Rawalpindi, June 16
No renewal of aid to Pakistan is likely to be contemplated by the main donor countries— America, West Germany, Japan, Britain, France and Canada — until at the very least some "overt and credible’’ move towards the restoration of normal life in the ravaged eastern province has been undertaken.

This message has been conveyed very clearly to President Yahya Khan and his advisers in talks here this week with officials of the World Bank led by Mr I. P. M. Cargill.

Mr Cargill, chairman of the Aid to Pakistan Consortium, and the other officials arrived in Rawalpindi on Saturday after a visit to East Pakistan.

Informed sources here consider that next month’s scheduled meeting of the consortium, at which member countries would normally be expected to pledge amounts of aid for the coming year, is now certain to be postponed, possibly for “many months ".

Food and humanitarian relief will, of course, be made available, but no new promises of commodity aid are likely to be forthcoming unless a genuine effort is made to reach a political settlement in East Pakistan.

There is no intention to stop aid already in the pipeline, which will probably tide Pakistan over to the end of the year. However, some $80m (£33m) of the commodity aid pledged last year by the Americans, and still not yet committed, is now considered virtually certain to be withheld.

Aid to Pakistan has been running at some $500m (£208m) to $550m (£230m) a year and accounts for about two fifths of the country’s foreign exchange requirements. Any faltering in this flow must therefore be a matter of serious concern to President Yahya Khan and his advisers.

The President admitted in a broadcast at the end of last month that the economy was in a “terrible” state. Foreign exchange reserves are reliably believed to amount to no more than $100m to $200m. An austerity budget is expected at the end of this month.

Exports of jute from East Pakistan, which ordinarily earn some $350m a year, about half the country’s foreign exchange earnings, have drastically declined. A further drain on the economy is the need to import tea, which used to be supplied by East Pakistan.

The conditions demanded by the donor countries for the renewal of aid are not altogether clear. But the restoration of a minimum of law and order and security in place of the present “martial lawlessness” seems to be a basic requirement. It is difficult to see how this could be achieved without at least the removal of General Tikka Khan, the military governor in East Pakistan, whose writ seems to run almost unchallenged at the moment.

All reliable accounts of life in the east agree that most of the population is still living in abject fear of the Army. The normal commercial machinery of the province is paralysed. Peasants are afraid to come into the towns to sell their products. In the bazaars often only one shop in thirty is open. Dacca itself is a ghost town by 5 p.m.

Government servants are utterly demoralized. Rural officials are too terrified to go about their business. Everywhere there is ample evidence of continuing indiscriminate brutality by the Army. Villages are destroyed and suspected supporters of the Awami League are shot without trial. No law and order can be maintained because the police, the normal means of enforcing it, have been destroyed by the Army.

Aid, it is felt, cannot be given in these circumstances. It is not clear, however, just how far the consortium countries are prepared to use aid as a lever to guide the Pakistan Government in desirable political directions or whether, for example, aid might be tied to a specific demand such as the release from jail of Shaikh Mujibur Rahman, the Awami League leader.

The President has promised to outline his long delayed plans for a “transfer of power” in a broadcast before the end of this month. This, together with the budget, will be closely scrutinized by foreign observers.