পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (চতুর্দশ খণ্ড).pdf/৪২৩

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391 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খন্ড On the other hand, no government could be unaware that this policy must fail. (There are just not enough West Pakistanis to hold down the much greater numbers in East Bengal indefinitely.) For hard administrative and economic reason, and because of the crucial consideration of external development assistance, especially from America, it will be necessary to achieve a political settlement as quickly as possible. President Yahya Khan's Press conference on May 25 suggests that he acknowledges the force of these factors: And he said he would announce his plan for representative government in the middle of June. All this would seem to indicate that Pakistan's military Government is moving paradoxically, in opposite directions, to compound the gravest crisis in the country's 24 years history. This is a widely held view. It sounds logical. But is it true? My own view is that it is not. It has been my unhappy privilege to have had the opportunity to observe at first hand both what Pakistan's leaders say in the West, and what they are doing in the East. I think that in reality there is no contradiction in the Government's East Bengal policy. East Bengal is being colonized. This is not an arbitrary opinion of mine. The facts speak for themselves. The first consideration of the army has been and still is the obliteration of ever)' trace of separatism in East Bengal. This proposition is upheld by the continuing slaughter and by everything else that the government has done in both East and West Pakistan since March 25. The decision was coldly taken by the military leaders, and they are going through with it-all too coldly. No meaningful or viable political solution is possible in East Bengal while the pogrom continues. The crucial question is: will killing stop? I was given the army's answer by Major-General Shaukat Raza, commanding officer of the 9th Division, during our first meeting at Comilla on April 16. "You must be absolutely sure," he said, "that we have not undertaken such a drastic and expensive operation-expensive both in men and money for nothing. We've undertaken a job. We are going to finish it, not had it over half done to the politicians So that they can mess it up again. The army can't keep coming back like this every three or four years. It has a more important task. I assure you that when we have got through with what we are doing there will never be need again for such an operation." Major-General Shaukat Raza one of three divisional commanders in the field. He is in a key position. He is not given to talking through his hat. Significantly, General Shaukat Raza's ideas were echoed by every military officer I talked to during my 10 days in East Bengal. And President Yahya Khan knows that The men who lead the troop on the ground are the de facto arbiters of Pakistan's destiny.