Washington, June 27. President Yahya Khan, under strong international pressure, is expected to come up with some form of commitment to an eventual return to civil rule in the country's war-torn East wing. But knowledgeable officials here are convinced that the President's formula will be hedged with too many qualifications for it to be taken very seriously by the world at large.

One factor weighing in favour of a nominal pledge to restore civilian government in East Bengal may well be the quiet decision reached last week by the major aid-giving nations, led by the World Bank, to postpone indefinitely any new economic assistance to Pakistan. The decision will not affect humanitarian assistance that nations intended to give Pakistan or its refugees in India. It does, however, hold up the several hundred millions in Development funds on which General Yahya's regime had been counting. In the last year of normal aid flow, the fiscal year ending June 30, 1970, Pakistan received $316 millions from the donor-nations.

In addition, the IMF, it was learned, has decided that it will not now give Islamabad a $250 millions package of foreign exchange which had been under consideration. The 11 nations meeting at Paris last week were strongly influenced by a devastating report from Peter Cargill. He is director of the World Bank's South Asia department, Chairman of the Pakistan Aid Consortium, and has just led a Bank-Fund team to Pakistan. Cargill and the other team members were permitted by the Central Government to travel freely through East Pakistan during the first two and a half weeks in June. According to those familiar with Cargill's report, the mission found:

* A continuing reign of terror in the East Wing conducted by the 70,000 West Pakistani troops stationed there, the army has been given a free hand to deal with “secessionists.” Any Hindu or member of the Awami League is said to fall under this heading. One team member was told of 50 Hindus who had been slaughtered; their corpses had been pushed into a river the day before his arrival in a town. A driver led him to two corpses whose submersion was incomplete.

* The shattering of urban life. The mission found towns with only 10 per cent of the population remaining. The rest had been killed, dispersed to India or fled to villages. Troops had shelled and destroyed public buildings. Bazaars and commercial life were at a virtual standstill.


* Paralysis of East wing's economy. Although the Central Government has ordered the opening of mills, they typically work only half a shift daily. Jute and tea production, principal earners of foreign exchange, is a small fraction of its normal level.

* Active guerrilla resistance by those favouring an independent East Pakistan. Collaborators with the military regime are in mortal danger and two British tea planters have been murdered for attempting to continue normal operations. A bomb was thrown in the courtyard of the Intercontinental Hotel in Dacca, while the Bank-Fund team was there, but no one was hurt.


* A demolished transportation network. About 60 per cent of the East Wing's goods normally move by rail, but the railway system is barely operating. At least 13 key bridges have been blown up by guerrillas, and the regime has undertaken only makeshift repairs.

* A strong likelihood of widespread famine this fall. It will occur not because of a lack of rice, the staple diet of Bengalis in East Pakistan, but because the transportation network is so deeply damaged and distribution systems have broken down.


* The Yahya regime's ignorance of real conditions in East Pakistan and the state of world opinion. In their reports to Islamabad, Pakistan's envoys abroad, with few exceptions are said to be minimising the widespread revulsion over the violence in their country.

Cargill himself is understood to have had a heated meeting with Yahya on June 14. Pakistan's President is said to have forecast that life would return to normal by September and Cargill disputed this. The World Bank official reportedly said that Pakistan could not use aid effectively at this point, Yahya, who had indicated he wanted $100 millions now and more to follow, is known to have exploded at this statement, hotly asserting that the conclusion amounted to interference in Pakistan's internal affairs.

Among other things, the Bank-Fund mission is known to be disturbed by Pakistan's rising military budget. The mission suspects that Pakistan is spending what is left of its foreign exchange to buy arms abroad, notably fighter planes and sophisticated anti-submarine weapons systems from France.