WASHINGTON.-A consortium of 11 nations including the United States, plans to meet in Paris Friday to weigh the mounting fiscal and food crisis in Pakistan.
Studies in the hands of officials of the United States Agency for International Development and of the World Bank indicate that by June or July, because of disruption of transportation in East Pakistan and the flight of civilians there, 10 million to 30 million persons may face starvation. East Pakistan's total population is 72-million.
By early summer there win be no food in the countryside-unless It's imported and distributed right now, said one source who recently left East Pakistan. Food stocks are rapidly being consumed and nothing's coming in. Even if the fighting ended today there would be a 60-day lag in restoring food Imports and distribution.
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This source said that the Pakistani Government's expulsion of foreign newsmen and its refusal to admit observers from humanitarian organizations meant that little international attention had focused on the situation from the strife in East Pakistan. The West Pakistan-based Government has been putting down a move for autonomy, and later Independence, in the East. The fighting which began late in March, has compounded the difficulties of the East, which was swept by a cyclone in November.
The meeting of the 11 donor nations that make up the Pakistan aid consortium is expected to be held privately under the chairmanship of the World Bank. The meeting has not been announced and in fact bank officials are officially denying knowledge of a meeting.
It has been learned that Pakistan's request to send M.M.. Ahmed, economic adviser to President Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan, to the meeting has been rejected. Thus, no Pakistani will be present when Pakistan's situation is under review.