International Herald Tribune

Millions of refugees—Muslims and others—have flooded India escaping from what France-Soir (14 May) described as "Abattoirs humains au Pakistan." The Pakistan Ambassador in his letter to you today ( May 26) says that it is India’s fault. We have many faults but we are not responsible for the ruthless repression in East Pakistan. The Guardian of London stated on the 31st March: "Henceforth the country (Pakistan) must be regarded as a particularly brutal and insensitive military dictatorship.... " In Newsweek of 26th April, we read: On orders from the Islamabad High Command, troops systematically gunned down students, engineers, doctors and any °ther persons with a Potential for leadership..."

What is the genesis of this genocide? Because Mujibur Rahman, with a massive popular mandate (167 out of 169 East Pakistan seats in the 300-member National Assembly, and 288 out of 300 seats in the East Pakistan Assembly) wanted to implement the six-point program of provincial autonomy—known since 1966—on which he fought the recent elections. According to Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, the majority of the population (54 per cent) of Pakistan— about 73 million (of which about 9.5 million are non- Muslims ) live in East Pakistan. Mujibur Rahman did not demand secession. The majority do not usually "secede" from the minority.

The Pakistan Ambassador says: "The insinuation that East Pakistan has been treated as a colony is gross nonsense." Is it? The average (per capita) income in West Pakistan was 32 per cent higher than in East Pakistan in 1950-60. In 1969-70, the disparity climbed to 61 per cent. East Pakistan’s balance-of-payments surplus has been consistently used to finance West Pakistan’s deficit on foreign accounts, and has led to a net transfer of resources from the East to West Pakistan estimated by an official report at $2.6 billion during the last two decades. Can a colony be more methodically exploited?

The Pakistan Ambassador refers to the readiness of Pakistan to take back "the genuine refugees." This is an intriguing idea: How to detect the non-genuine refugees among the millions of them and more than 60,000 a day still coming? I see in today’s London Times (May 26): "Pakistan offer to refugees seen as cruel joke."

The Pakistan Ambassador says: "What Pakistan requires is leadership, not agitators who produce chaos." For the last 16 years Pakistan has been ruled by strong leaders—General Iskander Mirza, General Ayub Khan, and now General Yahya Khan. Why then the present chaos ?

D.N. CHATTERJEE,

Ambassador of India

Paris.