The movement for Bangla Desh is completing its third week. By now the transfer of power within Bangla Desh to the people’s representatives is total. The opposite side of the coin, non-cooperation with Islamabad, continues.
No civilian official went to receive the president on his arrival. MLR directives to civilian employees of the security forces to join work on March 15 were ignored in spite of the contingent hazard of 10 years’ RI, and workers donated a day’s salary to the Awami League Relief Fund. Eleven thousand civilian employees of the ordnance factory at Joydebpur joined them in a boycott of work.
The population continues its refusal to provision security forces and the quarter master general of the army has had to personally fly into Dacca to examine the supply position and make alternative arrangements, which, it is reported, included the flying of tinned provisions from West Pakistan by giant C-130 transport planes.
On the other hand, the military build-up goes on. Additional troops have been flown in though it is not certain if the N5C cargo of 7,500 auxiliaries have as yet disembarked at Chittagong. From Comilla the SSG commando unit has reportedly been brought into Dacca and tanks designed for securing our borders have been brought down to Dacca from Rangpur.
It was in this atmosphere that Yahya flew into Dacca unannounced at 2:30pm on March 15. In fact, All India Radio announced the news of his departure for Dacca before Radio Pakistan.
His arrival however was hardly secret, since a massive contingent of police, EPR and army lined the airport to President’s House and provided him with an escort of exceptional ferocity.
It is not clear precisely what all this was about but Yahya’s drive was greeted only with stony silence and the still black flags which bedecked his route.
There was much speculation about his entourage and some suggestion that the entire war cabinet including Generals Hamid and Gul Hassan had accompanied the president.
It is confirmed that he was accompanied by Lt. Generals Peerzada, principal staff officer to the president, and Ornar, security boss of the services, though ex-Law Minister Justice Cornelius flew in on March 17 in his new capacity as legal adviser to the president.
In fact, the chief of Inter Services Public Relations, Brig. Siddiqui, was at great pains to impress newsmen that there was no special complement of generals accompanying the president, though this did not put speculation at rest that Hamid and Gul Hassan were holed out in the cantonment keeping a watching brief on the talks.
