পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (ষষ্ঠ খণ্ড).pdf/৫২২

486 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ ষষ্ঠ খণ্ড শিরোনাম ংবাদপত্র তারিখ Double-Dealing by U.N. Officials Bangladesh 28 July, 1971 Vol. 1 : No. 5 DOUBLE-DEALING BY U.N. OFFICIALS The United Nations Secretariat seems to be actively pushing a proposal to post U.N. observers inside Bangladesh with the avowed aim of re-assuring the 7 million refugees now in India that it has become safe for them to return to their homeland. In the light of authoritative accounts (the latest of which we reproduce else-where this Issue) that the Pakistan military authorities are actually taking measures designed to prevent the refugees from coming back, and while the Pakistan Army is still persecuting the People of Bangladesh on such a scale that 50,000 fresh refugees crossed over into India last week, it would appear that the worthy gentlemen of the U.N. are as intent on deceiving the teeming, homeless people in the camps as they are on deceiving themselves. Since the Bangladesh Freedom Fighters are waging and implacable War of Independence against the Pakistan military, it would certainly not be safe for the U.N. observers themselves if they were to stay anywhere near the Pakistan Army. We remember that in March, while the Pakistan Army was gearing up for its murderous assault on the defenseless people of Bangladesh, the U.N. obligingly withdrew all its personnel from Bangladesh, thus leaving the field for the subsequent massacres to take place free of any U.N. “observation’. If the U.N. was so concerned about the safety of its personnel then, we fail to see why it is so eager to thrust the same people into situations of still greater danger now. It is difficult to avoid the judgment that the supposedly impartial U.N. Administrators are dancing to Pakistan's tune. Besides, the jurisdiction of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees is presumably only over the means of providing humanitarian relief for refugees. It seems strange for this Agency to take upon itself the task of “persuading the refugees to return”. Since it is clear that a political question is involved before the refugees can themselves deem it safe to return to Bangladesh we do not understand how the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees can presume to take unilateral action at a time when the U.N.'s Political arm, the Security Council, has yet to meet to discuss the Bangladesh situation. The U.N. has already compiled a disgraceful record on Bangladesh by remaining deafeningly silent about the Pakistan Army’s open genocide there in clear violation of the U.N. Charter. It is to be hoped that U Thant will not compound this error by following the example of his predecessor who allowed his rash and ill-judged intervention in the Congo to mark his illustrious career in its last day. It would be tragic if the present Secretary General were to repeat the same squalid history in Bangladesh.