পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (ত্রয়োদশ খণ্ড).pdf/৪১৪

এই পাতাটির মুদ্রণ সংশোধন করা হয়েছে, কিন্তু বৈধকরণ করা হয়নি।
বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ ত্রয়োদশ খণ্ড
386

 more than a change of clothes. But to these people it meant still another night without rest, food, or shelter.

 It is difficult to erase from your mind the look on the face of a child paralyzed from the waist down, never to walk again, or a child quivering in fear on a mat in a small tent still in shock from seeing his parents, his brothers and his sisters executed before his eyes, or the anxiety of a 10 year-old girl out foraging for something to cover the body of her baby brother who had died of cholera a few moments before our arrival. When I asked one refugee camp director what he would describe as his greatest need, his answer was “a crematorium.” He was in charge of one of the largest refugee camps in the world. It was originally designed to provide low income and middle income housing, and has now become the home for Some 170,000 refugees.

 It is time... it is past time... for Americans to understand what has produced this massive human tragedy, and-to recognize the bankrupt response by our own nation.

 The issue from the beginning in East Bengal has been self-determination and democratic principle. After years of political and economic domination by West Pakistan... after years of martial law and unfulfilled election promises... a free election finally was conducted throughout Pakistan last December 7th. The election was administered under martial law and, at the time, loudly proclaimed fair by the government of President Yahya Khan. It produced in East Bengal an overwhelming mandate almost 80% of the vote-for the Awami League party and its leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

 The Awami League was thus given a majority in the forthcoming Pakistan National Assembly charged with drafting a new constitution for returning the nation to civilian, democratic rule. But what happened next formed a pattern of delay and deception, followed by the invocation of martial law once more. Negotiations between Sheikh Mujib and President Yahya over the party s six-point proposal for regional autonomy dragged on and deteriorated... erupting in tenor and bloodshed suddenly on the night of March 25th.

 While the East Bengalis negotiated for democracy and autonomy, the West Pakistan army prepared for systematic repression and organized terror. Countless thousands were butchered during the days that followed March 25th, and many millions more were dislocated within East Bengal. What I saw last week in India was the human debris from that night of terror and from the subsequent weeks of violence. Martial law remains, as does the military's violence. “Collective responsibility”... a policy of destroying whole villages on the suspicion that they harbor Awami Leaguers or Bengali guerillas....is now sanctioned by martial law, and it is reflected in the continuing flow of refugees.

 Unfortunately, the face of America today in South Asia is not much different from its image over the past years in Southeast Asia. It is the image of an America that supports military repression and fuels military violence, It is the image of an America comfortably consorting with an authoritarian regime. It is the image of an America citing its revolutionary past and crowing about its commitment to self-determination, while it ser- vices military juntas that suppress change and ignore a people's aspirations.