New Statesman

Starvation has been a weapon of war since the first siege and starvation’s grim companion has always been disease. But what was previously left to history to unfold is now exposed to the world’s gaze as it happens. No one can claim not to know what is going on in East Bengal. The corpses rot in the sun on colour television. Six months ago, the world’s reaction was automatic and easy. As the flood waters surged across the land the desire, even if ineffective, was to give. But armies are not floods. In six short months, the politics of charity have become much more complex. Only the naive - or the self-interested - will respond to the West Pakistanis’ present claim for aid without considering General Yahya Khan’s motives, and the likely results of giving him what he wants. For two weeks, the General’s closest adviser, Mr. M. M. Ahmed, has been trying to bring pressure on the American government, and the International Monetary Fund, for a handout now and a big future commitment. He has been telling them, in effect, that his country is bankrupt. The civil war is costing some $ 2 m a day. It has swallowed up Pakistan’s foreign exchange resources - more than half which originated in the east wing. It has been estimated that Mr. Ahmed and his master require $ 500 m to save the western half of Pakistan alone - not to mention the amount needed to repair the appalling damage which natural and man-made disasters have inflicted upon the east.

The built-in reaction is to give Yahya the money. The Islamabad government has long links with the West, not least through the army officer caste which provided its last two Presidents. Capitalists governments in general have an interest in preserving the status quo. There are rules in the book about non-interference in the affairs of sovereign states and these tend to be applied in an especially cynical way to breakaway movements in the Third World. We patronisingly agree that it would be wrong to hurt their feeling by taking sides, when in truth we are intervening, on behalf of the powers that be. However, this time the built-in mechanism has not operated quite so smartly as Mr. Ahmed hoped. Public feeling in the US appears to have been unexpectedly hostile, The message had got through that this was not a little local difficulty, but a brutal attempt to crush a democratically elected majority party. Unless West Pakistan can produce some sort of political solution, it may be difficult to persuade the Senate to pay up.

For Yahya, promises of aid would be a certificate of respectability. There are various gestures he is ready to make to procure it. One is the prospect of a return to civilian rule, including negotiations with the Awami League. But ‘truck with secessionists’ is out; and although the phrase may have a responsible ring in European ears, it is political nonsense. Ninety per cent of the East Bengalis, at a conservative estimate, are secessionists now.

A team from the World Bank is about to arrive in Bangladesh to study the situation there, and a lot will depend on their report back at the end of this month. It will matter a good deal, for instance, how far they are convinced that the present Pakistan government intends to keep even the promises it has so far made. To put it bluntly, any aid given to Yahya, if it is in cash, could simply be used to prolong the war. If it consists of sacks of food, the East Bengalis assume it will be given first to the army, and that what is left over will be used as an instrument of coercion.

The problem for Britain is how to combine humanitarian commitment with expedient politics. On an elementary level, these converge in the question of getting food and medical supplies through to the people most in need. There are two options. First, we should insist that the relief be internationally administered. There is, however, evidence that the West Pakistanis are determined to resist any such terms. In which case, there is a short-term alternative. The rich countries could take on - via government grants, UN agencies, and charities - the job of feeding the five or six million people now in refugee camps. India cannot cope alone. It might also be possible, at the same time, to allow some supplies to be taken across the frontier by supporters of - let us stress once more - the democratically elected Bengali government.

Soon, the corpses now lying in the sun will be lapped by the monsoon. Half a million people had already died, before the present cholera epidemic. With Western aid, Yahya could afford to continue the war a few more months, until the famine peak expected in the early autumn. He needs the money desperately, to keep his 80,000 strong army in Bangladesh, holding down that million or so of the 75 million who are still in the towns; he needs it to control the throw-outs from Ayub’s time who are now being brought back to form a shadow civil service. If nothing else, he may get the satisfaction of having ‘taught the Bengalis a lesson.’ But he has a lot to lose - possibly, West Pakistan itself, a multi-racial country in which the various elements are becoming increasingly restive. Even his Chinese friends may not prevent him, like Samson, pulling down the pillars of the temple around him.

The desire of European socialists to avoid anything that smacks of imperialism is understandable, but dangerous. It is too easy to disclaim responsibility by underestimating one’s potential influence. The British share of aid to Pakistan is, of course, tiny compared with what the Americans, or the IMF, supply. But we still have a considerable say in the ‘Pakistan consortium”. If we refuse to buy guns for Yahya’s army, or butter for his troops, other countries - France, Italy, Holland, Canada and West Germany - will almost certainly follow suit. They still regard the Indian subcontinent as a British speciality.

To deny aid to Yahya is right both on moral and pragmatic grounds. Forcing him to end the war would not simply put a limit on human suffering. It would reduce the potential for international crisis which is written into the whole situation - that is, the danger of war between India and Pakistan. But nothing alters the basic challenge to the world’s conscience. Any country now offering aid to Yahya Khan and his relentless henchmen will not be able to escape the charge that it is financing genocide.