Recalling ‘71 days

By November 1971, everyone involved in the care of Bangladeshis in the refugee camps were planning months ahead and were very worried about the effects of the winter and the toll it would take on the estimated 10 million who had left their homes in Bangladesh many months earlier.

We were, therefore, somewhat surprised when Pakistan launched a surprise attack on India's northern airfields in early December. This meant that India became officially at war with Pakistan in both the Eastern and Western wings of the country. Once the war had started, we were confident that the Freedom Fighters and the Indian Forces would prevail but we did not expect everything to be over in such a short time. My biggest problems in those days that all roads in the border areas were heavily choked with military vehicles and it was difficult to get food, medicine and woolen clothes to the refugee camps in time.

When, in the evening of December 16th 1971, we received the news of the surrender of Pakistan forces, the few of us who were working late at night hugged each other and wept – tears of joy, of relief but also due to the fear of not knowing how and when everyone will return to their homes in Bangladesh and we were, of course, at that time, not able to get an accurate idea of the overwhelming rehabilitation needs of the newborn country. The day after Victory Day in 1971, the staff celebrated quietly with a few sweets and went back to their families for a well-earned 'day off.' For the rest of that day, I looked back on the very hectic and traumatic 9 months and the people I had most admired.

One of the people that OXFAM worked with and supported closely in the early days of the crisis was Mother Teresa and the Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity. Mother Teresa or one of her Sisters would phone me at the same time each morning with a shopping list of different medicines, bandages as well as bleaching powder and other supplies. Whenever I answered the phone, the voice at the other end of the line would say, "God Bless you", not 'Good Morning'.

I also reflected on the momentous visit by Senator Edward Kennedy in August 1971.

After his visit to the refugee camps, Senator Kennedy held talks in New Delhi with the Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi and the Foreign Minister, Mr Swaran Singh. At the time, the newspapers were full of the news that a secret trial of Sheikh Mujib was underway in Pakistan. Senator Kennedy said, at the time, "I think that the only crime Mujib is guilty of is winning an election." "The question of the trial being secret is an outrage to every concept of international law and a travesty to those who believe in international law."

Before Senator Kennedy left New Delhi, he said that he had already opposed American arms supplies to Pakistan, and went on, "I will make every effort in the United States Senate not only to halt arms supplies in the pipeline but also those in the future and also to halt all economic aid until there is a political solution."

Later that year, in October, in an attempt to shock and wake up the world, OXFAM decided to collect and publish statements of many individuals about the plight of both the refugees in the Indian refugee camps and the people inside East Pakistan who were slowly running out of food and hope. The 'Testimony of Sixty' was published on October 21^st, 1971, in time to be distributed at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly. In his statement entitled 'Mosaic of Misery', Senator Kennedy pleaded that the entire world should accept the burden of the refugees. He wrote about his experiences of visiting the border crossing at Bongaon/Boyra.

"The very young and very old were exhausted from many days and night in flight-usually on foot. Many were in a visible state of shock, sitting aimlessly by the roadside or wandering aimlessly toward an unknown fate. They told stories of atrocities, of slaughter, of looting and burning, of harassment and abuse by West Pakistani soldiers and collaborators. Many children were dying along the way, their parents pleading and begging for help. Monsoon rains were drenching the countryside, adding to the depression and despair on their faces. To those of us who went out that day, the rains meant no more than a change of clothes, but to these people it meant still another night without rest, food, or shelter."

One week after it had been published, Senator Kennedy introduced the 'Testimony of Sixty' to the Senate and requested that as evidence of the 'Crisis in Bengal', it be reproduced in the Congressional Record. There was no objection and so the entire document forms part of the Congressional Record of the 92^nd Congress. This was an example of Senator Kennedy's commitment to help solve the problems that he had seen with his own eyes.

One person who, in 1971, inspired my colleagues and me, was Raymond Cournoyer, a French-Canadian. From 1958 to 1965, he had taught at various Catholic Schools such as St Gregory's in Dhaka and St. Placid's in Chittagong. In early 1971 he was appointed as Oxfam-UK's 'Field Director for Eastern India and East Pakistan'. Within a few weeks of his arrival, the Liberation War got under way and streams of refugees starting entering India. Raymond warned Oxfam that up to 10 million refugees could come to India. A few of us had been working on what was, at that time, Oxfam's single largest ever rural development project in Bihar. Raymond lost no time in asking us to come to Calcutta and set up the administration of a relief operation that eventually, at that time, became the largest relief operation with which Oxfam had ever been involved. Raymond soon showed that he was 'different'.

While other agencies were flying in expatriate teams to run their programmes, Raymond, with our strong support, was quite sure that all the trained manpower we needed was available in India as well as in the refugee camps themselves. Oxfam ended up having a huge programme involving doctors from Calcutta and Bombay medical colleges and hundreds of volunteers from various Gandhian organizations. About 500,000 Bangladeshis were assisted in various refugee camps. And when Raymond was away attending to other Oxfam work and publicizing the relief work of Oxfam in Europe, Canada and U.S.A., I was setting up my office in a hotel in Calcutta. One by one, young ex-students of Raymond, in India as refugees, had heard about Raymond's whereabouts and came to search him out. I ended up with a dynamic and dedicated staff drawn mostly from ex-students of St. Placid's. Some of them are well-known today. Uday Sankar Das has for many years been a familiar voice on the BBC Bangla service and Dr. Om Prakash Biswas is an eminent physician in Chittagong.

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Julian Francis who, since the War of Liberation, has had a long association with Bangladesh working in many poverty alleviation projects, is currently working as Partnerships Director at the DFID and AUSAid supported 'Chars Livelihoods Programme', RDA, Bogra.