বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ তৃতীয় পত্র
Beirut Paper AL SHAAB says “in fact East Pakistan did not incline towards secession except when it was proved to her that the regime in the country did not depend on the will of the people but on the will of a domineering group living 1,000 miles away. Who approves of living within such a country? Pakistan is an artificial construction and any artificial thing is doomed to vanish."
TIME Magazine on August 23 writes, “though Mujib is accused of advocating secession for East Pakistan, the fact is that he did not want a total split-up of Pakistan and never declared independence until............after the bloodbath began."
Lord Fenner Brockway of the House of Lords, England said in a statement “from a humanitarian view it has been greatest calamity in suffering since the bomb fell on Hiroshima. From a political view, it has been the most ruthless denial of democracy since Hitler.
CONSPIRACY TO SABOTAGE DEMOCRACY
Mr. Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, Chairman of Pakistan People's Party, played the most suspicious role in the political drama of Pakistan. On his request, and disregarding the request of Awami League for an early session of the National Assembly, General Yahya summoned the Assembly on March 3, It is again Mr. Bhutto who was the first man to boycott the Assembly. Not only that, he also openly intimidated other members in West Pakistan from attending the Assembly. He threatened a “bloodbath" on this issue. In protest of the summoning of the session he called for a general strike all over West Pakistan, he threatened to launch a hartal from Khyber to Karachi; whereas Mr. Bhutto was a leader of a minority party in the National Assembly and secured majority seats only in the Punjab and Sind. On the one hand, he was demanding early transfer of power, democracy and constitutional Government and on the other hand, he was opposed to the idea of majority rule.
Once the election results were out, both the army and Mr. Bhutto backed by the feudal lords and big business of West Pakistan were out to sabotage the whole prospect of democracy. Mr. Henry Bradsher in the Washington EVENING STAR of April 29, writes “from the time election results were in, Bhutto began trying to deny to the East the right to get the kind of constitution it wanted. Bhutto, a feudal landlord and former foreign minister with a brilliant but opportunistic career, had won in the West on socialistic promises to the poor. His obstructive man oeuvres against Rahman served the interests of the Western elite, however, rather than the poor."
THE TIMES, London, July 20, writes, “Mr. Bhutto's argument was that the Awami League could not reasonably expect, even on the basis of its absolute majority in the assembly (where it won 167 seats), to dictate terms to the whole of Pakistan when it was represented in only one half. It was a pretty thin argument. But it had just enough legal and constitutional substance to provide the President with an excuse to postpone the meeting of the constituent assembly that was planned for March 3."
The military government, although it allowed elections, never intended to hand over real power to the people. Their calculation was that once elections were held different
