Declassified
Documents on 1971 Bangladesh Crisis
‘Don’t squeeze Yahya at this time’: President Nixon
ELA DUTT
Courtesy:
News India [December 27, 2002]
http://www.newsindia-times.com/2002/12/27/usa-06-pak.html
Sajit Gandhi, research associate at The
National Security Archive, draws parallels between current events and
happenings over 30 years ago
“On the 31st anniversary of the independence of Bangladesh, the National
Security Archive published on the World Wide Web 46 declassified U.S.
government documents and tape recordings concerned with the U.S. policy toward
India and Pakistan during the South Asia Crisis of 1971. The documents,
declassified and available at the National Archives and the Presidential
Library System detail how the U.S. policy, directed by Richard Nixon and Henry
Kissinger, followed a course that became infamously known as ‘The
Tilt,’” says Sajit Gandhi. For documents and details visit http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB79/
History may be repeating itself in the post 9/11 scenario between Washington
and Islamabad ----- mirroring the 1971 Bangladesh crisis during which, for
apparent national interests, the United States turned a blind eye to Pakistani
General Yahya Khan’s brutal and undemocratic policies in then East Pakistan.
Much like the scene unfolding in South Asia today, with President George Bush
cozying up to Gen. Pervez Musharraf for perceived antiterrorist national
interest, turning a virtual blind eye to subversion of democracy in Pakistan
and alleged state support for terrorist activity in Kashmir, says Sajit
Gandhi, research associate at The National Security Archive in Washington, who
has brought together invaluable declassified documents pertaining to the
crisis of 1971 that led to the birth of Bangladesh.
The recently declassified government documents, which make fascinating and
invaluable reading and show how President Richard M. Nixon, in a handwritten
scrawl marked “To All Hands” advised all concerned: “Don’t squeeze
Yahya at this time.” They also reveal then Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger playing an ambiguous role in the rising India-China tensions during
the same period.
Details abound of the role that the China initiative and Nixon’s
friendship with Yahya Khan (and dislike of Indira Gandhi) played in the Unites
States policymaking, leading to the tilting of the U.S policy toward Pakistan.
Collated by The National Security Archive (NSA), a nongovernmental, nonprofit
institution that archives declassified U.S. documents obtained through the
Freedom of Information Act, the several “secret” and “confidential”
papers show Nixon referring to Yahya Khan as “a good friend.” And rather
than express concern over the ongoing brutal military repression, President
Nixon said he “understands the anguish of the decisions which [Yahya] had to
make,” and Kissinger declaring the U.S. “would not do anything to
complicate the situation for President Yahya or to embarrass him.”
All this because the two American leaders believed Yahya Khan was critical to
their China initiative. But not all documents relating to that era have been
procured by NSA, says Gandhi, and gaps in information remain about that
tumultuous time in South Asia’s boundary redrawing. “Much like the present
situation post 9/11, Washington was hesitant to criticize Pakistan publicly
out of fear that such a tactic might weaken the dictator’s support for
American interests,” says Gandhi in his introduction to the archive
documents on the Bangladesh crisis.
The NSA was founded in 1985 by a group of journalists and scholars who had
obtained documentation from the U.S. government under the Freedom of
Information Act and sought a centralized repository for these materials. Over
the past decade, the archive has become the world’s largest nongovernmental
library of declassified documents.
The documents show cable traffic from the U.S. Consulate in Dacca (present-day
Dhaka) reveals the brutal details of the genocide conducted in East Pakistan
by the West Pakistani Martial Law Administration. According to Document 8 of
the archives, in the infamous Blood telegram (sent by Archer Blood, the then
Consul General in Dhaka), the Consulate in Dacca condemned the U.S. for
failing “to denounce the suppression of democracy,” for failing “to
denounce atrocities,” and for “bending over backwards to placate the West
Pak[istan] dominated government and to lessen any deservedly negative
international public relations impact against them.”
Much like the present situation post 9/11, Washington was hesitant to
criticize Pakistan publicly out of fear that such a tactic might weaken the
dictator’s support form American interests,” says Gandhi in his
introduction to the archive documents on the Bangladesh crisis.
Details abound of the role that the China initiative and Nixon’s friendship
with Yahya Khan (and dislike of Indira Gandhi) played in U.S. policymaking,
leading to the tilting of U.S. policy toward Pakistan. This includes a
Memorandum of Conversation (mentioned in Document 13) in which Kissinger
indicated to Ambassador Keating that “the President has a special feeling
for President Yahya. One cannot make policy on that basis, but it is a fact of
life.”
In a National Security Council Senior Review Group meeting on Aug. 11, 1971,
Nixon suggested that while war may be in Indian and Pakistani interest, it was
not in Washington’s interests as “the new China relationship would be
imperiled, and might jeopardize American interests probably beyond repair.”
While stating that the Indians are more “devious” than the “sometimes
extremely stupid” Pakistanis, the U.S. “must not-cannot-allow” India to
use the refugees as a pretext for breaking up Pakistan.
Despite the conditions in the East, which Ambassador Blood described as
“selective genocide,” Nixon states that “We will not measure our
relationship with the government in terms of what it has done in East
Pakistan. By that criterion, we would cut off relations with every Communist
government in the world because of the slaughter that has taken place in the
Communist countries” (according to Document 21).
The documents show how Kissinger did some double talk with the media and with
the Indians vis-à-vis the Chinese, Gandhi points out. In July of 1971, while
Kissinger was in India, he told Indian officials that “under any conceivable
circumstance the U.S. would back India against any Chinese pressures.”
In that same July meeting, Kissinger said, “In any dialogue with China, we
would of course not encourage her against India.” However, near the end of
the India-Pakistan war, in a highly secret 12/10/1971 meeting with the Chinese
Ambassador to the United Nations, Huang Ha, Kissinger did exactly this -----
encouraging China to engage in the equivalent of military action against the
Indians.
Gandhi also brings together documents detailing U.S. support for military
assistance to Pakistan from China, the Middle East, and even from the U.S.
itself at a time when it was banned. He asserts that despite Kissinger’s
otherwise thorough account of the India-Pakistan crisis of 1971 in his memoir,
‘White House Years,’ the former Secretary of State omits the role the U.S.
played in Pakistan’s procurement of American fighter planes. Of particular
importance in this selection of documents is a series of transcripts of
telephone conversations from Dec. 4 and 16, 1971 (Document 28) in which
Kissinger and Nixon discuss, among other things, third-party transfers of
fighter planes to Pakistan.
Also of note is a cable from the Embassy in Iran dated Dec. 29, 1971 (Document
44) which suggests that F-5 fighter aircraft, originally slated for Libya but
which were being held in California, were flown to Pakistan via Iran.
Memorandum for the
Record of the meeting in the President’s Old Executive office.
“... He [President Nixon] holds no brief for what President Yahya has done.
The US must not --- cannot allow India to use the refugees as a pretext of
breaking up Pakistan...”
“... We want to help India but we will not be parties to their objective of
breaking up Pakistan. If there is a war, I will go on national television and
ask Congress to cut off all aid to India. They won’t get a dime ...”
Telecons
between Henry Kissinger and President Nixon
“... K. We have had an urgent appeal from Yahya [Khan]. Says his military
supplies have been cut off -- in very bad shape. Would we help through Iran.
P. Can we help?
K. I think if we tell the Iranians we will make it up to them we can do it.
P. If it is leaking we can have it denied. Have it done one step away ...”
