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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, FEBRUARY 25, 1983
PAGE 11
Predictably in the ensuing two-day U.N. debate, communist and Third World
countries joined forces to violently condemn the United States for its
"threatening" movement of AWACS, an aircraft carrier and warplanes to the
shores of North Africa. {No mention, of course, of Libya's planned aggres
sion.)
A U.S. diplomatic source said the meetings "merely afforded some
delegates an opportunity to malign the United States with lies, distortions
and misinformation."
One of the simplest truisms of international relations is that "power alone
can limit power." President Reagan understands this.
Former President
Carter did not.
In India, Riots Strain India's Fragile Union
Riots stemming from a religious/cultural clash have erupted in Assam state,
at India's extreme northeast tip. The issue revolves around the influx
over the years of poverty-stricken immigrants flowing into Assam from
neighboring Bangladesh {a somewhat similar problem to the Ghanaian refugees
in Nigeria). The rub is that the refugees are Moslem whereas native Assa
mese are Hindus. For three years Assamese university students have cam
paigned for the expulsion of the refugees. They accuse the Moslem new
comers of tainting their culture and costing them jobs and farmland.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's decision to let the refugees vote in up
coming elections set off the carnage. To date, at least 3,500 people have
been killed, unofficially, in the three weeks of bloodletting. It has been
the worst spree of communal violence since approximately two million people
were killed in riots at the time of the independence of India and Pakistan
in 1947. U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, in its February 28, 1983 issue summar
ized the turmoil in this fashion:
In India, religion, politics and unwelcome immigrants form a
bloody mix. The setting: State elections in Assam•••• Adver
saries:
Four million refugees from Bangladesh, just given the
right to vote, and up to four times that many Assamese who resent
their presence.
Refugees are mostly Moslems, speak Bengali.
Assamese are Hindus.
India's Prime Minister Gandhi [ignored] pleas by opponents to
call off the three-stage election. One of her Congress-I Party's
candidates was executed by villagers armed with spears and
knives. Congress-I was assured of victory when most opposition
parties withdrew.
In her campaigning, Gandhi stressed nationalism and unity, warn
ing that regionalism� easily turn 1£ separatism. It's a trend
that frightens her.
Only last October, millions of Sikhs in
Northwest India demanded autonomy. Indians have scores of cul
tures, speak hundreds of languages, worsh-rp-countless-gods.
Fading nationalism is the glue that holds the country together.
The recent outbreak of communal fighting on the Indian subcontinent recalls
the fight of Winston Churchill in the 1930s to prevent the emergence of an
independent India having dominion status with its own central government.
Churchill believed that there were "fifty Indias," not one, and that on the
subcontinent there existed "bitter theological hatreds." In the new book,