1971-04-18
By Chester Bowles
Page: 0
ESSEX, CONN.-The appalling struggle now going on in East Pakistan is a further testimony to the folly of doling out arms to "friendly governments" with little regard for whom they are to be used against or for what reasons.
The billion-dollar military equipment program for the Government of Pakistan (meaning West Pakistan) between 1954 and 1965 enabled and encouraged the Pakistanis to attack India in 1965. Now (along with some Soviet and Chinese equipment) it is being used by the West Pakistan Government to beat down their fellow countrymen in East Pakistan who recently voted overwhelmingly for greater independence.
It is a particularly shoddy spectacle because there is no indication that our Government feels the slightest responsibility for how our weapons are being used. Indeed it has done its best to sweep the whole situation under the rug.
Even when the international Red Cross was refused entry into East Pakistan, when all foreign correspondents had been hurriedly ushered out of the country, and when daily on-the-spot reports from our Consulate General in Dacca had described in detail the massive military action by the West Pakistan Army against East Pakistan civilians, our Government persisted in saying it did not know what was going on and therefore was in no position to comment.
It was only when some 500 American refugees from East Pakistan began to give accounts to the press that our Government offered even a mild protest to the West Pakistan Government.
Two actions, it seems to me, should be taken at once. First, we should lodge a strong protest with the West Pakistan Government over the misuse of U.S. military equipment and all aid except medical supplies and food should promptly be stopped. Second, we should call for a meeting of the Security Council of the United Nations to consider appropriate steps to deal with the threat to the peace of Asia which this conflict clearly has become. U.S. Government spokesmen have already ignored the first suggestion and rejected the second on the ground that the fighting in East Pakistan is an "internal question" in which we have no right to interfere. But what about U.S. action in the Congo? What about South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, Cyprus?
When peace is threatened on such a massive scale the United Nations has an overriding obligation to do everything possible to settle the conflict before it gets out of control. This obligation is particularly clear when the "internal problem" is created by the efforts of a well-armed minority to subdue the overwhelming majority constituting more than one-half of a divided country, separated by more than 1,000 miles of alien territory, speaking different languages and with deep built-in cultural conflicts and differing economic interests.
If we assume leadership in mustering world opinion to stop the fighting, the Soviet Union, which has limited its reaction to a mild plea for restraint, will almost certainly support our position. This is particularly so since China has seized upon the situation to stir up trouble between India and Pakistan even though this puts them in bed with the rightist military dictatorship of West Pakistan.
The upheaval in East Pakistan came at a moment when there was new hope for political stability and economic progress in South Asia. In December, the overwhelming victory of Sheik Mujibur Rahman and his Awami League in the first free election ever held in Pakistan had opened the door not only for the first genuinely democratic government but for greatly expanded trade with India and the easing of the conflict between the two nations.
Two months later, Mrs. Gandhi's landslide election in India provided her with a mandate not only for an all- out effort to ease the poverty of the Indian masses but also to improve India's relations with its neighbors.
Tragically, the action of the West Pakistan Government has destroyed for some time to come the hope for n politically stable, united Pakistan living at peace with its neighbors. In all likelihood, the West Pakistani forces in East Pakistan ultimately will be driven out. Although their military superiority is substantial, the movement of food and military supplies in the coming monsoon through the aroused countryside will be extremely difficult. An independent East Pakistan appears to be in the cards.
But if the United States and the U.N. combine to look the other way and the present struggle is allowed to continue to its inevitable bloody climax, East Pakistan will become a political vacuum with 70-million embittered people convinced that the only hope for support is from the most extreme elements in India. This is particularly likely II, as many observers believe, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who has been deeply committed to the democratic process, is already dead.
As this danger grows, Mrs. Gandhi's Government will be increasingly diverted from its programs of economic development to raise the living standards of the Indian people, instead turning to the political and military problems of securing its northern and eastern borders.