The 104 members of the U.N. General Assembly who toed the American line by voting for the resolution calling on India and Pakistan to cease fire forthwith and pull back their troops may lay the flattering unction to their souls that they did something dramatic about the Bangla Desh conflict, but their actual contribution to ending that conflict can only be zero. On the other hand, their blatant anti-India bias and their refusal to go to the root cause of the conflict, namely the Islamabad junta’s savage repression of the people of Bangla Desh, may well contribute to the prolongation of the crisis by the indirect encouragement they have given to the junta. That they went ahead and adopted the resolution even after the strong objection voiced by the Indian representative, Mr. Sen, gives room for the thought that they were more interested in embarassing India than in bringing about an easing of the crisis in the sub-continent. A General Assembly resolution is only recommendatory in scope and not binding on the members and India will be well within its legal rights if it ignores the Assembly’s call for a cease-fire and troops withdrawal, which is what it is bound to do. The U.S., in its chagrin over the failure of its move, first in the Security Council and then in the General Assembly, to get the U.N. to pull Islamabad’s chestnuts out of the fire, may then take the issue back to the Assembly and try to get a stronger anti-Indian resolution passed.
