PAKISTAN’S FUTURE
In the tragic sequel to President Yahya Khan’s decision to abandon negotation and resort to armed force in East Pakistan the world’s attention has been focused, rightly, on the terrible plight of the refugees in West Bengal. There can be no slakening of this attention, even though hopes are rising that the outbreak of cholera is being contained. The number of refugees continues to rise there are now probably about six milion of them in India and the toll among them from malnutrition and exposure to the monsoon rains and from other diseases may still be frightful. This is the short term problem. Behind it, however, there looms the problem of repatriation. India, as Mr. Ray made clear on Friday has no intention of accepting the refugees indefinitely. Repatriation in its turn raises the many grave political and economic problems of Pakistan’s future.
The resort to force in Pakistan against the overwhelmingly popular Awami League and its Bengali nationalists has inflicted savage wounds from which the region is likely to bleed nearly to death. The Army, it seems clear, has virtually destoryed the indigenous administration. It has killed, imprisoned or driven underground civilian officials and leaders at all levels, from cities to villages, and it has disrupted the agricultural economy on which East Pakistan depends. The major victim seems likely to be the jute industry, already threatened by Indian competition and by the development of synthetic substitutes. Jute producers have been turning to rice, but the destruction of roads and the bridges and the disruption of marketing faclities will put the harvest in jeopardy. Tea, East Pakistan’s second export, is also endangered. Worst of all, there is the possiblity of famine within three months. The prospects for recovery seem to be utterly bleak. That no doubt is why Moslems are now following Indians over the border to the refugee camps.
The future of West Pakistan is gloomy, too. Here the wounds are self inflicted, the loss of much of East Pakistan’s export earnings (about half of the whole country’s trade revenue) and the disruption of a major outlet for Western Pakistani manufaturing. Islamadad now faces a foreign exchange crisis, perhaps as early as July. It also faces the continuing cost of an army of occupation in East Pakistan- an army which controls the cities and towns but by no means the countryside where the majority of the population live and where Bangladesh nationalism has its roots.
In other words, President Yahya’s militaristic solution of his political problems has involved him in a quite classic example of the nemesis of force. His search aboad for financial aid is running into the hostility of nations, like the United states, unwilling to give help which might be mainly used only to sustain the Army. Attempts by West Pakistan to picture a quick return to civilian rule in the East- rule by whom? and an understanding with more moderate Awami members, to put the national constituent asembly into business, have not been convincing. In these circumstances the repatriation of the six million refugees may become a very difficult operation. Their future, now a harrowing human problem, could become a no less harrowing international political problem.
Reference : The Sydney Morning Herald, 14.06.1971