358 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খন্ড শিরোনাম সূত্র তারিখ ১৪৮ বাংলাদেশের স্বপ্ন মিলিয়ে অবজারভার ১৮ এপ্রিল, ১৯৭১ যাচ্ছে THE OBSERVFR, LONDON, APRIL 18, 1971 THE FADING DREAM OF BANGLADESH [Colin Smith, the first British newspaperman to reach Dacca since the foreign Press was expelled, reports on his hazardous journey to East Pakistan's capital. He was accompanied by one Mr. Abdul Rashid who acted as guide up to Dacca.] Calcutta, 17 April–Troops from West Pakistan, loyal to General Yahya Khan the country's military ruler, are now rolling up the map of Bangladesh. They have ended for the time being, Bengali dreams of secession and freedom in East Pakistan. Inspite of their passionate hopes, the un warlike Bengalis have been no match for the Frontier soldiers from the West-traditionally the best and most ruthless warriors on the Indian subcontinent. But after a 200-mile journey through the tragic landscape of Bangladesh, I am sure that from now on President Yahya will hold his eastern province only by force and that his rule will be harassed by continual resistance, however, ill-organized and futile it may be. The Bengalis will never forget or forgive the happenings of the past few weeks. At about lunch time on Good Friday, I reached Dacca, the occupied capital of East Pakistan, isolated from the rest of the world on the orders of Yahya Khan. With me was Romano Cagnoni, an Italian freelance photographer based in London. We had taken four days to travel the 100 miles there from the Indian border in jeeps, trucks, ox-carts, canoes, and for one memorable three-mile stretch-by pony. Apart from an Italian newsman shot through the chest during the fighting on 25 March and too weak to be expelled with the other foreign reporters, we were the first foreign journalist in the city for over a fortnight. Cagnoni had hidden his cameras in two assorted biscuits packets. We wore clean short-sleeved shirts, borrowed from a missionary, in order to lend more credibility to our claim that we were technicians working for the Water and Power Development Authority. What we saw in Dacca, and in the countryside in the week we spent traveling to and from it, convinced us that there would be no popular uprising in the capital for the moment. Memories of what the soldiers' guns call do are too recent, Hiding Arms The war is now really coming to the end of its first phase-the national struggle, when patriotism over-rode all political considerations and Awami Leaguer and Maoist fought, in theory anyway, shoulder to shoulder against a common foe. The second phase is just beginning: a classic guerrilla operation waged by the Left with all the eruptions in East Pakistan society this will mean.
