acquiescing in policies which, given the crystal clarity of the vision of hindsight, led inexorably to the truly appalling situation now confronting East Pakistan. West Pakistan, and India. And the United Nations, the United States, and virtually every other nation in the world is either an active or reluctant partner.
Background
Let me try to briefly sketch the political background. East and West Pakistan arc divided by some 1,100 miles of Indian territory and we now know that they are socially, intellectually, and spiritually worlds apart. The Awami League in East Pakistan was the clear winner in the elections held last December for a National Constituent Assembly to write the constitution which would provide for non-military rule. The Awami League captured 167 seats of the 169 contested in East Pakistan and this gave them an absolute majority of the seats contested in both wings. Candidates of the Awami League won at least 80 per cent of the popular vote in East Pakistan in an election which was run by the Military Government of Pakistan.
We must never forget that the leaders and supporters of the Awami League successfully worked within the system by gaining an absolute majority in both wings of Pakistan. Therefore, they should not now be regarded as secessionists or rebels in the usual sense of those terms.
Indeed, because of the victory of the Awami League, the leader of the league and a man who President Yahya once said was the next Premier of all of Pakistan, could have established a government immediately after the election in December. It is a fact he did not: it is a fact that he depended on the word of President Yahya to effect an orderly transfer of power; and it is a fact that he never spoke of secession, only of democratic autonomy within a loose federation of all of Pakistan. Perhaps the world will never know the exact reasons for the breakdown in the talks in which the Awami League placed such faith, but the facts just cited show that the leaders did not insist upon “Bangladesh” until after the army took its action.
Testimony before the Asian and Pacific Affairs by Dr. Robert Dorfman of Harvard University is very revealing about the economic background. Ile points out the disparities in resource allotment and in economic development between the two wings and he testifies, in a very graceful manner, to the widely shared but tragically short-sighted attitude that West Pakistan provided the most promising opportunities for investment, including American aid. East Pakistan came to regard itself as a colony of West Pakistan, further exacerbating tensions.
Actions of Unprecedented violence
Spokesmen for the Central Government of Pakistan claim that the army sweep of March 25 was necessary to restore law and order and that it was a quick, clean, almost surgical incision. They claim that all that remains now is for the East to again return to its normal place in a united Pakistan.
