Matter of Conscience
Have the consciences of men been permanently blunted by the brutality of the age in which we have lived two world wars, the Hitler and Stalin atrocities, the atom bomb, Vietnam, and recently, on a smaller scale, the starvation in Biafra? What other explanation is there for the mute indifference with which, to all appearances, Britain has greeted the appalling slaughter in East Pakistan?
No marches in the streets with …fiying, no sanctions as against Rhodesia, no United Nations resolutions as at the mention of apartheid, not even the minor outcry which (quite rightly) attends the massacre of baby seals. Perhaps this is due to a feeling of sheer helplessness perhaps to something deeper, to a feeling of guilt at the plight of a people who not so long ago were subjects of the British Raj. Their tragedy can, in part, be traced back to the birth of that divided India for which we, with Earl Mountbatten as midwife in a hurry, were responsible.
It has been left to Mr, Kenneth Keating, the American Ambassador in India, to state bluntly that the situation in East Bengal can no longer be considered an internal affair” and to reveal that the first Red Cross aircraft with relief supplies had been turned back at Karachi, The state Department announced that arms supplies to Pakistan had been stopped and that economic aid was under review.
Britain may be doing all possible to mediate behind the scenes, but her overt words and deeds should surely match those of the United States. At least that would make it plain that we do not condone, or condone, the killings committed by a nation that was helped to create.
Reference: The Sunday Telegraph, April 18, 1971