It’s Much More Than Cholera
A Way Has Got To Be Found of Getting The Refugees Back Into East Pakistan, And That Mean Squeezing President Yahya
It has taken cholera to arouse the world to the plight of the East Pakistani refugees. By Thursday so much vaccine and saline solution was arriving at Calcutta that a serious bottleneck had been created. And by then everyone was saying everything was under control anyway. But the help was too late for thousands of refugees who died a squalid death, vomiting and excreting, on the sodden floors of makeshift field hospitals. It is tragic that the world could not provide in time the medical supplies that the numbers of refugees would double at the end of May to a total of nearly 5 million. Until the beginning of this month the Indians, who were well aware of the dangers of cholera and had been carrying out a regular vaccination programme on the refugees until their stocks ran out, thought they were coping.
When the world did try to leap into action, it stumbled. The World Health Organization was the quickest off the mark, with 17 tons of medicine ready for despatch more than a week ago. But it had no transport and last week-end only 2.5 tons were on the way. It has had to rely on RAF planes to get the rest to India by the end of this week. National contributions have not had the same difficulty, but they were only just starting. Yet the world’s reaction to cholera has been galvanic compared with the initial response to Mrs. Gandhi’s appeal to the United Nations on May 6th It was two weeks before a team from the United Nations’ High Commission for Refugees reported to U Thant who, on May 19th, issued an appeal for $ 175 million to look after the refugees for six months. Even then the reaction was extraordinarily sluggish. Only British and the United States chipped in pretty smartly. It needed the cholera panic to speed up the process, and the UN now has a grand total of $ 32 million.
But this still falls $ 143 million short of U Thant’s estimate, which anyway provided for only about half the present total of refugees. If relief efforts are so hampered by the slow awakening of the world’s conscience to such disasters, there are strong arguments for U Thant’s proposal of a UN task force, which would not only be able to make a rapid assessment of relief requirements but would also have stocks (and perhaps transport) already assigned to it to meet those needs.
There is, however, a real danger that an over-reaction to the cholera reports may distort the effort to deal with the other problems the refugees face. Cholera – if it really is cholera… is not the only disease which may sweep the refugee camps; there are also reports of pneumonia, dysentery and a highly contagious form of conjunctivitis. Most important, there is the long- term problem of feeding and housing the refugees. India prays it will not be a long-term problem: it is planning only for six months ahead in the hope that something will happen in East Pakistan which will persuade the majority of the refugees to return home. But action has to be taken to provide the homeless with a reasonably solid roof over their heads during the monsoon, which will last until September. And Mrs. Gandhi may have to try to disperse some of the refugees. For they have totally disrupted the life of the Indian states which border on East Pakistan – West Bengal, Assam and Tripura. They have driven down wages and pushed up prices, and the state governments are understandably alarmed. Mrs. Gandhi has undertaken to disperse as many as possible, and 5,000 of them have already been shunted off to central India. But most of the refugees want to stay in West Bengal-where they feel at home, and no Indian state is willing to give precious land to a possibly cholera-ridden horde.
Clearly the only possible solution in the end is for the refugees to be persuaded to go home. President Yahya Khan has declared that all bonafide Pakistanis – whatever he means by that – will be allowed to return. He has relented from his earlier argument that the refugees were only miscreants and Indian infiltrators” to the extent of conceding that some of them may have been “genuinely misled.” But his offer has yet to be put to test; precious few of the refugees have taken it up, although the Pakistani government has set up some 20 reception centers inside East Pakistan for those who want to return. The UN High Commission for refugees has had talks with President Yahya about these reception centers this week. If the UN were to take them over the refugees might feel encouraged to use them. But it is unlikely that the Pakistani army is in a mood to forgo the chance to keep an eye on those who return.
Even if the Pakistani army were ordered back to barracks, there are many refugees who would not go home unless civilian government were restored in East Pakistan. And this is where other people still have an obligation to put pressure on President Yahya. Even in normal times Pakistan is heavily dependent on foreign aid. But these are not normal times. The cost of the war will lead to a huge payments deficit this year, and the loss of East Pakistan’s jute crop, normally the biggest foreign exchange earner, has cut Pakistan’s reserves to nothing. It has already been refused emergency credits by the International Monetary Fund. But it is Still hoping for its usual dollop of development aid from the World Bank consortium which meets next month. At this meeting the consortium- the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Japan and six others, will have to hold President Yahya to his promise, on May 24th, to transfer power to civilians. The arguments for doing so are clear enough. The loss of life has long since passed the point at which it was bound to become a matter of international concern. And East Pakistan needs a stable framework into which aid can be fruitfully poured. A civilian government is the best sort of framework.
President Yahya, trying to anticipate the consortium meeting, has said that he will announce details of a transfer to civilian government later this month. His proposals will need careful looking at. To have any meaning at all, they will have to provide for a government which includes members of the new prescribed Awami League, who are the popularly elected leaders of East Pakistan. The Pakistani government hopes that enough Awami League members will take part to give the plan an aura of respectability. But very few members of the Awami League have so far shown themselves willing to turn their coats. If the Awami League does not figure in what President Yahya has in mind it is unlikely that many refugees will feel it safe to return. The obligation upon the consortium is unmistakable. President Yahya cannot have its money unless he meets its terms.
Reference: The Economist, 12 June, 1971