বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (ত্রয়োদশ খণ্ড)/৭৮
| শিরোনাম | সূত্র | তারিখ |
| কংগ্রেস সদস্য মি. শিউয়ের-এর বিবৃত্তি ও প্রস্তাব | প্রতিনিধি পরিষদের কার্যবিবরণী | ২১ই এপ্রিল, ১৯৭১ |
APRIL 21, 1971-CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-Extensions of Remarks E 3321
THE CIVIL WAR IN PAKISTAN
In The House of Representatives
Mr. SCHEUER. Mr. Speaker, the citizens of East Pakistan are now engaged in a bitter, bloody struggle for those human rights that all men are entitled to by birth. Their desire for a representative government and freedom from the shackies of a colonial-like existence with the ruling West have resulted in wide scale oppression and suffering at the hands of a military regime that is perpetrating a senseless massacre of defenseless citizens, unparalleled in recent history.
The nature of this conflict is civil war, and no doubt, we should allow the Pakistani people to resolve their own political questions. However, we can, indeed, we should provide active leadership in all efforts designed to lessen the plight of the sick, and the suffering, and the dying of East Pakistan, not because of any political preference or considerations, but because it is the right, the proper, and the humanitarian course for this Nation to follow.
On April 2 of this year, a plane carrying food and medical supplies-under the aegis of the International Red Cross, sought entry to East Pakistan on a mission of unquestionably nonpartisan good will. The West Pakistan Government denied entry to this Red Cross mission. In discussions with Mr. S. N. Qutb, press attaché for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington. I have learned that the West Pakistani Government considered those Red Cross supplies delivered in the aftermath of Pakistan's recent cyclone disaster to be sufficient to cover their current needs. They also felt that they did not have at this time the administrative capacity to handle increased Red Cross aid or that of individual nations.
When dealing with questions of human survival, answers such as these are clearly unacceptable. I cannot help being reminded of the thousands of Biafran men, women, and children who died of disease and starvation as the United States and much of the world sat and watched the Nigerian Government isolate these people from essential foods and medicines.
We cannot, profess to be a humanitarian people and allow the horror or of Biafra to repeat itself in East Pakistan.
It is with this in mind that I today introduce a resolution that would call upon the President of the United States to:
First, urge the West Pakistan Government out of concern and respect or the lives of all men, to allow the International Red Cross, Or any such of organization or Government concerned with welfare and not politics, to immediately ship food and medical supplier to those people of East Pakistan, who require such assistance;
Second, offer to provide the food and medicines required for any such relief effort as a gesture of international goodwill.
It is my hope that my colleagues in this House would support such resolution and also that a way might soon be found to end this latest struggle between a people striving for justice, and a government unwilling to respond to their pleas.