To the Editor: In your Aug. 6 editorial you call for the immediate suspension of United States aid to Pakistan, pointing to increasing evidence that the Bengali resistance is “deep‐rooted and spreading.” In his report from New Delhi appearing Aug. 8 Sydney Schanberg confirms that West Pakistan's military repression in East Pakistan is not succeeding and warns that the specter of an international war is hovering over the continent.

It is now time for the international community to face the basic issue over which the current civil war is heft fought, whether Bangle Desh (East Pakistan) is to be permitted to become an independent nation. I propose that the United Nations endorse self‐determination for the Bengalis and urge the Pakistan Government to enter into negotiations for implementation of that principle, calling upon all outside states to refrain from giving military or economic aid to the Pakistan Government in the meantime.

I realize that the international community has been reluctant to express itself on an issue of political separation, even when the disputing parties have gone to war over the issue. The United Nations had nothing to say about the demand of the Vietnamese for independence from France or the demand of the Biafrans for independence from Nigeria. But it has not always been silent on the issue. It endorsed self‐determination in the wars brought by the Indonesians against the Netherlands and by the Algerians against France. It disapproved of self-determination for the Katangans in their war against the Congo.

Instead of being reluctant, the United Nations should consider itself under an obligation to pass judgment on whether a people should be permitted to enter the international community as a nation when the parties immediately concerned have gone to war because of their inability to agree.

A combination of two conditions justifies approval of the Bengali demand for independence, making the Bengali case similar to the Indonesian and Algerian cases and different from the Katangan and Biafran cases. The first is geographical separation. The Congo and Katanga are contiguous territories and so are Nigeria and Biafra, but East and West Pakistan are over 1,000 miles apart—a distance not as great as that between Indonesia and the Netherlands, but considerably greater than that between Algeria and France. The second condition is the denial of political rights. The Government of Pakistan has denied equal political rights to the people of East Pakistan, repudiating the results of an election which would have propelled the leader of the Bengalis into the office of Prime Minister of Pakistan. When these two conditions exist, should not the international community support a demand for political independence?

The vital questions are: Do the Bengalis have some friends at the United Nations who will present their case, and would enough countries be willing to deal with the case for what it is—a demand for the exercise of a fundamental human right?

Arnold Fraleigh
Falls Church, VA., Aug 5, 1971
The writer is a contributor to “The International Law of Civil War.”