I try to avoid getting into the '3 million killed' argument. It is a pointless argument, as if a million subtracted here or added there makes a whole lot of difference. Below is a snippet excerpt from something I wrote on Genocide of 1971 two years ago.
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He quotes R. J. Rummel again: "It was Yahya Khan, then President of Pakistan", who said regarding his ill-conceived miliitary crackdown on East Pakistan in March, 1971: "Kill three million of them and the rest will eat out of our hands" (p315).
The intended number to be killed mentioned in the statement of Yahya is not nearly as important as the explicit aim for mass killing that is expressed in the bombast there. And the aim of this mass killing was to make "them" eat out of "our" hands.
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But that was Pakistani military's neo-colonial aim. I distinguish between that aim and the one that was in the blackened hearts of the Bengali Razakars as they conducted the mass murders of fellow-countrymen in 1971. Those Razakars (and their newer versions) with the same murederous desires in their hearts are still among us. We keep knocking over them even in this forum.
Farida Majid
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