At the end of my stay in the U.S. I flew into Ottawa for a day at the request of a Bengali action group there who felt that my presence as a spokesman for the Bangladesh government may be of some value. On arrival in Ottawa I addressed a well attended press conference. Following this I had lunch with some members of Parliament in Ottawa, chaired by the shadow foreign minister from the opposition bench. In the afternoon I was taken off to a private club for a clandestine rendezvous with a member of the Cabinct. As a Minister he was reluctant to meet me openly but gave me a sympathetic hearing. In the evening I met with the Bengali community in Ottawa. My one day visit to Ottawa was one of the most productive days I had spent on this campaign.
I returned to London at the end of May. During my short stay in London I found the climate of public opinion moving much more strongly in favor of Bangladesh. I met with Judith Ilart in her home in Kew Garedns. She was the Labour Front bench spokesman on foreign aid and subsequently became Minister for Overseas Development in the next Labor government. Following our meeting she made a powerful speech on the floor of the House of Commons when she demanded, On behalf of the Labor opposition, that aid to Pakistan from the U.K. should pledge no further aid to Pakistan till the genocide in Bangladesh was stopped and a dialogue opened with the elected leaders of Babgladesh.
I also had occasion to communicate my views to a number of Tory and Labour MP's and to again use my acquaintance with Nicholas Barrington to get our views across to Sir Alec Douglas Home. I also spoke to some of the officials from the Ministry of Overseas Development in the U.K. delegation to the Consortium meeting in Paris and gave them our memorandum.
This same proposition to cut off aid to Pakistan which had been argued in our presentation to Macnamara in Washington and with the U.S. Congress, had become the main campaign theme amongst the Bengali community in U.K. Bengalis were the most numerous of the Probashi' Bengali communities and were active in raising funds and mobilising public opinion in the U. k. against aid to Pakistan. Justice Abu Sayed Chowdhury had by then been officially designated as the chief spokesman for the cause and had set up offices for the movement near Liverpool Street station in East London.
During this and subsequent visits to London, Tasadduuq Ahmad, proprietor of the Ganges Restaurant and his wufe Rosemary, were very helpful in setting up meetings for me and letting me use their store room above their restaurant in Gerrad Street as a sort of London office. I had a number of interesting encounters there. A meeting with him was set Phizo, the leader in exile of the Naga separatist movement. A meeting with him was set up for me on the assumption that he had some line to the Chinese regime in Beijing and might use his good offices to get the Chinese to be more receptive to the voice of the
Bangladesh movement than they had been so far. Phizo came with his daughter to the meeting with me at the Ganges. he seemed more anxious to convert me to the cause of the Nagas than to contribute his services to speak to the Chinese. The meeting was thus interesting but rather unproductive.
