THE WASHINGTON POST, APRIL 4, 1971
ROOTS OF CONFLICT
By Selig S. Harrison
The full story behind the political deadlock in Dacca last week and the frenzy of Gen. Yahya Khan’s military retaliation against the Bengalis is a story of wheels within wheels going far beyond the struggle for autonomy by the 73 million people of Bangladesh.
Gen. Yahya and the dominant leaders of West Pakistan were worried about the possible political impact of surrender to Bengali autonomy demands on the internal balance of power in the western wing that is the base of the presently military regime.
West Pakistan is torn by deep internal divisions between the dominant Punjab Sind provinces, on the one hand, home base of the ruling industrial, military and land aristocracy, and the assertive minority provinces of the North-West Frontier and Baluchistan.
Gen. Yahya was determined to avoid concessions to the Bengalis that would necessitate a comparable measure of autonomy for the 60 million strong western provinces.
The North-West Frontier country, made famous by Kipling in his tales of the Khyber Pass, is Pushtu speaking and has long sought autonomy either as a part of Pakistan or through an independent “Pushtunistan”.
Racially kindred to tribal groups in neighboring Afghanistan, the Pushtuns or Pathans have enjoyed intermittent Afghan support in their feuds with successive Pakistan regimes.
Sparsely populated Baluchistan has grown increasingly self conscious in recent years following the discovery of natural gas deposits in what has long been regarded as desert.
Baluchi tribal leaders want some of the gas now channeled to industries in the neighboring Punjab to be utilized for the industrialization of Baluchistan.
In the complex, three-way conflict between Gen. Yahya, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the western minority provinces, the pivotal figure last week was former Foreign Minister Zulfiqar All Bhutto, leader of the West Pakistan Peoples Party, which emerged with the single largest bloc of votes in the National Assembly among west wing parties.
Mr. Bhutto wanted Gen. Yahya to transfer power to a single, unified West Pakistan entirely, since a transfer to four separate provinces would have left him with the status of a local leader of the Punjab and Sind.
The minority provinces in the west have long looked to the Bengalis as allies in their struggle against the Punjab and Sind. They wanted Mujibur to insist on the transfer of power to each or four separate provincial Assemblies in the West along with the transfer to the Sheikh’s Awami League in the East.
Then they wanted him to use his dominant majority of 167 seats in the 313member National Assembly to claim the Prime Minister ship in a moderately strong Central Government. This has also been the attitude of trade union and reformist elements in the west fighting for civil liberties, press freedom and labor rights.
For different reasons of his own. Gen. Yahya, too, wanted Mujibur to serve under him as Prime Minister of a strong Central Government still effectively dominated by the Army.
But Mujibur, pulled by a strong separatist under town in Bangladesh, would have committed virtual political suicide by taking office in Rawalpindi.
Seeking to placate the ultras in his ranks. Mujibur insisted that the National Assembly meet initially in two bodies, one for the East and one for the West, with the separate eastern grouping serving as a symbol of Bengali identity in nationalist eyes.
The western minority provinces were as bitterly opposed to this as Gen. Yahya, fearing that Mr. Bhutto would outnumber them and use his majority to deny them separate provincial status.
Linked to the issue of separate initial Assembly sessions in the two wings was the parallel issue of whether Gen. Yahya should accede to Maribor’s bid for the transfer of power to provincial regimes forthwith, prior to the inauguration of sessions of the Assembly or Assemblies.
In his broadcast on Friday, Gen. Yahya contended that the proclamation ending martial Law sought by Mujibur” “would not have been worth the paper it was written on” if the Assembly had not been simultaneously called into session to serve as a new base of authority.
Gen. Yahya stated that Mujibur indicated final refusal to alter his stand on the Assembly issue in talks Tuesday night. This is what made him see the Bengali leaders “obduracy and his absolute refusal to talk sense,” Gen. Yahya declared, “leading me to conclude that the man and his party are enemies of Pakistan who want East Pakistan to break away completely from the country.”
But Mujibur’s intimates said as late as Thursday night that the ground rules, established during the talks, provided for a final “summit” meeting between Gen. Yahya and the Sheikh on unresolved issues, including the mechanism for the transfer of power.
West Pakistan sources confirmed the view that Gen. Yahya had entertained little hope of a settlement after his initial talks with Mujibur in Dacca but kept up the pretense of talks to allow time for military preparations.
These sources said that Gen. Yahya was increasingly enraged by Mujibur’s posture of serene confidence and his implicit attitude that it would be Gen. Yahya. in the end. Who would have to come to terms?
Mujibur was reportedly ready to concede on the key issue of a transfer of power to the Assembly if Gen. Yahya committed himself publicly in advance to an Assembly resolution setting up immediate governments in the East and West.
He was fearful that the Assembly would become a battleground of officially stimulated factionalism and would never get around to ratifying a formula for the transfer of power.