ংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ ত্রয়োদশ খন্ড and cease to provide any spare parts or ammunition, following the example of the United States Government. I hope that at the United Nations we will be joining with other countries in pressing for the admission of relief organisations and for the organisation of international funds to help with this relief problem and to ensure proper distribution. The relief handled by the West Pakistan Government and its military forces is likely to be used to feed the forces to help them kill more people rather than feed those who are starving. Above all, we should be using whatever international pressure we can exert to compel West Pakistan to withdraw its troops from East Pakistan, to allow the Government of Bangladesh, the Awami League, to take over the administration of East Pakistan. There is still a good chance of securing an independent East Pakistan under a moderate and responsible leadership. It will still be one of the poorest countries in the world but it will benefit enormously from freedom to trade with India. The goods and products for West Bengal are exactly those which East Bengal needs. The desperate poverty in two of the poorest regions of the world would be alleviated at one stroke if East Bengal were free to trade. The longer the war continues the greater the poverty, the greater the distress, the smaller the chance of moderate and democratic leadership surviving and the greater will be the number of people who wil die. Mr. Speaker: A great many Hon. and Right Hon. Members wish to speak. I hope that those who do catch my eye will be reasonably brief. 11.27 a.m. The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Richard Wood): The Hon. Member for Kensington, North (Mr. Douglas-Mann) has touched on a great many aspects of the recent wretched events in Pakistan. I hope that the House of Commons will forgive me for rising very early in this debate to join him in expressing the concern that we all feel at the suffering which, not tens or hundreds of thousands, but literally millions of human beings have undergone as a result of these recent events. I think that there will be general agreement today that we must try to do all we can to alleviate this human distress and to bring about the return of political and economic stability. This House is naturally, and rightly, reluctant to debate the internal affairs of other countries, but in my opinion it is necessary to try to understand, the background of the present situation to decide what our attitude should be. Anyone who travels from East to West Pakistan, or in the other direction, must be struck by the utter dissimilarity of the two parts of that country. It is a country which geographically, seems to be unique, On the other hand, if those two parts are visited. As I visited them during the Fast of Ramadan, I think it is equally evident how close the ties were between the two in the Muslim religion. Pakistan was founded on the establishment of an Islamic homeland for 100 million Muslims in the areas where they were clearly in the majority. Many Hon. Member who have seen it for themselves would agree that it would be hard to exaggerate the difficulties inherent in the government of a nation divided into two parts at least 1,000 miles apart from one another. But these inherent geographical difficulties are only too well known and so, in the House, is the short history of independent Pakistan.
