পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (ষষ্ঠ খণ্ড).pdf/৭২৫

689 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ ষষ্ঠ খণ্ড শিরোনাম সংবাদপত্র তারিখ News on Activities Bangladesh Newsletter 25 November, 1971 For Bangladesh Movement Chicago : No. 13 BANGLADESH REFUGEE CAMP AT THE UNITED NATIONS New York: A refugee camp made of sewer pipes was set up at Hammarskjold Plaza in front of the United Nations Building on the first November to dramatize the conditions of Bengali refugees in India. The camp, organized by the Bangladesh Action Coalition, to simulate the conditions of refugee camps in India which house an estimated ten million Bengalis who have fled from the rapacious Pakistani occupation army in Bangladesh, continued its existence for one week. Volunteers lived in the camp for the entire week, subsisting on rice and dahl (pulse), the refugee ration at the Indian camps. According to the organizers of the UN refugee camp the inmates of the camp were not threatened with death by cholera, typhoid and above all, a brutal army unlike their less fortunate counterparts, but they attempted to point out to the well-fed and comfortably clothed diplomats at the United Nations the harsh realities of Bangladesh. Igal Roodenko, the chairman of the Bangladesh Action Coalition said, "The camp was a protest against the inexcusable inaction and mute complicity of the world community during the past seven months when an entire people has been subjected to the most barbarous genocide." The camp was also "a protest against the arms aid and economic assistance which the US government has continued to give to the Pakistani military regime. Ignoring the obvious nature of the conflict in Bangladesh, where a democracy is pitted against the most reactionary of dictatorships, the US government continues to control and manipulate international relief efforts in a way that has only increased oppression." Roodenko pointed out that all United Nations relief aid is being sent through the military regime of West Pakistan and that UN official admit to the diversion of past aid for military purposes. Sponsoring groups in the Coalition include Americans for Bangladesh, Bangladesh League of America, Save East Bengal Committee, War Resistors League, Quaker Social Action Program, The Catholic Peace Fellowship and more than a dozen other groups of concerned citizens. Poets Allen Ginsberg and W. S. Morwin participated in the poetry reading session of the week-long program. The program also included relief fast, memorial service, peace march along the sixth avenue and a protest march to the Pakistani consulate. BANGLADESH ACTIVITIES IN EAST LANSING Lansing Area Committee for emergency Refugee Fund has been formed to raise money for helping the refugees. A target of $100,000 has been fixed. The collection drive is in progress.