Political Staff

In what is regarded in Westminster as the biggest-ever frontal attack on the Government of a Commonwealth country, over half the Parliamentary Labour Party last night signed a motion in the Commons calling for the official recognition of Bangla Desh and indicting the Government of Pakistan for the "widespread murder of civilians and the atrocities on a massive scale by the Pakistan Army in East Pakistan".

Six Privy Councillors, a number of former Labour ministers and members of the national executive- of the party as well as MPs have appended their signatures to the strongly worded motion.

The chief sponsor of the motion, Mr John Stonehouse, MP for Wednesbury and a former Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, who visited Pakistan in April, said yesterday that strong words were needed to show how deep was the feeling among people generally about the atrocities in East Pakistan.

The motion states that the alleged murders are contrary to the United Nations Convention on Genocide (signed by Pakistan in 1948 and ratified by the Pakistan Government in 1957) and confirms that the military Government of Pakistan has forfeited all right to rule East Bengal, “following its wanton refusal to accept the democratic will of the people expressed in the election of December 1970”.

Furthermore, the motion calls upon the United Nations Security Council to consider the situation urgently, both as a threat to international peace and as a contravention of the Genocide Convention. It adds that, until order is restored under United Nations supervision, the provisional Government of Bangla Desh should be recognized “as the vehicle for the expression of self-determination by the people of East Bengal”.



Our Delhi Correspondent writes:
Mrs Gandhi, the Indian Prime Minister, told Parliament in Delhi today that India would not for a moment countenance a political settlement which meant the death of Bangla Desh, with the ending of democracy in East Bengal and of the people who were now fighting for their rights. Any settlement must be reached with those now being suppressed.

The Prime Minister declared that so far the outside help for the refugees had been pitiable - one tenth of what was needed. “But I think this help will increase,” she said.

She was of course concerned for the plight of the refugees but even more "about the problem of democracy, the problem of human rights, the problem of human dignity”. India would not allow the international community to avoid its “responsibility” towards the refugees.

UN visitor says things better in E Pakistan, page 6