Guerrillas Hide-And-Seek
Lee Lescaze
Dacca. The Guerrilla leader waited until two foreign reporters had been in the village for about ten minutes before he appeared from behind a house unarmed, but followed by a young man carrying a rifle. He had agreed to that meeting on the condition that neither his name nor the name of the village he now lives in be reported and he appeared to be so confident of his safety that the security guards were posted on the muddy road the reporters walked to reach him.
According to the Pakistan Government, the only significant Liberation Army (Mukti Fouj) guerrilla elements fighting for East Pakistan’ independence operate from sanctuaries across the Indian border, making hit-and-run raids. The guerrilla, who is deputy leader of a platoon of 37 men, freely conceded that almost all his ammunition -and weapons come from India and that he took his unit into India at one point after a successful ambush of army soldiers that he knew would bring reprisals. However, he says that his band has been living in the same predominantly Moslem village since it returned from India on June 29 and intends to stay well inside East Pakistan. His men avoid the main road some five miles from their base during the day time, but otherwise they move freely, the guerrilla told. The night belongs to them, and in the day, they have no fear of encountering soldiers in the water-logged paddies and jute fields of this low-lying land.
They get no pay, but occasionally receive money from across the border which they use for food. Some, the guerrilla explained, are not paid for. “We go from house to house picking up voluntary contributions,” he said. The local farmers didn’t mind supporting his men and were happy to have them in the village, he said. Residents of the nearby village said later that they resented giving up scarce food, but that they preferred the guerrillas to the army. All of the platoon’s leaders are veterans of the Bengali regiments of the Pakistan Army. The deputy leader served for 21 years as a non-commissioned officer before he retired a year ago. He said that seven platoon members had regular military backgrounds and 30 are students recruited totally after the Pakistan Army struck and the civil war began on March 25.
The platoon operates independently but has frequent contact with another platoon of roughly equal size that lives in a nearby village. They receive no orders from higher military authorities, but they send written reports of their actions by runner across the border to guerrilla camps in India, he said. His men have LeeEnfields, naturally enough, sten guns, light machine guns, and adequate supplies of ammunition, dynamites and mines, the guerrilla leader said. He added that they have no shortage of medicine. At the moment he appears to rely for ultimate victory on’ large numbers of guerrillas now trading in India. He maintains that 200,000 will shortly move across the border to attack the army in his sector, but that figure seems enormously exaggerated. He is suspicious of strangers and explained that if a man arrived in the village wanting to enlist, he would be shot as a Pakistan Army agent. He has also determined that his platoon will execute any soldier taken prisoner, but none have been captured alive yet.
The largest action his unit has participated in was an ambush that he and other local residents believe killed more than 20 Pakistani soldiers in April. It was after that fire-fight he retreated to India where he was housed and cared for by the Indian Army. From the battles he watched as the border, he confirmed Pakistan’s allegation that Indian artillery and mortars often fire across the border in support of guerrilla attacks on the Pakistan Army, Since returning to East Pakistan, the platoon has been relatively inactive considering their freedom of movement in a generally undefended countryside. They ambushed an army truck and think they wounded one soldier. Most recently, they raided a police station. The sentry fled and they captured 13 rifles without suffering or inflicting any casualties.
The deputy platoon leader says that his unit has not suffered any casualties since the war began and that no one has deserted from his command. He was uncertain about future plans, but made it clear that his men will use their dynamite and mines to cut roads in an effort to further limit the movement of the army. In addition to harassing the army and the police, the guerrillas want to assassinate members of the peace committees – groups of local people who work with the army and often decide for the army which local villagers are reliable and which should be arrested or shot. Reports of peace committee members being killed are common throughout East Pakistan. The deputy platoon leader’s men have caught and murdered one. Their victims had ordered the murder of two men and, by the guerrilla leader’s account. was not unprepared for their retribution. He asked for an hour to say good-bye to his mother and after that time had elapsed, he emerged from the house and faced a “people’s court”, the guerrilla had hastily assembled by waking up several neighbors.
The unsurprising verdict was guilty and the guerrillas led him about a mile to the main road where they shot him and left his body by the roadside. The guerrina have given themselves the power of life and death. So far, the guerrilla leader has run a leisurely, relatively painless, underground resistance struggle since March 25. Most observers here do not share his conviction that the civil war will end soon and his platoon is likely to see much more fighting before there will be a chance that his goal can be achieved.
Reference: The Guardian, 23 July, 1971