From 50 Years Ago: United Nations: Diplomatic Failure

United Nations: Diplomatic Failure

Two things about the UN General Assembly resolution, calling upon India and Pakistan to cease fire and withdraw to their own territories, appear to have taken the Government of India by surprise. First, the speed with which the resolution was passed and, second, the overwhelming support which it secured. The Government had evidently expected that the General Assembly would take a few days to debate the “complex situation” by which time, it was confident, the Indian army would have more or less completed the liberation of Bangla Desh. As it happened, it took the General Assembly only a few hours to complete the debate on the motion moved by Somalia and a number of other countries and to adopt it. Similarly, while it probably did not expect to muster enough support to defeat the motion, it has come as a surprise to the Government that except the Soviet bloc countries, it got the backing of only Bhutan and Cuba. The line-up during the earlier abortive debates in the Security Council should have prepared us for some such outcome.