Economist

The western aid donors to Pakistan are getting tougher;. The World Bank’s aid to Pakistan consortium (which comprises ten western countries and Japan) decided on Monday to postpone any discussion of fresh aid to Pakistan until it sees what kind of political settlement President Yahya is prepared to offer in the announcement he is due to make on June 28. Even then, the consortium will probably wait to see whether President Yahya can actually persuade a reasonable proportion of the 6 million or so refugees in India to return to their homes.

The donor countries are treating India rather differently. They pledged £540 million ( £270 million in project aid and £270 million in general assistance) to India last week— compared with £360 million last year. And the postponement of further aid comes at an embarrassing time for Pakistan. Exactly how badly the Pakistani economy has been hit by the civil war will be spelled out in Saturday’s budget,, which is expected to reveal a huge balance-of-payments deficit and to raise taxes and cut imports.

But President Yahya seems to have found friends in the deputation of three British Members of Parliament who visited Pakistan last week. They have said that they believe in his sincerity in seeking a political settlement. But the big question—what basis there is for a political settlement in East Pakistan—remains unanswered. The stories of pogroms against Hindus and the slaughter of educated Bengalis are still coming out of the province. Some of these refer to the situation in April and May, and the British delegation claims that the situation is much better now.

But one of the British visitors, Mrs. Jill Knight, painted so implausibly rosy a picture as to throw doubt on her own testimony. “I found no evidence of army massacres during an extensive tour of East Pakistan,” she wrote in one British newspaper. Another member of the delegation, Mr. James Tinn, flatly disagrees with this testimony. Mrs. Knight also made an extraordinary statement in which she said that “we heard a rumour of army killing at Bhola and asked to go there. At once arrangements were made but we decided, subsequently not to go because the rumours were not, we thought, sufficiently authenticated.” Such rumours, can hardly be discarded without personal inspection.

But there is some evidence that the Pakistan government is at last taking action to discipline the army. Mr. Tinn said he heard in Dacca that two army officers had been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for rape and other crimes and that ten other cases were pending. Last week General Yahya. urged members of “the minority community”, the Hindus, ta return to their homes and described them as “equal citizens of Pakistan.” But it is clear that it will have to be proved to them that they have nothing to fear by going back across the border—and that is much easier said than done.

Recent reports from Dacca suggest that, though the town is sullen but pacified, there is guerrilla activity not only on the border but also in the forests to the north of, and in the swamps to the south of Dacca. Guerrilla activity on the border will make it harder for any refugees to return home and increase the tension between regular Indian and Pakistani troops. And guerrilla activities inside the province will deter Bengalis, for fear of reprisals, from co-operating with the army or with any “transfer of power” plan of President Yahya. However, the chances for the distribution of international relief in East Pakistan are now better. For if President Yahya is prepared to allow foreign journalists to travel freely around the province, as now seems to be the case, he will presumably have no objection to U.N. people and perhaps volunteer aid-bringers doing the same. But the political issue is still there.