THE PALAVER WEEKLY, GHANA, JULY 8, 1971
EAST PAKISTANIS CRY FOR HELP
On March 25. 1971 under cover of darkness, one of the most gruesome crimes in the history of mankind was perpetrated by a blood-thirsty military junta against a whole population of seventy-five million, constituting the majority of the people of Pakistan.
Many newspapers, reputed for their objectivity, have come out with documentary evidence in the form of photographs and eye-witness reports of one of the greatest genocide exercises in the annals of man.
Eminent British M.Ps and statesmen, including Presidents and Prime Ministers and the U.N Secretary-General have directly voiced or indirectly the strongest expressions against the crime.
According to all available evidence and report the awful genocide which was deliberately planned and executed ruthlessly by the West Pakistan Army and has been marked, among other unspeakable atrocities, by the systematic decimation of East Pakistani’s intellectuals and professionals, including eminent professors, lawyers, journalists, doctors, students etc, is still continuing.
It is only too well known that the only fault of the defenseless victims of this internal operation was their participation in the first democratic elections in their country’s 23 years of existence. They elected, almost with one voice, their chosen leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his party the Awami League.
The only crime of Sheikh Mujib and his party was that they sought through normal processes of democracy, to end the erstwhile colonial status of their part of the country and restore it to a position of respectability, within a united Pakistani federation.
In this respect it must be noted that the tragedy of East Pakistan is quite unlike that of Biafra. An after parallel would be South Africa or Rhodesia where a small minority of the population has been deliberately denying and suppressing the fundamental rights of vast majority of the population.
Yel. the parallel goes only a small part of the way. Even Vorster or Ian Smith have not indulged in anything like the barbarities and reign of terror let loose on the majority of the country’s population by the West Pakistan military junta. Yet is claimed that this is an internal matter of Pakistan. Is it so?
The answer to this provided by over six million terror-stricken people of East Pakistan who have fled their country to neighboring India, constituting a grim ‘witness to the colossal dimension of the East Pakistan tragedy.
For humanitarian reasons India, which has always been regarded by Pakistan as its enemy number one, has despite its own population explosion and sacrifices, done whatever it could do to house, shelter and feed the vast number of refugees from East Pakistan.
The number of refugees fleeing East Pakistan into India is still increasing at a rate of fifty thousand a day. If a Government can force millions of its people to seek protection in another country, one wonders what earthly or heavenly right that Government has to remain in power any longer.
As the situation is reported to be, there seems little hope of the East Pakistan refugees in India being able to return to their own homes.
New Constitutional proposals announced by the Pakistani President are clearly calculated to perpetuate rule by a brutal minority in that country. The time has therefore come for the U.N. and all freedom-loving peoples of the world to bring the maximum possible pressure on the military junta of Pakistan to transfer power to the elected representatives of the people-in this case Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the Awami League. It is only by that they can create conditions in East Pakistan which will enable millions of East Pakistan refugees in India to return to their homeland without fear of persecution or worse.
“It is only thus that one can hope to avoid an already dangerous and explosive situation from worsening with unpredictable and disastrous consequences.”
“Once again Palaver joins all right-thinking people in the world to condemn, in unequivocal terms, the atrocities being perpetrated by the military junta in Pakistan against the defenseless people of East Pakistan.”