বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ ত্রয়োদশ খণ্ড
precariously poised on the edge of communal strife. We have known that it is a strain on the already scarce economic resources of a country in the process of development.
Therefore, from the beginning the United States has played a very active role in attempting to ease the suffering of the refugees and the impact on India of the large influx of unexpected people. The United States position has been to attempt two efforts simultaneously: One, to ease the human suffering and to bring about the return of the refugees; and secondly, we have attempted to bring about a political resolution of the conflict which generated the refugees in the first place.
One of the difficulties has been that the time required to bring about a political evolution is somewhat longer than what is needed to be done immediately to bring about and easing of human suffering.
There were two aspects to the refugee problem; One, taking care of the refugees that were inside India; and secondly, to avert condition inside East Pakistan that would generate more refugees, particularly to ease famine conditions. We committed $90 million for the support of the refugees in India and $155 million to avert famine in East Pakistan, which is more than the rest of, the world has done combined.
I might add that the some; that have been devoted to averting famine in East Pakistan have been contributed at the specific request of the Indian Government, which was concerned that there would be another major outflow of refugees which would make their problem totally unmanageable.
The President has requested Congress, in the present AID appropriation, for an additional $250 million to continue this work, and this is in addition to food shipments which we were prepared to make. In other words, the United States has contributed $500 million for the relief of refugees and to ease suffering in India, and to prevent more refugees from coming into India.
The United States also financed the chartering of 26 vessels to increase their capacity to transport grain from ocean ports into the interior of East Pakistan........
Now, the United States did not condone what happened in March 1971: on the contrary, the United States has made no new development loans to Pakistan since March 1971.
Secondly, there has been a great deal of talk about military supplies to Pakistan. The fact of the matter is that immediately after the actions in East Pakistan at the end of March of this past Year, the United States suspended any new licenses. It stepped the shipment of all military supplies out of American depots or that were under American governmental control. The only arms that were continued to be shipped to Pakistan were arms on old licenses in commercial channels, and those were spare parts. There were no lethal end-items involved.
To give you a sense of the magnitude, the United States cut off $35 million worth of arms at the end of March of this year, or early April of this year, immediately after the actions in East Bengal, and continued to ship something less than $5 million worth; whereupon, all the remainder on the pipeline was cut off In other words, when one is.
