পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (ত্রয়োদশ খণ্ড).pdf/৩৫২

উইকিসংকলন থেকে
এই পাতাটির মুদ্রণ সংশোধন করা হয়েছে, কিন্তু বৈধকরণ করা হয়নি।
বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ ত্রয়োদশ খণ্ড
324

affect the balance of forces to a significant degrec. To make this clear, I have to digress from economics for a moment to summarize the current state of military affairs.

 The pitched battles are now over for a while, and West Pakistan's tanks, planes, artillery and disciplined soldiers have won all of them. The troops now occupy Dacca, Chittagong and all the principal cities and towns, and all they now have to do is subjugate the rest of the countryside where most of the people live. But we know that can be quite a task. It requires them to maintain an expeditionary force of upwards of 50.000 troops at the end of a supply line 3.000 miles long and they are already a poor country in deep financial difficulties. the past year, their foreign exchange reserves have been drawn down from over $ 300 million to less than $ 170 million. Their annual foreign trade deficit, even without the expenses and disruptions of warfare, is $ over 500 million, so that their current reserves are less than a third of their annual requirements or scarcely an adequate working balance. In fact, at the moment it appears that Pakistan is desperately seeking a moratorium on its debt installments that fall due this month. This means that if the war is to go on for more than a few months and essential imports are to be procured, outsiders are going to have to provide the resources, and the United States is the principal traditional source of external funds for Pakistan. By and large, American grants and loans have amounted to about $ 250 million a year, not counting our contributions to IDA and UNDP. This covers about half of Pakistan's adverse balance of trade. Therefore, the continued flow of American grant and loans is the most important immediate objective in West Pakistans strategy, more important by far than any military operation.

 So part of America's dilemma in this tragic moment is how to follow a neutral course, when continuing the flow of aid dispersements will provide indispensable support to the suppressive efforts of the Government of Pakistan, while discontinuing the flow will interrupt a traditional relationship on which the Government of Pakistan has come to rely. Since either policy is consequential we are involved inexorably no matter how earnestly we wish we could stand apart. Besides, our own national interests are engaged.

 East Pakistan is in the comer of the Indian-subcontinent and what goes on there is of vital concern to Pakistan, India, mainland China, and Burma at least. It affects political alignments and the balance of power throughout South Asia. Our national interest in South Asia is principally to maintain peace and tranquility. I don't say that out of high-minded or of humanitarian motives. A protracted struggle in East Pakistan will engage the attentions of both India and Pakistan, will weaken both of them, will inflame their animosities to a dangerous degree, and will divert their energies from the peaceful solution of their political and economic problems. It will in short, endanger the stability of the whole subcontinent with consequences that cannot be foretold.

 Second, the longer the struggle goes on the more likely it is that it will take a sinister as well as a tragic turn. At the moment, the movement toward autonomy in East Pakistan is led by a Western-educated, Western-oriented middle-class. It is confined to a sectional struggle with only slight ideological overtones. But experience teaches that it is very hard for moderates with democratic aspirations to keep control of an inflammatory, hatc-breeding struggle. In such struggles, the leadership tends to gravitate into the hands of extremist factions who fed no constraint against exploiting the hatreds that the struggle