In 1983, the INTERPOL, then based in Paris, had issued a red corner alert to all its member-countries to arrest Talwinder Singh Parmar, then the leader of the Babbar Khalsa, Canada (since killed by the Punjab Police in an encounter in 1992), if he was found in their territory and to inform the Govt. of India.

He was wanted in India in connection with the murder of a number of Nirankaris (religious personalities) and his suspected involvement in plots by Sikh terrorists to have Mrs.Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, assassinated.

2. The West German Police had circulated copies of the alert to all its police stations and border and immigration posts. One of its Constables, while making a routine check of the papers of passengers in a train going from Switzerland to West Germany, found Parmar amongst them. He immediately arrested him, removed him from the train and informed his headquarters.

3. The Police immediately informed the INTERPOL in Paris who, in turn, alerted the Govt. of India. New Delhi thanked the West German Government for the action taken and moved for his extradition to India. The necessary papers were rushed to Bonn, the then capital of West Germany. The Govt. of India's request to depute a lawyer of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to Bonn to appear directly before the court handling the extradition case was not accepted by Bonn. Instead, it assured New Delhi that one of its prosecutors would handle the case on behalf of the Govt. of India. The prosecutor, after going through the papers sent by the CBI, asked for more papers.

4. In the meanwhile, Sikh extremist elements based in West Germany mounted pressure on Bonn through their local political contacts for his release . One day, the Govt. of India, which was under the impression that he was still in jail in West Germany since the extradition proceedings had not yet been completed, was surprised to receive a cable from the Indian Consul-General in Vancouver, Canada, that Parmar had addressed a religious congregation in a local gurudwara during which he had held out fresh threats to have Mrs. Gandhi assassinated.

5. When the Indian Embassy in Bonn checked up with the West German Foreign Office, the latter told it that the prosecutor had advised that the case against him was weak and that he had, therefore, been released and expelled to Canada. The Govt. of India strongly protested over the clandestine manner in which he had been sent back to Canada without the courtesy of waiting for the additional papers sought by the prosecutor and without informing it.

6.The West German Government justified its action, but at the same time tried to assuage the anger of New Delhi by assuring that it had banned Parmar from entering West Germany again.

7. That was 18 yeas before the horrendous events of 9/11. International co-operation in acting against terrorism and mutual legal assistance in bringing terrorists to trial were then more an exception than the rule. Decisions in terrorism-related cases were taken by Western Governments more on political than on professional grounds.

8. One thought that the world had become wiser post-9/11 and realised that by withholding such co-operation on political and other extraneous grounds and by failing to act unitedly against terrorists and States sponsoring them, the international community was only playing into the hands of terrorists.





"(a) Refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts;
"(b) Take the necessary steps to prevent the commission of terrorist acts, including by provision of early warning to other States by exchange of information;
"(c) Deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts, or provide safe havens; "(d) Prevent those who finance, plan, facilitate or commit terrorist acts from using their respective territories for those purposes against other States or their citizens;
"(e) Ensure that any person who participates in the financing, planning, preparation or perpetration of terrorist acts or in supporting terrorist acts is brought to justice and ensure that, in addition to any other measures against them, such terrorist acts are established as serious criminal offences in domestic laws and regulations and that the punishment duly reflects the seriousness of such terrorist acts;
"(f) Afford one another the greatest measure of assistance in connection with criminal investigations or criminal proceedings relating to the financing or support of terrorist acts, including assistance in obtaining evidence in their possession necessary for the proceedings;
"(g) Prevent the movement of terrorists or terrorist groups by effective border controls and controls on issuance of identity papers and travel documents, and through measures for preventing counterfeiting, forgery or fraudulent use of identity papers and travel documents;





"(a) Find ways of intensifying and accelerating the exchange of operational information, especially regarding actions or movements of terrorist persons or networks; forged or falsified travel documents; traffic in arms, explosives or sensitive materials; use of communications technologies by terrorist groups; and the threat posed by the possession of weapons of mass destruction by terrorist groups;

"(b) Exchange information in accordance with international and domestic law and cooperate on administrative and judicial matters to prevent the commission of terrorist acts;

"(c) Cooperate, particularly through bilateral and multilateral arrangements and agreements, to prevent and suppress terrorist attacks and take action against perpetrators of such acts; " Notes with concern the close connection between international terrorism and transnational organized crime, illicit drugs, money-laundering, illegal arms-trafficking, and illegal movement of nuclear, chemical, biological and other potentially deadly materials, and in this regard emphasizes the need to enhance coordination of efforts on national, subregional, regional and international levels in order to strengthen a global response to this serious challenge and threat to international security. " Expresses its determination to take all necessary steps in order to ensure the full implementation of this resolution, in accordance with its responsibilities under the Charter."

9. Despite the strong directives of the UNSC, some member-countries such as Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) continue to flout its provisions without the international community acting against them for violating the resolution. In March,1993, at the behest of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Dawood Ibrahim, the leader of a transnational mafia group, and his brother Anees Ibrahim, both then living in Dubai, had organised a series of explosions directed against economic targets in Mumbai, killing about 250 innocent civilians. The perpetrators were clandestinely taken from Mumbai to Karachi via Dubai, got trained in camps run by the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), now a member of bin Laden's International Islamic Front (ISI), and sent back to Mumbai. Pakistani explosives and detonators and timers of US origin from the stocks supplied to the ISI by the US during the Afghan war of the 1980s, were sent separately boats organised by Dawood.

10. When the Govt. of India asked the UAE Government for the arrest and extradition of Dawood and Anees to face trial in India, the latter pressurised them to leave its territory. They took up residence in Karachi and started operating from there. Repeated requests from the Govt. of India for their arrest and extradition were turned down by the Pakistan Government on the ground that they were not in Pakistan. Red-cornered notices of the INTERPOL for their arrest were not honoured by Pakistan.




The article stated as follows:" Dawood Ibrahim and his team, Mumbai's notorious underworld clan, including his right hand man Chota Shakeel and Jamal Memon, are on India's most wanted list for a series of bomb blasts in Mumbai and other criminal activities. After the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts, the gang have made Karachi their new home and operating base. Living under fake names and IDs (identities), and given protection by government agencies, they have built up their underworld operations in Karachi employing local talent like Shoaib and Bholoo.

" In Pakistan, Dawood managed to establish another huge empire, comprising both legitimate and illegitimate businesses. In fact, the last few years have witnessed Dawood emerge as the don of Karachi. Dawood and his men have made heavy investments in prime properties in Karachi and Islamabad and are major players in the Karachi bourse and in the parallel credit system business--hundi. Dawood is also said to have rescued Pakistan's Central Bank, which was in crisis at one point, by providing a huge dollar loan. His businesses include gold and drug smuggling. The gang is also allegedly heavily involved in (cricket) match-fixing. "

The article added: " Not only have the Pakistani authorities turned a blind eye to the gang's activities within Pakistan, but many in the corridors of power have partaken of Dawood's hospitality.....He is said to have the protection of assorted intelligence agencies. In fact, Dawood and his men move around the city guarded by heavy escorts of armed men in civies believed to be personnel of a top Pakistani security agency. A number of Government undercover agents, who came into contact with Dawood because of their official duties, are now, in fact, working for him. Nearly all the men, who surround him for security reasons, are either retired or serving officers, claims an MQM Muttahida Qaumi Movement) activist."

The article further said: " According to informed sources, Dawood is Pakistan's number one espionage operative. His men in Mumbai help him get whatever information he needs for Pakistan." (End of citation from the article)

Though the laws of Pakistan do not provide for "economic citizenships", the Pakistan Government informally provides them to international criminals and terrorists, who maintain a minimum dollar deposit in Pakistani banks and help the Government.
Dawood Ibrahim, who had reportedly lent money to Pakistan in the past for the clandestine procurement of missiles and connected technology from China and North Korea, has been given informal "economic citizenship" in order to protect him from the arms of the Indian law and provided with a Pakistani passport under a different name.




Despite this, Dawood played an active role in organising the referendum campaign of Musharraf in Karachi in April,2002,and in bringing voters to the polling booths in trucks to vote for Musharraf.

The UAE authorities announced on December 8, 2002, the arrest (on December 3) of Anees Ibrahim in Dubai, when he arrived there from Karachi travelling under a Pakistani passport. The Government of India immediately made a formal request to the UAE authorities for his extradition and sent to them the necessary papers in this regard. To its surprise, New Delhi found that instead of acting on its request, the UAE authorities had him released on bail and sent back to Karachi without even the courtesy of informing the Govt. of India. Pakistan, as before, continues to deny that he is in Pakistani territory or that he travelled to Dubai with a Pakistani passport.

The blatant failure of the UAE authorities to extend the necessary legal assistance to India in bringing to trial a terrorist involved in the killing of about 250 innocent civilians through explosions in March,1993, stands in marked contrast to their co-operation in February this year in arresting and handing over to India Aftab Ansari,another Pakistan-based mafia leader-cum-terrorist, wanted, amongst other cases, for his suspected involvement in the attack on the security personnel outside the American Information Centre in Kolkatta on January 2,.2002.

Aftab Ansari, who also came out of jail, travelled to Pakistan via Dubai and resumed contact with Omar Sheikh. The two started acting in tandem---Aftab Ansari and his gang indulging in kidnapping for ransom and sharing the proceeds with Omar Sheikh and acting as surrogates for Omar Sheikh's terrorist operations in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) and other parts of India and Omar helping Aftab Ansari in securing a Pakistani passport under a different name and in acquiring property in Pakistan with his share of the extortion/ransom proceeds.

One of the terrorist operations mounted by Aftab Ansari, at the instance of Omar Sheikh, in Indian territory was the attack on the security personnel guarding the American Centre in Kolkata (Calcutta) on January 22,2002.Aftab Ansari was subsequently arrested by the Dubai authorities while trying to fly to Karachi and handed over to India. Omar Sheikh has already been convicted in Pakistan for his involvement in the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist of the "Wall Street Journal, and sentenced to death. His appeal against the sentence has been proceeding slowly.
In the meanwhile, the six-party pro-Taliban and pro-Osama religious coalition, which has since come to power in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan after the recent elections on October 10,2002, has mounted a campaign for his release from jail.

Earlier, describing the interrogation of Omar Sheikh by the Karachi Police, the "News", the prestigious daily of Islamabad, reported as follows on February 18, 2002: "Claiming that his "brothers" were making their presence felt and will continue to do so "on every inch of Indian landscape", Omar has shocked his investigators by narrating his role and that of his "Jihadi colleagues", in the bomb explosion outside state parliament building in Srinagar in October last and shooting incidents in the compound of Indian parliament in New Delhi and outside the American Centre building in Kolkata in December and January last.




"While speaking to various police officials here (Karachi) and in Lahore over the past one week, Sheikh Omar not only briefed his police interrogators on his role in the Pearl Kidnapping case and on the terrorist strikes in India, but also provided police officials specific details of his travel to Afghanistan a few days after September 11 to have a personal meeting with Osama bin Laden near Jalalabad.

"Omar doesn't hide, police officials said, his ties with several other Arab associates of Osama. Several independent reports and interrogation of two other suspects in Daniel Pearl Kidnapping case have independently confirmed Omar's deep connections in Taliban leadership and his status as a guerrilla warfare instructor in one of the key training facilities in Afghanistan.

The ISI exercised pressure on the Editor of the newspaper not to publish this , but he rejected their pressure and published it. The ISI then pressurised the owner of the newspaper to sack the Editor, who has run away to the US fearing a threat to his life from the ISI. It also forced the officers of the Karachi Police to deny that Omar had made any such confession.

Asif Reza Khan, a close associate of Aftab Ansari, told the Police in India during his interrogation: "Aftab confirmed to me that leaders of different militant outfits in Pakistan were trying to use his network for the purpose of jehad, whereas he (Ansari) was trying to use the militants' networks for underworld operations."

Firstly, Dawood and Anees are in the mafia's big league with billions of heroin dollars at their disposal which they have invested geneously in the UAE and Pakistan. Secondly, they financed to a considerable extent and helped in other ways Pakistan's missile project, thereby making reality the Islamic world's dream of an Islamic bomb with a missile delivery capability.
Thirdly, they targeted only Indian lives and Indian interests.

Such double standards reduce the implementation of the UNSC No.1373 to a farce.

Denis Halliday, the former UN Assistant Secretary-General and UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Iraq, described the UN as an aggressive arm of US foreign policy.  Many of the killed were Halliday's former friends and colleagues.

"The West sees the UN as  a benign organization, but the sad reality in much of the world is that the UN is not seen as benign,” said Holliday, who was nominated for the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize.
"The UN Security Council has been taken over and corrupted by the US and UK, particularly with regard to Iraq, Palestine and Israel. "In Iraq, the UN imposed sustained sanctions that probably killed up to one million people. Children were dying of malnutrition and water-borne diseases. The US and UK bombed  the infrastructure in 1991, destroying power, water and sewage systems against the Geneva Convention.  It was a great crime against Iraq. "Thirteen years of sanctions made it impossible for Iraq to repair the damage. That is why we have such tremendous resentment and anger against the UN in Iraq.  There is a sense that the UN humiliated the Iraqi people and society.  I would use the term genocide to define the use of sanctions against Iraq.  Several million Iraqis are suffering cancers because of the use of depleted uranium shells. That's an atrocity. Can you imagine the bitterness from all of this?

He warned that "further collaboration" between the UN and the US and Britain "would be a disaster for the United Nations as it would be sucked into supporting the illegal occupation of Iraq.  " "The UN has been drawn into being an arm of the US - a division of the state department.  Kofi Annan was appointed and supported by the US and that has corrupted the independence of the UN.  The UN must move quickly to reform itself and improve the security council - it must make clear that the UN and the US are not one and the same."

"Bush and Blair have misled their countries into war.  By invading Iraq and placing the US inside the Islamic world, America is inviting terrorists to come on the attack. " Halliday said the US should withdraw from Iraqi within six months and allow free elections to be held.  The UN could then start the work of helping the Iraq is rebuild their nation.  "Bush has blown $75 billion on this war, so he should spend $75 billion on reconstruction - and the money shouldn't just go to Halliburton [an oil firm now operating in Iraqi which was once run by vice- president Dick Cheney] and the boys either. Once the US goes from Iraq, the terrorist will go as well.




Halliday had also said that the UN had treated the Iraqis as refugees in their own country. The Iraqis had sold, $60 billion worth of oil under this program.  However, they had received less than $20 billion worth of food, medicines, and basic equipment for utilities as water, agriculture, education and healthcare. “ Some $40 billion have disappeared. Where has all this amount gone? It has gone into Kuwait for compensation, to pay for Unscom, Unmovic, and military inspections.  It has gone to finance the UN presence in this country with its 4,500 personnel.  It is paying for the new military inspections. It is paying for somebody's establishment in New York, Paris and Rome. It is ridiculous! “The Iraqi people, who had great difficulties because of lack of money for sophisticated drugs or equipment, were financing large part of the UN system.  “It is a crime, a financial crime you might say being imposed on the Iraqi people.”

He said that the Security Council had been corrupted by its permanent members particularly by the U.S. and Britain in connection with Iraq. The UN resolutions impact were incompatible with the articles 1 and 2 of the UN Charter, incompatible with human rights. “They are in fact incompatible with the Geneva Convention. Sanctions themselves are designed to target civilians, though the Geneva Conventions are designed to protect civilians. The whole thing is wrong.”

“ We need massive reforms of the UN Security Council. We need to remove the permanent membership issue, or at least expand it so that the South as opposed to the North is properly represented. I have a lot to say about the United Nations and its lost credibility. But I think the Iraqi experience under UN auspices is so incredibly bad, in my view genocidal, that the UN has done irreparable damage to itself."

Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois recently said that the United Nations had become a willing tool of the United States.  "For these reasons, the United Nations has come to be seen as part of the U.S.-UK belligerent occupation regime in Iraq and thus an appropriate target for indigenous resistance.  " Kofi. Annan, Prof Boyle added, "has basically served as an errand boy for the United States," despite the UN Charter, which establishes the UN Secretariat as one of the six independent organs of the United Nations.  He said that the last two Security Council resolutions on Iraq have demonstrated "how subservient the United Nations itself has become to the imperialist designs of the United States."

Security Council adopted a resolution recently by a vote of 14-0, virtually recognizing the Iraqi Governing Council, a 25-member political body created by the United States, which has not been accepted by the Iraqi people. UN also decided to create a new UN Mission for Iraq, putting all UN activities under a single umbrella.  Naseer Aruri, professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts said that "The attack on the UN compound seems calculated to undermine the credibility of U.S. rule in Iraq by trying to demonstrate that the occupation authorities are not only unable to deliver services to the public but also unable to preserve law and order. " UN headquarters was not only a "soft target," but it was also seen as a symbol of an unwelcome external intervention in Iraq in complicity with the U.S. military occupation. The bomb attack was intended "to discourage any future dispatch of multilateral forces to Iraq—peacekeeping or so-called nation-building—and let the Americans assume all the burden, get bogged down in the quagmire and eventually abandon ship," concluded Prof Aruri .




US president George Bush with admonition from British prime minister Margarat Thatcher not to be wobbly ( in fixing Saddam Hussein ) went into war  without any clear strategic  objectives, leaving behind more problems. US advice to Iraqi Kurds and Shiite to rebel without any assistance to them led first to massacre of Baathists and then even bigger massacres of Kurds and Shiites. Who should be held responsible for that !The British role in misguiding the Americans with its colonial mental warp has been horrendous. Then it was Thatcher now it is Tony Blair, who might escape fall after the resignations of his close aides but he has done enough to earn punishment terrorism on Britain or British interests .

Great Britain was at the back of world wars and consequent problems and other inequities and sufferings of the human race during the last two centuries. UK, now a second rate power with its obsession to play a role bigger than it merits or its boots by hanging on to the coat tails of USA, would surely invite hubris one day. Western corporate news networks and biased broadcasting corporations have always derided the many palaces built for security by Saddam Hussein. Where are the Americans now working from.  From the same palaces.

De Mello, UN special representative in Iraq was a charming and successful international diplomat who rose fast specially during 1990s.  But finally the hubris caught up with the debonair Brazilian diplomat playing a tightrope game for the USA and the west, whose creature UN has inexorably become and paid the ultimate price with his life.  In an interview after his death, de Mello’s mother made public her premonitions about her son’s death, once she learnt that he had to wear a flak jacket in Baghdad.  She added that her son was reluctant to go to Iraq having just been made Human Rights Commissioner in place of Mary Robinson, whose forthright talk did not endear her to USA.  

De Mello thus became a sacrificial knight in the western Christian world’s centuries old game to dominate others, more recently since the USSR collapsed.

Soon after de Mello death, CNN got Richard Holbrook former US ambassador to UN on line for comments.  Apart from eulogizing the fine work de Mello had done, Holbrook underlined how he had promoted US interests all over the world during his 3 decade long career. He further admitted in Newsweek, "Sergio was usually advancing America's long-term interests [in Iraq].  He saw nothing strange or incompatible in this. " Prior to the announcement of his appointment to Baghdad, De Mello was flown to Washington for private talks at the White House with President Bush and National Security Adviser Condolezza Rice. The repeated statements that de Mello was a front runner to succeed Kofi Annan clearly lets the game out, showing that he was Washington’s man.  And Iraqis and Arabs know that too. Unlike UN secretary general, de Cueillar and others, who got a second term as UNSG, Boutros Boutros Ghali was denied a second UN term for his forthrightness and not kowtowing to the Americans.  Probably more than most UN bureaucrats, de Mello was a representative of the shifting of power in the UN in the 1990s when he made his career.





During the Cold War, USA had to take into account the Soviet Union, which remained an obstacle in the former’s  relations with Asia, Africa and Latin America.  It had to recognise the principle of national sovereignty of individual nations. The US and USSR led confrontation had transformed the General Assembly into hostile warring arena through much of the 1970s and 1980s with U.S. ambassadors like Daniel P. Moynihan and acerbic Jeane Kirkpatrick becoming popular in USA.  But the UN did serve as a useful clearinghouse for mediating the Cold War relations. In the 1990s, Republican supporters like Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia, lambasted U.N. peacekeeping, blocked payment of U.N. dues, and ridiculed U.N. programs. Similarly, Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina a spokesman for the right termed the United Nations "the nemesis of millions of Americans."

The collapse of the Soviet Union ended constraints on US.. It was first evident during the 1990-91 Gulf war, when Gorbachev’s suggestions for peaceful solution were brushed aside.  
Then US and its allies increasingly turned to direct military intervention to secure their interests in the name of humanitarian concerns, when national independence and sovereignty were trampled upon.  

It is cynically called “ethical imperialism,” where the UN has performed the critical function of providing a legal cover for neo-colonial ambitions to exercise authority with out accountability.

The United Nations' agenda and core U.S. security interests have been made to converge.  
For example, the U.N. Charter says nothing about the importance of elected government, yet U.N. missions routinely sponsor democratic transitions, monitor elections, and promote free institutions. And create more problems. The charter explicitly prohibits U.N. intervention in the internal affairs of any government (save for enforcement actions), yet the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, created in 1993 at the United States' urging, exists solely to nudge governments to do the right thing by their own people (mostly to suit US policies)

The United Nations' charter does not mention terrorism, but the United Nations passes and encourages governments to ratify antiterrorist conventions, freeze terrorist assets, and tighten security on land, in air, and at sea.  Reportedly, the situation in East Timor, whose population is mostly Christians in Muslim Indonesia, where de Mello administered, has not improved.  There are similar movements for independence on some other Indonesian islands. Yes Australia’s command over Timor has persuaded Dili to grant oil and other mineral concessions to Australian companies.





To reorganize UN would not be easy .The French, Russians, and Chinese know that have status and influence from their position as permanent Security Council members.  For example what influence would UK have?.. What is UK’s economic strength compared to Japan , Germany and even India on purchasing power parity basis. UK has nuclear bombs so does, India, Pakistan, Israel and even north Korea . The current UN represents pre world war II equation.

Selective Genocide_of Hindus in Dhaka under the nose of USA_1970 = File ?
 
Selective Genocide of Hindus in Dhaka under the nose of USA, 2-1970
The Nixon Papers.
The Rediff Special/Suman Guha Mozumder
www.rediff.com
December 31, 2002 18:22 IST

Part 1: 'Selective Genocide'
The United States Consul General in Dacca, Archer Blood, was in fact circumspect in his wordings, when contrasted with a message that went out from the American Embassy in New Delhi a day later.

Signed by Ambassador Keating himself, the telegram -- again, addressed to the Secretary of State -- is a devastating indictment of US Administration policy. To quote, in part: "Am deeply shocked at massacre by Pakistani military in East Pakistan, appalled at possibility these atrocities are being committed with American equipment [emphasis ours], and greatly concerned at United States vulnerability to damaging allegations of association with reign of military terror.

• promptly, publicly and prominently deplore this brutality;
•  should privately lay it on the line with GOP [Government of Pakistan] and so advise GOI [Government of India]; and,
• should announce unilateral abrogation of one time exception military supply agreement, and suspension of all military deliveries under the 1967 restrictive policy.
  

"It is most important these actions be taken now, prior to inevitable and imminent emergence of horrible truths and prior to Communist initiatives to exploit situation. This is time when principles make best politics."

Signed, as mentioned above, by Ambassador Keating himself -- and interestingly, unlike Consul General Blood in Dacca, the Ambassador in New Delhi does not even refrain from signing the telegram while endorsing the views contained therein.

Thus, the top diplomatic officials in both Dacca and New Delhi warn the Nixon Administration that a calculated, cold-blooded pogrom has been unleashed by Pakistan on its own citizens; that there is a possibility it is being done with equipment supplied by the US; that America needs to take a strong public posture against the genocidal Pakistani regime and finally, that all supplies of equipment should be halted forthwith, as provided by official US policy itself.




A month later -- on April 28, 1971 -- National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger put before President Nixon a top-secret paper, evaluating the situation and putting forward various options to deal with it.

The evaluation, which precedes the recommendations, contains Kissinger's own assessment of the major external players. As under:

• India will be the most important (of the outside players). By training and equipping a relatively small Bengali resistance force, India can help keep active resistance alive and increase the chances of prolonged guerilla war. From all indications, the Indians intend to follow such a course. They could also make it difficult for Yahya to negotiate a political transition in East Pakistan by recognizing a Bengali government. They seem more cautious on this.
• The US will be an important factor from outside the area: (1) We still have influence in West Pakistan and remain important to India. (b) US economic support -- multiplied by US leadership in the World Bank consortium of aid donors -- remains crucial to West Pakistan. Neither Moscow nor Peking can duplicate this assistance. (c) Our military supply, while relatively small and unlikely to affect the outcome of the fighting, is an important symbolic element in our posture.
• The USSR is concerned that instability will work to China's advantage, and has shown perhaps more inclination in recent years than the US towards trying to settle disputes in the subcontinent. In the short run, the Soviet interests seem to parallel our own, although they would certainly like to use this situation to undercut our position in India.
• Communist China could (a) be West Pakistan's main ally in threatening India with diversionary military moves and (b) eventually enter the contest with India for control of the East Pakistani resistance movement. For the moment, the Chinese seem to have cast their lot with the West Pakistanis.
  

Significantly, Kissinger tells Nixon that the US has the economic muscle to force Pakistan to toe the line; and that China is actively engaged on the side of Pakistan.

• "Option 1 would be essentially a posture of supporting whatever political and military program President Yahya chooses to pursue in the East...
• "Option 2 would be to try and maintain a posture of genuine neutrality...
• "Option 3 would be to make a serious effort to help Yahya end the war and establish an arrangement that could be transitional to East Pakistan autonomy."
  

Kissinger spells out what steps would need to be taken in the case of each of the options, suggests that his own recommendation is that the US government go with Option 3. Supporting this recommendation, Kissinger tells his boss: "Option 3 would have the advantage of making the most of the relationship with Yahya while engaging in a serious effort to move the situation towards conditions less damaging to US and Pakistani interests. Its disadvantage is that it might lead to a situation in which progress toward a political settlement has broken down, the US had alienated itself from the 600 million people in India and East Pakistan, and the US was unable to influence the West Pakistan government to make the concessions necessary for a political settlement."

President Richard Nixon's response to Kissinger's comprehensive six-page briefing is a hand-written, signed note, attached to the briefing itself. Marked "To All Hands", the US president sums up official policy towards the situation in the subcontinent in six simple words: "Don't squeeze Yahya at this time."

President Nixon underlines the word 'Don't' thrice, just in case anyone fails to get the message.

The Nixon Papers | Specials © 2003 rediff.com India Limited. All Rights Reserved.