STATE DEPT URGES CONGRESS
To Approve US 110 million dollars Aid for Pakistan
WASHINGTON :- The Nixon Administration, under mounting pressure to halt all economic and military aid to Pakistan, Wednesday told congress that proposed new economic assistance would not be spent until conditions in East Pakistan returned to normal.
The State department urged congress to approve 118 million dollars (49 million sterling) in aid for Pakistan in this year’s budget-apparently hoping the promise of this money would spur the Pakistani Government to improve conditions in the striferavaged eastern region.
A State department official told a Senate hearing that funds already in the pipeline for Pakistan’s economic development have been held up pending a return to normal in East Pakistan, where Government troops earlier this year put down an attempted secession.
D.C. Macdonald, a senior official in the state Department’s Agency for International Development (A.I.D.) asked if resumption of aid to Pakistan was conditional on a return to normal in East Pakistan, replied : “Essentially yes”.
Feeling in congress that all economic and military assistance to Pakistan should be cut off grew following publication of a World Bank report telling of grim conditions in East Pakistan.
Sponsored resolutions.
In the House of Representatives, 41 members jointly sponsored resolution calling for a complete and immediate halt to arms shipments to Pakistan.
President Nixon, while he has fled that no new licenses will be issued for arms supplies to Pakistan, has not stopped delivery of arms already in the pipeline.
The House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, which is reviewing the Administration’s foreign aid programme is expected to take up Thursday the measure calling for an immediate stop to arms shipments.
The committee, which is meeting behind closed doors, Wednesday was reported to have voted an additional 100 millions dollar (40 million sterling) for India to help cope with an influx of millions of refugees from East Pakistan.
This sum would be in addition to 70 million dollars (29 million sterling) in refugee relief and 20 million dollars (with million sterling) in development loans already pledged by the Nixon Administration.
New York Times Editorial.
The New York Times, in a strongly worded editiorial Wednesday said the World Bank report leaked to American newspapers was a devastating indictment of the West Pakistani military crackdown in Bengal.
The newspaper said millitary supplies already enroute to Pakistan should be promptly diverted.
“There are clear grounds for suspending all further military and economic aid to the Pakistani government exceptng relief supplies, until the reign of terror in East Pakistan is ended and steps are taken to restore power to elected representatives of the people who are currently in prison, the editiorial said. -Reuter.
Referenec : The Djakarta Times, 10.07.1971