Evacuees actively paving their way back home : Tajuddin
MUJIBNAGAR, JUNE 13- The Bangladesh Prime Minister, Mr. Tajuddin Ahmed said today that the evacuees now in India were keen to come back home.
In a broadcast over the Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra, Mr. Ahmed said the evacuees were “actively trying to hasten the day of their return by joining the Liberation forces of Bangladesh in great numbers”.
He expressed his gratitude to the Government of India for what she had been doing to relieve the distress of these people. But regretted that even after the appeal of the UN Secretary General the offer of help was not commensurate with the magnitude of the problem.
He appealed to the Big Powers not to “aggravate the monumental wrong done to a peace and freedom-loving democratic people by interfering in favor of “the bloodthirsty military dictatorship of West Pakistan.”
The Bangladesh Prime Minister was more outspoken when he charged the Big Powers of having a “large share” in the “vast evil being enacted in Bangladesh today.” The Big Powers he said had assisted the rise of dictatorship and a capitilistbureaucrate military oligarchy in Pakistan by giving it arms and economic aid without regard to the manner it created.
“I urge them not to try to prop up the crumbling economic base of the oppressive Government at Islamabad, either directly or through the World Bank and the IMF unless it withdraws its occupation army of Bangladesh. Let there be no doubt anywhere that aid given to Islamabad now will be sucked, in cynical and devious ways into the war machine and used to hold down the people of Bangladesh.” Mr. Ahmed said.
Appealing to the nations of the world to accord recognition to the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, the Prime Minister said this Government alone represented ligitimacy “in our land, founded as it is upon the family expressed will of its people.
Our people have completely repudiated the colonial rule of West Pakistan and are not fighting to cerend their freedom” he said.
In a special word to these in other Muslim and Arab countries who had not yet found it possible to condemn the mass slaughter in Bangladesh, the Prime Minister said that “their silenes condones colonialism and barbarism; their support to Islamabad puts them on the side of dictatorship and its well-documented crimes of arson, 100 rape and murder.”
Mr. Ahmed also appealed to all nations of the world to ensure the safety and secure the release of Bangladesher Sheik Mujibur Rahman, “the undisputed leader of the people of Bangladesh.”
Mr. Ahmed said the war of liberation was now in its eleventh week and the valiant freedom fighters had put despair into Yahya’s heart. The staggering casualty figure of West Pakistani Army testified to the success of the defensive operations. The twin methods of massive terror and murder had not succeeded in breaking the will of a nation determined to fuled its destiny in freedom.
The aim of Pakistan Mr. Ahmed said, included genocide, a carefully planned famine, driving vast numbers of people out of Bangladesh by means of systematic terror and a “schorched earth” policy the elihination of the intellectuals and political leadership and the destruction of the present economic base in fact the complete political and economic subjugation of the Bengalis to the military lords and capitalists of West Pakistan.
“Pakistan’s plan of depopulating Bangladesh” the Prime Minister said had created for India the problem of looking after several million war evacuees from Bangladesh which constituted an **** strain on her resources.
Mr. Ahmed wound up his speech by congratulating the people of Bangladesh on their brave struggle and asking them to make sure that no exportable merchandise could fall into the hands of the enemy to seek out collaborators and quisling and punish them; to maintain solidarity with the freedom fighters to be kind and helpful to fellow success in the common struggle; to be on their guard against enemy agents seeking to disturb communal and sectional peace; and finally to have faith in the justness and invincibility of their cause. “Our victory” he said, is assured.“
Reference: Hindustan Standard, 14.6.1971