DAILY TELEGRAPH London, 19th April 1971
Nicholas Tomaline, after seeing the horror of the East Pakistani
fighting, visits the Pruce Modern capital in West Pakistan. He finds a
complacent refusal to recognize the tragedy and its social and economic
repercussion.
FAR FROM THE HOLOCAUST
General Yahya Khan, President of Pakistan and C-in-C of the
Pakistan army is a good man and intelligent soldier. It was simple sense of
duty (and catastrophic intelligence misinformation) which persuaded him three
weeks ago to order his troops to restore the law and order in Pakistan.
Because he is a decent, orthodox army man, who acted according to
orthodox army logic, General Yahya thinks he has succeeded and can now continue
as leader of a united nation. He is still unaware that his attempted coup was
the worst military crime of the recent years and probably the biggest political
blunder.
Islamabad, the West Pakistani capital, is full of noble looking
soldiers like Yahya. They stride around the orderly streets with a fine proud
bearing; they play polo as if nothing had happened to disturb their sport. It
is strange to arrive here and see them, so remote from the piles of dead in
East Pakistan.
The officers’ wives complain that the emergency has caused the
cancellation of the Islamabad gardens competition —just when the spring borders
were looking their neatest. In such crisp, disciplined surroundings it
gradually becomes a matter of removing some unfortunate untidiness even if they
are your countrymen.
Apart from the soldiers, Islamabad is populated by ordinary West
Pakistani citizens who read daily censored newspapers about happiness,
tranquility and joy in the East and therefore agree that law and order
operation was a
Great success and the foreign community who read other newspapers
and therefore disagrees.
Among Islamabad people who knew there was a civil war on,
diplomats for instance, I found surprising unanimity. They believe that
Pakistan, as a nation built of two halves separated by geography but united by
religion, is finished. East Pakistan is doomed to many years of starvation,
chaos and bloodshed. West Pakistan is doomed to an economic crisis of
considerable seriousness. The two must inevitably break apart.
*
‘‘Sheer bloody stupidity” was the undiplomatic phrase one diplomat
was driven to use; even General Yahya’s best friend in the diplomatic corps,
man who strives to explain, if not to justify, what made the general act as he
did, are beginning to use words like “dementia” to describe the unwillingness
to recognize the horror of what he has done, and its consequences must be.
Of course, Yahya is not only feeling in this terrible story. The
vacillating, neurotic personality of the East Pakistani leader, Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman, can also be partly blamed. During the crucial negotiation Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman seemed almost to prefer the idea of prison to the awesome
responsibilities of being Prime Minister of Pakistan. Nothing else explains the
tame manner in which he awaited in Dacca on March 25. At all events he achieved
his wish. People in Islamabad who know such things say Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is
now tucked away in comfortable cells at the Attock Fort 50 miles from
Islamabad.
A real heavy is Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, West Pakistan’s political
leader. There is evidence that Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto deliberately sabotaged
the negotiations between General Yahya and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He did so to
protect West Pakistani interest—perhaps with the connivance of the army but it
was also obvious that he did iiot welcome the prospect of playing second fiddle
to Sheikh Mujib in a united Pakistan.
Also part of this stage army of the bad are the hawkish army
generals and Punjabi civil servants who surrounded Yahya and are supposed by
some to have pushed him into the bloody action to preserve their privilege and
prosperity.
Five names are canvassed
for places in this cable. There is Let-General Tikka Khan, Martial Law
Administrator of East Pakistan. He directed troops during their first night killing
in Dacca. There is Lt.-General Pirzada, Principal Secretary to Yahya, Pirzada
is a Martial Law expert; he drafted the Martial Law Regulations by which
Pakistan is ruled. He is an articulate and intelligent man and Yahya has come
to rely more and more on him to rationalize his actions before and after they
happen. Some call him the defector Prime Minister of Pakistan.
There is Omar, as Chairman of the National Security Council, the
top military spy-master. Omar is a hawk among hawks, totally impatient of
Bengali secessionist.
There is Major-General Akbar, chief of the Inter-Service
Intelligence Corps. Omar and Akbar between them must have provided their C-in-C
with disastrous (perhaps even deliberately distorted) advice that Bengali
nationalist would quickly collapse after one violent military assault.
Finally, there is M.M. Ahmed the one civilian really close to General Yahya. Mr. Ahmed is chairman of the Pakistan Planning Commission which runs the economy of the country. He is a Punjabi patiently patriotic towards his religion and less so towards Bengal. If there was any justice in the change that Pakistan’s economy has been rigged to favor the Punjab at the expense of the East, then Mr. Ahmed has played a part.
Finally, there is M.M. Ahmed the one civilian really close to General Yahya. Mr. Ahmed is chairman of the Pakistan Planning Commission which runs the economy of the country. He is a Punjabi patiently patriotic towards his religion and less so towards Bengal. If there was any justice in the change that Pakistan’s economy has been rigged to favor the Punjab at the expense of the East, then Mr. Ahmed has played a part.
Did this man force Yahya into his military adventure? And do they
still keep him pioneer of an anti-Bengali crusade? I don’t entirely think so.
More likely, their role is simply to bolster the General’s bluff Punjabi
impulses and to insulate him from unwelcome criticisms by foreigners and
Intellectuals.
Indeed it would be dangerous to say they dominate him. For General
Yahya displaying the more childish aspect of his simple, extrovert nature,
results nothing more than any allegation that he is the puppet of his
advisers. It was tactless questioning along these lines by British journalists
at the time of the East Pakistan’s flood that inspired Yahya’s obsessive
dislike of newspaper reporters.
Brash Youngman had been
disrespectful to a distinguished I mad of state. He brooded on it, and
complained about it to Englishman, high and low, on frequent occasions. When
35- journalists found themselves trapped in the Dacca Intercontinental Hotel
on March 25, General Yahya combined pleasure with business and shipped them out
of the country away from the embarrassing going on with maximum roughness.
India too played usual dubious game of saying and doing everything
and nothing at once. News reports on India and in the Indian Press about
fighting almost as ridiculous as the reports in the Pakistani Press. As such
they are God’s gift to Islamabad and Bhutto’s relentless anti-Indian campaign.
But India has not invaded East Pakistan, nor done any of the overwhelming
things that the Chinese allege.
Every time Yahya’s propaganda chiefs are asked about the civil
war, they responded with a stream of abuse about Indian infiltrators attacking
loyal Pakistanis. They never have been able to show actual proof that more than
two Indian soldiers have crossed the border and even this may be old one’s left
over from the Indo-Pak war. (The trouble of course, is too many chiefs and not
enough Indians—but that’s by the by).
Looking back on the long infinitely complicated history of the
negotiation between General Yahya and Mujib, the General’s friends say
that—given the contrasting characters of Yahya, Mujib and Bhutto, things rolled
forward with the inexorability of a Greek tragedy. The Bengalis behaved like
Bengalis at their worst, Punjabis likewise.
The general critics take less philosophical view. They say Yahya
was an orthodox military dictator who last year began to reintroduce the
parliamentary democracy, but when democracy caused him trouble, withdrew it and
used bullets to those who objected.
The General’s friends say
that he would have been happy to hand over power to Sheikh Mujib and agreed to
all the famous 6 points of the greater Eastern independence that Sheikh’s Awami
League demanded. If he disputed, it was only to stop a complete breakaway of
East Pakistan, or the equally unpleasant alternative of a counter rebellion in
the West. If he stopped talking and started shooting, it was only because he saw the Marxists and hooligans had in fact taken over from the Sheikh. The
General’s enemies say he never seriously intended to give up power and the
talks were charade. They point out that two of the 6 points giving East
Pakistan the right to collect its own taxes and control its own exports could
ultimately starve army of money and no President is going to put his soldiers
at the mercy of the Bengali tax collector and the politicians. The truth
probably lies, between these two extremes. What really skippered any chance of
agreement, however, was the intervention of Mr. Bhutto.
As far back as January Yahya and Mujib had a long series of talks
in Dacca to work out what they could do about the election result which gave
Mujib an overall majority. Yahya made concessions, and Mujib on his part
promised that for at least two years as Prime Minister he would not tamper with
the money supply to the army or radically change other economic arrangements.
Yahya was delighted, and on emerging from the conference room
pointed at Sheikh Mujib and told reporters, ‘This is the man who will be
running Pakistan.’ Then he went off to shoot birds.
The resulting headlines caused panic and fury in West Pakistan. In
Islamabad his advisers descended upon Yahya determinedly, pointing out he had
pawned the country’s future with only a vague promise from Bengali’s most
famous prevaricator as a guarantee.
At this point Mr. Bhutto with the clean power to inflame nil the
West if he wanted, added his private voice to the clamor. No one quite knows
what he said. But two things jeer certain, firstly he did not praise Sheikh
Mujib whom he detests, secondly, shortly afterwards General Yahya began quietly
moving troops reinforcements into East Pakistan.
By this time it was mid-Feb; things were growing tenser daily.
Sheikh Mujib had won the election, why couldn’t he now take power? His
supporters grew more and more bitter and unruly. Yahya promised the National
Assembly would meet on March three.
Then Bhutto totally sabotaged even that chance of peace by declaring
him, and, his 80 MP's simply would not turn up at I ho assembly even if it were
convened. So even though Ytihyn was loudly proclaiming his willingness to
inaugurate u democracy, half of it would be missing on the opening day. Many
say that Bhutto was in cahoots with the cabal, the army, and even Yahya when he
made his veto. It did after all, neatly let the General out of his promise.
Oddly enough the last straw was a series of student riots on
Pakistan national day when Yahya, from his conference balcony saw the violent
anarchy of a typical Bengali demonstration with Marxist hoodlums waving red
flags and trampling on picture of Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.
Trampling on Jinnah? It explains much about this simple honorable
man that such desecration weighed more with him than any of the other dangers
of democracy. Total chaos threatened in East Pakistan, he must stop it. Plans
for the military coup were intensified.
Three weeks ago came the big bang, and God knows how many
thousands of people have been killed by the West Pakistani army and by Bengalis
taking gruesome revenge on Punjabis. It is probable that as the ammunition for
the Bangladesh guerrilla begins to run out, the army will gain the final
control of the towns. The monsoon rains, on the other hand, will help the
guerrillas. Fighting will continue in some shape or other for months if not
years.
The military coup was designed to stop East Pakistan sliding into
chaos, race murder, starvation, and alliance with some as yet chosen communist
power. It will, on the contrary, bring all these things about, in a far more
extreme form.
Meanwhile, things are bad in West Pakistan, and getting worse.
There has been no trade since the March talks began, and no export of jute from
Eastern parts since the war began. No taxes have been collected for a long
time. In normal times the West exploits the East by diverting aid money. No one
else would buy West Pakistan’s cheap cotton clothes and other relatively shoddy
goods. Without jute exports there is no foreign exchange to feed the West
Pakistan industries.
The war is using up millions of Rupees daily. If the cost of
holding down 17 million Vietnamese nearly ruined the American economy what
will be cost holding down 75 million Bengalis to the fragile Pakistan economy?
The foreign aid loans
worth over £ 50 million a year— have dried up, because no one will hand over
the money to a country half in chaos. The loan consortium made up of USA,
Britain, France, West Germany, Japan and Italy has refused to say if it will
hold its scheduled meeting later in April- March, all the diplomatic energy in
Islamabad is being expended on furious ticking-off to each ambassador in turn.
Otherwise, the government machine has stopped functioning because
no one knows what is happening and half the civil servants are “Unreliable” men
from the East. There is a national budget due to be presented in just over two months’
time. No one has seriously started to think about it. Everyday talented
Bengalis in influential posts are sacked, and untalented inexperienced Punjabis
take their place.
At the same time Bengalis in armed forces are. causing problems.
All Bengali military pilots have been grounded, 24 army officers in East
Pakistan have reportedly been court- martial ed and the navy, half manned, by
Bengali sailors is unsurprisingly in a mutinous state.
For this and many other reason, and it is generally agreed that
West Pakistan is headed for a virtual economic collapse within months. The
result will be in many ways permanently damaging than the carnage in East which
as a near-subsistence economy is used to coping with disasters.
It is an unpleasant prospect, and obviously something drastic
must be done to stop it. The rest of the world may be held back from frank
moral judgment about who is to blame by consideration of diplomatic tact, but
it has financial levers to apply, and when applied then the terrible
possibility is that General Yahya may ignore these sanctions, however disastrous
to his country. Those who have been to remonstrate with him report that he
seems to believe only what he wants to believe. He really thinks that law and
order operations in East Pakistan are, after some unexpected difficulties,
succeeding. He really thinks that only problem now is the dastardly Indian
intervention. He believes all these, even though some one must have told him it
was invented by his own propaganda machine.
There is something of
the mysterious oriental Pasha in Yahya Khan, behind his Sandhurst choice. As a
Moslem he is finding something intoxicating in retreating into a ferocious
isolation. The more the infidel would protest, the more epic the lonely
struggle becomes. (The leaders of West Pakistan may even prefer to bring
everything in glorious destruction than undergo the humiliation of admitting
they were wrong).
To discover this in Islamabad, after the all-too-real courage of
East Pakistan, it seems even more histrionic- like an old bad film, or a wilder
passage from James Flicker. The romantic band of noble warriors, crying
defiance to the infidel the foreigner, and all Bengalis plunged over the cliff
as their white chargers waving their sabras to the flash in the setting sun.
Such an end has a poetry but it is a pity that a country, and 119 million
people have to go over the cliff at the same time.
Posts
0 Comments :
Post a Comment