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A day after Dhaka was liberated on December 16, 1971, then United States President Richard Nixon was advised by his strategic advisor Henry Kissinger that he had ‘saved West Pakistan’, in line with confidential papers since declassified by the US division of state.
IMAGE: President Ram Nath Kovind lays a wreath to the martyrs of the Liberation Battle of Bangladesh, at Nationwide Martyrs’ Memorial in Savar, Bangladesh, December 16, 2021. {Photograph}: ANI Photograph
The journey to this ironic praise within the midst of a defeat for US diplomacy got here eight-and-a-half months after leaders of the world’s strongest nation mentioned in a secret assembly that they believed their protege Basic Yahya Khan would be capable of subdue the riot in East Pakistan with bare navy may.
‘Congratulations Mr President. You saved West Pakistan,’ mentioned Kissinger over the telephone to his boss Nixon, about 16 hours after Basic A A Okay Niazi signed the give up of East Pakistan and in regards to the time Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared the unilateral ceasefire on the western entrance on December 17 Indian normal time.
Explaining the unusual dialog, Ambassador Pinak R Chakravarty, former excessive commissioner to Bangladesh, who’s at the moment writing a guide on the 1971 liberation of Bangladesh, mentioned, “Kissinger was enjoying a doubtful position. Their (US administration’s) primary goal was to befriend China utilizing the Pakistanis as middlemen throughout the battle months. His feedback needs to be learn as each an try to take credit score with the Pakistanis within the face of a hopeless scenario and a bid to please a troublesome boss.”
Nonetheless, the actual fact stays that this was one warfare of liberation which the People in all probability misinterpret from the very starting.
About eight-and-a-half months earlier than, on March 29, 1971, Kissinger was telling Nixon in an analogous phone dialog that Pakistan would be capable of comprise the riot in its japanese wing and his president cited the instance of British invasion of India to justify that perception.
The US Nationwide Safety Advisor advised Nixon in a telephone name quickly after the Pakistan navy regime cracked down in East Pakistan on March 26, 1971: ‘Apparently Yahya has received management of East Pakistan… all of the specialists had been saying that 30,000 individuals (Pakistan Military at the moment within the East) cannot get management of 75 million (Bangladesh’s inhabitants)… as of this second it appears to be quiet.’
President Nixon responded that this means of a small pressure to manage giant populations was regular and identified: ‘Look what the Spanish did after they got here in and took the Incas. Look what the British did after they took India.’
“The People misinterpret the scenario utterly. They failed to know individuals’s want to be free and the quick tempo with which the course of historical past modified,” mentioned Ambassador Tariq Karim, former excessive commissioner of Bangladesh to New Delhi and one of many first East Pakistani diplomats to declare loyalty to the Bangladesh Authorities in exile.
On December 8, as Pakistani defences in East Pakistan had been falling earlier than the onslaught of the joint command of the Indian Military and Bangladeshi Mukti Bahini (liberation warriors), Nixon and Kissinger had been busy plotting methods to alter the journey of the warfare or to arrest it.
Kissinger in a gathering with Nixon and lawyer basic Newton Mitchell, now declassified, mentioned he had ‘received a message to you from the Shah (of Iran), through which he says he can ship ammunition (to a beleaguered Pakistan) — he’s doing it now’.
The sensible diplomat additionally revealed that Iran will ship fighter planes to guard Jordan from Israel, whereas Jordan will ship jets to Pakistan for the warfare effort towards India.
The US NSA additionally expressed worry that India would assault West Pakistan in a significant means after successful the warfare within the east.
‘The Indian plan is now clear. They will transfer their forces from East Pakistan to the West. They may then smash the Pakistan land forces and air forces, annex the a part of Kashmir that’s in Pakistan after which name it off,’ warned Kissinger.
‘When this has occurred, the centrifugal forces in West Pakistan could be liberated. Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier will rejoice. West Pakistan would turn out to be a form of intricate Afghanistan,’ Henry Kissinger mused.
The dire warnings appeared to work and President Nixon in the identical dialog goes on to commit to maneuver the American Seventh Fleet into the Bay of Bengal from waters off Vietnam, on the pretext of evacuating US residents from the warfare zone.
Nixon responded by stating, ‘Would you progress the plane provider? I would do it instantly. I would not wait 24 hours.’
The Seventh Fleet, led by the 75,000-ton nuclear powered plane provider USS Enterprise, was thought-about probably the most formidable naval pressure of the time.
The one plane provider India had was the getting old Vikrant which was readied to tackle the large pressure in case catastrophe did strike.
Stated Col Quazi Sajjad Ali Zahir (Retd.), a Bangladesh freedom fighter who was honoured earlier this yr with the Padma Shri by India, mentioned, “Main Democrats, like Ted Kennedy, brother of slain US President Robert Kennedy, had been with us. However the Republicans had been blind-sided. The ordering of the US seventh fleet into the Bay of Bengal didn’t actually affect the warfare because the Russians rapidly despatched their very own fleet to counteract this chess transfer by the west.”
In a later dialog in 1972, Kissinger advised the US President: “Not one has but understood what we did in India-Pakistan and the way we saved the China choice which we want for the bloody Russians. Why ought to we give a rattling about Bangladesh?”
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