SECOND THOUGHTS
NEWSWEEK, MAY 19, 1971
When war broke out in East Pakistan seven weeks ago, most people in the western wing of the divided nation supported their government’s firm stand against secession. But as the bloody confrontation wears on, an increasing number of West Pakistanis have begun to have second thoughts. From Karachi last week, Newsweek’s Milan J. Kubic cabled this report:
At the start of the war, the rigidly censored Karachi press managed to shroud the rebellion and its effect on the nation in a veil of glowing official pronouncements. So effective was this smoke screen that it sometimes bewildered even the very people who disseminated it. Now, the government has lifted an edge of the veil, and what they see beneath it has plunged West Pakistanis into a mood of doubt and gloom.
Prompting their dismay was last week’s announcement that the military regime of President Mohammed Yahya Khan was seeking a six-month moratorium on the repayment of Pakistan’s $4 billion foreign debt, and that fuel prices would be raised by 8 to 10 percent. Coming on the heels of a decree banning the importation of 46 products and doubling and tripling import duties on other items, the news appeared to foreshadow a general inflationary spiral. And this prospect, in turn, seemed to confirm the fears of many Pakistani economists that despite the government’s battlefield victories, the bitter struggle in the east was inflicting heavy damage on the nation’s economy.
Support for that conclusion was not hard to find. For one thing. West Pakistan’s manufacturers were hard hit by the shutdown of their markets in the eastern half of the country, where they traditionally sell one-third of their output. For another, the mass fight of Bengalis from East Pakistan to India has threatened the approaching tea harvest, thereby raising the prospect that substitutes may have to be imported. Most damaging, however, has been the interruption in the export of East Pakistan’s jute, the nation’s major source of foreign currency; exports were resuming only last week. In all, the cost of the conflict has been estimated at $2 million a day a stiff burden for a nation whose foreign- currency reserves were a meager $82 million on the eve of the crisis.
What is more, there is little prospect of a significant improvement in the immediate future. For although some officials contend that life is “gradually returning to normal” in East Pakistan, others admit that it is still seething with rebellion. There are reports of widespread tax evasion (about 40 per cent of the nation’s total tax revenue). And the government’s political pacification program seems to be equally unsuccessful. Thus, despite promises of amnesty to guerrillas and of payment of back wages to civil servants who return to their jobs, few East Pakistanis have risen to the bait. In fact, only two out of 167 deputies-elect belonging to the Awami League-the dominant political party in the east-have repudiated their region’s declaration of independence.
Inevitably, the growing economic crisis and the continued resistance in the east have produced political shock waves in West Pakistan. Dozens of citizens in the northwest frontier province of Sind were arrested recently for demonstrating in support of provincial separatism. And Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the ambitious western political leader who promised his followers an early end to martial law in West Pakistan, has been discredited by continued military rule. But above all the looming danger of inflation and the prospect of a prolonged; clandestine insurrection in the east pose a threat to Yahya Khan himself. For as one leading Karachi politician told me last week: “Other governments in the past have been toppled by far less. I’d say that Yahya has about six months to settle this mess. After that, the army may conclude that the President has bitten off more than he can chew, and it may start looking for a new leader.” If accurate, that assessment still gives Yahya some leeway. But clearly, time is running out.