Bangladesh lobby makes little impact in Congress
From J. K. BANERJI, NEW YORK, JULY 10.-In a combined effort to force Congress to act against what is believed to be President Nixon’s clear policy of not displeasing President Yahya Khan of Pakistan or jeopardizing his position in the country, critics of US aid to Pakistan have introduced legislation that would suspend all assistance economic and technical as well as military-to the Pakistani Government until normal conditions have been restored and the immense problem of 6.5 million Bengali refugees who have crossed over to India has been resolved either through Yahya Khan’s own initiative or, failing that, by international intervention.
So far, every effort by a handful of concerned Senators and members of the House of Representatives or the Lower House to convince their colleagues in either House that to supply Pakistani Government troops with US-made military hardware for use against Bangladesh rebels is to make this country and “indirect ally in genocide” has had very little impact.
To ensure that such proposals are not bottled up in House and Senate Armed Services Committees, either through inertia or as a result of manipulations of those legislators who operate on behalf of the Executive, and left to die, the critics have taken the roundabout way of proposing the measures as amendments to the pending $3.5 billion foreign aid package.
But a legislature approach, if it does materialize, is still weeks away-at least not until later this month.
“Our only hope”, a Democratic Senator has confided “is that somehow we can get the public involved. What we have here is another case where, as usual we’re taking sides in a civil war and just as usual, we’re on the side of the losers.”
There is no official breakdown in the aid package to indicate how much of it will go as military aid to Pakistan. But in the light of the administration’s apparent deception in the matter of the so-called ban on military supplies, one does not know how much credence to give to the official assertion that there was no money requested for the Pakistani military this year. This is specially so in the light of the assertion of the same official that there “could be” some funds to cover training commitments for the Pakistan Army personnel
Reference: Hindustan Standard, 11.07.1971