US SILENCE TACIT APPROVAL OF MASSACRE OF BENGALIS
STATE DEPT. WITHHOLDING DETAILS, CHARGES FULBRIGHT
Washington, April 30 (AP)
THE U.S. State Department Friday refused to give Senators a report from an American official in East Pakistan allegedly charging U.S. silence is seen as tacit approval of the massacre of Bengali civilians by forces of the Central Pakistani Government.
Disclosing this after a closed briefing, Senator. J.W. Fulbright, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the State Department is trying to minimize the situation in civil war-torn East Pakistan because ‘Stability and support of the status quo is more to our interest than any upheaval.’
‘They declined to make available to us the direct reports from the field’, Fulbright told newsmen. ‘They will only make their own summarises and views available to the committee.’
‘Whenever secret documents suit their purposes,’ he added. ‘They make them available to the committee. When they are inconsistent with the policies, they do not make them available to the committee’.
Fulbright said the committee learned more from letters it has received, specifically one from a former foreign aid workers airlifted from Pakistan April 7 after three years in that country, then it has from the State Department.
‘Compared to what the letter says’. Fulbright said, department summaries and testimony given by Christopher Van Hollen, deputy assistant secretary of state, ‘minimize the actual reports from East Pakistan.’
According to the letter from John E. Rohde, forwarded to Fulbright by his mother, American Consul Archer Blood has sent detailed reports from Dacca, the East Pakistan capital, on the situation in that country.
After describing scenes of mass killings and planned killings of Bengali civilians, Rohde’s letter added ‘It is clear that the law of the jungle prevails in East Pakistan where the mass killing of unarmed civilians, the systematic elimination of the inteillgentia and the annihillation of the Hindu population is in protress.
‘The reporter of the American Consul. …, contains a more detailed and complete account of the situation; Rohde continued. “In addition, he has submitted concrete proposals for constructive moves our government can make’.
‘While in no way suggesting that we interfere with Paakistan’s internal affairs, Mr. Blood asserts, and we support him, that the U.S. must not continue to condone the military action with official silence,’ Rohd’s letter added.
‘By not making a statement, the State Department supports clearly the action of the West Pakistani army, navy and air force against the Bengali people.’ he said. “The silence of our government is being widely directed as tacit approval of the sanction being taken by the Pakistan military.’
Fulbright noted that the Central Pakistani Government headed by President Yahya Khan sent troops to East Pakistan after that section voted for virtual autonomy.
He said he asked the witnesses why the United States does not support self determination in East Pakistan as it does in South Vietnam, ‘They just refused to make any analysis.’ he said.
Fulbright said that, since the United States is still sending 200 million dollars a year in economic aid to Pakistan ‘I would have thought… that our view might have been influential’ on the goverment.
Reference : The Indonesian Observer, 01.05.1971