Washington Daily News

An emissary of the Pakistani military regime is in the United States seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to stave off his country's financial collapse. President Nixon should consider most carefully before giving any help to the Pakistani central government. As far as we can see, its sole distinction was its brutal if not genocidal attack on the Bengali people of East Pakistan.

Certainly Mr. Nixon ought to withhold any aid until he is sure it will not be hogged by West Pakistan, as is so often the case, but will be shared with the suffering masses in the east. So far the Pakistani government has been so callous that it has not replied to several United Nations offers of food and medicine for the starving Bengalis.

The current political and financial crisis in Pakistan is a good opportunity for the United States to re-examine its relations with that country.

During the last 20 years, Washington has invested more than $4.5 billion in economic aid on Pakistan. And we lead an 11-nation consortium that has been pumping $450 million a year into the country to keep it afloat. This Western aid has not, incidentally prevented the Pakistani rulers from aligning their foreign policy with Communist China's.

In addition, the United States has given "anti- Communist" Pakistan more than $1 billion in arms. This has been done in the framework of the Central Treaty Organization, one of our more ludicrous alliances. Pakistan has used those arms to fight the 1966 war with India, a democratic country with which America has normal relations. More recently, it used them savagely to suppress the East Pakistani movement for political autonomy.

Before deciding where America's "Interests" lie in the aid mater. Mr. Nixon should ask a few moral questions, including:

Do we believe in self-determination? if so, should we help 60 million West Pakistanis dominate 73 million residents of East Pakistan, which is 1,000 miles away?

Should we be blind to the racist aspects of the light- skinned, martial Punjabis of the west lording it over the darker Bengalis?

Can we really be anti-colonial and Ignore West Pakistan's "Internal-colonial" exploitation of East Pakistan?

Is it right to give financial aid to Karachi when this releases other funds for the purchase elsewhere of arms that may be used to slaughter the Bengalis?

Finally, in an America that traditionally sympathizes with political prisoners, why is there no compassion for Sheik Mujibur Rahman?

His offense was to win an honest election that established him overwhelmingly as leader of the Bengali people. If there were democracy or justice in Pakistan, he would be prime minister. As it is, he is a prisoner in a Pakistani military dungeon-if indeed he has not been murdered.