পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (ত্রয়োদশ খণ্ড).pdf/৭৪

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46 ংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ ত্রয়োদশ খন্ড Mr. Pardoe: Of course we wanted a unitary state when the Labor Government tried to create one. I am not denying that. My point was that a long time before this, throughout our Imperial past in the Indian sub-continent, there is a great deal of evidence that we used these two communities for our own ends. The Hon. Gentleman said that a separate Bangladesh would not be economically viable. I do not believe this and nor does the Awami League. If he takes into account that over the last two decades or so about 70 per cent of all investment has been in the West, about three quarters of all Government revenue has been spent in the West, about 80 per cent of all foreign aid has gone to the West, and that many economists estimate that £3,000 million worth of real resources have been transferred from East to West since independence, he will see that these figures make a complete nonsense of any suggestion that Bangladesh would not be economically viable. They also show that it is entirely natural that the people of East Pakistan should demand autonomy, if not total independence. They would not need to be raging nationalists to do so in the light of those figures and the treatment meted out of them. They sought to gain that autonomy-and this is the important point-in precisely the same way that we Western- Liberals are always telling the under-developed countries of the world to seek it, through the ballot box. We told them. "Do it democratically". They did it, correctly, according to the Western rule book. If we deny their right now, what do we mean by the words in the United Nations Charter? "The right to self-determination of peoples." This was, of course, the first general election that had been held in free conditions. The league won a complete majority. There was no doubt about its policy. It was a clear vote for autonomy and even, perhaps, for independence. It could well have been interpreted that way. Why should they not have it? I believe that the West Pakistan Government were taken by surprise by the tremendous size of the Awami League vote. That vote showed their total lack of comprehension of the feelings of the East Bengalis before the election. Whatever the dictates of democratic theory and logic, no one recognized Bangladesh and no one has forcibly advocated that anyone should do so. This means that we are back to the age-old method of deciding international foundries-conflict and bloodshed. I suppose it is true that, historically, countries exist within minimum lines of defense and perhaps it was overoptimistic of us to suppose that any new, more civilized methods, would prevail in future. Nevertheless, some of us did hope that. Yet we have the situation in which the Commonwealth, this country and the United Nations seem to be important and incapable of exercising their normal authorityimportant and incapable more by their lack of will than by any practicalities in the situation. Pakistan needs us, Pakistan as a whole is heavily dependent on other countries, and these countries have a duty to use all their influence to enforce the democratic choice and right of the East. Of course we have to deal with the problem of feeding and distributing the food. It is an immense problem, far greater than we have tackled before. We should do this, but it is not only a question of feeding; it is the aims and aspirations of the East Bengalis that we should