DEFACTO MUJIBUR GOVT. IN E. PAKISTAN
FOREIGNERS EVACUATING AMID INCREASING DISORDERS
Dacca East Pakistan; March 10, (AP).
In a reverse coup d’eat unique since power take-over became a way of life in the developing world, the Awaml League has seized civil power in East Pakistan.
The Pakistan Army controls its own lines and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Awami League calls itself the de facto government.
The banks now open when Sheikh Mujib orders them to, and civil servants stop work at his command.
In the provinces, the security force are hindered by road blocks and threats to their supplies which come almost solely from local contractors.
“The Awami League is the defacto government in East Pakistan,” said a party economist. “For the moment we are making it up as we go along.”
Since Sunday, when Sheikh Mujib called on civil servants to obey him only, the army and civilian regime have avoided a test of power.
After Sheikh Mujib ordered the courts closed, the military rulers were unable to find a judge to swear in the new military governor, Liutenant General Tikka Khan, a tough pathan from West Pakistan.
Army patrols have remained off the streets.
The army ordered the local Radio Pakistan not to broadcast Mujib’s speech Sunday. But it relented when the employees went on strike closing the station, and a bomb was thrown at the broadcasting building.
Trouble in East Pakistan started when Yahya Khan postponed the opening of a naional Assembly session the political leaders of East and West Pakistan could not agree on a new constitution for the band-over to civilian rule.
Yahya Khan then ordered an assembly meeting on March 25, but Sheikh Mujib, whose East-based Awami League had a majority of the 300 National Assambly seats rejected this unless martial law was lifted.
There has been no confrontation over Sheikh Mujib’s ban on payment of revenues to the central government. He is expected to direct that it be paid only into the East Pakistan treasury under Awami League control.
EVACUATION
The British have ordered youthful volunteers working in the East Pakistan countryside evacuated for safety to the capital, Dacca, amid renewed reports of disorders in the defiant province, diplomatic sources said Wednesday.
As the de facto Awami League regime of Sheik Mubibur Rahman awaited the arrival here of millitrary President Gen. Mohammed Yahya Khan, banking sources reported peasants and towns people were trapping some managers of outlying branch
banks in their offices and homes because they had refused to permit cash with drawals. In Dacca, bankers said checks were bouncing.
Major banks, most of which have headquarters in West Pakistan, and refused to cash them.
According to a British source ten volunteers service organisation workers members of the United Kingdom Peace Corps type group have been orderd to leave Dacca.
Planes are scheduled to evacuate West German, Japanes. Belgian and Dutch nationals. The aircraft already have evacuated one group of West Germans and British women and children.
Pakistan businessmen were meeting with Awami League leaders to avert the growing tie up in the financial life of the province of 70 million persons.
According to a Sheik Mujib order, no revenues are to be paid to the government. Businessman said the directive will halt the delivery for export of jute and textile products for which the government collected excise taxes on a daily basis.
Chamber of Commerce officials said they feared the plants eventually will close, throwing workers out of jobs.
According to Awami League sources, more than eight million persons already are unemployed in the East. Including half a million educated young men from whom the party is recruiting volunteers to keep order in the 51 thousand square miles province.
Ref. Indonesian Observer, 11.3.1971.