openly on behalf of the liberation struggle. When in London I made contact with Justice Abu Sayed Chowdhury who was also Vice Chancellor, Dhaka University at the time. He had been in London at the time and was one of the first to proclaim his allegiance to the liberation struggle and to speak out against the genocide.
In London through my contacts with Brian Lapping, a journalist, I was put in touch with the British Labor Party and addressed a group of Labor MPs in the House of Commons where I stressed the importance of putting pressure on the Conservative government to withhold further aid to Pakistan. I had a very sympatric hearing and met subsequently with Denis Healy who was then Shadow spokesman for Foreign Affairs for the Labor Party in the House of Commons.
I sought to make contact with the Tory government though Sir Douglas Dodds Parker a senior Tory M. P. who was well known to my wife's family and who could put me in touch with Sir Alec Douglas Home, the then Tory F'oreign Secretary, who was also well known to my wife's family. Dodds Parker said he would pass on the message of events in Bangladesh to the Foreign Secretary, which he did. But I could never quite get a direct hearing from the Foreign Secretary, who was reluctant to take the political risk of meeting with a spokesman for a 'rebel' government. I tried later on, again without success, through his Private Secretary, Nicholas Barrington, who was also well known to me. Barrington however remained a most helpful conduct for all information on the Bangladesh case, to be passed on to the foreign Secretary.
The real action was however building up in Washington, around M. M. Ahmed's visit. We had learnt that the external resources of the Pakistani Government were low and needed urgent replenishment from the donors. With the interruption of jutc exports from Bangladesh and also of public revenues, new doses of aid were seen as essential to sustain the Pakistani war effort.
I arrived in the United States towards the end of April, where by chance, in New York. I ran into Prof. Nurul Islam and Prof. Anisur Rahman, both of whom had made their way there independently of me, Prof. Islam had himself had a dramatic journey out of Dhaka. IIc had met up with me Delhi before leaving for the United States.
I proceeded from New York to Washington with IIarun-ur-Rashid, a CSP officer who was then working with the World Bank. In Washington I was received at the airport by A. M. A. Muhith who was then Economic Minister at the Pakistan Embassy. That same evening I met with the full component of the Bengalis in the Washington Embassy. They were an elite group led by the late Enayet Karim, Shamsul Kibria, who later became foreign secretary, Prof. Abu Rushd Matinuddin who was Educational Attache there, Moazzem Ali who was I think Third Secretary, a number of non-PFS officers such as Rustam Ali Razzaque Khan and Shariful Alam. At that stage none of these officers had defected. They all proclaimed their complete sympathy with the liberation struggle and had clandestinely been in touch with members of the U. S. Congress and even people in the state Department, to speak on behalf of the Bangladesh cause. I passed on to them Tajuddin Ahmed's message to defect. They all appeared to be willing to do so but needed to be convinced of the commitment of the people of Bangladesh to the goals of full
