"TRAGIC MASSACRE"

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32588, 23 April 1971, Page 10

"TRAGIC MASSACRE"

The people of East Pakistan were very peaceful, but they greatly resented being dominated by their Western countrymen, an English-born sociologist, Professor J. E. Owen, who taught in Dacca for four years, said in Christchurch yesterday.

Professor Owen said East Pakistan had had legitimate grievances against the dominant rule. of West Pakistan since the country was first formed in 1947. He went to East Pakistan in 1958 to work for the

United Nations and stayed there, apart from a two-year break, until 1963, when he returned to America. While in Dacca, he lectured in sociology. Professor Owen, who has lived in the United States for thelast 30 years, was in Christchurch yesterday with his wife during a short visit to universities in New Zealand and Australia. He is a lecturer in sociology at Arizona State University. He had found the East and West to be two separate countries in terms of language, culture, geography and ethnic composition, he said. The only factors that held them together were their inheritances from British rule

and their Moslem religion, Professor Owen said. “But the tragic events of the last few weeks show the Moslem faith was not an effective bond of unity,” he added.

The professor said much of Pakistan’s foreign exchange was derived from the export of jute from East Pakistan. However, most of the money from the jute was spent on developing the western sector.

The eastern people were artistic, poetic and agricultural, their fate was now atiybody’s guess. The professor said he had not heard from anyone since the trouble broke out and he was worried at the fate of his old colleagues and former students. He described the situation as the “tragic massacre of innocent people” by Yahya Khan’s regime from the West.