The Press FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 1974. Help for Bangladesh

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33424, 4 January 1974, Page 8

The Press FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 1974. Help for Bangladesh

There can be no doubt about Bangladesh's need to produce more food. If that unhappy country is to develop a viable economy it cannot depend Indefinitely on uncertain international hand-outs. Bangladesh's first Five-Year Plan, announced last November, is attempting to achieve self-sufficiency in gram production in five years. The New Zealand Prime Minister, in one of the largest and most important foreign aid gestures made by this country, has offered some of the assistance —fertiliser and the means to apply it from the air—which Bangladesh needs It is the kind of assistance which can best justify the somewhat sweeping claims sometimes made for New Zealand’s generosity, in the long run it must do much more good than would the same amount of money spent on foodstuffs for immediate relief—provided, of course, the aid is properly used and Bangladeshis are trained in aerial top-dressing techniques and encouraged to make the best use of available fertiliser.

Unfortunately, difficulties in applying the aid are all too likely. A recent report in the “New “ Statesman ”, discussing the Five-Year Plan, commented: “ What is undoubtedly needed is a more *• effective administrative structure at the local level ** to make sure that plans produced by the •* considerable bureaucracy in Dacca work their way *’ right through to the villagers ”, The report added that the Government was attempting to build up local self-government and self-reliance: but, so far, much of what happened in the countryside depended on the whims of local members of the ruling Awami League party machine. Bangladesh has had more than its fair share of war and natural disasters in the last three years; it woilld be foolish to complain because the administration is still shaky. Some larger providers of aid have discovered that when they attempted to replace gifts of commodities by help with development projects, the administrative machine simply could not handle the burden. Even the distribution of the huge quantities of food which have been sent there has been clumsy and, sometimes, grossly unfair. New Zealand diplomats and officials should at least try to watch closely the application of our aid for at least a year or two. Such supervision would fall short of political interference, and should be welcomed as part of the assistance programme.

Mr Kirk might perform an even greater humanitarian service if he uses the opportunity, provided by the very real warmth expressed by Sheikh Mujib towards New Zealand, to plead for the “ forgotten people ” of Bangladesh—the 400,000 Biharis who are regarded as traitors by the Government in Dacca and who have nowhere else

to go now that West Pakistan has refused to accept most of them. A recent report m the “ Guardian ”, from a correspondent in Dacca, said that Biharis in some refugee camps were receiving a ration of 3.2 ounces of wheat a day, rather less than one third of the amount the World Health Organisation says is the minimum required for an adult to survive. In a country overwhelmed by unemployment and continuing lawlessness, only about 5 per cent of the Biharis have jobs; none has any guarantee of personal security.

The war of independence against West Pakistan and the Indian invasion late in 1971, when many Biharis sided with West Pakistan against India and Bangladesh, have left a reservoir of hatred, some of it justified, among the people of Bangladesh towards this minority. Bangladesh’s independence is secure now. Unless the Government in Dacca is prepared to countenance a form of genocide through slow starvation it will have to accept the Biharis as part of the new State. New Zealand will be failing morally, in a particularly tragic situation, if it does not make this point as strongly as possible in Dacca. Good will from abroad deserves to be matched by charity at home.