পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (চতুর্দশ খণ্ড).pdf/১০২

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70 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খন্ড শিরোনাম সূত্র তারিখ ৩১। একটি মুমূর্ষ আদর্শ ওয়াল স্ট্রিট জার্নাল ২১ এপ্রিল, ১৯৭১ WALL STREET JOURNAL, APRIL 21, 1971 A FLECKERING CAUSE East Pakistanis Pledge To Fight To The Death But Mostly They Don't They Lack Arms, Leadership To Prolong Their Revolt; No Aid By Other Nations Too Many Patrick Henrys? By Peter R. Kann (Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal) Near Meherpur, East Pakistan-By ox-cart and by rickshaw, on bicycles and an occasional truck, but mostly by foot, people and soldiers of Bangladesh-the Bengal Nation are retreating towards the Indian border. From Meherpur, half a mile further back, come the thump of the West Pakistan army's mortars and the crackle of its small-arms fire. "Punjabis (West Pakistanis) Bombs, cannon at Meherpur," shouts a group of Bengalis clinging to an India-bound truck that stops only long enough to let the last armed man at this village crossroad climb abroad. The four-mile trip back to the Indian border is a tour of largely deserted villages. The richer residents of Meherpur had evacuated their town a day before. This day it is mostly villagers who are fleeing; a barefoot, ragged woman leading six children, all with bundles of belongings balanced atop their heads; two men carrying a dismantled bed; an old blind men being led along by what seems to be a seeing-eye-cow. Waging A Weak War Back at the Indian border, in and around an Indian military compound, sit 100 or more sullen members of the Bangladesh army, their insignia ripped off. Also on the Indian side are more than a dozen Bangladesh jeeps and two recoilless rifles perhaps the only ones in the Bangladesh army. A few miles further to the rear in the nearest Indian border town, are clusters of babbling politicians, civil servants and professional men who talk about fighting and dying to the very last man. Many Bengalis, of course, have been dying since the Pakistan civil war began in March. But, for a variety of reasons not nearly enough have been fighting. As a result, Bangladesh appears, at this stage, to have waged one of the weakest-and perhaps shortest-revolutionary wars on record. In less than one month, with fewer than 50,000 men and limited firepower and air support, the army has been able largely to subdue, for the time being, 75 million hostile Bengali people.