বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ ত্রয়োদশ খণ্ড
safe again. Get them out of these monstrous camps.
Stanley Burke, Canadian Journalist
A man-made disaster of almost unimaginable proportions is unfolding in East Pakistan and in India. Millions are already suffering and millions more are threatened by hunger and famine. And yet the world stand by almost indifferent. Why 2
Governments are caught up by the international power game and are fearful that social strife, if not suppressed, may spread. The United Nations is crippled by the attitudes of its member governments and, by the existing code of international conduct. Churches feel restrained, fearing that their world-wide interest may be jeopardized if they take actions which are offensive to governments. Even relief agencies dedicated to the relief of human suffering fear to act without governmental consent.
Why? Why do people keep saying “we mustn't get involved in politics"? The answer seems to be that we have an almost instinctive fear or power which makes us hesitate to cry out. Governments feel that they are fellow members of a club and that they must help one another out. Organizations feel that any authority is better than no authority. Whatever the explanations, the fact is that the world stands by and allows the tragedy to grow.' Here then is the moment when private organizations and private individuals, if they have courage, must stand up and protest. They must show their outrage that this totally unnecessary tragedy was allowed to happen and is allowed to continue.
But protest is not enough. In a complex power-dominated world it is no longer effective to pass plaintive resolutions or to write isolated letters to editors. Power for good must be effectively and massively organized and courageously advanced. Already the citizens' fight to save the environment, has shown the effectiveness of private protest.
Over Pakistan they must demand an answer to one basic question: Are there limits to the right of a Government to use force against people it claims as its own in order to perpetuate a political system? The question cries out for attention. It is thought provoking to realize that in the First World War people were horrified by the sinking of the Lusitania with the loss of a few hundred lives. In the Second World War people were shocked by the bombing of Hiroshima at a cost of 150,000 lives. Today the world is indifferent to a tragedy affecting millions.
Vincent Philippe Fenille D’avis De Lausanne
I have just left one of the innumerable refugee camps which border the IndoPakistan frontier. A small camp, it has 6,000 people (Salt Lake camp has 300,000): an “acceptable" camp. I use this shocking word for nothing is really “acceptable" in saying that misery is well organized. I saw what the Indian Government is doing to give at least shelter and something to alleviate famine. I saw, too, the efforts made by several foreign and international charities: may be a ray of hope, but a ray only, because the situation is getting worse. The mass of refugees is growing quickly. Tomorrow, their emotion being over, their conscience being relieved, the rich countries will forget Bengal, whereas it needs help more than ever.
