Word: yahya
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Many Pakistanis fear that in the event of war, the odds will be overwhelmingly in India's favor; even Yahya has called war with India "military lunacy." Thus, Pakistan's blustery charges of invasion last week were widely read as a last-ditch attempt by the Islamabad military regime to bring about international intervention. Should a U.N. peace-keeping mission be sent in, for example, pressures from the Indian side of the border would be greatly alleviated, allowing the Pakistani troops to concentrate on subduing the Bengali rebels. For precisely the same reasons, India is seeking to avoid intervention?...
...worst fear of diplomatic observers was that India and the Bengali guerrillas, confident that they would win easily, were attempting to provoke Yahya into a declaration of war. According to this theory, which is held by a number of U.S. State Department officials, Mrs. Gandhi's Western jaunt was designed mostly to gain time while India's military buildup progressed. When Pakistan's chief ally, Peking, indicated that it really wanted no part of a war on the subcontinent, the Indians decided to move. With snow falling in the foothills of the Himalayas, making Chinese intervention even more unlikely, they...
Another theory holds that India's militant moves may in fact be designed to force Yahya to reconsider an aborted peace proposal. TIME'S Dan Coggin learned that the secret proposal was made by President Nixon to Mrs. Gandhi on her visit to Washington last month. The President reportedly told the Prime Minister that Yahya Khan appeared to be accepting the idea of negotiations with Mujib. If she would remain "moderate" for the time being, Washington promised, it would use its influence to persuade Yahya to sit down with the imprisoned Bengali leader and work out a solution...
There were two chief possibilities under consideration by Yahya, both posing the prospect of a referendum for East Pakistanis to decide their status after a two-or three-year cooling-off time. One proposal suggested that Mujib be released and that he and his Awarni League be at least partly reinstated during the waiting period. The other involved keeping Mujib under house arrest in West Pakistan and making no substantial political changes in the interim...
Indira agreed to adopt a wait-and-see course. Only the week before, Yahya had made a mildly hopeful remark that "if the nation demands his [Mujib's] release, I will do it." Simultaneously, four appeals for Mujib's release, all of suspiciously obscure origin, appeared in the government-supervised press in West Pakistan. On her return to New Delhi. Mrs. Gandhi appealed for restraint and patience...