International implications of an independent “Bangla Desh”

FROM news reports now available it would appear that the use of massive military fire power has broken the Awami League and its supporters in most urban centers. But control of urban centers at gunpoint in a country where 90% of the population lives in rural areas hardly constitutes a framework for any effective government, let alone a popular one. The immediate prospect is for ruthless military rule in urban centers, with tenuous control over a countryside which is likely to become increasingly the base for armed guerrilla resistance. 

The base for such a movement clearly exists. The overwhelming support for the Awami League's demand for autonomy was clearly shown in the election results of December when 167 out of 169 seats allotted to East Pakistan were won by the League. As reports of military massacres1 are carried by urban refugees to the rural areas, the democratically expressed sentiment for autonomy is likely to be converted to a militant desire for independence. It is possible that a West Pakistani army of occupation can suppress the Bengali nation for two months, six months, or a year, but the American experience in Vietnam illustrates only too painfully the impossibility of holding an entire population captive by force of alien arms alone. 

The emergence of an independent Bangla Desh appears to be inevitable in the long run. What remains in question is how much blood will flow before it occurs. Politically it is clear that the longer it takes to achieve independence, the more likely it is that control of the independence movement will slip away from the moderate leadership of the Awami League to the more leftist National Awami Party (which did not contest the December elections). 

Assuming that the independence movement succeeds while under Awami League control, certain predictions may be made about its relations with neighbors and super-powers. As expressed in public statements of Sheikh Mujib, an independent Bangla Desh will establish friendly relations with India and set up economic trade to their mutual advantage. Up to now such trade – and all cultural ties – have been frustrated by the West Pakistanis who dominate the Central Government. They believe that, short of war, their only lever to force a settlement of their Kashmir claim is the economic interest of India in trade with East Pakistan. By contrast, East Pakistan has never been aroused by Kashmir, and in the 1965 war no military activity took place within its borders. Strong linguistic and cultural ties with the state of West Bengal in India are likely to help cement durable good relations between the two countries and reduce tension in the area. Unable to share the burden of military expenditures with the East, West Pakistan is bound to tone down its policy of confrontation with India, a confrontation which for the past 24 years has diverted scarce resources of both these poor, populous countries from much needed economic development to defence. 

As an independent nation, Bangla Desh might conceivably establish marginal economic contacts with Communist China. But these are unlikely to be any greater than the current scale of trade and aid between China and Pakistan, and will certainly be less than the likely range and depth of East Bengal's economic ties to neighboring India. As long as India is the main trading partner (and both pronouncements of Awami League leaders and the economic geography of the region support this possibility), it is unlikely that Bangla Desh will become a satellite of Communist China. 

The U.S.S.R. has in the past three years become an active patron of the military clique that controls Pakistan. Soviet aid has included considerable economic aid (including agreements for a steel mill in West Pakistan) and some military aid. The Soviet initiative has been largely a response to growing Communist Chinese ties with Pakistan. This competition between rival giants has redounded to the benefit of West Pakistan where the central government and military establishment are based. The U.S.S.R. has not been sensitive to the aspirations of East Pakistanis in the past, and is unlikely to make a new Bangla Desh an arena for super-power competition for influence. 

A major goal of U.S. foreign policy in this area has been the reduction of the debilitating confrontation between India and Paksitan. This goal will surely be advanced by the existence of an independent Bangla Desh friendly to India. Most observers believe that the Awami League leadership will follow a neutral foreign policy, particularly if the U.S. and multilateral aid agencies like the World Bank are the major aid donors. 

Bengali independence will be inimical to American interests only if by following short-sighted policies we drive East Pakistan into the arms of another power – the U.S.S.R. or China. To the extent that Bengali independence is delayed by means of American arms, the image of the United States will suffer, and rightly so. The offer of arms to Pakistan by the Unites States Government in October 1970, whatever its ostensible purpose, will, if implemented, oil a Pakistani military machine that is making war on its own citizens. The United States Government must rescind this offer forthwith. No further military aid, or economic aid – which directly or indirectly provides foreign exchange that makes it possible to buy weapons abroad – should be given to West Pakistan until it withdraws its occupation force from East Bengal and recognizes the independence of the Bengali nation. 

The eyewitness account of a British correspondent in Washington Post, March 30, leaves no doubt about the appropriateness of the word "massacre." 

Writers - 

Edward S. Mason, a Lamont University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, and a former Dean of the Graduate School of Public Administration; Robert Dorfman, a Professor of Economics at Harvard University; and Stephen A Marglin , also a Professor of Economics at Harvard University. They worked as planning advisers to Pakistan.