THE SUNDAY TIMES, WELLINGTON, JUNE 20, 1971
APPALLING SITUATION IN BENGAL
In considering the appalling situation in Bengal it is proper that immediate concern should be centered on succor for the survivors.
The refugees and their embarrassed hosts in West Bengal deserve all the help the world can raise both to feed and nurse the stricken millions and to prevent their destroying unwittingly the health and economic stability of the province to which they have fled.
But when the urgency of this problem is met, the Pakistani Government must not be allowed to escape wholesale condemnation for a totally insane application of political policy that has resulted in unrestrained brutality and a murderous onslaught that amounts to genocide.
The horrifying facts are only now becoming clear. Though it is still too early to know what they add up to it is certain that the abhorrence we are so ready to show to South Africa for its policy of apartheid must be multiplied many times before it can appropriately apply to Yahya Khan’s repression of the East Pakistan revolt.