Peace News

Operation Omega’s Number Two team completed their first aid-giving mission without incident on Monday last - crossing the border in an area where the Pakistan Army are no longer in control, distributing enough food to last 800 people for three days and returning to Indian territory for more supplies. Omega’s Number One team crossed the border at Petrapol (as before), were stopped by Pakistan Army soldiers and led away out of sight of observers. On Tuesday evening it was learned that they had been imprisoned in Jessore. Both objectives have, therefore, to all intents and purposes been achieved. The objective of the team, which crossed the guarded border-post at Petrapol was to defy the authority of Pakistan over Bangladesh, and imprisonment was an expected part of this political gesture. At the same time, the need to get the-free distribution of food flowing inside Bangladesh was of equal priority.

To the best of everyone’s knowledge, this relief was the first to actually get distributed inside Bangladesh from any relief organization since the Pakistan Army invasion of March 25, apart from cyclone rehabilitation agricultural work, and certainly since the need for a massive food lift to avert autumn starvation because paramount with the disruption of normal planting activity at the beginning of the monsoon.

The First team - Christine Pratt, Joyce Keniwell, Ben Crow and Dan Due (with Ellen Connett acting as link-member at the border) - walked into Bangladesh at 12.24 local time last Sunday, September 5, carrying token relief supplies. After walking for about 300 yards, they were met by two or three Pakistan soldiers. There was a brief exchange, after which the soldiers walked away, leaving them standing on the road. The team stayed there until 12.55, when three more soldiers (perhaps officers) appeared from the side of the road and spent an hour in discussion, other coming and going during this time.

At 1.55, soldiers surrounded them and walked them away along the road, and they were soon out of sight of observers at the Indian border-post. Roger Moody surmised at the time that they had in effect been arrested, but it was still then possible that they had been told to move with the troops in order to meet the commander of the forces in the area. Then there came an unconfirmed report, given to Omega (London) on Tuesday by the Leytonstone-based Pakistan Action Group that they had been held for questioning at Benapol on Sunday night and that no charges had then been preferred because the Army personnel were waiting for instructions from Dacca. They may, say PAG, be moved to Kushtia and then to Dacca.

The Second Team - Freer Speckley, Marc Duran and Gordon Slaven - moved in, with a vehicle, to Bangladesh territory also during last Sunday. Their mission was successful. They carried out a two-day operation covering some 33 square miles inside East Bengal, during which time they distributed enough high-protein food for 3 days’ sustenance for 800 people. They drove their vehicle to the water’s edge, and then loaded the half-ton weight of supplies onto a boat, which took them across the water to where distribution could begin. Their main items off-loaded were : 1,000 loaves of high-protein brown bread; some biscuits; and 350 saris. They were accompanied by Bengali guides, whose presence ensured a more equitable distribution of food than would otherwise have been possible - since large numbers of hungry people rushed towards them in an effort to get “first in the queue.”

Most of the people who received relief were refugees, trekking from East Bengal towards the Indian frontier. They had been “on the road” for 4 to 5 days, with no food, except what little they had been able to carry with them, and with little prospect of getting enough to eat when, and if, they managed to gain entry into India’s refugee camps. What was most needed inside East Bengal, reported the team leader, were clothes and starch foods. There was no rice at all inside that area of the country - probably due to flooding, and there was rice rationing in India. The Second Team are to re-enter Bangladesh territory today (September 10) with more supplies. The Freedom march is definitely ON, according to Paul Connett (Calcutta, Wednesday), and is being organized by Bangladesh youth, who are aiming to have 100,000 marchers.