1971-02-23
Page: 5
Karachi, Feb. 22.—President Yahya Khan conferred today with martial law administrators and Pakistan's five provincial governors after dissolving his Cabinet earlier in the day, it was officially announced here.
The topics being discussed were not revealed.
General Abdul Haid Khan, the Chief of Staff and deputy, martial law administrator, and Lieutenant-General S. G. Peerzada. the President's principal staff officer, took part in the meeting. The five provincial governors are all senior military officers.
The dissolution of the 10-man civilian Cabinet has deepened pessimism about the fate of the Constituent Assembly, due to convene in Dacca, East Pakistan, on March 3.
A brief Government announcement issued last night said the President had made the decision " in view of the political situation obtaining in the country ".
The Assembly, elected last December, was designed to frame a civilian constitution. putting an end to the President's two-year-old martial law regime. But its chances of success seemed slight when, after obtaining an overall majority in the elections, Shaikh Mujibur Rahman's Awami League, the Bengal nationalist party, committed itself to wearing the widest autonomy for East Pakistan.
Mr. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whose left-wing Peoples' Party won a majority of the seats in West Pakistan, has announced that his 83 members will boycott the Dacca Assembly meeting because of Shaikh Mujibur's refusal to modify any of his plans.
Shaikh Mujibur has demanded that the constitution be framed on the basis of his six-point programme. He wants to create autonomous provincial governments in the two separate regions of the country and a central government without taxation powers and with responsibility for only foreign affairs, defence and, to a limited extent, currency.
A Peoples' Party spokesman said recently that if the Assembly convenes in their absence they will take action befitting a revolutionary and progressive party. He declined to elaborate.
Mr. Bhutto, a former Foreign Minister, has visited President Yahya in Rawalpindi for talks on the political crisis. He claimed that Shaikh Mujibur, who has not left the country's eastern wing since the December elections, recently declined a similar presidential invitation.
Shaikh Mujibur already refers In public statements to "the Bengal nation" instead of East Pakistan, and exerts a powerful personal appeal as the focal point for Bengali discontent.
The easterners have complained of being. neglected, exploited and dominated by West Pakistan for the past 2.3 years.
The Awami League, which controls 167 of the Assembly's 313 seats, is technically capable of pushing through its six-point plan of "all power to the provinces", in spite of Mr. Bhutto's opposition.
Observers believe that unless President Yahya can quickly devise a compromise settlement, the apparent intransigence of Shaikh Mujibur may endanger Pakistan's return to civilian rule.--Reuter, A.P. and Agence France Press.