115 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খন্ড শিরোনাম সূত্র তারিখ ৫৩। অস্ত্র যখন ধর্মতাত্ত্বিক সমস্যা নিউইয়র্ক টাইমস ২৭ জুন, ১৯৭১ THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDA Y, JUNE 27, 197] U. S. AND PAKISTAN WHEN AMMUNITION IS A THEOLOGICAL QUESTION Washington-The Nixon Administration discovered from newspaper enclosures last week that it has been violating the ban it had imposed on shipments of American military equipment to Pakistan following the outbreak of civil strife in that country's Eastern region. In finding out belatedly that at least three freighters laden with military equipment had sailed from New York for Karachi after the ban became effective on March 25, and that new export licenses had been illegally issued since that date, the Administration faced public embarrassment. Senatorial anger and political problems with India. The incident also served to underscore Washington's ambiguous attitude toward the potentially explosive situation in East Pakistan, where Pakistan's military suppression of the Bengali independence movement is reported to have claimed nearly 200,000 Bengali lives and has sent six million refugees pouring across the Indian border. Few observers believed that any deliberate official deception was involved. It was generally accepted that the arms shipments resulted from a breakdown in internal communications between those who make policy at the top and these executing it on the working level, a phenomenon that one harried bureaucrat described last week as "the price you pay for on elephantine government." The bureaucratic confusion surrounding the shipments was monumental in every aspect. The State Department, which had assured a number of Senators only a few weeks earlier (in writing) that no arms shipments to Pakistan were scheduled, was surprised to learn of the sailing of two freighters (it later discovered the third one) and lured to the Defense Department for explanation. The Pentagon checked its computers and produced the information, starting the State Department, that the March 25 ban on shipments took effect only on April 6. Then, the Administration explained that military equipment delivered to Pakistani officials in the United States before March 25 could be shipped anyway. It did not say why. A special high-level task force was quickly formed to ascertain facts, but four days elapsed before the State Department learned that the Padilla, the Pakistani freighter loading in New York last weekend, had sailed with (1) $1 2-million work of ammunition, (2) spare parts for military aircraft, armored vehicles and jeeps and (3) small radio-con-trolled pilot less drones for antiaircraft gunners' practice.
