India keeps harassing the UNMOGIP vehicles occasionally. Not long ago, three members of the UNMOGIP had a close call along the restive LoC in Azad Jammu and Kashmir after Indian troops shot at and injured two locals who were briefing them.
The UNMOGIP derives its authority from the Security Council Resolution of April 21, 1948, that empowered the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan to establish “such observers as it may require.”
India says that the UNMOGIP, as also the UN resolutions, became antiquated following the signing of the Simla Accord (1972). India’s view is untenable.
However Professor Rosalyn Higgins, later a judge of the International Court of Justice, points out in 1970 that “this resolution would seem clearly to fall within the terms of Article 40 of the U.N. Charter even though that Article was not specifically mentioned.”
The authority for establishing UNMOGIP thus emanates from Chapter VII rather than Chapter VI. Article 40 authorises the Council to “call upon the parties to comply with such provincial measures as it deems necessary.”
The UNMOGIP authority was confirmed when the UNCIP was replaced by a Special Representative, Sir Owen Dixon, on March 30, 1951, by declaring that the “Group shall continue to supervise the cease-fire in the State”. It functions under the control and supervision of the Secretary-General. On October 13, 1972, C.V. Narasimhan, the Under-Secretary-General of the U.N, said in New Delhi: “there has been no written request from New Delhi to withdraw U.N. Observers from the Indian side of the old ceasefire line in Jammu and Kashmir.” He added that they were there under a Security Council resolution followed by an India-Pakistan agreement. They could not be withdrawn as long as the resolution remained. This was said after the Simla pact of July 3, 1972.
India feigns it does not recognise the UNMOGIP but then it provides logistic support to the UMOGIP on its side of the LOC.
Given the discord between both countries over UNMOGIP’s mandate and functions, the Secretary-General has said in the past that the group could be terminated but only through a decision of the Security Council. The UNMOGIP is financed through the UN regular budget.
AMJED JAAVED,
Rawalpindi.