পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (চতুর্দশ খণ্ড).pdf/৩৮৭

355 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খন্ড শিরোনাম সূত্র তারিখ ১৪৭। শেখ মুজিবের দল সামরিক টেলিগ্রাফ ১৬ এপ্রিল, ১৯৭১ প্রতিরোধের জন্য প্রস্ত্তত ছিল না THE SUN DA Y TELEGRA PH, A PRIL 16, 1971 SHEIKH'S SUPPORTERS FAILED TO PREPARE FOR ARMED RESISTANCE By Simon Dring There seems little doubt that effective long-term Bengali resistance to the advancing Pakistan Army in East Pakistan will be over before it ever really has the chance to get under way. Despite reports of significant successes by the so-called "Bengal Liberation Army," it is hardly possible that anything in that form exists. What opposition there is appears to be mostly in areas where the Pakistan Army has yet to make a coordinated advance, or were elements of the East Bengal Rifles and police are still holding out.' But there is certainly no countrywide organized resistance movement which would even make much of a show against a determined army attack. The supporters of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman talked a great deal before the army crackdown last month about how they would fight, but they did virtually nothing about preparing themselves. They led noisy and often violent demonstrations, but they had no organisation, no training, no weapons and, as the army proved in Dacca, no real stomach for war. Once the Pakistan Army has enough men and equipment to tackle the remaining pockets of resistance they will crush them as effectively and as ruthlessly as they crushed Dacca. Guerrilla haven However it is unlikely they will be able or really need to control the countryside. They will probably try to do no more than hold the centers of population The countryside is a maze of sunken rice fields, banana groves, jute fields, tea plantations, rivers and forest and is ideal for guerrilla warfare. And the Pakistan Army knows it. But it is unlikely that the Bengalis will be able to do anything until either someone emerges to lead them or, more important, supply them with weapons. In the three wild March weeks, when Bengali independence was taken for granted. Sheikh Mujib and his Awami League followers did begin to establish a network of village liberation units. I visited several outside Dacca only days before the East Pakistani dream came bloodily and dramatically to an end.