Genocide in East Pakistan
Courtesy: Saturday Review [May 22, 1971; p. 20-21]
The most fundamental of all rights the right of a man to come to the
aid of a fellow human being is now being denied with a degree of
official arrogance seldom displayed in recent history.
The people of East Pakistan, who are still suffering from homelessness
and hunger caused by the tidal waves of less than a year ago, are now
caught up in a man-made disaster. Their land has become a locked-in
arena of authorized slaughter. Communications with the outside world
have been reduced almost to the vanishing point. Those who have
offered emergency medical aid or other help have been told to stay
out.
The present situation has its remote origins in the division of the
Indian subcontinent into two nations in 1947. The movement for
independence from Great Britain had been complicated and imperiled by
the existence of Hindu and Moslem blocs. Great Britain had fostered
the concept of a partitioned subcontinent in which India would be
predominantly Hindu and Pakistan would be predominantly Moslem. For a
long time, Gandhi and Nehru had opposed partition, believing it
imperative fat both religious orders to be accommodated within a
single large national design. Gandhi and Nehru withdrew their
opposition to partition, however, when it appeared certain that
national independence might otherwise be indefinitely delayed.
The design for partition called for two nations. Actually, three
nations emerged. For Pakistan was partitioned within itself, into East
and West. The Western part was larger geographically and became the
capital. The Eastern part was more populous and richer in resources.
The units lay more than 1,000 miles apart.
In order to comprehend the geographical anomaly this physical
separation represented, one has only to imagine what would have
happened if Maine and Georgia had decided to form a separate nation,
Maorgia, with practically the whole of the United States lying in
between. Let us further suppose that the capital of the new nation
would have been Augusta, Northern Maorgia, while most of the people
and resources would have been in Southern Maorgia. The result would
have been an administrative, political, and economic shambles. What
has happened in Pakistan roughly fits that description. Further
compounding the situation are the severe cultural and historic
differences between Punjabi (West) and Bengali (East) societies.
For a time, the peoples of East and West Pakistan were held together
by the spiritual and political exhilaration of a new nationalism. But
the underlying difficulties grew more pronounced and visible year by
year. The people of East Pakistan chafed under what they felt was West
Pakistan's latter-day version of British colonialism. They claimed
they were not being represented in proportion to their numbers in
either high posts or policies of government. They charged they were
being exploited economically, furnishing labor and resources without
sharing fairly in the profits from production. They pointed to the
sharp disparity in wages and living conditions between East and West.
It was inevitable that the disaffection should reach an eruptive
stage. There is no point here in detailing the facts attending the
emergence of political movements seeking self-rule for East Pakistan.
All that need be said that the central government at Islamabad finally
did agree to submit self-rule propositions to the East Pakistan
electorate. The result of the general election was an overwhelming
vote in favor of self-rule. The central government at Islamabad not
only failed to respect this popular decision, but ordered in armed
troops to forestall implementation. The official slaughter began on
March 26th.
A few documented episodes:
1) Tanks and soldiers with submachine guns and grenades seized Dacca
University early in the morning on March 26. All students residing in
Iqbal Hall, the dormitory center, were put to death. The building was
gutted by shells from tanks.
2) One hundred and three Hindu students residing in Jagannath Hall of
Dacca University were shot to death. Six Hindu students were forced at
gunpoint to dig graves for the others and then were shot themselves.
3) Professor C. C. Dev, widely respected head of the Department of
Philosophy, was marched out of his home to an adjacent field and shot.
4) The last names of other faculty members who were killed or
seriously wounded: Minirussaman, Guhathakurta, Munim, Naqui, Huda,
Innasali, Ali.
5) Central government troops forced their way into Flat D of Building
34 at the university, seized Professor Muniru Zaman, his son, his
brother (employed by the East Pakistan High Court), and his nephew,
and marched the group to the first-floor foyer, where they were
machine-gunned.
6) A machine gun was installed on the roof of the terminal building at
Sadarghat, the dock area of Old Dacca. On March 26, all civilians
within range were fired upon. After the massacre, the bodies were
dragged into buses. Some were burned. Some were dumped into the
Buriganga River, adjacent to the terminal.
7) On the morning of March 28, machine guns were placed at opposite
ends of Shandari Bazar, a Hindu artisan center in old Dacca. Central
government forces suddenly opened fire on civilians trapped in the
bazaar. The corpses were strewn on the street.
8) On the evening of March 28, soldiers invaded Ramna Kalibari, an
ancient small Hindu settlement, killing all the occupants (estimated
at 200). On March 29, about one hundred corpses were put on display in
the village.
9) The flight of civilians from Dacca was blocked at gunpoint.
10) On the morning of April 2, forty soldiers entered a village named
Barda, rounded up the male population (approximately 600) and marched
them at gunpoint to Gulshan Park; where they were interrogated. Ten
members of the group were then taken off; their fate is unknown.
The foregoing represents a small fraction of the authenticated
accounts that in the aggregate tell of widespread killings; especially
of youth and educated people. It is futile to attempt to estimate the
number of dead or wounded. Each city and village has its own tales of
horror. It is significant that the government at Islamabad, until only
last week, enforced vigorous measures to keep out reporters.
The U.S. State Department is in possession of authenticated
descriptions not just of the incidents mentioned above but of
countless others. Such reports have been sent to Washington by the
American Consul General in Dacca and by American physicians attached
to AID. For some reason, the State Department has issued no report
covering the information at its disposal.
American guns, ammunition, and other weapons sent to Pakistan were
used in the attack on Bengali people.
So were weapons from the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of
China. The United Nations has been helpless in the present situation.
The Central government in Pakistan claims it is dealing with an
internal situation beyond the jurisdiction of the U.N. the nation.
This may help to explain why the U.N. has so far been unable under its
Charter to take action against what appears to be a provable case of
genocide. But it doesn't explain why men of conscience have not stood
up in the United Nations to split the sky with their indignation.
The central government at Islamabad has forestalled efforts to send
food, medicine, and medical personnel into the devastated zones. It
seems inconceivable that this decision can be allowed to stand. The
Bengalis may not possess political sovereignty, but they do possess
human sovereignty under the United Nations Declaration of Human
Rights.
The United States has not hesitated to speak sharply and effectively
wherever its national interests were involved. Americans have every
right to expect the United States to speak sharply when the human
interest is involved. If the United States can find it within its
means and its morality to send guns to Pakistan, it can also find it
within its means and its morality to send food and first aid.
The President has said that events in Vietnam represent a test of
American manhood. The proposition is dubious. What is certain,
however, is that events in Pakistan are a test of American compassion
and conscience.
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