Word: pakistani
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Among these is the tragedy of Bangladesh, a nation which ten years ago this winter gained its independence at an incredible cost. Most reports estimated at least one million killed: some tripled that number. This slaughtering of Bengalis by Pakistani forces between March and December 1971 probably has no parallel in modern history except the Nazi effort to exterminate the Jews. Under the pretext of putting down a threat to the unity of the nation of Pakistan, the genocide proceeded with a brutal and purposeful efficiency. Beginning in March with a raid by the Pakistani army on the capital city...
...What happened in Dacca was no football match," Yah Yah Khan, the Pakistani leader, is reported to have said at the time. And indeed it wasn't. The drive into Fast Bengal had been calculated with excruciating directness to erect a new social order there, a political unit that would continue the support of West Pakistan's dominance over the economic and political life of the nation. With the March pogrom designed to wipe out an of rusive Hindu minority and seed a loyal Moslem middle class, the military leaders hoped they could create a province loyal to be whims...
...1940s and the creation of a Moslem state from the eastern and western wings of British India, the dream had grown under the systematic exploitation of the eastern region by the West. Bengali chauvinism and pride in a distinct cultural heritage sharpened the hostility, especially when the West Pakistani declared Urdu--a Western dialect--the country's official language. East Bengal saw its natural resources, jute and burlap, siphoned off to the factories of West Pakistan, and its educated population largely blocked from the nation's industrial and military establishment. Meanwhile, investments and other aid from the United States abetted...
...became more apparent, but the U.S. administration turned a blind eye, continuing even arms shipments to the military regime. Evidently, friendship with Yah Yah was a necessary step toward Nixon and Kissinger's goal that year, diplomatic recognition of the People's Republic of China. It stuck to its Pakistani policy despite heated criticisms from Democratic congressmen, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who toured a refugee camp near Calcutta...
India's liberating victory in the two-week border war ended the armed struggle. Certainly, Indhira Gandhi could describe the intervention as humanitarian, but her country had plenty of its own interest to serve by expelling the Pakistani army from Bengal and sending burdensome refugees back to their homes. It must have been this self-interest that piqued the Nixon administration, for the State Department pronouncement on the matter blamed India alone for the situation on the subcontinent. George Bush, then ambassador to the United Nations, labeled India's action "aggression"--a judgement that drew heavy criticism at home...