THE EVENING STAR, THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1971
E. PAKISTAN IN AGONY AFTER THE STORM
By Henry S. Brad shier
Star Staff Writer
Hong Kong-“The cyclone might not have taken its full toll yet.”
This revealing remark was made by Zulfikar AU Bhutto during a March 4 interview. It showed that West Pakistan’s military-bureaucrat-landlord elite was willing to shed blood to keep control of East Pakistan.
Three weeks later-last. Thursday-the bloodshed began.
The civil war between the two disparate parts of Pakistan is likely to be long and bloody, even though the government claims the fighting now is virtually ended..
The cyclone is believed to have killed between 400,000 and 500,000 persons. No one will ever know exactly.
Neither might anyone ever know how many are killed in the civil war. The Pakistani government is trying to hide the facts.
From the time election results were in, Bhutto began trying to deny to the East the right to get the kind of constitution it wanted.
Bhutto, a feudal landlord and former foreign minister with a brilliant but opportunistic career, had won in the West on socialistic promises to the poor. His obstructive maneuvers against Rahman served the interests of the Western elite however, rather than the poor.
Because of his threat of a boycott, the National Assembly was postponed. Frustrated, Rahman called a general strike which grew into a takeover of most civil government powers in the East by his Awami League.
From the time of the general strike in the East, there were continuous reports of soldiers being flown from West to East Pakistan. The government controlled the national airline and Dacca Airport,
These reports were well substantiated. Less solid were reports of ships being used to carry soldiers East also.
The government lacked control of the ports, where Awami League supporters refused to allow army supplies to be unloaded. Rahman had the army, isolated and held to tight rations.
The best available estimates were that when the crisis began about 26.000 soldiers were in East Pakistan, a region of more than 75 million people. The number of troops had possibly risen to 30,000 or mote when fighting broke out.
There were signs by last Wednesday that the army was getting ready to move.
A munitions ship had been sitting in Chittagong harbor for several weeks with dockers refusing to unload it. On Wednesday the Army began trying to unload it in defiance of the Awami League.
Unconfirmed reports, from Chittagong told of clashes of civilian blockades being thrown up to block army movements and of 14 tanks being brought into the city.
Several other clashes between the army and civilians were reported from other parts of East Pakistan. Rumored death tolls went up to 50.