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The solution, in the view of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, is to bring the U.N. into the picture. "This is the time, now, today, not tomorrow, for the Security Council to act," he said. But the fact is that, even though all the big powers are anxious to avert a conflict on the subcontinent, none are rushing to place the issue before the U.N. Security Council for fear that they might prove to be unable to agree. Lying in his hospital bed in New York City, U.N. Secretary-General U Thant confided to one of his aides last week: "If I am suffering from a bleeding ulcer, it is at least in part due to my frustrating efforts over the past eight months to do something about the terrible situation in East Pakistan." Even Pakistan's U.N. delegate, Agha Shahi, who was ready to bring the matter before the Security Council early in the week, quickly changed his mind. Consultations with the Chinese delegation and soundings of Soviet intentions persuaded him that the two Communist powers might not agree on a cease-fire resolution. The Japanese, however, are working on a resolution that they will introduce if the fighting continues.
The protagonists in this conflict are two extraordinarily strongwilled, even stubborn leaders. At 54, Yahya is a tough-talking professional soldier who rarely shows any inclination for compromise and exhibits his impatience at the drop of an epithet. "Stop reminding me every day," he once snarled at Pakistani journalists when they asked about his repeated promises of a return to democracy for his country. "The people did not bring me to power. I came myself." The stocky former army chief of staff, a Pathan who came to power in 1 969 when widespread strikes and dis orders forced President Ayub Khan to step down, showed his quick temper last week during an impromptu speech at a late-night dinner in Islamabad. Lash ing out at Indira Gandhi, he said at one point: "If that woman thinks she will cow me, I refuse to take it. If she wants a war, I'll fight it."
Child of the Nation The remark was not only ungallant, it was imprudent. For when it comes to tough-mindedness, Mrs. Gandhi is at least a match for Yahya Khan. As the only daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, she was carefully groomed for leadership and grew up an adored and beloved "child of the nation." From her father she inherited a sense of grace under pressure, but where he was the idealist, she is much more the pragmatist. As one political commentator observed: "Her father was a dreamer who did not act decisively. The people loved Nehru, but ihey are impressed by Indira's ability to make decisions and make them firmly and fast." In elections last March, Indians gave Indira, who like Yahya is 54 years old, an overwhelming two-thirds majority in Parliament.
Hostility to Hatred