Bangla Desh now has NLF
From Martin Woollacott
Calcutta, September 3
The BanglaDesh Government, in a move aimed principally at influencing Russian policy, is to set up a united liberation front, incorporating several Left-wing and” progressive” Parties as well as the Awami League.
The move, confirmed to me tonight by the BanglaDesh Foreign Minister, Mr Khandokar Mushtaque Ahmed, may well lead to a meeting between BanglaDesh representatives and the Russians in the near future, and open the prospect of Soviet support for the guerrilla war in East Bengal. The Indian Government, through Mr D. P. Dhar, chairman of the policy planning committee of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, who has been in Calcutta this week for talks, has been very much concerned with this development.
The hope is that the establishment of a united front, bringing the two proMoscow splinters of the National Awami Party-the NAP proper led by Mujafar Ahmed, and the Maulana Bhashani group and perhaps also the tiny EPCP (East Pakistan Communist Party)- will convince the Russians that BanglaDesh is a genuine peoples’ war of liberation. The Russians may have indicated during the negotiations which led to the recent Indo-Soviet treaty that a united front would be an essential development before they could reconsider their so far fairly equivocal attitude on BanglaDesh.
If talks with the Russians do follow-and there is expectation in BanglaDesh circles that they will-the aim would be to persuade the Soviet Union to lift or modify the restraints it appears to have put on the supply of weapons, either directly or through India, to Bangladeshi forces.
It talks with the Russians do follow- and there is expectation in BanglaDesh circles that they will – the aim would be to persuade the Soviet Union to lift or modify the restraints it appears to have put on the supply of weapons. either directly or through India, to Bangladesh forces.
It is a standing, although not often expressed, complaint of the Mukti Bahini that the Indians are keeping them short of arms and equipment, particularly of heavy weapons. The reason for these restrictions is partly, no doubt, that India has few weapons to spare, and also that the Soviet Union was chary of countenancing the large-scale use of Russian-made weapons in East Bengal. Although these would be supplied by the Indians, most of whose weapons are Russian made, most observers would conclude that the Soviet Union had agreed to make up the loss by further supplies to India.
Reference: The Guardian: 4 Sept. 1971