Despite U.S. urging to postpone or forgo the trial of Bengali leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Yahya last week went ahead with a secret trial before a three man military court in a prison complex near the textile town of Lyallpur in southern Punjab. Yahya has already stated in public that Mujib is guilty of treason. “When the man who holds the post of President and chief martial-law administrator says that someone is guilty, you can hardly expect a group of army officers to find him innocent: remarked a Pakistani editor. It is widely assumed that the court will condemn Mujib to death. giving Yahya the option of letting the sentence stand or magnanimously sparing his rival.
But Mujib's sympathizers were not optimistic. “It would be reasonable not to execute this man-to keep him around in case there's a change of heart,” said a Western diplomat in Islamabad. “But it also would have been reasonable not to bring him to trial. And it would have been, reasonable not to have arrested him in the first place. But this government has shown a remarkable ability for rejecting the logical, reasonable option, and it may very well do so again."
Yahya's course of action prompted one U.S. diplomat to fume: “Yahya is a god dam fool!” Still reportedly on order from the White House, the U.S. has decided to stick to its present course come what may. “We are the only Western government with any hope of influencing Yahya,” argues one State Department official, “and frankly, I think we have a pretty sophisticated policy for a change.” Then he added ruefully: “But it sure is hard to live with."
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