Karachi, February 24. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, President of the Awami League said today that he would not budge an inch from his demands for near autonomy for East Pakistan. He accused Mr. Bhutto and “vested West Pakistani interests” of subverting constitutional processes. East Pakistanis, he said, would lay down their lives “so that our future generations do not have to live in a colony but can live in freedom and dignity as free citizens of a free country.”

Mr. Bhutto has said that he will boycott the National Assembly convened by President Yahya Khan in Dacca on Wednesday unless the Awami League is prepared to compromise and adjust its six-point formula for new powers. Sheikh Mujibur’s statement today amounted to a threat that if the National Assembly does not meet on schedule, the division of East and West Pakistan would begin.

REJECTION

President Yahya Khan is trying to persuade Mr. Bhutto to attend the Assembly and oppose the six points on the floor of the House, but Sheikh Mujibur’s statement has put Mr. Bhutto in an impossible position concerning Punjab, Pakistan’s mot powerful province. If Mr. Bhutto now decides to go to Dacca, Punjab, which his People’s Party represents, would revolt. If he stays away, any Constitution passed by the Awami League, which commands a majority, would be unacceptable to Punjab and Sind and could not be enforced. Alternatively, the military regime would continue, a situation East Pakistan will not countenance.

Never has the country been so close to disaster, Sheikh Mujibur referred to Mr. Bhutto’s “bluster” on the six points and said: “It’s time to call a halt to the kind of political histrionics which the nation has witnessed during the past week”. An artificial crisis was being fabricated to sabotage the making of the Constitution and the transfer of power to the people’s elected representatives. The people had given a verdict in favour of the six points and a mandate to the Awami League to frame the Constitution on them. He added that while the League was ready to clarify the scheme there was no question of amending it.

Sheikh Mujibur said that “conspiratorial forces” which dismissed the elected Government in East Pakistan in 1954, dissolved the constituent Assembly in 1955, imposed martial law in 1958, and intervened to frustrate the people’s movement thereafter, were “getting ready to strike again.” He added: “Bhutto and the People’s Party have suddenly started striking postures and issuing pronouncements which reveal a tendency to subvert the constitutional processes by obstructing the normal function of the National Assembly.” He repeated his charge that Bangladesh (East Pakistan) had for 23 years been run as a colony of West Pakistan and a captive market for West Pakistani goods, exploitation that had brought East Pakistan close to collapse. Denied the bare means of subsistence people had been reduced to destitution. “We can on no account allow this state of affairs to continue,” he declared.

YAHYA EFFORTS

Sheikh Mujibur rejected Mr. Bhutto’s proposal for a bicameral legislature, saying that a second House elected on the basis of provincial representation would reduce East Pakistan to an insignificant minority. He reiterated his demand that the provinces should have the right to levy taxes, conduct foreign trade, and negotiate foreign aid and loans independent of the Centre “within the framework of the country’s foreign policy.”

The six points were meant only for East Pakistan. If West Pakistan did not wish to have the same degree of autonomy or wish to cede powers to the Centre, the formula did not affect it.