Shehabuddin hails Fateh’s change of allegiance
From Our Special Correspondent, NEW DELHI, AUGUST 22- The switching of allegiance by Pakistan’s Ambassador in Iraq Mr. Abdul Fateh, was hailed today by two senior Bangladesh diplomats in Delhi, Mr. S. M. Shehabuddin and Mr. Amjadul Huq.
Mr. Fateh announced in London yesterday the change of this loyalty to the Bangladesh Government. He had earlier arrived in London from Baghdad via Beirut.
Mr. Shehabuddin who is the head of the Bangladesh Mission in Delhi, said in a statement that Mr. Fateh’s action “shows that every Bengali wants to contribute in his own way to our overall efforts to preserve the independence of our motherland from the intolerable yoke of the foreign murderous Government.”
Mr. Huq holds that “it exposs convincingly the hollowness of Yahya Khan’s claim to the loyalty of Bengalis in the employ of the Pakistani Government.”
Mr. Shehabuddin added that Mr. Fateh’s action made it evident that no Bengali could serve in any capacity, however lucrative and prestigious, under the Pakistani regime.
“Every Bengali has become convinced” he added, “that further participation in President Yahya Khan’s Government means to help his barbarous regime perpetuate the genocide on our kith and kin.”
“We welcome Mr. Fateh most heartily because Bangladesh needs men of his ability and experience”, said Mr. Shehabuddin.
Such transfers of allegiance will give food for thought to those countries which still think of a political settlement in the context of Pakistan and are keen at reviving Pakistan, which is dead and buried in the blood of hundreds of thousands of martyrs.
Mr. Shehabuddin asked General Yahya Khan to face the consequences of his “heinous crimes and withdraw his hordes from Bangladesh”. He also urged the Pakistani leader to assure the safety and security of Bangladesh’s undisputed leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Mr. Huq appealed to the nations of the world not to hold up for any length of time the long overdue recognition of the Bangladesh Government.
“Bangladesh has earned the right to recognition as her sons and daughters have met untold sacrifices for the sake of their independence and freedom,” he added.
Mr. Fateh’s decision, he said, would only encourage the brave soldiers of the Mukti Bahini to fight harder and harder.
Mr. Fateh is the first Pakistani diplomat of the rank of an Ambassador to have switched his loyalty to the Bangladesh Government.
The Bangladesh Foreign Minister, Khandakar Moshtaque Ahmed, in Mujibnagar on Sunday welcomed the transfer of allegiance to the Bangladesh Government by Pakistan’s Ambassador in Iraq and invited others in the Pakistan foreign service to plunge into the battle against President Yahya’s military regime, adds UNI.
Mr. Ahmed said the Foreign Secretary to the Government of West Pakistan, who was currently presiding over a conference in Tehran of his Ambassadors in West Asia and Africa to review the whole spectrum of his Government’s diplomacy in the region, would find to his utter dismay, a vacant chair which was to have filled by his Ambassador in Iraq.
He said the Government of West Pakistan was to explain to its Ambassadors now meeting in Tehran why the West Pakistani Government had to remove two of its most trusted and loyal civilian Ambassadors belonging to the Pakistani foreign service, Mr. Agha Hilaly in Washington, and Mr. Salman Ali in London both of whom were from Pakistan. They had been replaced by two Army generals.
Reference: Hindustan Standard, 23.08.1971