পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (চতুর্দশ খণ্ড).pdf/২২৪

এই পাতাটির মুদ্রণ সংশোধন করা প্রয়োজন।

বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খন্ড শিরোনাম সূত্র তারিখ পূর্ব পাকিস্তানের বিপর্যন্ত মানুষ নিউইয়র্ক টাইমস ৫ আগষ্ট, ১৯৭১ NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST 5, 1971 THE RAVAGED PEOPLE OF EAST PAKISTAN A planetary catastrophe is taking place in Asia, a human disaster so massive that it could bathe the future in blood, not just for Asians, but for those of us in the West as well. Yet the response of the global community has been minimal at best. In the United States, the official response has been worse than minimal and morally numb. I have just returned from Calcutta and the border of East Pakistan, where I conducted interviews with refugees avalanching into India as a result of the West Pakistani's genocidal attack on them. Since March 25, West Pakistani troops have bombed, burned, looted and murdered the citizens of East Pakistan in what can only be a calculated campaign to decimate them or to drive them out of their villages and over the border into India. Part of the time I travelled with a Canadian parliamentary delegation. We saw babies skin stretched tight, bones protruding, weeping women who told us they would rather die today in India than return to East Pakistan after the tragedies they had witnessed, total wretchedness of refugee camps, and the unbelievable magnitude of this forced human migration-6.7 million refugees pouring into India within a matter of four months. I saw Indian villages deluged by masses of destitute refugees, every available inch crammed with bodies seeking shelter from the blistering sun and the torrential rain. I saw refugees still streaming along the roads unable to find even a resting place. I saw miserable Indian villagers sharing their meager food with the latest frightened and hungry arrivals. I saw thousands of men, women and babies lined up, waiting patiently under the sun for hours to get their rations. These pitiful few ounces of rice, wheat and dhal provide a level of nutrition so low that it will inevitably create protein breakdown, liver illness, and a variety of other diseases in addition to the cholera, pneumonia, bronchitis that are already rampant. I saw Indian relief officials struggling heroically, and with immense personal sympathy, to cope with the human tidal waveand to do so on a budget of one rupee a day-about 13 cents per human. It is now clear that famine will further devastate East Pakistan this fall, and that millions more will seek refuge in an India already staggering under the burden. Under these circumstances, one is forced to protest the callousness and stupidity of American policy. On the one hand we promise India $ 70 million in relief funds. On the other, we continue to supply arms to the same West Pakistani generals who launched the bloodbath, so that they can terrorize even more of their subjects into fleeing across the Indian border. The House votes this week to suspend aid, including military sales, to Pakistan is belated recognition of our sorry role.