distribution of relief and an effective role for international agencies in the administration of such relief.
Lastly, I should stress that no genuine restoration of civilian government will be possible until the East Pakistanis have been conceded their right to autonomy or even secession.
I believe that the only workable course for West Pakistanis is to insist on immediate and unconditional termination of martial law, the convening of the duly elected national assembly, and a commitment that the majority decisions of that assembly shall be binding on all, even if these decisions dismember Pakistan as a state consisting of East and West. We must reject the army's absurd claim that it has intervened to protect the nation's “integrity” from the party that had just won, in Pakistan's only freely held elections, a governing majority in the national assembly.
In fact, the elected representatives of East Pakistan had insisted only on fulfilling their mandate to achieve autonomy for their province. The proclamation by the East Pakistanis of the independent state of Bangladesh took place only after the army refused to convene the national assembly and after it had brutally intervened in East Pakistan on March 25, 1971.
Much more alarming is the American government's decision to continue armaments sales and economic aid to the dictatorship, despite the unanimous opposition of its Western allies, of important men in the Congress, and of the World Bank. This is particularly striking in view of the longstanding loyalty to the West and to the US of Sheikh Mujib and his party.
Americans have become silent accomplices in crimes against humanity in yet another part of Asia.
