পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (ত্রয়োদশ খণ্ড).pdf/৫০

উইকিসংকলন থেকে
এই পাতাটির মুদ্রণ সংশোধন করা প্রয়োজন।

ংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ ত্রয়োদশ খন্ড recognition particularly since, unless and until the Bangladesh forces control a large part of East Bengal, it may be necessary, in order to provide aid to the people of East Pakistan, for foreign Governments to work with the military Government of West Pakistan. They are desperately anxious that as the elected Government of their country they should be recognized as such. I was impressed by the caliber of those I met. The members of the Government were overwhelmingly liberal social democrats and I believe that I could match them person to person with Members in this House. They are aware of the difficulties facing them in fighting a guerrilla war and retaining their social democratic ideals. It is difficult to be a guerrilla and a liberal at the same time. I came away convinced that a long guerrilla war is inevitable. At the worst, if the West Pakistan authorities are more successful than they have hitherto been it will be a guerrilla war conducted largely from bases inside India. The Indian Government's attitude is a very correct one. I spoke to the Foreign Secretary and other Ministers in Delhi and they impressed upon me that they were aware of the dangers of getting into a conflict with West Pakistan and of subsequent involvement with China. Nevertheless, Indian public opinion would not permit the Indian Government, however much it might wish to do so-and I do not think it does-to Sea; the frontier. Consequently it is inevitable that the refugee camps will become the bases from which guerrilla activity begins. That is liable to lead to a good many border incidents which could escalate dangerously, possibly into war. The fact that the Bangladesh forces are pushed back to the frontier, will mean that the incidents will occur at the border and there will be a greater danger of the war being conducted from bases inside West Bengal. Unless action is taken this situation will result in a long and tragic war, with millions of deaths. However, it is a war which could be prevented. It is one in which economic sanctions might seriously and rapidly affect West Pakistan. West Pakistan has a large import bill. Its overseas debts are estimated at about £1,800 million. At the beginning of the war its reserves were about £35 million and it has already repudiated its liability for debt repayments of about £80 million due in May, postponing them until November, when even then it seems unlikely that it will be able to meet them. Today's Times reports yet again on the acute financial crisis in West Pakistan. The article in this week's issue of News-week discusses this as did yesterday's Financial Times. The economy of West Pakistan is bankrupt, on the point of ruin. The war is costing the West Pakistan Government nearly £1 million a day. In these circumstances the rest of the world has a good deal of influence to exert. I urge that we should suspend all payments of aid while West Pakistan is fighting a war of this kind against East Pakistan. In any event, we should certainly not enter into any new aid commitments and we should appropriate installments on existing debt commitments to the servicing of existing loans. I hope that the British Government will press the aid consortium to apply similar sanctions to West Pakistan to suspend aid payments while the war continues. I hope that will use our influence with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to ensure that they do not provide assistance to West Pakistan to fight what is clearly and undoubtedly an aggressive war against East Pakistan. We should end all military assistance