PAKISTANIS WANT END TO AID
By NANCY WARE
Mercury Staff Writer
Two Pakistani leaders visiting K-State today called for a half to U. S. economic aid to Pakistan.
At a time when all U. S. foreign aid is in question, the two leaders said, aid to Pakistan should cease because it is “going to the wrong people.”
Azizur Mallick and Dr. Ashabul Haq, both forced to leave their country last April, claimed U. S. aid is not reaching the needy people in Pakistan because there is no elected government and the “army decides who gets the food.”
The two Pakistanis charged that U. S. aid is so badly administered that they have “seen AID. transports being used by the army in Dacca for their own use.
“Help to India is good”, they said, referring to indications that Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi left Washington over the weekend with assurances U. S. aid for Pakistani refugees in India would top $500 million. Aid to India gets to those in need of it, they said.
Mallick and Dr. Haq were forced to leave Pakistan after the West-dominated central government declared newlyelected Eastern representatives traitors and fighting between the two areas broke out.
Dr. Haq is a practicing physician and last year was elected as a member of the Awami League to the East Pakistan Provincial Assembly. Mallick has been active in developing the educational system in Pakistan and is president of the Bangladesh Teachers’ Association.
The men are representatives of the International Rescue Committee sent to the United States to oppose direct aid to Pakistan. They will appear on a public lecture panel at 7:30 tonight in Union Little Theater.
Mallick commented in an interview that “after the recent cyclone in Pakistan, when the countries of the world were
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giving aid to our country, the Pakistan government did not make an attempt to use the help properly. This is our fear and it is based on past experience.”
“Volunteers should be gathered from all over to distribute the food. This is the only way it will be given to the right people,” Mallick said.
“A package deal will not help the situation,” siad Haq, who explained the problem as twofold. “The first problem is with India and the refugees and the second is the political problem in East and West Pakistan.
“We want liberty and freedom in East Pakistan and West Pakistan is determined to put that part of the globe under military rule denying the seating of elected officials,” Haq, who is one of those elected officials, said.
Mallick said that “what we wanted was a parliamentary form of government, and autonomous form of government for East and West and what we got in return was killing.
The Manllattan Mercury
November 8. 1971.
Reference:
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