On March 28 in 1971, The international media report and eyewitness accounts mantioned the worst genocide of history in the then East Pakistan in the hands of Pakistan army.
The report of International Herald Tribune titled "YAHYA DENOUNCES MUJIB AS TRAITOR : SHARP FIGHTING REPORTED IN EAST PAKISTAN REVOLT" said, "Thousands of villagers have joined Awami League volunteers fighting West Pakistani troops in the streets of four major cities of East Pakistan....."
On the other hand, USAID physician Dr John Rodd, an eyeWitness of the horrific massacre on the Black Night of March 25, 1971, had sent a letter to US Senator William B. Saxbe. In his letter, the physicion made a fervent request of the US intervention to stop genocide in the then East Pakistan.
"We urge you (Senator William B. Saxbe) to speak out actively against the tragic massacre of civilians in East-Pakistan," Dr Rodd, who was posted in Dhaka at that time, made the appeal in his letter written on April 17, 1971.
Narrating the Pakistani brutality the physician witnessed, he wrote, "My wife and I watched from our roof the night of March 25th as tanks rolled out of cantonment illuminated by the flares and red glow of fires as the city was shelled by artillery, and mortars were fired into crowded slums and bazars.
"After two days of loud explosions and the continual chatter of machineguns, we took advantage of a break in the curfew to drive through the city. Driving past streams of refugees we saw burned out shacks of families living by railroad tracks, coming from Gulshan to Mahakhali crossing."
Former US Senator Edward Kennedy termed the 1971 genocide in the then East Pakistan a tragedy for the entire world.
"The tragedy of East Bengal is not only a tragedy for Pakistan. It is not only a tragedy for India. It is a tragedy for the entire world community and it was the responsibility of that community to act together to ease the crisis," this is how Kennedy described the 1971 genocide in East Pakistan by occupation forces after visiting the relief camps for Bangalees.
A relief organisation Oxfam published an edition titled "The Testimony of Sixty" in October, 1971 with description of sixty men and women including Edward Kennedy and Mother Teresa. The publication attracted the people across the world at that time.
Others are international journalists testifying specially for this document: Michael Brunson (ITN), Clare Hollingworth (Daily Telegraph), Claude Mosse (Radio Suisse) Frederick Nossall (Toronto Telegram), John Pilger (Daily Mirror) and Nicolas Tomalin (Sunday Times). Yet others are experienced relief workers from British, European, North American and Indian organisations.
A Canadian journalist Stanly Burk in his report that was incorporated in the Oxfam edition said, "It is thought provoking to realize that in the First World War people were horrified by the sinking of the Lusitania with the loss of few hundreds lives. In the Second World War people were shocked by the bombings of Hiroshima at a loss of 150,000 lives. Today the world is indifferent to a tragedy (1971 tragedy in East Bengal) affecting millions."
There are such sixty descriptions what their writers termed those 'edifying description' and four photographs of Gerald Scarf on 1971 tragedy in the Oxfam publication 'The Testimony of Sixty.'
QH
