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BERLIN e ROME e WASHINGTON e CAIRO e HAVANA e TOKYO (e BUENOS AIRES

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The death of Prime Minister hastri of India was all the More tragic because it came vithin hours of the signing of N agreement which brought ‘ope to his people and those of *akistan and Kashmir.

| The nine points of the histo- Mc Tashkent Declaration clearly Show the road which India and fakistan should follow in order to replace enmity and alienation “with S00dwill, peace and friend- ly relations,

4 Shastri’s death temporarily Shifted the spotlight from the Political to the personal arena. With the election of Mrs. Indira ‘vandhi as the first woman prime ‘Mnister of India, attention is nice again focussed on the Tashkent pact.

a

iy One of the most unfortunate hea of 1965 was the India- i ‘Stan conflict over Kashmir.

Lag most hopeful event of oa far is the Tashkent De- ton signed by these two Seat nations.

te London Daily Worker, ;Menting editorially, high- i8hted the significance of the 4 ashkent pact:

Re does not resolve the dif- ba and long-standing Kash- i 'Spute. But it does take the

a irst % Wt e H se H | ee Ssential step in that direc-

~aate

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: “The and th Mal 9g: tween

withdrawal of troops € decision to restore nor- Nd peaceful relations be- se ae two ¢ountries will

1€ atmosphere in which

rational discussions on the deep- er problems can take place. .

“Shastri’s successor and Pre- sident Ayub Khan will now have the heavy responsibility of suc- cessfully carrying out the terms of the declaration. |

“In Britain and America the supporters of imperialism, which helped stir up and profited by the India-Pakistan conflict, have hardly troubled to conceal their dislike of the Tashkent meeting.

“The Soviet Union, as an anti- imperialist power with no in- terest in stirring up conflicts be- tween India and Pakistan, was able to play a constructive and helpful role.

“This is one of the factors which made the meeting an his- toric one, and it is enough to ex- plain the spleen of the Western commentators and their persist- ent prophecies of failure.

“Their noses have been put out of joint, but the rest of hu- manity has been given new hope.”

The Soviet newspaper Izves- tia pointed out editorially that the Tashkent Declaration elicit- ed. favorable reactions from many countries embarking on the road to independent. deve- lopment:

‘Tt is no secret that the un- settled, unsatisfactory state of Indo-Pakistani relations had a negative effect on the sciidarity of countries which have freed

~ themselves from imperialist op-

pression.

“I don't regard myself as a woman. | regard myself as a per- son with a-job to do,” Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India said at her first press conference after her election to the highest office in the second most popu-

‘lated nation on earth.

“Tt only played into the hands of those forces which sought to, sow enmity among the peoples, to fan up conflicts.

“Tt is difficult to overestimate the significance of what has been achieved in Tashkent after seven days of patient talks be- tween the leaders of India and Pakistan, assisted by the good offices rendered in the course of the meeting by the chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers (Premier Kosygin).

“A really sound and good basis has been laid for a radi- cal improvement of relations between. Pakistan and India and, consequently, for the general improvement of the situation in this part of Asia, for the fur- ther strengthening of the unity of the countries and peoples that have thrown off the fetters of imperialist oppression.

In the Tashkent Declaration

the two countries agreed: “all

armed personnel” by Feb. 25 to their original positions of last Aug- ust, before hostilities began;

e to withdraw

e to observe the principle of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs;

e to repatriate prisoners of war;

e to discharge hostile propa- ganda and encourage propagan- da promoting friendly relations between both countries;

e to restore diplomatic rela- tions;

e to consider steps to restore communications, ‘economic and trade relations and cultural ex-

changes, and also to take steps -

to implement ments;

e to “create conditions which will prevent the exodus of peo- ple” and to discuss problems of

existing agree-

Tashkent—new hope for humanity

refugees and illegal immigrants;

e to continue direct negotia- tions at top level and other levels on matters of direct con- cern to both countries.

Mrs. Gandhi, 42, only child of India’s first. prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, defeated for- mer finance minister Morarji Desai, 355 to 119, in the first open contest for the leadership of the ruling Congress Party.

“One.of her first statements as leader Was to welcome the Tash- kent Declaration as “‘a first step

. toward peace.”

Mrs. Gandhi calls herself ‘a democratic socialist.” Her hus- band died in 1961. She has two. sons, 21-year-old Rajiv and 19- year-old Sanjay, both of whom are studying engineering in Bri- tain. Mrs. Gandhi was educated in Switzerland, India and Eng- land.

Now that the dispute with Pakistan is toned down, Mrs. Gandhi faces great internal eco- nomic problems. A fall drought cut last year’s harvest of wheat and rice to about 80 million tons — off 10 percent from the 1964 harvest. A gigantic famine looms unless the central’ gov- ernment can force. the richer states (the country is divided into 14 states) to help those hardest hit. In addition, aid from abroad will be needed.

Even if foreign countries rush wheat to India, the port facili- ties are so poor that vessels will have to wait for weeks before they can be unloaded.

at, 1

The shabby face of a fake democracy

BEHIND THE ARMY REVOLT IN NIGERIA

ee

tI ON Ti y

By IDRIS COX

The daily press is shed- ding copious tears because the “image” of democracy in Nigeria has been shatter- ed, and the “shopwindow” Model for the new African States has been wrecked.

“Image” is the correct term, for democracy was never a reality in Nigeria. This has been painfully ap- Parent for several years.

a8 achieved is to bring this into the open for all the world to see.

Because several political Parties were able to contest in “elections,” this was hailed as evidence of a “‘de- Mocratic system,” suppos- edly in contrast to the one- Party system in Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Tanzania, and recently Kenya.

But beneath this facade of a “multi-party system,”

IC is the feudal emirs of the North, allied with the re- aCtionary chiefs and weal- thy capitalists in the West,

What the army revolt

who have in practice exer- cised political rule in Ni- geria.

Throughout the years, they have been the servile agents of foreign monopoly firms, and close collabora- tors of successive British governments.

Nigeria’s political struc- ture has not changed since it was devised under Bri- tish colonial rule, before in- dependence in October 1960.

The majovity of seats in.

the 312-member Federal Assembly are given to the feudal North, which has only a minority of electors,

Despite the repressive feudal rule the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) failed to get a majority in the pre-independence elec- tions in December 1959.

So there was an unholy alliance with the progres- sive National Council of

Nigerian Citizens (NCNC)

in a coalition government for the following five years.

: This coalition had broken

down even before the first

’ general federal elections

after independence, held in December 1964.

With the breakaway of the NCNC it was obvious that the NPC would find it impossible to get a majo- rity of seats, soit went all out to wreck any possibi-— lity of democratic elections.

In no less than 67 con- tituencies of the 174 in the North, opposing candidates were either kidnapped, ar- rested, or killed, or their nomination declared void.

To make up for the NCNC breakaway the NPC formed an alliance with the Nigerian National Demo- cratic Party (NNDP) in the West, a breakaway from the more progressive Ac- tion Group.

- By these methods the NPC succeeded in main- taining its rule of dictator- ship.

In October last year

“elections” also took place in the West, and Chief Akintola, the premier, adopted similar methods to maintain his minority rule in that region.

Since then serious dis- turbances have been a com- mon feature in the West- ern Region, extending as. far south as Lagos, the capital.

Armed forces were used to quell the rising opposi- tion to these fraudulent elections. It seems that the junior officers and ordinary soldiers decided they had had enough of this.

Together with the rising revolt against these rigged elections is the rising strug- gle of the workers to im- prove their living stand- ards. A three-day general strike in October 1963 was successful, and in the past 18 months the struggle of the trade unions has been inseparable from the poli- tical battle to change the system of political dictator-

~

ship and terror in Nigera,

The main target of the revolt has been directed against Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, Premier of the Northern Region, and his close ally, Chief Akintola, Premier of the Western Region, both of whom have been killed during the revolt.

x * *

Military rule is no solu-

tion for Nigeria. Sooner or

later there must come a more democratic constitu- tion and the opportunity for free elections.

There is no hope for the

future unless the grip of the feudal emirs. and the agents of foreign imperial- ism is broken.

Even before the army revolt, impressive steps had been taken to form a united front of all the pro- gressive parties, and only to the extent that this suc- ceeds will it be possible to conceive of an advance to- ward a democratic Nigeria.

S

February 4, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7