PAKISTANI SCHOLARS GIVE SPEECHES
BY JIM WASCHER
The two members of the Bangladesh delegation to the United Nations yesterday pleaded for the help and support of the Stanford community. Speaking at a noon rally in White Plaza, Dr. Azizur Rahman Mallick said that U. S. military assistance to West Pakistan was having a serious effect upon the “continuous battle between the democratic forces of Bangladesh and the despotic forces of West Pakistan.” Present with Mallick at the rally was fellow delegate Dr. Ashabul Haque.
According to Haque, “one million Bengalis have already been slain by an uncivilized and barbaric enemy that does not believe in any human values”. He added that another nine million had been driven into refugee camps where they “are huddled together just waiting to go home” to a free country.
At a press conference immediately preceding the rally, Mallick said, “If the price of freedom has to be paid in blood and life and suffering, I think our people have paid enough. I don’t know of any country that has suffered more.”
Mallick is the Vice Chancellor of Chittagong University, which is the second largest university in Bangladesh and was a member of the Pakistani delegation to Red China in 1969. He now serves as President of the Bangladesh Teachers’ Associaton.
Haque is a member of the Bengali Provincial Assembly and was a founding member of the Awami League. Both have merely lobbied at the United Nations since Bangladesh has not been granted member status.
They hope that their efforts will produce sufficient public pressure to force the Nixon Administration to end all military and economic aid to West Pakistan.
In describing the Bengalis’ struggle with the West Pakistanis, Mallick stated that “the doors were closed on us” and that “we chose to fight for complete independence rather than to suffer in abject slavery.” Mallick said that the
Bengalis now face an enemy which “has all the characteristics of a primitive and barbaric horde” which he claims will rape “wives in the view of their husbands, and girls in the view of their parents.”
The rally served as a prelude to today’s noon vigil in White Plaza on behalf of the “Fast Save a People.” Students will be asked to donate a day’s meal money to relief efforts for the nine million Bengali refugees now in India.
The Standard daily
November 3. 1971.
পৃষ্ঠা: ২১৮
Reference:
আমার জীবন কথা ও বাংলাদেশের মুক্তি সংগ্রাম – এ. আর .মল্লিক পরিশিষ্ট