PAKISTAN (Hansard, 20 April 1971)

§ Mr. Shore

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 in order to discuss a specific and important matter which should have urgent consideration, namely, The need for a Government initiative to halt the savage repression by the Pakistan Army of the people of East Bengal and of the majority party in the recent all-Pakistan elections. Recent events in East Pakistan have caused growing concern on both sides of the House. Before the Easter Recess, over 200 right hon. and hon. Members put their names to a Motion calling for a cease fire. The matter is specific enough, I believe. It is the suppression in a Commonwealth country—which recently subscribed to the Commonwealth Declaration of Principles—of a new-born democracy by armed power. There can be few examples in history where the will of the majority so recently and clearly expressed in a free election has been so ruthlessly set aside. That is the heart of the matter.

I say to the Prime Minister and others who have commented that it is this which distinguishes what is happening in Pakistan and in East Bengal in particular from many other cases where there has been internal strife, both in the Commonwealth and in other countries, and where we have not thought it right perhaps to be over-ready with comment. We are seeing the suppression of a democracy and the recent declaration of the will of the electorate. That is the heart of the matter, and it is that, of course, which has led to the bitter civil war which is now raging and which is bound to leave a grim legacy of division, strife and hunger.

The matter is urgent because great damage is being done out there day by day. The shelling, bombing and strafing of important centres of population and the use of force on a scale which often appears to be as senseless as it is brutal are now known to most right hon. and hon. Members. There is, I regret to say, evidence of the Pakistan Army's intention to eliminate many of the civil, military and intellectual leaders of East Bengal. There are reports of serious food short- 950 age, and the House will recall that it is only three or four months ago that East Bengal was ravaged by the cyclone. These events have come on top of the devastation caused then. Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of refugees are on the march in East Bengal and about 100,000 are reported to have crossed the Indian frontier in the last three days alone.

We are in the midst of a tragedy and, unhappily, one in which the next stage may be even worse than the one gone before. On 5th April, the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary—[Interruption.]—I am coming rapidly to my conclusion—urged an end to strife and a start to reconciliation. That view was shared by all of us, but there has been no response.

I say to the Prime Minister that there is a point at which our desire to be restrained may be interpreted as a shameful and indifferent silence in face of events. Whatever the Government may feel about expressing too clearly what they are saying to the Pakistan Government, it is right—and I hope that we shall have an opportunity in a debate—for this House to express on behalf of the British people its feelings that the fighting should stop, the troops be withdrawn, the political process resumed and the future of Pakistan and East Bengal decided by none other than the people themselves.