Pakistan ruled by a military dictatorship {with General Yahya Khan at the helm), that West Pakistan treats East Pakistan as a colony, and that capitalist-oriented development has created an immensely wealthy ownership class, while leaving the majority of the population in poverty.
Contemporary events seemed to cut through at least some of these contradictory descriptions. The facade of Pakistani “democracy” came apart when General Khan, in response to the popular election won by East Pakistan's Awami League, ordered the military suppression of the East. The shockingly brutal military action which followed sent millions of refugees fleeing in terror to India.
With increasing study, the complicity of the United States in Pakistani events became evident. This was not simply a tragedy far from our shores in which we had no involvement, but one that our own Government was helping to create.
Although some of the Pakistani army's military equipment came from other countries, a major percentage came from the more than $ 1 billion of U. S. military aid-Sabrejet fighters, light tanks, bombers, C-130 transport planes, guns and ammunition-supplied to Pakistan since 1955. An arms embargo was imposed on both Pakistan and India from 1965 to 1967, because of Indo-Pakistan border conflict, but many millions of dollars more of U. S. military aid were sent after the embargo was cased.
U.S. economic assistance was also abundant, amounting to more than $4 billion since 1954. The yearly total of U. S. economic aid (about $200 million) provided roughly half of the country's total foreign aid, including that which was channeled through a ten- nation World Bank development consortium. The United States, reported The New York Times (May 30, 1971), is heavily committed to every phase of Pakistan's development, “as well as sustaining the nation's budget and currency.”
Even after the facts of West Pakistani military suppression and terrorism were well known in Washington, military and economic aid continued. At first, the Stale Department tried to obscure the fact of continuing shipments, but when the sustained aid flow was documented in Congress and the press, the Government began to talk about the need to continued aid so as to apply “leverage” to the Pakistani government. In April, the State Department admitted that U. S. tanks and F-86 fighters were being used in East Pakistan; it became clear that U. S. arms were helping to crush the Bengalis and that U. S. assistance would continue to flow, if at a somewhat reduced rate.
The “send aid to apply leverage” argument sounded like the line taken by our Government in relation to Greece, and we suspected that it would have about as much impact in Pakistan, particularly since no one in the Executive branch was saying anything publicly to suggest criticism or disapproval of what was happening. But what could be done by ordinary citizens to counter such a policy?
Newspapers and contacts with Congressional offices indicated that Pakistani ships were plying our East Coast, picking up shipments of military and economic goods. One way to express our concern and to put the spotlight of publicity on the situation, we reasoned, would be to attempt to block these ships as they landed to pick up the material.
