Indira Gandhi writes to Nixon

August 7, 1971

INDIRA GANDHI'S LETTER TO NIXON

India Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in a letter to US President Richard Nixon, expressed her dissatisfaction over the initiative of deploying UN observers in India and Pakistan.

She said, "It is unrealistic to think that the presence of a group of UN observers could give any feeling of assurance to the evacuees when every day they see new evacuees pouring in with stories of atrocities. Would the League of Nations observers have succeeded in persuading the refugees who fled from Hitler's tyranny to return even whilst the pogroms against the Jews and political opponents of Nazism continued unabated?

"In our view, the intentions of the UN observers might be more credible if their efforts were directed at stopping the continuing outflow of these unfortunate people and at creating conditions which, to any reasonable person, would assure the safety of life and liberty of the refugee who wishes to return to East Bengal," added Indira Gandhi.

The Indian premier further said the news of fresh supply of US arms to Pakistan was a great embarrassment for her government since the US authority repeatedly assured India of not abetting the Pakistani junta in continuing their killing mission in East Pakistan.

She added, "It was a sad chapter in the history of our subcontinent when the United States began to supply arms to Pakistan in 1954 and continued doing so up to 1965. These arms have been used against us, as indeed we feared they would be. And now these arms are being used against their own people whose only fault appears to be that they took seriously [Pakistan] President Yahya Khan's promises to restore democracy."

BUNCH OF WHITE LIES

A foreign office spokesman of the Bangladesh government today described Pakistan's white paper on Bangladesh as a "bunch of white lies".

The spokesman said, "The army junta in its heinous move to hoodwink world opinion, so strong against it, has completely distorted contemporary events and facts. The facts were too clear to be reiterated and largely known to the world by the courtesy of the world fraternity of journalists."

88 OF AWAMI LEAGUE KEEP PAKISTAN SEATS

The Pakistan government announced today that 88 members of the National Assembly belonging to the banned Awami League would retain their seats.

The 79 other assemblymen who were members of the Awami League would be given an opportunity to clear themselves of charges against them, the government said.

According to reports in the Pakistani press, league members who retained their seats were likely to offer their cooperation to the government, either forming a new political party or joining one of the existing ones.

US‐PAKISTAN FOOD PACT

The United States and Pakistan signed a $15.3 million food‐for‐peace agreement in Islamabad that was to provide East Pakistan with 100,000 tonnes of wheat and 50,000 tonnes of rice. The aid was designed to ease the effects of last year's cyclone disaster in East Pakistan.

Shamsuddoza Sajen is a journalist and researcher. He can be contacted at [email protected]