পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (সপ্তম খণ্ড).pdf/৩৮২

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বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র : সপ্তম খণ্ড
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with more than just the lives and welfare of the refugees." She dismissed any suggestion that President Yahya Khan could figure in an eventual East Pakistan settlement. Any political 'settlement must be arrived at with those people who are today being suppressed." she said, India would not acquiesce in a settlement that would mean the death of “Bangladesh" and the ending of democracy and of the people who are fighting for their rights.

 The Prime Minister also said “we are not going to let the international community get away without bearing consequences of what is happening in “Bangladesh,” whether they help in finding a settlement of the problem or not they will suffer from the consequences of event." She further said “we have no intention of allowing the refugees to settle down in India nor to let them go back to Bangladesh to be butchered."

 On the same date, June 16, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Prince Sadruddin, who visited several refugee camps, told reporters that he found an improvement in the situation in East Pakistan and that he did not see 96—hy the refugees should not return.

 While the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said he satisfied that the refugees in India could now return to East Pakistan, the Indian Prime Minister asserted that she would not allow the refugees to return till a political settlement of her choice was imposed in East Pakistan. She proclaimed that she would “not accept any settlement which means the death of “Bangladesh" and threatened the international community with “consequences." It is not understood under what rules of international law or practice the Prime Minister of India claims any such right.

 India's Foreign Minister Sardar Swaran Singh declared at the National Press Club in Washington on June 17, “the basic problem is a political one,” thus clarifying Mrs. Gandhi's remark that" India was concerned with more than just the lives and welfare of the refugees." He said that the six million refugees “do not trust the Pakistan Government's declaration of amnesty,” and revealed the plan that" an area in Pakistan may have to be set aside for these temporary camps to be administered by refugees themselves under international supervision." Mr. Singh also advocated that the international community should suspend all aid to Pakistan and press for a political settlement with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and warned that “we cannot sit idly by."

 What India could not achieve through subversion she now wants to achieve through international pressure by threatening war.

 The Indian leaders were disappointed, no doubt, at the failure of the secessionist revolt in East Pakistan to which they had given their full support including arms, ammunition and sending of infiltrators and saboteurs. After the collapse of the rebellion they helped the secessionists to set up the so called" Government of Bangladesh" in their Calcutta guest house on April 20, thus creating the fiction of a government without territory. Now they are engaged in trying to secure some territory for that so-called government.