Kashmir Cease-Fire Violated Daily

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30879, 12 October 1965, Page 29

Kashmir Cease-Fire Violated Daily

(N Z Press Assoctation—Copyright ’ NEW DELHI, October 10. India and Pakistan are trying to “tidy up” unfinished business left over from their bloody conflict last month.

As a result soldiers are dying almost daily in the hills of Kashmir, in the dust plains of the Punjab or in the great Indian desert. They are dying along a cease-fire line where fire rarely ceases. The so-called cease-fire was supposed to have gone into effect by September 23. ending 22 days of war, but not a single day has gone by since then without the eruption of skirmishes or what would qualify in any military handbook as a battle. There are . two primaryreasons for this continuing bloodshed: The cease-fire, dictated in part by pressure from the United Nations, the United States, Russia and Britain, re-

solved none of the underlying causes for the friction be-[ tween the two countries. The' cessation of hostilities is; serving mainly as a pause for] regrouping and reinforcing, i BOTH CONFIDENT Neither Pakistan nor India’ was hurt badly enough in last | month’s fighting to shy away from another round. Each is still confident it can beat I tlie other. tn spite of the explosive-! ness of the situation, the: United Nations is unable to | move in and spike the guns ] because it has no real power, in fact the United Nations j cannot even properly observe ] and report what goes on. The Prime Minister of India. Mr Shastri, has made it clear that he will not per-1 mit a peace-keeping force on! the country's soil. RIGHTS limited About 148 United Nations officers are in India and! Pakistan, charged with watching a 1500-mile line stretching from north-east Kashmir.' ] diagonally south-west across the subcontinent almost to the Arabian Sea. This means theoretically that each has more than 100 miles of cease-fire line to watch over —but not to patrol lor police. The United Nations men have no right to intervene in i a battle or attempt to halt a| skirmish. Their only job is to investigate cease-fire violations and report to the Secre-tary-General, U Thant. This has been going on along the Indian-Pakistani front in Kashmir since 1949. At the moment, the fight-1 ling along the “cease-fire line"!

appears to be of a tactical, not strategic nature. Local commanders are straightening the line, seizing | favourable ground in limited i attacks, or shelling the other side with artillery. There is no evidence, howlever, that either Government has issued orders for largescale attacks aimed at re- ' opening the conflict.