571 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ ষষ্ঠ খণ্ড শিরোনাম সংবাদপত্র তারিখ The Unite Kingdom Diary Bangladesh News letter 21 Jաne, 1971 London : No. 7 THE UNITED KINGDOM DIARY Anthony Mascarenhas The bombshell of the week in the exposure by Anthony Mascarenhas, Assistant Editor of the Morning News, Karachi, and the correspondent in Pakistan for the Times and the Sunday Times, of the genocide by the West Pakistan Army against the people of East Bengal. When on 2 May the Sunday Times published a story by Tony, playing up the gruesome killings of non-Bengalis and Biharis by the Bengalis, we found it highly exaggerated, one-sided and contradictory and based on facts and on "heresay" figures supplied by the Army and "Islamists". We said then that it was in reality a handout by the Inter-services public Relations and Tony among other Pakistani journalists writing also for some British and American papers was forced to file what the Army wanted them to file. Now Tony in an article in the Sunday Times on 13 June has himself exposed the gun-point reporting he had to do. We congratulate Tony and are happy that he is out of the country of the butchers and safe in a democracy where bullets and bayonets do not control either the pen or the tongue. His story of "genocide by the Pakistani Army" will haunt the world for ever. If the power had been transferred to the Awami League soon after the elections in December, we have no doubt that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman would have controlled the communal and the sectarian carnage as he did control the administration during the three weeks of his civil disobedience and earlier racial riots. Rehman Sobhan Rehman Sobhan returned from the United States since we published our last issue. Rehman has been to the States recently where he met the representatives of the Aid Consortium countries and worked to counter the jugglery of Yahya's master financial wizard, M. M. Ahmed, who had been knocking at every prospective American door with a begging bowl. In London Rehman called on his old friends in the New statesman and the paper came out with one of the strongest editorials: "Corpses in the Sun". Next day Guardian started serializing his article: "Prelude to an Order for Genocide" and "Helping Yahya to Himself". Rehman also addressed an informal get-together of the Bangladesh Newsletter activists and Bangladesh Freedom Movement Overseas at the Ganges Restaurant for nearly two hours, a talk which was heard throughout with sustained attention. Rehman has also had a number of meetings with leading editors, columnists, writers, members of parliament and trade union leaders. He addressed a public meeting of the Students Action committee where he literally spell-bound the audience.
