TALK OF WAR: YAHYA TRYING TO DISTRACT WORLD

Statement by Bangla Desh Prime Minister on July 22, 1971.

 

 

Bangla Desh Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmed has said that Gen. Yahya Khan's blustering talk of "war with India" is an indication of his despair, aimed at deflecting the world's attention from the liberation movement and crea­ting communal and racial disharmony.

Mr. Ahmed said in a statement that consistently with this design the Pakistani president was also trying to represent the war between the sovereign people of Bangla Desh and the Pakistani military regime as an Indo-Pakistan conflict.

 

Unflattering

 

"The Pakistani Army", the Bangla Desh Premier said, "has suffered unflat­tering losses in men and morale and Gen. Yahya Khan probably fears more in future. His attempt to form a puppet government with the help of quislings and the elected representatives, now held in capativity, has also failed".

Mr. Ahmed said: "The Mukti Bahini and the people of Bangla Desh are determined not to give any comfort to Yahya and his fellow generals now or in future. This determination also explains the Pakistani President's need for preparing the world in advance for any possible intensification of the war with the Mukti Bahini by ascribing belligerent motives to India."

Mr. Ahmed said Yahya Khan had coupled his threat of declaring war on India, if the latter made an attempt to seize any part of Bangla Desh. with his plan of putting Sheikh Mujibur Rahman before a military court to be tried in camera.

 

Guilty

 

"Those who have usurped power in Pakistan are guilty of suppressing the people's will and human rights in Bangla Desh and have no moral or legal right to try the Banglabandhu who has come to symbolise all that the_. Bengali nation stands for," he said.

"Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is not only the undisputed leader of the 85 million people of Bangla Desh but also the leader of the majority party in the National Assembly of what was Pakistan. His party is the only legitimate authority in Bangla Desh, deriving his sanction from one of the most unanimous electoral verdicts of history. His life is important not only for the peace and prosperity of Bangla Desh people but also for maintenance of peace and stability in this part of the world".

Mr. Ahmed urged all the nations and governments of the world to take individual as well as collective action through the U.N. to stop the ghastly charade of a trial in which the prosecutor, the judge and the executioner would be one and the verdict all too predictable.

He said Yahya Khan must be made to abandon his heinous plot against the life of Sheikh Mujib and release him forthwith.

"For the world to remain an idle spectator at the proposed trial", Mr. Ahmed said, "gill re to abet a terrible crime and betrayal of all human and civilised values."

 

(PATRIOT, New Delhi-July 23, 1971)

 

 

Source: Bangladesh Documents Vol – 1, Page no - 337