When the Pakistan army launched its operations in East Pakistan it was officially estimated that there were sufficient food stocks upcountry for about 10 to 12 weeks. Since then little food has been shipped from Dacca, and hunger must now be added to all the other horrors endured by these long-suffering people.

Confirmation is available in Geneva. A representative of the League of Red Cross Societies recently returned from East Pakistan, and reported that the situation “is likely to become very very bad”. The United Nations has warned that “the threat of food shortages will increase in the months ahead”. Food shortages is the UN euphemism for famine.

The reasons are obvious. The distribution system has largely broken down. Apart from the destruction of bridges between Chittagong and Dacca, water traffic, which normally carries bulk cargoes such as food, has almost been brought to a standstill with the sinking of river steamers and barges.

The organization of outside aid is necessarily slow. For instance, the first coaster with food arrived at Chittagong last week, but the food was intended for the victims of last year's cyclone. The civil war has also reduced or prevented sowing in many areas. East Pakistan normally has to import nearly two million tons of grain. It was estimated after the cyclone that three million tons would have to be imported this year, but this figure could now be easily trebled. Another Bengal famine, a repetition of the 1942 disaster, is a nightmarish possibility.

The World Food Programme is of course stepping up shipments. The monsoon will make more rivers navigable, and new craft have been ordered. There could be airdrops.

I remember how a District Commissioner responded to a flood in the Punjab some years ago. He turned the local jail into a bakery, and had aircraft and helicopters drop sacks of chapattis to villagers who had taken refuge on the high ground and in trees.

International cooperation, modern transport and such imaginative measures should avert a repetition of the 1942 famine—if the armed bands fighting to establish Bangla Desh do not interfere. Alas, all the indications are that they will fight for their political objective no matter the human cost.

Reliable reports have it that the Mukti Bahini, or freedom force, has decided that the best strategy is to bring the economy to a halt. The peasants will inevitably suffer, but civilian casualties and famine are seen as an acceptable price for independence.

The world is thus once again confronted by the awful dilemma of a guerrilla war fought regardless of human misery. Biafra and Vietnam are the most recent examples. This was presumably forgotten by those who demonstrated for Bangla Desh in Trafalgar Square last Sunday, but the peasants in East Pakistan and not London demonstrators will suffer.

The guerrilla war now being fought cannot defeat a well-trained army, with a leadership which understands its enemy's objective and strategy. The Mukti Bahini can only succeed by bringing death and destruction to those whose well-being and independence it is supposed to be fighting for.

One can argue that man does not live by bread alone, but I doubt that the villagers of East Pakistan can be persuaded. Surely not every Ibo or Vietnamese mother thought that Biafran independence or Vietnamese unity was worth the death of her children.

The dilemma is crueller in East Pakistan because the origins of the struggle are so obscure. The elections may have demonstrated that Pakistan js basically two separate politics, but provincial autonomy and not independence was the election issue. The army was ruthless, but it is still not clear who started the killing.

The facts may never be established, but the magnitude of the killing on both sides is not necessarily an indication of the strength of the independence movement. It is only another reminder that the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent is the world's most violent region. In comparison the United States is a Quaker community of peace and light.

The events of 1947 are sufficient proof. Then independence was assured but about one million people were killed during the mass migrations. Satyagraha, or non-violence, may have been launched as the only weapon of a dependent people confronted by an imperial army, but it became a powerful philosophy because latent violence in the subcontinent was only too obvious.

Outside observers should be cautious with their predictions, especially Ko Hais, or old Indian hands, but the creation of an independent Bangla Desh would almost certainly cause even greater bloodshed. There is little reason for believing that the government in Delhi could survive it, let alone Islamabad, Calcutta or Dacca.

The time has surely come for a review of the situation before it is too late. The lives of literally milions of people are at stake.

Louis Heren