TIGHT ROPE-WALKING
WHETHER the U.S. decision to halt arms supplies to Pakistan save those that are in the pipeline is a first step in the redirecting of American policy in South Asia as Senator Kennedy hopes, is as yet unclear; the measure however is a significant one. Opinions will vary as to the exact nature of that significance and wishful thinking may easily lead one up the garden path. Apparently Washington has been trying to do a bit of diplomatic tight ropewaling so that it may appear to be holding the scales even between New Delhi and Islamabad. Oddly the incongruity of such a balancing act has been missed by the U.S. policy-makers. For it puts democracy and tyranny on a par, which is a negation of the basic principles the U.S.A. Cherishes.
It is doubtful if the belated American step will act as a check on General Yahya Khan’s bellicosity. For one thing, he has already built up a stockpile of arms that is frankly formidable. For another, his other sources of supply of military hardware have not dried up yet. Also, there have been persistent rumours that although direct supplies have been stopped dispatch by the backdoor is still continuing. Substantial arms, it is alleged, have been transferred to Pakistan from Vietnam. Iran and Saudi Arabia are also believed to have made available to Islamabad U.S. arms and ammunition, with or with the consent of Washington.
Even if no more arms are exported to West Pakistan from the U.S.A. the latter cannot disown its responsibility for building up tension in this subcontinent or underwriting genocide in Bangladesh. Whatever she may do now will not atone for the mass murders the military junta sitting pretty in Islamabad has committed in East Bengal. Nothing can conceal the fact that it was American bullets that killed the unarmed masses in Bangladesh, nor that the military assistance received from the U.S.A. actively encouraged General Yahya Khan to hurl threats of war against India. With the issue of war and peace hanging delicately by the shoestring in this subcontinent America has perhaps deemed it prudent to revoke arms licences to Pakistan lest she should be accused of directly provoking an armed conflict in this part of the world. But war or no war she has patently betrayed democracy by arming to tecth one of the most ruthless regimes in the contemporary world. (Editorial]
Reference: Hindustan Standard 10.11.1971