THE BALTIMORE SUN , TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 1971
PAKISTAN STORM
Radio Pakistan is nothing if not official, and its claim that the situation in East Pakistan is returning to normal may be noted with that in mind. In fact with the expulsion of foreign reporters from Dacca there is no trustworthy source of present information. The official channels say what they are told to say. A rebel radio speaks of continued fighting in Dacca, Chittagong and else where, but the authority of that source is not established. Intelligence by way of India is in large part rumor.
One thing does seem clear, however. The observations of the foreign reporters before they were expelled give a picture of the late last week quite at variance with the government’s picture. The army, which is to say the West Pakistani army, did not act to suppress an uprising. It struck calculatedly, dealing death beyond all immediate provocation.
John E. Woodruff of The Sun, one of the reporters expelled, writes today from New Delhi of earlier rumors, received with some skepticism at the time, that President Yahya Khan’s regime was deliberately prolonging the recent Dacca talks, to lull East Bengal into believing a compromise imminent, and then would attack without warning.
True or not, that reading is given credence by the regime’s curious explanation that the crisis was brought to a head, and the brutal crackdown justified, on a legal technicality-that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Bengali leader, had demanded a turn over of power to elected civilians before any meeting of the projected National Assembly. That the Pakistan People’s party led by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto offers the same story indeed suggests a scheme and a connivance not of recent date.
If the government’s notion of normality is ruthless military oppression, it may be that East Pakistan can be made to appear normal, after a while and for a while. Even that-is doubtful; and it may be taken as certainty that the divisions between the two Pakistan’s have now been widened beyond repair, and that the East Bengalis will not permanently endure physical rule by troops who in looks and habits and language are. after all, Foreign troops.