497 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খন্ড together, Mr. Wood said that he saw no value in speculating on the future of Pakistan and that the aim of everyone should be to help to recreate peace there. From yesterday's debate it is clear that the British Government is going to do all it can to help restore the situation in East Pakistan to normal. It realizes however that its role must be a limited one because responsibility lies with the Government of Pakistan. So | ASEAN TOPICAL TALKS BOIL OF FINANCIAL TIMES ARTICLE ON PAKISTAN TODAY: AN URGE FOR SELF-DISTRUCTION BY HARVEY STOCKWIN 21st May, 1971 Edited by Mark Tally (S) The Financial Times today publishes an article by their special correspondent, Harvey Stock win who was one of the party of foreign journalists invited to visit East Pakistan by the Pakistan Government earlier this month. In this article. Stockwin looks back on his tour. He fears that there will be more violence in the province and that famine may be inevitable. He says that Bengalis were overconfident before March 25th. Sheikh Mujib he feels must bear a heavy responsibility for betraying Bengali aspirations, because he was indecisive and politically naive. Stockwin analyses the emotions behind the Bengali movement as resentment at being explicated, doubt about their position in Pakistan as it had evolved, and a belief in their strength. This belief stemmed from the Bengalis conviction that agitation had caused Ayub Khan's downfall, and that the army had shown by its handling of the cyclone disaster that it could not hold down the East wing. Stock win feels that their feelings together with the exclusiveness of Bengali nationalism explains the Bengali Bihari fratricide. He says that the Biharis and other refugees in East Pakistan from more distant parts of India were never integrated into the Bengali community. The army's role, Stockwin feels, was not as consistent or as directly controlled from the top as earliest reports suggested. The West Pakistani units in the East wing were upset by the world press coverage of the cyclone which justifiably stressed the inadequacy of the West Pakistan reaction but did not mention the inadequacy of the Bengali reaction also. The West Pakistanis according to Stockwin remained comparatively calm throughout the election itself and the post election negotiations. But the extreme actions of the students during the period when the Sheikh was virtually running the East wing so provoked the army that it was inevitable that it would eventually react ferociously and communally. He sees the violence which has engulfed East Pakistan as the latest installment of the Partition riots. The precise chain of events varied, according to Stockwin, from place to place but outside Dacca, the Bengalis generally turned against the non-Bengalis the then army and the non-Bengalis turned against them.
