July 12, 1971

SWARAN SINGH CONDEMNS ARMS SHIPMENT TO PAKISTAN

The Indian External Affairs Minister Swaran Singh told the Lok Sabha today that supply of arms to Pakistan by any country in the present context "amounts to an intervention on the side of the military rulers of West Pakistan against the people of Bangladesh".

The Indian government felt that such supply amounted to condoning "genocide in Bangladesh and encouragement to the continuation of the atrocities by the military rulers of Pakistan," he added. 

The minister was replying to a call-attention notice on the reported US government decision to supply arms to Pakistan under personal orders of US President Richard Nixon. "We have left the US Government in no doubt," Swaran Singh said, "about the dangerous implications of such a policy on the situation in Bangladesh and on the peace and stability of the subcontinent and the region as a whole."

SAMAR SEN CALLS ON THANT

The Indian Ambassador to the UN Samar Sen called on the UN Secretary General U Thant today and discussed with him the Bangladesh situation and the refugee problem in India.

Samar Sen was reported to have impressed on U Thant the need for UN action to create conditions in Bangladesh that would give the refugees confidence to return home. He explained the Indian view that such conditions could be created only by genuine political accommodation by Pakistan with representatives of the Bangladesh people.

DOING BUSINESS WITH YAHYA

The New York Times, in a news analysis published on July 12, 1971, criticised severely Nixon and the UN Secretary General U Thant for being silent on "immense human disaster" in Bangladesh.

"…the silence in some quarters is so puzzling. President Nixon has said nothing. That great moralist, U Thant, who regularly criticizes American action in Vietnam, has not had much to say about racial killing by Pakistani soldiers. And there are many others," said the news analysis.

It further said, "We can no longer have any illusions about our ability to make unpleasant governments around the world behave well, but there does come a point at which self‐respect requires us to stop helping them. That is why an American official, one who is certainly a realist, said the other day: There is not much we can do about East Pakistan, but I dislike—pardon the phrase—our moral posture."

Shamsuddoza Sajen is a journalist and researcher. He can be contacted at sajen1986@gmail.com