MUJIBUR RAHMAN STEPS UP CONFRONTATION
TIGHTENS DEFACTO CONTROL OVER EAST PAKISTAN
Dacca, East Pakistan March 15 (AP) AWAMI LEAGUE chief Mujbur Rahman urged striking civilian defense workers in East Pakistan Sunday to defy an army order sending them back to their jobs Monday under threat of dismissal and courtmartial, with a penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment if they disobeyed.
The defiant Bengali politician, bowing to local businessman’s demands, that the strike be eased to bolster the faltering eastern economy, and taking a firmer control of the regime, also ordered the payment of taxes to his defacto government, partially opened communication between east and west Pakistan and the rest of the world, and provided a way to resume eastern exports without foreign exchange earnings going to the treasury of the military regime based in West Pakistan.
Shaikh Mujib said “I appeal to the people … should force be unleashed against them, to resist it by all means possible.”
Stepping up the confrontation between the East Pakistan-based Awami League and the martial law regime, Sheikh Mujib said: “I urge those to whom the latest order has been directed not to yield to the threat lavelled against them.”
The army on Saturday ordered civilan workers dealing with engineering, maintenance, supply, payrolls and power and water back to their jobs as the Awami League-inspired nonviolent, non cooperation movement spread throughout East Pakistan.
The army had admitted running into trouble getting local supplies. One week after he called for the movement as a protest, against continued martial
law, Sheik Mujib ordered the workers back to their government jobs so that the ports would function, exports and imports moved and wages be paid to keep the economy going.
Sheik Mujib issued a sweeping program of 35 directives in an attempt to tighten de facto control over the government in the east.
He ordered ports to function, imports and exports to be moved and foreign mail and telegrams to be transmitted. He also ordered one hour of commnication daily between East and West Pakistan to permit banks to do-business.
Other directives included : – The opening of government owned factories.
– The payment of wages to employees of government and semi government agencies, including primary school teachers who had been threatening their own strike if they went unpaid.
– The payment of pensions, and – The opening of foreign airline offices in the East.
Sheik Mujib reversed his ban on paying taxes and said all provincial taxes would be collected and credited to the government of bangladesh’- referring to the nationalist name for the East meaning Bengaliland.
He ordered indirect central government taxes, such as customs and excise duties and sales tax to be collected and deposited in special accounts set up in two easternbased banks. But he said central government income tax would not be collected until further notice.
The same two banks were authorized to collect foreign exchange earnings in accounts abroad. Money for purchases of the East’s exports-mostly jute-ordinarily would go into central government accounts abroad.
Ref. Indonesian Observer, 15.3.1971