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Welcome Clinton: Special Supplement

President Clinton's Visit and Our Friends in USA in 1971

by Syed Muazzem Ali
**People from all over supported our cause. School children saved their lunch money and sent it for the Bangladesh refugees. Dentists, doctors, apartment managers, friends and neighbours sympathized with us and went out of their way to help us. Faces and names of countless other friends have become blurred over the years, but their words and actions of empathy towards our cause remain etched in our memory.**
PRESIDENT Clintons visit to Bangladesh is historic. This will be the first-ever visit to our country by an American President., the visit, though short, should give President Clinton an idea about the vital strength of. our country and the people. We. no doubt, face serious and formidable economic problems, but our people have shown that their determination and resilience can make miracles happen. Otherwise. how can of Bangladesh, a country’ the size of the small state of Wisconsin, sustain Its huge population? Hpw could our women, unskilled and mostly illiterate, come out of their homes and take effective part in poverty-alleviation efforts through our well-known micro-credit programmes? How can our entrepreneurs play a vital role in the emergence of Bangladesh as one of the top garment manufacturing countries of the world? And how can the people so bravely face the devastating natural calamities year after year? In the final analysis. Bangladesh's main asset is not her Jute or garments, or her gas and mineral resources, it is her people, and their Indomitable spirit that sustain them to face the daunting challenges.
It was with this spirit that the unarmed and peace-loving people of Bangladesh had fought a War of Liberation. And they had paid a heavy price for their independence. In the epic struggle, we had received support and cooperation from our friends and well-wishers all over the world Every year, as we celebrate our Independence Day. I wonder whether we have thanked enough the American friends who had stood by us at our hour of trial It is true that President Nixon and his administration sided with Pak-istan. but the Bangladesh cause had found appreclators in the US Congress. State Department, press and news media circles and among academics, In fact, people from all walks of life gave us their firm and unequivocal support.
My article is meant to re-
member some of those American friends and recall their valuable contributions. It Is not. however, my intention here to overlook or undermine the crucial role played by our compatriots in the United States during 1971. It was our moral duty to liberate our country. but our American friends who had come forward to help us at that hour of crisis had done so out of their commitment for the Justness of our
It Is a pity that President Nixon and his National Security Advisor Dr. Henry Kissinger had viewed our liberation struggle in the context of (he then Cold War era, based on East-West blpolarlsm. President Nixon was banking on Islamabad's support for establishing ties with Beijing, and he and his close associates were not concerned about the suffering of the people of Bangladesh. Today, in this era of globalization, as I see universal concern for human security and condemnation of atrocities committed against humanity. I feel so sad for our people who had gained independence at such a high cost. The British newspaper New Statesman had noted on 16 April 1971: “If blood Is the price of a people's right to independence. Bangladesh has overpaid."
Fortunately, the vast majority of our American friends did not share the apathy of the Administration and came out openly in our support. The US press and news media throughout our War of Independence gave extensive coverage of the military brutality and the sufferings of our people, and were sympathetic to. and supportive of. our cause. The main TV channels and radio stations broadcast special programmes and interviews on the developments in Bangladesh. The leading newspapers kept the evolving situation under close vigil and also published editorials. Notable among the journalists who were sympathetic to our cause were Sydney Schanberg, Lewis Simons. Henry S. Brad-sher, Lee Lascaze. C. L. Sulzburger. Fox Butterfield.
Malcolm Browne. Ted Szule. Joseph Alsop, Joseph Craft. William Drummond. William P. Bundy. Alvin Toffler and many others. This broad press coverage helped us build American public opinion in our favour. Some of these Journalists had been eyewitness to the first hours of the military onslaught on our people, till they were forcibly evicted by the Pakistan military authorities from Dhaka on the fateful night of 25 March. This action, it seems, had only strengthened their resolve to support our cause and to keep the Bangladesh issue alive.
While Nixon's White House ignored us. the US Cbngress gave us generous; bipartisan support. On 1 April 1971.
prominent US Senators Fred Harris and Edward Kennedy made statements expressing their deep concern at the atrocities committed on our people. Soon thereafter. Senators Clifford Case and Walter Mondale moved a motion on the Senate floor for the suspension of military assistance to Islamabad. Senators Hubert Humphrey. Edmund Muskle. George McGovern. William Fulbright. Birch Bayh. Fred Harris. Charles Percy. Clifford Case. Frank Church. William Prox-mire, William Saxbe and others made statements at various stages of our Liberation War. The high point of the congressional effort was the .adoption of the bipartisan Saxbe-Church Amendment to the .Foreign As-
slstance bill to cut off all aid. both military and economic, to Pakistan. Senators Kennedy. Church and Saxbc were the staunchest of supporters of our cause, and were ably assisted by their congressional aides. Dale Dehan. .Jerry Tinker, Thomas Dine and Michael Gartner.
In the House of Representatives (Lower House), Congressman Seymour Halpern made the first statement endorsing our cause. He was followed by Congressmen Cornelius Gallagher. Henry Helstaski. Paul McCloskey Jr.. Donald Fraser and many others. Congressman Gallagher moved an amendment. similar to the one in the Senate, to suspend US economic and military assistance to Pakistan. In all. about eighty Senators and Congressmen, belonging to both Democratic and Republican parties, made more than two hundred statements on Bangladesh The overwhelming majority spoke in our favour, while only a handful tried to defend the Administration's position.
Some American doctors who had worked at the then SEATO Cholera Research Laboratory (CRL) in Dhaka, emerged as our most vocal and articulate supporters. They set up a Bangladesh Information Centre (BIC) near the US Congress, and engaged in massive sustained lobbying with the legislators, as well as with the academic and media circles. Dr. William B. Greenhough 111 headed the group that included Norbert Hirshhorn, David R. Nalin. Jon Rohde. Lincoln Chen. Jim Taylor, Norbert Taylor and others. David Welsbrod, a student at University of Wisconsin, volunteered to take charge of the Information Centre. Anna Braun Taylor, who had also lived in Bangladesh with her husband, staged two demonstrations in 1971, one near the Pakistan Embassy and the other in Lafayette Park. In October a weeklong “Sewer City" (a replica of Bangladesh refugee camp) demonstration was held in front of the White House, which received prominent media attention.
Internationally acclaimed academicians Gustav Papanek. Lee Auspitz, Stephen Marglin. Edward Mason. Ronald Inden. John Thomas. Robert Dorfman and others prepared background papers on Bangladesh. Some of them had worked in Pakistan in various capacities and had first-hand knowledge about the disparities prevalent between the two wings of Pakistan. Prominent scholars like Hans J. Morgenthau. Chester Bowles. Angler B. Duke and John K. Galbraith issued statements and published articles. All these materials provided the intellectual input to our lobbying efforts.
In the cultural arena, the most proininent event was the Bangladesh concert by Ghorge
Harrison In New York's Madison Square Garden on I August, to a capacity crowd of 40.000. It was al this concert that George Harrison sang the famous song about Bangladesh. “My friend came to me with sadness In his eyes." He was joined at the concert by Pandit Ravi Shankar, who had inspired him. and by Ustad All Akbar Khan. Ringo Stan Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton. American folk singer Joan Baez arranged concerts to bring attention to the plight of our people. She sang, “Bangladesh. Bangladesh, when the sun sets In the west, dies million people of Bangladesh."
We also had our friends at the State Department. Normally civil servants do not publicly air differences with their government's declared policies, but these US Foreign Service officials, who had served in South Asia, did not fully agree with Nixon's "tilt towards Pakistan" policy. The US Consul General In Dhaka. Archer Blood, and some of his colleagues were appalled at the tragedy unfolding in Bangladesh and dissented with the Administration's action. He was soon recalled to Washington DC and given an unimportant assignment. Vice Consul Scott Butcher, who also returned to Washington, served as our Desk Officer in the State Department from 1972-74 and extended all help and cooperation to us. The Senior Political Officer In the Pakistan desk in 1971. Craig Baxter, who had vast South Asian experience, was also sympathetic to our cause. We were later to learn from the mu ch-publicized Anderson papers that Deputy Assistant Secretary Van Hollen and Assistant Secretary of State Joseph J. Sisco had privately raised their voice against the Administration's policy of tilt towards Pakistan.
People from all over supported our cause. School children saved their lunch money and sent it for the Bangladesh refugees. Dentists, doctors, apartment managers, friends and neighbours sympathized with us and went out of their way to help us. Faces and names of countless other friends have become blurred over the years, but their words and actions of empathy towards our cause remain etched in our memory.
An American friend had once said that there is 'magic' in South Asia and that anyone who has visited or lived in our part of the world falls in love with that 'magic'. Many of our friends of 1971 had actually lived in Bangladesh, or known us intimately. Maybe this 'magic' will also cast its spell bn President Clinton.
The writer was one of the founding members of the Bangladesh mission In Washington DC in 1971. He is currently Bangladesh Ambassador to France: