It is reported that family members of the late Senator Edward Kennedy are due to arrive in Dhaka on October 29 this year. However, it is the month of August each year that I remember the time in 1971 when I met the mercurial and compassionate senator and on
August 12, in 1971, when he visited some of the refugee camps in West Bengal.
At that time I was coordinating Oxfam's refugee relief programme covering about 600,000 women, men, and children in camps in Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam, Cooch Behar, and many other places in West Bengal. Oxfam-America had only been established a year earlier in 1970, but the personnel of the organization wasted no time to link with those senators who were deeply concerned about the situation in Bengal, both east and west. Oxfam-America briefed the senators who came out to Calcutta and made sure that we linked with them when they arrived. In my 1971 archives, there are the following messages:
1) From Oxfam Calcutta to Oxfam-America on August 1, 1971, “PLS INFORM US ALL SEN KENNEDYS PLANS AND PROGRAMME RE CAL VISIT. DOES HE KNOW MUCH ABOUT US AND OUR REFUGEE PROG? -: FRANCIS OXFAM :-"
2) Reply from Oxfam-America on August 4, 1971, “REURTEL KENNEDY VISITING KIRKLEY (Director Oxfam-UK) UK NEXT FORTNIGHT STOP ONWARD TRAVEL PLANS UNCERTAIN HOWEVER AIDES SCHEDULED TO VISIT CALCUTTA STOP FULLY AWARE OXFAMS AIMS AND PROGRAM STOP = FOSTER==”
Senator Edward Kennedy's visit to Calcutta was particularly important, as he came in his capacity of Chairman of a Senate Sub-committee on refugee affairs. He came at a time when many of the camps were flooded and conditions for the refugees as well as the relief workers were appalling. A colleague of mine in 1971, the late Alan Leather, was able to accompany Senator Kennedy's entourage as it visited camps in Calcutta, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling and Tripura. Later that year Alan was invited by Senator Kennedy to give evidence at a hearing in Washington regarding the humanitarian crisis. After his visit to the refugee camps, Senator Kennedy was quoted in the London Times newspaper, on August 14, that the refugee problem was “perhaps the greatest human tragedy of our times.” During his visit to the refugee camps, it was clear that here was a man full of compassion and concern, deeply moved and shocked by what he saw.
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, 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, 1971, in time to be distributed at the opening of the UN 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 different border areas:
“The stark tragedy is not yet understood by the world. I can tell you that not until you see it first-hand can you begin to understand its immensity. For only being there can you sense the feelings and understand the plight of the people, and the forces of violence which continue to create refugees and increase the toll of civilian casualties.
In India, I visited refugee areas along the entire border of East Bengal -- from Calcutta and West Bengal in the west -- to the Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling districts in the north -- to Agartala in the State of Tripura in the east. I listened to scores of refugees as they crowded into camps, struggling to survive in makeshift shelters in open fields or behind public buildings -- or trudging down the roads of West Bengal from days or even weeks of desperate flight. Their faces and their stories etch a saga of shame which should overwhelm the moral sensitivities of people throughout the world. I found that conditions varied widely from one refugee camp to another. But many defy description. Those refugees who suffer most from the congestion, the lack of adequate supplies, and the frightful conditions of sanitation are the very young -- the children under five -- and the very old. The estimates of their numbers run as high as 50% of all refugees. Many of these infants and aged already have died. And it is possible -- as you pick your steps among others -- to identify those who will be dead within hours, or whose sufferings will surely end in a matter of days.”
Senator Kennedy went on to say:
“The very young and very old were exhausted from many days and nights 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.”
And later, he writes:
“The tragedy of East Bengal is not only a tragedy for Pakistan. It is not only a tragedy for India. It is a tragedy for the entire world community, and it is the responsibility of that community to act together to ease the crisis.
Simple humanity demands that America and the United Nations must accept the truth that this heavy burden should be borne by the entire international community, and not by India alone.”
One week after it had been published, on October 28, 1971, Senator Kennedy introduced the Testimony of Sixty to the United States 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 92nd Congress. This was an example of Senator Kennedy's commitment to help solve the problems that he had seen with his own eyes.
Julian Francis has been associated with relief and development activities of Bangladesh since the War of Liberation. In 2012, the Government of Bangladesh awarded him the ‘Friends of Liberation War Honour' in recognition of his work among the refugees in India in 1971 and in 2018 honoured him with full Bangladesh citizenship.
