Washington Star/Evening Star

There are two schools of thought about how givers of foreign aid can better influence the government of Pakistan to stop killing and driving out citizens in the secession-minded eastern wing of the country.

Most members of the 11-nation consortium of donors to Pakistan, operating under auspices of the World Bank, are reported in quiet agreement to postpone new economic assistance pending a move toward political settlement between West and East Pakistan. The United States, however, disagrees with this tactic. We will continue aid-as-usual in the hope of maintaining "leverage" for persuading the Pakistani government to do right, according to Senate testimony by a State Department official.

The unpredictability of the government of President Yahya Khan, which carried out the sudden massacre of Bengali dissidents and untold thousands of miscellaneous citizens starting March 25, makes it impossible to assess the relative tactical merits of withholding or continuing aid. Perhaps neither approach has much chance of working. Holding back on aid is seen by Pakistani leaders as an attempt to interfere in their internal affairs, and might drive them into isolation from enlightened world opinion. Continuing aid might just encourage them to go on as before, while easing the financial burden on Islamabad of its policy of suppression in East Pakistan.

Tactics aside, we prefer the stance of our friends in the aid consortium, including Great Britain. The outrage in East Pakistan with 6 million of its citizens in frightened and disease-ridden refuge in India, is too overwhelming to sanction an everyday diplomatic posture by the State Department. American taxpayers should not be asked-- and must resent being asked--to help finance the repression of Pakistan's powerless majority. Our officials' equivocation about recent arms shipments to Pakistan, despite the general understanding that this was banned, is disturbing.

Yahya Khan's promise to convene a new national assembly is empty in the light of the outlawing and decimation of East Pakistan's Awami League, which won the last elec- tion and would be running that government now if the electoral process had been honor-ed. The government has done little to restore normal living conditions in East Pakistan-- a prerequisite for the return of the refugees - and humanitarian aid efforts have been hampered severely by government dis-trust of foreigners.

The United States and other aid-giving nations should not let the funds flow under present conditions. Yahya Khan should not regard such aid policies as outside interference so much as a refusal to take part in his folly.