704 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খন্ড শিরোনাম সূত্র তারিখ ২৭১ সাপ্তাহিক ফ্রন্টিয়ার পত্রিকার ফ্রন্টিয়ার ১৭ এপ্রিল, ১৯৭১ একটি সম্পাদকীয় নিবদ্ধ FRONTIER, CALCUTTA, APRIL 17, 1971 Editorial THE FAMILIAR PATTERN Things have been overlapping in March. There was the famous Indira wave in India. Something quite different. March 18 marked the centenary of a historic uprising, the Paris Commune. The rout of the U.S. backed invasion of Laos was a magnificent tribute to this historic event, but before the world at large was able to estimate the magnitude and significance of the American defeat, President Yahya Khan unleashed his hordes in his East Pakistan. The Awami League leaders were prepared for traditional forms of repression but not for the bloodbath, Engrossed as people were in the brave but unequal struggle in Bangladesh, the government of Ceylon led by Sirimavo Bandarnaike went into action against "terrorists". How many have been killed is not yet known. Once again it is clear how all these cynical government swearing by some sort of socialism and having the best of both imperialist and socialist worlds, reveal their sharp, ugly, yellow-fangs when the chips are down. Their tactics and strategy against forces of rebellion or revolution are in the famous American style-after all isn't this the American century They have learnt from the American experience in Indochina that a protracted struggle must be avoided. Strike-and strike hard with all your might-when the movement is young and raw. This is the doctrine of blitzkrieg which the Yahoos, the Yahya hordes in East Bengal, and the Ceylonese forces have adopted, while much of what has happened and is happening in India is shrouded in hypocrisy by a subservient press and raving social democrats. Quick victory in essential for the rulers. Of course if an unarmed and inexperienced people, fighting back, were able to snatch victory within a few weeks, nothing could be more welcome. The carnage and the human suffering would be less. Who wants men. women and children to be made homeless or butchered day after day? But such a victory for the people would be a miracle. Miracles do not visit the masses. It would be long before a poet could again write the East Bengal is like the sound of rain on the leaves of trees late at night. It is no that our leaders and our newspapers do not know what is what in Hast Bengal. The banner headlines reporting every day the capture or recapture to this or that town when the troops, after deterat-the thought that secession has failed and the threat to India's precious unity has receded. Such a threat in the Mizo Hills was contained five years ago with the help of stcn-guns and helicopters and a regrouping of villages into Vietnam-type strategic hamlets. In Kashmir, it was a much easier task containing the secessionists. One cannot expect New Delhi to be too enthusiastic about raising East Bengal in the United Nations in the way one would expect it to be raised.
