Department of State

TELEGRAM

CONFIDENTIAL 306

PAGE 01 DACCA 01021 021002Z

18

ACTION : NEA-15

INFO : OCT-01 CIAE-00 DODE-00 INR-07 NSAE-00 P-03 RSC-01 USIA 12 PRS-01 SS-20 NSC-01 RSR-01 AID-28

...060385/099 W

R 020647Z JUN 70

FM AMCONSUL DACCA

TO SECSTATE WASHDC 1909

AMEMBASY RAWALPINDI

INFO AMCONSUL KARACHI

AMCONSUL LAHORE

CONFIDENTIAL DACCA 01021

SUB: EAST PAKISTAN: SHEIKH MUJIB IN SERIOUS MOOD PINDI POUCH PESHAWAR

1. When Killgore and I called on Sheikh Mujibur Rahman this morning, we found the Awami League chief less ebullient, more preoccupied, and more earnest than usual.

2. Sheikh said he was fast running out of patience with the military and civil intelligence officer who were advising Industrialists not to support him. He said he had complained on this score to Yahya during the President's last visit to Dacca and also told Yahya that it was an intelligence officer who had persuaded the Pir of Pagaro to defect from the Awami League and Join the Muslim League. If the army, civil service, and "vested interest" continued to play this game, threatened Mujib, "I will proclaim independence and call for guerilla action if the army tries to stop me. It is primarily fear of communist exploitation a Vietnam type situation which has kept me patient this long."

3. Mujib said that he would be touring West Pakistan for fifteen days beginning the last week of June and would visit Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. He said he anticipated some trouble but had warned that if he runs into serious trouble in West Pakistan "the Jamaat-i-Islam will be burned out

NOTE: DOCUMENT INCOMPLETE. PAGES MISSING FROM ORIGINAL DOCUMENT.

Source: The American Papers- Secret and Confidential India.Pakistan.Bangladesh Documents 1965-1973, The University Press Limited, p.367