পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (চতুর্দশ খণ্ড).pdf/৫৮

26 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খন্ড Instead of the first shooting spree terrorizing the population into submission, it now seems apparent that while the army may be able initially to establish a hold on the cities and major towns, it will face widespread guerrilla activity in the primitive reverie countryside. This could so undermine the supply lines and mobility of the West Pakistani troops that the independence movement would succeed. In India, many sympathizers with the East Pakistani cause were quick to compare "rest Pakistani's military actions in East Pakistan with those of Hitler. “Pak Army's Inhuman Torture." was the headline in one Calcutta newspaper. "Butchery," said another, adding: "The vandalism unleashed by the occupying Pakistani army in Bangladesh (Bengal Nation) is darker than even the darkest chapter of Nazi terror." The Indian Parliament has called it "a massacre of defenseless people which amounts to genocide." Governments Silent Most of the other governments of the world have remained silent. "Why doesn't your country condemn this outrage?" one official in Calcutta asked an American. "This is no tidal wave, this is no act of nature-it is people slaughtering people." The Bengalis, as the people of East Pakistan are called, have stepped across a crucial line-a line that separated grumbling about their exploitation to fighting against the exploiters. The line may have been crossed on March 25, the night of the attack. Or perhaps it was crossed earlier, on March 1, when President Yahya Khan. Army Commander in Chief postponed a session of the National Assembly that was to have convened two days later to begin drafting a Constitution returning the nation to civilian rule. That Assembly, elected in December, was dominated by Sheikh Mujib's Awami League party, which wanted a large measure of provincial autonomy-leaving the Central Government with power only over defense and foreign trade and foreign aid. These terms were anathema to the West Pakistani power establishment-the army, the big-business interests and the politicians. In the political negotiations over the crisis, they started off by making conciliatory sounds and then brought in the monkey wrench, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the dominant political leader of West Pakistan. When he objected that the Awami League wanted too much autonomy-'bordering on sovereignty"—the talks began to stall. Then, suddenly, came the army attack. The morning after the attack, Mr. Bhutto and his aides, under heavy military protection, were flown back to friendly territory in West Pakistan, where the political leader promptly announced. "Pakistan has been saved by the grace of the Almighty." But it will take more than religious oratory to save Pakistan as a united Moslem country. Religion was the social glue that was supposed to have held the two wings together, but it was never enough. It may take a long time, but none of the witnesses to the recent-surge of Bengali nationalism and to the barbarism of the army attack doubts that it will happen. In the meantime, as Sheikh Mujib was fond of chanting with the adoring crowds that thronged to his now razed house: "Sangram, Sangram. Choibey, Cholbey." "The fight will go on. The fight will go on." -Sydney H. Schanberg