security and goodwill in the subcontinent, because we have had so much conflict and so much turmoil. And the elite has not suffered, the elite never suffers. The people who suffer are the poor. the refugees, of whom the Indian Foreign Minister spoke, the people who merely eke out a subsistence living. We want to give our people food, shelter, clothing and education. We cannot do those things if we are daggers drawn fighting all the time, chauvinistically quarrelling in the same geographical area, in the same place.

And when I say this I am not speaking from a position of weakness— because Pakistan can never be weak and the Indians know that. We have a thousand years of history.

If this conflict had not taken place and if the Indian Government had given us a chance to transform the military regime in Pakistan into a civilian regime, it would have seen how far we would have gone to bring about basic changes in our outlook. I speak on these matters as an elected representative of the people of Pakistan. Sardar Swaran Singh spoke about Mr. Mujibur Rahman being an elected representative. I am as much an elected representative of the people of West Pakistan as Mr. Mujibur Rahman is an elected representative from East Pakistan. I have as much locus standi in West Pakistan as Mr. Mujibur Rahman has in East Pakistan. I also speak not as a puppet, I speak as the authentic voice of the people of Pakistan. I spearheaded a struggle against a mighty dictator, and my roots are with the people and I want to serve the people of my country. The people of my country cannot be served if we are going to be locked in this suicidal fratricidal warfare in this fashion.

I am not speaking from a position of weakness. I said these things even during the election campaign. I said that we must begin a new chapter because our basic objective was to bring about social and economic justice. What the subcontinent faces is not a political crisis or an economic Crisis. The subcontinent faces a social crisis, a crisis of the social structure born of the struggle against an unmaintainable and disgusting status quo which has lasted for years. Therefore we should bend all our energies for the end of an iniquitous status quo. Europe has progressed; other countries have progressed. We also are civilised peoples. We have 5,090 years of civilisation behind us. We, too, have the means, the resources and the ability to progress, and we, too, can progress and bring about a better life for our peoples provided we lay aside our arms not on the basis of capitulation, not on the basis of the violation of international principles, not on the basis of lacerating states, not on the basis of trying to dismember countries.

We should coexist, as the Soviet Union and the United States, two great powers, can coexist. Now, today, if China and the United States can open a new dialogue, why cannot this happen in the subcontinent? We wanted it to happen. But we were not given a chance. The Indian Government preempted those possibilities by striking a month before a civilian government, after 13 years, was going to come into power in Pakistan. They should have given us an opportunity, and we wanted that opportunity. But they struck two months before a civilian democratic government was to be installed as a result of the struggle of both East and West Pakistan. The struggle in one region was not unconnected with that in the other. It was a common struggle, it was one united struggle. But we were not given that chance.

We have been unfortunately let down in the past by history, but in contemporary terms we have been betrayed by the United Nations. We have been let down by the Security Council’s inability to secure the implementation of its resolutions, on Kashmir in 1947 and 1965. And today we are again before this great world body. We have not come here to beg for peace. Please do not misunderstand. We are a nation of 120 million people. So what if a city falls? If Dacca or Jessore fall about which people talk so much? A battle lost is not a country lost. Governments can go, monarchies can go, dictatorships can go, but nations last States are rooted in the people. I wish the Indian Government would realise this. It should not be intoxicated by these reports of the fall of Jessore, the fall of one city or another. What is the fall of a city? The country is still there. The country was there before 1947 in idea, in spirit, and it crystallized into a sovereign nation state, and it will continue to be there even if today or tomorrow Dacca falls. Do not be misled by press reports. Because we are a smaller country we do not have the resources to pump in that kind of propaganda. I see the effort here is to filibuster until Dacca falls. And even if Dacca falls, so what? In some sections of the Western press, Dacca has been described as Dunkirk. Do not be uncharitable. There is no comparison between Dunkirk and Dacca. Dunkirk was 20 miles away from Calais. For us the distance is 2,600 miles. Dunkirk was not so completely isolated. East Pakistan is covered from three sides. If the people of East Pakistan were not with Pakistan, East Pakistan would have fallen within minutes. Seven to one is the Indian superiority over the forces of East Pakistan. They are completely blockaded. No ammunition can get through, which I can understand they do not want to allow through. But even medicines and food cannot be airlifted. The blockade cannot be broken. We are completely blockaded.

And here we have East Pakistan representatives still sitting with us. It is an oversimplification to say that the people of East Pakistan are against Pakistan. If the people of East Pakistan were against us, we would have capitulated and fallen long ago. And do not think that by filibustering, that if the Security Council debate is postponed by a day or two, we are going to be down and out and that we are going to be on our knees. Like Alice, we have come to the Wonderland to tell you that our country and our subcontinent is turning into a wasteland.

We were told that the General Assembly and the Security Council are responsible for peace in the world. But we do not want peace without justice. We want peace with justice and our only demand is that our country should be spared from invasion, that foreign interference should stop, that an internal struggle should not be interpreted as giving rise to an external obligation. This is a basic requirement. Today we ask for it, tomorrow others will ask for it. So I am not pleading only for Pakistan. I am pleading really for the rule of international law and morality.

A basic unalterable principle of international law is non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Article 2, paragraph 7 of the Charter speaks of non-interference in the internal affairs of states. It says:

“Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter….”

Now this is a Charter obligation. But the Indian Foreign Minister spoke for an hour and fifteen minutes and all he spoke about was the internal affairs of Pakistan. His whole speech was devoted to the internal affairs of Pakistan. I did not have such a bad conscience so I did not ask one of my friends here—and we still have a few friends left—to raise a point of order to say that he was raising a matter within the internal jurisdiction of Pakistan. I welcomed it. I am glad that the Indian Foreign Minister saw fit to talk about the internal matters of my country. For one thing, I hope that I will have an opportunity now to reply to it, but if I do not cover all the points I hope that Members will forgive me because he only spoke just now. However, I shall try to cover some of his major points and, if I am unable to cover all his points now, I shall do so later, not to filibuster, but to try subsequently to clear the points that he raised. I shall make that effort.

But what I am trying to say is that I am glad he raised those questions even though it constituted an interference in Pakistan’s essentially domestic matters. It was as if I were to talk about the DMK movement in Madras, about the Nagas’ or the Mizos’ struggle for independence, about the plight of poor Bhutan and Sikkim, or about the many other matters that plague India. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. The consequences will come to the surface soon. It is up to India. If India thinks that Pakistan is going to be dismembered, the process is not going to stop there. The germ is going to spread, and it is going to spread very fast.

However, I will not choose to talk about the internal problems of India. Interference in the internal affairs of another country offends not only the Charter principle, it also violates the Bandung principles. Mr. President, you are from a state in Africa. There are other member states here from Asia and from Latin America. We all come from the same fraternity, we are all brothers-in-arms. We have been exploited, we have all been subjugated, we are all the victims of ruthless exploitation. Are not the Bandung principles sacrosanct to you? Are they sacrosanct to me only today, because my country is exposed to the mighty juggernaut of a great military power that outnumbers my country in East Pakistan by a force of seven to one and that has blockaded us by sea?

No, this concerns all of us. The Bandung principles, the Panch Sila, are being violated. I was not the author of the Panch Sila; I was only a student then. Who was the author? Who was the man who articulated the Panch Sila? At the Bandung Conference, the Panch Sila were articulated, among other people, by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. He talked about the “five principles of peaceful coexistence.” The father of the Prime Minister of India said that non-interference was a sacrosanct principle and one of the five principles of the Panch Sila. India today has wrecked the Panch Sila. India has abused and violated the United Nations Charter and the basic principles of international law and morality. India, today, has violated the Bandung principles of which it was a co-author.

These, therefore, are the basic principles involved in the matter, and they are very important principles. And furthermore, we never expected the countries of the Third World to indulge in blackmail and big power chauvinism. We thought the great powers were the culprits of big power chauvinism and of blackmail, of seeking hegemony. If the world can rise against the greatest power in the world and against hegemony, and if the greatest power in the world wants to reduce its sphere of responsibility, wants no longer to be the praetor, the policeman of the world, then India cannot do that either. If the United States of America finds itself today incapable of extending its influence over a world-wide range to become the policeman of the world, how can India become the policeman of the subcontinent of Asia? India does not have the capability. India is built on a hollow foundation, nurtured by fraud and deceit. India must abandon these illusions. If the United States of America, the greatest power in the world, after 20 years of experience following the Second World War, finds that it does not have the resources to dispense foreign aid, and to continue the Vietnam war, that it must honorably leave Asia, India must also realize that it cannot hold on to Pakistan, to a part of the subcontinent. India must give up its pretence of trying to become the policeman of the subcontinent; of telling us what we should do in Pakistan: which leader we should recognize, which leader we should arrest, which leader we should release, which party we should negotiate with or what is the interpretation of the manifesto of a certain party.

This is a precedent for all of you to consider before the morning comes. It is all very well to talk sweetly and softly and in clipped tones. But let us talk about the realities. India’s Foreign Minister said, “Consider the realities.” I say I welcome that: consider the realities. I welcome that more than he would. The realities are that dictation, domination, hegemony, exploitation are being practiced against my country through physical force and physical might. The largest Muslim state in the world, brought into being by its own volition, is being destroyed and decimated by a military machine and against the will of the people of the country. If we were not a united people, if we did not have a united resolve, we would not have lasted for 24 years. Egypt and Syria united briefly. They were Arabs. They were of the same race, they had the same religion. How long did the Egyptian-Syrian unity last? Three years, or two years. It broke up. Why are East Pakistan and West Pakistan together? Because we have a common denominator. We have a common interest, and that common interest is opposition to Indian domination, Indian hegemony, Indian exploitation. That is our common interest. So we are brothers-in-arms. We will always remain together. What has happened? The Indian Foreign Minister talks about all the mistakes made by Pakistan. Well, India never has made any mistakes. I congratulate India for never having made any mistakes in 24 years. We are the only ones who make mistakes. We are the only sinners in the world. Nobody else makes mistakes. We are the great sinners. But the same great sinners have remained together for 24 years, and today also, it took India nine months in order to prepare to intervene for destroying us.

The Foreign Minister of India talks about the patience shown by India in waiting for nine months. It was not patience. India found it necessary; now that they have not succeeded they must physically intervene to destroy Pakistan. If all those brutalities, those terrible atrocities that have taken place in Pakistan were really as bad as the Foreign Minister said, and if there was such a great movement in East Pakistan, then it would not have been necessary for India to intervene militarily to bring about a military, physical victory by force of arms.

So there is a basic contradiction involved in that. And please remember, the issue is not an issue of self-determination. As an Asian—and I am as much an Asian as I am a Pakistani—I have always had an Asian outlook. For, we cannot think in terms of our own country alone. One country in Africa cannot think in terms of that one country alone; it must think in African terms. We in Asia must think in Asian terms. As President de Gaulle said, “a European Europe.” I, therefore, say we must have an Asian Asia. The question here is not a matter of self-determination. As Asians and as members of the Third World, we must never renounce self-determination. Self-determination, after President Woodrow Wilson preached it and articulated it, brought about the independence of many countries. We subscribe to self-determination. There can be no compromise on self-determination— but it must be genuine self-determination. What is self-determination? That a country must be allowed to determine its future, that a people must be allowed to determine its future. We are not against self-determination. My distinguished friends are against self-determination, because if they had allowed self-determination to be practiced today, there would have been the right of self-determination in Kashmir and the people of Kashmir, after 24 years, would have decided whether they were going to be a part of India or a part of Pakistan. But they were never allowed that right to self-determination.

In Kashmir, where Pandit Nehru himself said, “Yes, there must be self-determination because it is a disputed territory;” India has always blocked, stopped, prevented any action towards the self-determination of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Self-determination is a principle that was not only articulated by President Woodrow Wilson, but the great founder of the Soviet Union, Lenin, one of the greatest men of all times, also articulated it. So, self-determination was accepted by India and Pakistan. But today, when 24 years have passed, self-determination has not taken place in Kashmir. Today, India talks about self-determination of a country which determined its future in 1947, and became a part of Pakistan How is self-determination involved in Bengal, in East Pakistan? East Pakistan is a part of Pakistan, an inextricable part of Pakistan, united with Pakistan for 24 years. It chose to be a part of Pakistan and was in the vanguard of the movement for Pakistan. Let me tell you quite clearly that there could have been no Pakistan without the struggle of the people of East Pakistan for the creation of Pakistan.

The Foreign Minister of India has talked about the mother state. I also am a student of international law; I have not come across any acknowledged theory of the mother state. I have studied under Kelsen and Oppenheim and other people, but I have not come across this theory. It might be somewhere in some archives found somewhere or other this theory of the mother state. But let us accept the fact that there is such a theory of the mother state, that if a part of the mother state wants to release itself from the mother, it must find its own conditions for freedom. I accept that position, although I do not find authentic or reliable evidence for the mother state concept or theory that has been propounded by the Indian Foreign Minister. As I told you and as the British know. because they were in the subcontinent, there could have been no Pakistan without the contribution of the people of East Pakistan to the creation of Pakistan. They were a part of us in the 1965 war.

How heroically they stood by us. I remember in 1967 when I went there how. devoted and concerned they were for the welfare and integrity of Pakistan.

After the general elections about which Swaran Singh has spoken, I went there in January. I went there and I went to many parts of East Pakistan and I asked them, “What do you want, because the people’s will is supreme. What do you want? Do you want one Pakistan or two Pakistans?” Believe me, Mr. President, I am not lying to you; I would never lie to the President of the Security Council; they all said, “We want one Pakistan. We believe in one Pakistan.” This one Pakistan would have remained one Pakistan if the Indians had not stepped in with their powerful military action.

Finally, in deciding these issues, the Security Council is sometimes prevented from taking necessary action because of power politics, because the great powers have. great interests and their great interests are determined by their own calculations. But these factors do not prevail in the General Assembly. The General Assembly is. the voice of the world. The. General Assembly symbolizes the march of humanity towards greater and greater progress. The General Assembly is where you, Sir, and I and others can speak for truth and justice, unimpaired by the calculations of power politics; The General Assembly is where the. poorer nations Speak. The General Assembly, by an overwhelming and massive vote of 104, decided in favor of the unity and integrity of Pakistan. The whole world said. taking everything into account, taking the truth into account, that Pakistan is one and that Pakistan must remain one. We have no diplomatic relations with some of the countries that voted for us. We have no contact but on a principle they voted that Pakistan is one; it came into being as one, it came into being after greater sacrifices and it must remain one. Out of the great powers, the Peoples Republic of China and the United States of America also supported this basic truth. So this is an overwhelming verdict. I do not have to speak: the Indian Foreign Minister does not have to speak: I only ask you to recognize this truth, to heed the voice of the world. Do not stifle it. do not bury it do not ignore it, because it is going to have far-reaching ramifications. Please take cognizance of it, please realize its value and importance. Please do not become isolated from the voice of the world. It is very important that you do not do that. because the whole world has spoken for the unity and integrity of Pakistan. How can you ignore it here in this chamber? Can you ride roughshod over the voice of the world community? Can you arbitrarily; whimsically and capriciously deny what the world wants? The world wants one Pakistan, the world wants the unity of Pakistan the world does not want the dismemberment of Pakistan by violence or by force. All I have come here for is to tell you that this is the voice of the world, this is what the world wants, this is its verdict. Implement it, recognize it, accept it, otherwise there is going to be trouble and not only for Pakistan. Pakistan is in enough trouble; we are facing serious problems, but I am not only speaking of Pakistan, I am speaking for all of the Third World and for all those who believe in justice, equality and equity among nations.

Having made these general remarks, I should like to get down a little more to specific matters. We have been told by the Indian Foreign Minister tonight and before that it was implied in the position that India has taken on an internal dispute of Pakistan, that the people of East Pakistan want to be free, and to sever relations with West Pakistan and that this was the result of the last elections. In the last elections which were held in December 1970, the Awami League and Sheikh Mujib received an overwhelming mandate in East Pakistan. We recognize that. In West Pakistan my party and I received an overwhelming mandate. But what was the demand of the Awami League? The Awami League said in their election campaign that they wanted autonomy. They did not want secession. We, in West Pakistan, also were fighting for autonomy; they wanted democracy and we wanted democracy; they wanted to end military rule and we wanted to end military rule. We had these common factors between us. But what happened was that, suddenly, after the elections, this demand for autonomy was converted into a demand for secession. There were many forces in the background. You know, Sir, that the line between maximum autonomy and secession can be a thin one, a very thin one. Through international manipulation and other factors, a struggle for autonomy was converted into a struggle for secession.

But who is to interpret whether it is autonomy or secession? The issue being internal it is for the people to determine what is the point of that autonomy, whether it is genuine autonomy or ultra vires autonomy. It is not for a third country to interpret, it is not for an outside party to decide whether the people want secession or autonomy.

We were quite prepared to negotiate and to determine the quantum of autonomy within the concept of one Pakistan, but we were not prepared to accept that an outside neighboring country should judge whether the demand was for autonomy or for secession. If the people of East Pakistan had wanted secession, they would have said so and India would not have had to intervene. I accept that blunders have been made—terrible blunders. But, in spite of those terrible blunders, India would not have had physically to intervene with eight or twelve divisions in East Pakistan in order to get by force what it interpreted to be the aspiration of the people of East Pakistan as a consequence of the elections of 1970.

This is the basic problem again. Now if we are going to determine autonomy and secession on that basis, then may I ask my distinguished friend, Mr. Swaran Singh, the following: When the Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, came to the United Nations in September 1960 and was asked, “When are you going to settle the Kashmir dispute, with regard to which you have agreed that there must be a plebiscite?”, he replied, “I know that I have agreed to that; but if there is a plebiscite in Kashmir, which is a disputed territory”—it is not merely a disputed territory but would have been inevitably a part of Pakistan—”it will be like opening a Pandora’s Box.” So, I ask, have you not opened a Pandora’s Box, indeed a treasure house? Please look beyond today; please do not be so myopic. We have to live in the same subcontinent; we do not want the subcontinent to be in flames. You will find fragmentation following in the wake of this situation. Today you might rejoice over what is happening to us. But if you think that today you are going to dismember Pakistan and the germs of dismemberment are not going to spread to your country, you are sadly mistaken. And where is this Pandora’s Box going to be closed? Is it going to be closed in Yugoslavia? Why not Yugoslavia? Why not Czechoslovakia? Why not Wales and Scotland? I shall not mention Northern Ireland because there is the Queen’s peace there. There has been no trouble in Northern Ireland, so I shall not mention Northern Ireland but only Wales and Scotland. And Brittany, the Basque country, Morocco, Algeria, all the countries in Africa? Can it not happen in any single country in Africa and in Asia? If there is Bangladesh in Pakistan, there must be Bangladesh everywhere. Why should Bangladesh emerge only in Pakistan by force? The fragmentation that it symbolizes can occur in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America and it cannot leave untouched the great Powers themselves—in Uzbekistan and in other parts of the world.

There will not be a Bangladesh only in Pakistan. There will be a Bangladesh everywhere.

Bangladesh exists on the lips of the Government of India. Bangladesh exists in their mind; Bangladesh does not exist in reality. And when I say that, I do not say that I do not have love for my Bengali brothers. I say: Joi Bangla as much as I say Jia Sindh. They are pans of the same federation. These slogans cannot be turned against us. So, physician, heal thyself; do not heal the wounds of Pakistan. Pakistan has always had the wrong end of the stick. Pakistan has been called the sinner for a long time; Pakistan’s territories have been taken in Kashmir, in East Punjab, in West Bengal, in Assam. Pakistan has been lacerated enough, much more than Mexico was lacerated in this hemisphere.

But the ills and the curses that you would impose on Pakistan by military force will not end by creating a so-called state of Bangladesh in my country only. Then there would be Bangladesh everywhere in the world. Why not? Let us open up the floodgates, because if sovereign states are going to be mutated in this fashion let the deluge come. Why should it affect only my country?

We are prepared to die. We are not afraid to die. Our people are brave. We and India have shared 5,000 years of history together. They know us. There will never be permitted the liquidation of Pakistan. Believe me, Mexico might occupy the United States, Denmark might occupy Germany, Finland might occupy the Soviet Union—but Pakistan will not be occupied by. India in any circumstances. Remember that. We will not be occupied. We shall fight and we shall fight for 1,000 years as we have fought for 1,000 years in the past. Our history is not a new history. We have a 1,000 year history of confrontation. We can continue.

The Indian Government and the Indian people have a choice: the choice is very clear. It is do you want to live with us as friends in the same subcontinent, believing and respecting the principles of international law and morality, or do you want to be our implacable enemies? The choice is yours. We are prepared to extend the hand of friendship. We want to open a new chapter in our relations. Why can we not open a new chapter in our relations? Why should we always be the exception if the Germans and the French can forget their problems and get into the Common Market after so many wars and if the Turks and the Greeks do not go berserk and mad over Cyprus and start a conflict?

There are so many international disputes, but there is always the restraining hand of civilization, of morality. If the Soviet Union and the United States after 15 years of confrontation can reach a detente and if China and the United States can open a dialogue, why cannot India and Pakistan also open a dialogue? And we are prepared for that dialogue; we wanted that dialogue. We wanted a new page, a new dimension. We wanted to move according to the mood and the requirements of modern times, and we were anxious for it. 1 think the Indian Government is very good at research because they have quoted many facts and figures. I made many important statements saving that we are prepared to open a new page in our history, but they have now prevented it. If India had not today tried to occupy parts of Pakistan, I could have spoken more on the subject. But if I speak today on the subject, they might think that I am speaking from a position of weakness.

If only they had given us an opportunity. The Prime Minister of India said that she could not talk to a military regime. But the military regime said that after 13 years it was dissolving itself within a month. After the Prime Minister of India had spent nine months wailing could she not agree on one more month for a civilian government to come to power and open a dialogue, a communication between our two countries? Of course, the Indian Government did not wait for nine months out of tolerance and good behavior. It utilized those nine months for infiltration into Pakistan. They wanted nine months to train people—the so-called guerrillas. The Foreign Minister of India has made a virtue of India’s waiting for nine months. Well, he needed at least this time. We saw that. As a political leader of my country. I said. “By the end of the year, there will be a new situation in Pakistan.” We were anticipating their plans. After all intelligence matters. We saw what their plan was. We could see it. They wanted to train guerrillas; they wanted to create an international climate. The Indian Prime Minister wanted to go all over the world to create an international climate of goodwill and then to strike. She needed time. It was not out of good behavior, wailing for the world to act.

We said, give us another month. Much has been made of the refugees that went from East Pakistan into the Bangladesh of India. And in the Bangladesh of India there are supposed to be nine or ten million refugees. We have not contended that these figures are wrong: we have not disputed the figures. As far as we are concerned, we have said that we are ashamed of the fact that our citizens have left our country. No country likes to have refugees: no country likes to have people leaving it. But if our people have left our country, we want them back, because if they have lived in that place for thousands of years, and have lived there for 24 years after Pakistan was created, then why can they not also in the future live in our country?’ This no problem. If we said, “No. there are no refugees.” We took a position on principle. We said that whatever refugees, we are prepared to take them back—whether there are six million. three million, two million “or eight million genuine Pakistanis who, out of fear and propaganda, have left Pakistan, we are prepared to take them back because if they have lived with us before they can live with us again. The Indian Prime Minister said that they could not go back while there was a military regime in Pakistan. We said, wait for a month, all we ask of you is to convert nine months into ten months; give us four more weeks. And I was prepared—and I said this in Karachi on the 12th—to go and visit those refugee camps as a political leader. I said that we were not closing any option we were not imposing any conditions for a political settlement but give us time. let us finish with the present phase and let us enter the new phase and usher in peace.

The Foreign Minister of India must know that I said on 18 October, in Lahore that I did not anticipate a war. He has quoted various slogans like “Crush India.” I said that I did not anticipate a war. Why did I say that? Because we want peace in order to serve our people to concentrate on their misery, on their problems. We. do not want to be locked in international conflicts. We want time to achieve progress for our people. We have a socialist and Islamic programme for our people for bread, butler and progress. We wanted time to implement that. We wanted time for a civilian government to be established in Pakistan after 13 years, based on a massive mandate from the people, so that we could progress, move ahead, and serve our people. Instead, after nine months, they could not wait for one more month. They struck. And they struck heavily, reversing those forces of democracy about which the Foreign Minister of India waxes so eloquent. If the Foreign Minister is so interested in democracy, he should have wailed for some time and democracy would have come. Democracy generates its own laws. It has a parliament. There is freedom of the press, and the demands of the public are more important than the demands of foreign powers. One thing might have led to another. We would first have tackled the principles involved, the causes of the dissatisfaction, which, I can tell you frankly. was not confined to East Pakistan; there was dissatisfaction also in West Pakistan over questions of autonomy and democracy. So we were prepared to tackle all these problems. And we were prepared to tackle not only the problems of West Pakistan, but also the problems of East Pakistan on autonomy, on democracy, on secularism—all these matters. But we were not given a chance. It was used as a pretext. The idea was to see that Pakistan would not nourish and resolve its problems; the idea was to take advantage of the internal difficulties of Pakistan. Otherwise, we would have made good use of this opportunity.

India’s interest in the crisis did not arise suddenly after the tragic and fateful night of 25 March. Before 25 March India had manipulated a hijacking incident at Lahore which it used as a pretext to sever communications between East and West Pakistan through the air, through the Indian corridor. That was on January 30th after I had returned from East Pakistan, having completed my preliminary negotiations with Mujibur Rahman. The Indian Government was not happy about the negotiations that we were having with Sheikh Mujib, because the moment that 1 had completed the preliminary negotiations with him and had come back to West Pakistan, the first thing that was manipulated was the hijacking incident which was arranged by Indian spies from occupied Kashmir in order to disrupt communications so that Mujibur Rahman and 1 could not easily remain in contact.

Now the Indian Government talks about a political settlement, a political agreement with the leaders of East Pakistan. But when the accredited leaders of East and West Pakistan met, the Indian Government disrupted their communications because it did not want an agreement on the basis of one Pakistan, which we were trying to achieve So the first thing it did was to break the means of contact between the leaders of East and West Pakistan. We could not go by sea in those difficult circumstances in order to hold political dialogue and negotiations.

After that, on the pretext of holding elections in the Bangladesh of India they sent 150 thousand troops to conduct the polls. The idea was to put an army into position against East Pakistan and against Pakistan as a whole.

India has talked about how Pakistan a smaller country, one-fifth of the size of India and less in manpower and resources— and bear in mind India’s armed forces, its army. navy. air force, its indigenous manufacturing capacity—has always been the aggressor against India. We come to this question of aggression, as to how much we have committed aggression against India in the last 24 years, since 1947 when the two states of India and Pakistan came into being.

In 1948 there was a conflict in Kashmir. You all know the history of the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir. It was a princely state. It had to determine its own future, according to the standpoint of both India and Pakistan, by its free will. If India had permitted a plebiscite in Kashmir there would have been no trouble there today; the Kashmir problem would not still be on the agenda of the United Nations. But it was India which prevented the plebiscite from being held in Kashmir. And yet it accuses Pakistan of the trouble there. If there is trouble in Kashmir it is of India’s making because India is the country that admitted that there should be a plebiscite, a referendum in Kashmir and then prevented that plebiscite. No less a person than the then Prime Minister of India himself, and yon can see this in the records of the Security Council made the commitment on me question of the plebiscite. And yet, today, the Indian Foreign Minister has the temerity to say that we were responsible for the conflict in 1947-1948 in Kashmir. The Indian Foreign Minister referred to the Rann of Kutch conflict. In the Rann of Kutch conflict it was the Indian forces which were the occupiers. Mr. Parthasarathy, who is now here on the Indian delegation. was the High Commissioner. He was a good friend of mine—I was Foreign Minister at the time—and he came to me. I said, we are prepared to solve this problem peacefully; and we did solve it peacefully. I remember that he came to me very agitated. I said, there must be some trouble: we will solve it peacefully. And if we had not wanted to solve it peacefully it would not have been solved in that manner. We left it in the able and experienced hands of the British who arranged arbitration between the two of us. The British know the subcontinent better than the rest of us. They arbitrated on the question. The trouble is. too many people from the outside have arbitrated in the disputes of the subcontinent: right from Clive to the Tashkent Declaration. outside intervention has decided the fate of the subcontinent. Why cannot India and Pakistan decide the fate of the subcontinent for a change? Either we have left it to outsiders—the French the British, the Russians and others— to decide our fate or we have gone to war. I tell the Government of India, let us not leave it to outsiders, and let us not let war to be the arbiter. Let us open a new page. provided hostilities are ended and we return to normal conditions. But the Rann of Kutch dispute was left to arbitration and we accepted the award. In my opinion it was not a fair award because we were denied our territorial rights. Still, we accepted what was short of our rights. We accepted it in the interests of peace security and good relations between our two countries.

We were not then responsible for the 1947 holocaust, and we were not. responsible for the trouble in the summer of 1965 in the Rann of Kutch. After that came the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965. Again we went to Tashkent. and we settled it. We had arbitration. I think that arbitration also was not in the interests of Pakistan. That is an objective assessment. Nevertheless, signatures were attached by both the Prime Minister of India and the President of Pakistan. Although the agreement more or less accepted the Indian position. yet. again in the interests of peace, there was a settlement at Tashkent. The fact is that that settlement was not in our interests; it was more in their interests—so much so that their Prime Minister died of jubilation at Tashkent. It was favorable to them. and their press and everyone else was in agreement that it was.

So again we, as the smaller stale, witnessed the power and might of the bigger state causing an erosion of our rights. But where are we to stop? How much are our rights to be eroded? Already the Indian Prime Minister is saying that the people of West Pakistan and Baluchistan must have their rights—already making a distinction between them. We know what is in their minds. We know why they are stalling, how they are taking something and consolidating it. And they want to take more and more and more. And Indians have never really reconciled themselves to what they call the vivisection of Bharat Mata. That is the truth of the matter. It has been established now by India’s action by its predatory aggression in East Pakistan that it had never really reconciled itself to the creation of Pakistan. Today more than ever before. India has barbarically and ruthlessly demonstrated to the world that it is not reconciled to the vivisection of what it calls Bharat Mata. But. Sardar Swaran Singh. neither Bharat nor Mata will be left— because these are the methods which leave behind neither a country nor principles.

Now I come to a problem which I would have avoided dealing with but it is essential being a connected relevant and cardinal aspect of the present situation. Since it is pivotal to the issue I must refer to it because my people know that this is the position and the world must know it is.

India and Pakistan, as we call the two major communities, have existed in the subcontinent for thousands of years. We have had conflicts, we have had wars. We have known how to deal with each other. We have dealt with each other and we have established some kind of equilibrium between ourselves. But today we are not pined against India as such. Today we are pitted against India and a great power. India is a big country. I have already said it is. But today it is standing on the shoulders of a big power to look bigger. If it did not stand on those big shoulders and look bigger it would not have been arrogant enough to defy the will of the General Assembly and the whole world expressed in a resolution calling for a cease-fire, the end of hostilities and the withdrawal of forces. Today we are pitted not against India but against a great power—and a neighboring great power—to which we have done no harm. We have done it no wrong. We have made every effort to have the best of relations with that great power. We have the greatest respect for it. It is a neighboring power very close to Pakistan.

In 1960, as Minister for Fuel, Power and Natural Resources, 1 was the first Minister to go to the Soviet Union to conclude an oil agreement in order to foster good relations between Pakistan and the Soviet Union. We annoyed our allies; we annoyed and had some basic misunderstandings with a country that is a greater power, militarily speaking. We were involved with that country in two treaties—SEATO and CENTO—and in bilateral agreements. But we wanted to improve our relations with a neighboring country—and at that time it promised that if we got out of those pacts or became passive in those which were directed against it. that would bring about a new turn in relationships. Perhaps, we were not as shrewd in power politics as others are, but believing we should do so we made great efforts to improve our relations with the Soviet Union.

We have never wronged the Soviet Union. We have had the greatest respect and admiration for the Soviet people and for the great founder of the Soviet state, Lenin, one of the greatest men of contemporary times. of all time. And our people still admire the Soviet Union. We cannot understand why the Soviet Union is being a party to our dismemberment. What wrong have we committed against the Soviet Union? If the Soviet Union was not a party to this exercise we would not be in the present situation.

I do not want to go into details. 1 do not want to quote facts and figures, I do not want to tell the Council on what date a destroyer was torpedoed. how it was torpedoed or what has been done. I am not a person who goes into detail: I stress principles. My principles make me ask the Soviet Union what wrong the 120 million people of Pakistan have done that the Soviet Union should adopt such a partisan attitude, support a predatory aggressor and lake such an extreme position—not in a just cause but to see my country dismembered? That is a legitimate question I ask in good faith, and still as a friend. Why does the Soviet Union want to defy world opinion on the question of the unity of Pakistan? Have we done the Soviet Union some basic wrong?

What makes it more puzzling is that on 2 April, 1971 President Podgorny in a message wished the Pakistani people well-being and prosperity and said he had rejoiced over their success in the democratic solution of the complicated problems facing the country. Mr. Kosygin told the special envoy of President Yahya Khan, Mr. Arshad Hussain, that relations between the Soviet Union and Pakistan were based on principled positions of strengthening cooperation for mutual benefit. He said the Soviet Union was willing to continue developing those relations and efforts for the cause of strengthening peace and international security. Again, Mr. Kosygin told our Ambassador in Moscow repeatedly that the Soviet Union did not wish to interfere in the internal affairs of Pakistan and that it was for Pakistan to decide what political system to adopt. He went on to emphasise that the political system within Pakistan was for Pakistan to decide, not for India or the Soviet Union. He said, “Please, Mr. Ambassador, tell the President that every aspect of our cooperation is based upon peace and not upon war. It is our constant policy that all disputes between India and Pakistan should be settled by negotiations and not by armed conflict. We are friends of Pakistan, and we want all questions between Pakistan and India to be settled peacefully. They are not rich enough to have conflicts; even richer states try to avoid conflicts. We can sincerely say that Pakistan and India should resolve their differences without resorting to a conflict. We should like to see them as friends. We have no other consideration. We do not want to interfere in your internal affairs.”

Now, those are the messages from the President and Prime Minister of the Soviet Union. And in 1965, when there was a conflict between Pakistan and India, the Soviet Union had very good relations with India and with Pakistan—though those with India were better, yet it did not lake such a significant and conspicuous position in India’s favor as it has today. Today, the Soviet Union has openly and brazenly come out in support of India. The problem is that we are facing not India alone—we have faced India for thousands of years—but the Soviet Union. Otherwise the blockade of the Bay of Bengal would not have taken place. How could it have taken place, when the great fleets of the great powers are on patrol there during peace time? What is the object of that? They do not patrol in peace time so that they can have a good cruise, because then Portugal and Denmark and others could do the same. It is to ensure that during conflict and troubles they can still keep the sea lanes open. How have the sea lanes been closed to us in East Pakistan? India could not have done it. especially with the Seventh Fleet and other forces operating in those seas.

It is because of the massive support that the Soviet Union has given to India. If the Soviet Union detaches itself from the Indo-Pakistan conflict. we are prepared to be pitied against India. India has become intoxicated with precisely the military gains which are a result of the Soviet support that it has received.

In this connection, we must remember that the Indo-Soviet Treaty of 9th August was concluded during this crisis. Now, please consider that India has always pursued a policy of non-alignment. India pursued a policy of non-alignment from 1947 until 1962 when it unnecessarily came into conflict with China. Just as they attacked us today, they attacked China in 1962. But from 1947 to 1962 India was non-aligned. And the architect of that policy was Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. And his name has gone down in history as the architect of such a positive policy. But even from 1962. India on the whole remained non-aligned, albeit with its own methods of duplicity and double-dealing.

Then. why did India abandon its principles of non-alignment openly, legally, juristically on 9 August 1971, and aligned itself with a great power, the Soviet Union? As far as the Soviet Union is concerned, General-Secretary Brehznev’s Asian security proposal to isolate China had been made two years earlier. Like the European security proposal, it had its own connotation. But the Asian security proposal of General-Secretary Brehznev had been made two years earlier. Why did not India then endorse the Asian security proposal? Or why did not India conclude a bilateral agreement in the spirit of the Brehznev proposals in 1967 and 1968? Why was it on 9 August 1971 that the Indian Government abandoned its policy of non-alignment, violated its established principles, and concluded an agreement with the Soviet Union which was called the Indo-Soviet Treaty? What is the quid pro quo? What is the reciprocity? As far as the Soviet Union is concerned. it is obvious; a great power wants an Asian security pact for certain reasons, matching the power of another great country. But what was the benefit, what was the advantage to India? Why did a country that was wedded fundamentally, irrevocably to the classic policy of non-alignment, abandon it and go and conclude a pact with the Soviet Union on 9th August? Could you tell me what that quid pro quo was? That quid pro quo was the dismemberment of Pakistan. Nothing else. “We will join it, we will abandon non-alignment. we will eat our own philosophy: but this is an implacable enemy and you must be on our side to destroy it”—that was the quid pro quo.

The real trouble started not with what happened in Dacca on 24th or 26th March. The real, fundamental trouble started when this Treaty was concluded and we had to face a new India, supported by the power, the prestige. the spirit, the resources, the technology and the arms of the Soviet Union. If we had received half the quantity of arms that the Soviet Union has given to India, today we would be sitting in Delhi.

Now, there is an interesting article in that Treaty. It is Article 9:

”Each contracting party undertakes to abstain from giving any assistance to any third party that engages in an armed conflict with the other party. In the event of either party being subjected to attack or threat thereof, the high contracting party shall immediately enter. into mutual consultations with a view to eliminating this threat and taking appropriate effective measures to ensure the peace and security of the country.

These are diplomatic words, couched in defensive jargon, for offensive purposes. We should know this, because for 12 years we were members of two defence treaties, and we still are. So we are familiar with the language of these treaties. This is not a defensive Treaty; this is a Treaty which has an offensive purpose. Today, also. consultations are going on. The Deputy Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union has gone to Delhi. Some officials of India, such as Mr. Dhar, have gone to the Soviet Union.

I would really like to know what crime or what wrong Pakistan has committed against the Soviet Union that my country should be dismembered. Because the Soviet Union has bad relations with China? China’s relations with the Soviet Union do not mean that my country should be dismembered by the Soviet Union. China’s relations with the Soviet Union are their relations. We have always taken the position that we want good relations with China and we want good relations with the Soviet Union. We do not want to have good relations with China at the cost of the Soviet Union, nor do we want to have good relations with the Soviet Union at the cost of China. But as a result of our good relations with China, we are being not only penalized, but treated in a fashion in which limb by limb we are being taken apart. This is unprecedented.

But even if we are being torn apart limb by limb, we will not abandon our good relations with China. China is a reliable friend of Pakistan; China is a reliable friend of Asia; China is a reliable friend of the Third World. Earlier on. we strained our relations with a power greater than the Soviet Union because we developed our relations with China. But today, we are happy to see that there is some change in that situation. We would be happy to see some change in the situation between the Soviet Union and China also.

But why should we be the victims? Why should we get into this nutcracker? The trouble is that we belong to Asia. We cannot transplant ourselves from Asia into the North American continent or Europe. China’s borders with Pakistan are very long, very rugged: the Himalayas unite and link China and Pakistan—the mountains, the rivers.

Why should we have bad relations with a country which warns to have good relations with us and is a great power in our continent? What is the crime that we have committed by having good relations with a friendly country which has supported us and has stood by us? China’s crime is that it has stood by the Third World. Its crime is that it has stood by principles. Its crime is that it will never abandon its friends. Now, if China was a chauvinist power, if China was an expansionist power, if China was an arrogant country. if China wanted to exterminate us, we would not have good relations with China. Of course, at one time our relations were not good.

But China is not an expansionist power. China has not shown any sign ever of interference in the affairs of another country. So why should we unnecessarily spoil our relations with China? But the choice offered us is: either spoil your relations with China or get dismembered. This is a very poignant choice, a very tragic choice.

But I say that even if a part of our territory or country is occupied. that is not so important as having good relations with China. For whatever is occupied can be regained—and we will regain it, because it is our territory, they are our people. they belong to us. Even this threat, the threat that you must be punished for having good relations with China—the world must see what happens to China’s friends and what happens to the Soviet Union’s friends—we consider temporary. We are convinced that the friends of the Soviet Union are not going to be beneficiaries in the long run, when they are aggressors. The friends of China are not aggressors. The friends of China are defending their self-respect, their sovereignty and their integrity; and if they are going to suffer some consequences, well a brave nation, an honourable and self-respecting nation is prepared to accept that confrontation.

Take East Pakistan for five or ten years, we will have it back: we will fight to take it back; and we will get our country back. Your occupation is not going to make any difference. East Pakistan is part of Pakistan and all the forces in the world can get together, but our country will remain unimpaired in the lone run. You can have any illusions; you can stand on the shoulders of any great power and use all its resources. But believe me. Mr. Foreign Minister, finally—this is the lesson of history from the beginning of lime—what belongs to a people will go to that people. “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s; render unto God that which is God’s.” East Pakistan is pan of Pakistan—you know this. Remember this well.

The fact is that we are being made a Poland in Asia. Although Poland voted against us, we are being made a Poland. In 1939, there was a pact between Germany and the Soviet Union and Poland suffered. In 1971 there is a pact between India and the Soviet Union and Pakistan is suffering as a result of that pact. But we will not suffer forever. The truth must prevail. Even if the Security Council takes no action, even if we have to face more trouble, even if this blackmail is to culminate in further aggression, we are quite confident that. finally, victory will be ours because we stand by justice. And all we are doing is to preserve our national unity and our national integrity.

The United States of America has been accused of supporting Pakistan. The United States of America is not supporting Pakistan but a principle. Please keep the distinction in mind. The United States of America has come out as a great power for a principle, and that principle is not that it is supporting Pakistan: the principle is that it is supporting the unity of a country. It supports the integrity of a country. It cannot permit a country to be dismembered by force. It cannot permit a country to be treated like a despised neighbor. And we are thankful to the United States for the position it has taken, not only for Pakistan but for an important international principle. We are beholden to the United States for promoting not our cause, but the cause of peace, justice and international morality. And the United States knows that its own prestige in the world will rise as a result. The United States has no cause to feel embarrassed. Indeed, if the United States had taken the opposite position, we would have understood it because, unfortunately, sometimes we have had strained relations. I am sorry we have had those strained relations. I am prepared to do everything in my power to repair those relations in Asia for the United States and in my country I do not speak as a puppet or as a representative of any regime; I speak in my right as an authentic voice of the people of West Pakistan. The time will come. We cannot forget it.

We are thankful to all countries which are supporting the cause of justice—we are thankful to China, we are thankful to the United States for supporting the voice of the world.

And now I come to France. The relations between France and Pakistan have been very good. Right from the creation of Pakistan, slowly, we have stepped up our relations in commerce, in trade and economics. We have also obtained a deeper understanding. We have great respect and regard for French civilization and culture. We admire the currents of French thought in Asian political thinking. The relations between Pakistan and France have been so good that we are really pained by France’s present attitude in claiming that they are working behind the scenes. When there is no scene left, where will behind the scenes be?

France must take a positive moral position for national unity and integrity. We are not enemies of France; we are good friends of France. As far as we are concerned, Mr. Permanent Representative, the die has been cast. You must cast your die. Sometimes there will be the east wind; sometimes there will be the west wind. Do not go by the east wind; do not go by the west wind. Go by a principle. The principle is that Pakistan is a united, sovereign state, and an attempt is now being made to dismember Pakistan by physical force. We have the greatest admiration and respect for your great country. When your great former President went to Canada, all he said was “Vive la Quebec libre!” and such a storm was created. It was not said in the context of secession, but the whole world was in an uproar over how President de Gaulle was interfering in the internal affairs of other countries. That was nothing compared to what the Indians are doing in my country. They are not shouting slogans of “Vive la Joi Bangla.” They are going in there with their arms, with their might, with their tanks, to take over my country.

So I appeal to you in the name of justice, I appeal to you in the name of humanity, I appeal to you in the name of the people of Asia—now you have a good name in Asia; you are a respected nation—please do not take the short-term factors into account. You must know that these bad days will pass and the truth will prevail.

I appeal to you in the name of the people of Pakistan. Franco-Pakistan relations have been so good, so cordial and so warm. Today, when we are fighting for our lives with our backs to the wall, when we are facing a much worse Dunkirk—speaking of Dunkirk, that is nothing compared to what our forces are facing—we would expect that France, conscious of the right, conscious of its contribution to civilization and to world peace would play an effective and positive role.

As for Britain, we are members of the Commonwealth, we have remained members of the Commonwealth and I do not want to say too much. This crisis was, to some extent, aggravated by the attitude the British took, for whenever we go outside Asia we are told that the British know the subcontinent very well so we must consult them. If the British knew the subcontinent so well they would not have left us in this state, because for twenty-four years we have had conflict after conflict due to the way in which the departing power left us.

Now the question is this: why did the departing power leave us in that situation? Of course, the departing power took cognizance of the reality of the situation created by the will of the people. The British would not have permitted the partition of the subcontinent into two states—India and Pakistan, one divided by 1,000 miles—if that was not what the people of the subcontinent had wanted. But, the British did not give any benefit of doubt to Pakistan. The first Governor-General of India, Lord Louis Mountbatten. was British; he was not the first Governor-General of Pakistan. Certain areas which the British originally said would be part of Pakistan were denied to us at the last minute. The fact is this: after denying our legitimate rights. the British said of whatever was left, “This, finally, is Pakistan.” Now, since the British decided what was finally Pakistan, why must they now not play a role to at least preserve what they finally conceded as Pakistan?

As far as the Third World is concerned, we are most grateful to it. We are part of the Third World. When it has come to us in our humble way we have always tried to make a contribution to the cause of the Third World. Anywhere in the Arab countries, Morocco, Algeria, the questions of independence, on Vietnam, Cambodia, wherever issues of the Third World have arisen, Pakistan has been in the forefront in supporting principles. Pakistan is grateful to the Third World which has spoken the truth. I salute the Third World. If the Third World had not spoken the truth on this present situation in the subcontinent, then the Third World would have become the Fourth World and the Fourth World would have been the graveyard of the Third World. By upholding truth and unity and justice with respect to Pakistan, the Third World has really preserved itself. We are not fighting only Pakistan’s battle, as I stated. If Pakistan is to be subjugated by force in this fashion, then as far as the subcontinent is concerned; Ceylon can forget its independence, as also Burma. Nepal, Bhutan. Afghanistan and Iran. The steam-roller will continue and go on and on. Any larger country will dictate to its smaller neighbor that so and so should be the President, that so and so should be the Prime Minister, that this is its will, that it should be autonomy here and secession there. And it will send its forces to enforce the diktat. All we ask of the Third World is not to forget us, because we never forgot the Third World. We are part of it. We are the small ones. We are the ones that they try to bully. We are the ones that they have tried to dominate. We must all unite collectively to put an end to great power hegemony and to great power domination. And we will succeed. There will be reverses, like the reverses we are facing. There will be troubles. There will be problems. But, finally, the Third World is bound to succeed because the Third World is really the most inspiring force in contemporary politics. That is why today, even if this draft resolution is vetoed, even if there is a deadlock, even if another draft resolution is vetoed, even if there are more difficulties for my country and more problems. I am sure that finally we shall succeed because the Third World is with us. And, today, we have come to the Security Council to ask for the implementation of the verdict of the Third World. That is all we ask to be done.

Again. I should like to return, before I conclude, to Indo-Pakistan relations. I have some notes here of the main points made by the Indian Foreign Minister. He raised quite a few points and I cannot refer to all of them now. However, there are some of them that I should like to touch upon. I have already touched upon some. I am sure that later the President will be kind enough to grant me the right of reply.

India’s Foreign Minister said that West Pakistan had exploited East Pakistan—the resources and the riches of East Pakistan—and that that is basically the reason why we have come to the present situation. This is a very fundamental question. Exploitation is not a phenomenon of individuals or regions. Exploitation takes place as the result of a social system. It is the social system that exploits. And the same social system basically prevails in India and Pakistan. As much as they are making efforts in India to change their social system, we are also doing in our country because we believe that our present social systems are basically exploitative. The political party which I lead contends that there was exploitation, that East Pakistan had been exploited, as well as regions in the West, but by the social system. The struggle was really related to the social system. We are not denying that there were problems. But we do not say that this means that our country should be destroyed and dismembered by another country.

If tomorrow there are certain parts of another country that are being exploited because of the social system or for some other reason, does that mean that that country should be destroyed or dismembered? Certainly not. Therefore, that is a wrong premise on which they have proceeded.

In addition, the question is why has India occupied East Pakistan? It is rich. alluvial, fertile and it has jute: it is a very rich region of the sub-continent. But the disaster of East Pakistan and of the other part of Pakistan is that a rich region has remained poor. We do not want to have exploitation in any part of our country and we do not want exploitation in any part of the world. But we should be given the chance to decide how we remake our own country, how we transform our own social system and how the nation is to evolve. It is not the right of another country to dictate to us how that should be done or what should be done or who should come here to represent a point of view.

Today, the Indian Foreign Minister said that the problem could only be resolved if a representative of the so-called Bangladesh government, which was created by India, was represented in the Security Council. But Bengal is Bengal and East Pakistan is part of Pakistan. Are you going to permit this kind of precedent, when provincial parties and those who are clients of larger countries should have representation before the Security Council? Are we going back to the days of the Greek city states? Are we going to end up with the principalities of India all over again? Sometimes the Marathas will come to the Security Council; sometimes the Sikhs will come to the Security Council; sometimes the Punjabis will come to the Security Council; and other provinces will come to the Security Council to present their case. We can also bring some people from India. We have not indulged in that kind of mischief. But give us some time; we can also give you some representatives from India who will come here and ask that they should be represented.

Shonan, Sardar sahib, eta amar Sonar Bangla Bharater nai, which in English means: Listen, Sardar Singh, Golden Bengal belongs to us not to India. Golden Bengal is part of Pakistan. You cannot take away Golden Bengal like that from Pakistan. We will fight to the bitter end. We will fight to the last man.