পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (সপ্তম খণ্ড).pdf/৯২

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58 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র : সপ্তম খণ্ড শিরোনাম সূত্র তারিখ ২৫। ওয়াশিংটনস্থ পাকিস্তানী রাষ্ট্রদূত পাকিস্তান দূতাবাসের দলিলপত্র ৪ মে, ১৯৭১ EMBASSY OF PAKISTAN WASHINGTON D. C. 20008 May 4, 1971 The Honorable J. W. Fulbright Senate Office Building Washington D. C. My dear Senator Fulbright: I have seen a Reuter agency report by Mitchell Kraft according to which Mr. Rohde, a former American AID worker in East Pakistan sent a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee dated April 9, making allegations of the mass killing of unarmed civilians and a systematic elimination of the intelligentsia in East Pakistan. 2. I would like bring to your attention that Mr. Rohde, to our misfortune, has never been an impartial observer of events in East Pakistan. Long before the present crisis arose on the first of March in East Pakistan. Mr. Rohde is on record as having attacked the Central government of Pakistan shortly after the disastrous cyclone of 13" November 1970 when Mr. Rohde led a team of foreign officials to the cyclone affected areas to administer relief. Many other foreign relief organizations from various parts of the world including a number of American organizations also sent similar teams to the area at the same time. Unlike those teams which worked in cooperation with Pakistani civil and military authorities and concerned themselves solely with the relief operations, Mr. Rohde openly set himself up as the champion of Bengali nationalism and was constantly at loggerheads with the officials of the Central Government, especially those hailing from West Pakistan. He went to the extent of organizing demonstrations against those officials by the inhabitants of Manpura, an island which had been allotted to him for relief operations. Not content with this, Mr. Rohde in an interview with correspondent Allen Hart of the British Broadcasting Corporation accused the Central Government and the armed forces of Pakistan of "genocide" in East Pakistan. Nothing could better demonstrate his unhelpful attitude throughout his stay in the cyclone affected areas than this absurd charge when not a shot had yet been fired by the Pakistan army in those days (November 1970). This interview of Mr. Rohde was televised in England ill the 'Panorama' programme about the middle of December last year and I have applied to the B B C for a copy of its text. It created a clear impression in the minds of British viewers that Mr. Rohde was more interested in politicizing the cyclone and its aftermath rather than carrying on relief work in a dispassionate and humanitarian manner as was being done, much more effectively, by so many other foreign relief organizations.