ISLAMABAD, DEC 30: Pakistan today released a long-secret judicial report about its 1971 war with India over Bangladesh that blames Pakistan's defeat on the army leadership of the time and recommends they be put on trial.The report, declassified by the military-led government of General Pervez Musharraf and published after a quarter of a century under wraps, accused the generals of what it called a premature and shameful surrender in Dhaka, the capital of then east Pakistan which later became independent Bangladesh.
``Dacca (dhaka) could have been held for several days more. Things had not yet come to such a pass in east Pakistan as to warrant an immediate surrender,'' the Hamoodur Rahman Commission report said.
It said then military ruler general Yayha Khan, who stepped down after Pakistan's defeat in December 1971, ``permitted and even instigated'' the surrender and recommended that he should be publicly tried along with some other senior military colleagues.
Yayha Khan died some years after the war but some of his key colleagues are still alive and living in retirement on pensions.
The report said the surrender of more than 90,000 Pakistani military and paramilitary personnel, who were made prisoners of war, was ``due to the cumulative effect of a number of factors namely, political, moral, psychological and military''.
The prisoners were released under a 1972 peace accord signed by then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Pakistan President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The report, compiled in the mid-1970s by former Chief Justice Hamoodur Rehman, also blamed Bhutto for showing ``a lack of political foresight'' in opposing a parliamentary session in Dhaka--a move that provoked the Bangladeshi leaders.
``We cannot also resist the conclusion that there has been a serious failure on the part of the army general headquarters in the matter of guiding, directing and influencing the battles either in east Pakistan or in west Pakistan,'' it said.
The report also said the military's continued involvement in running the government by martial law was cited by witnesses as a reason for corruption among senior military officers.
``This moral degeneration and inefficiency of senior army commanders had been attributed by and large by all concerned to their prolonged and continued involvement in martial law duties since 1958,'' it said.
``Even responsible service officers have asserted before us that due to corruption resulting from such involvement, the lust for wine and women and greed for lands and houses, a large number of senior army officers, particularly those occupying the highest positions, had lost not only their will to fight but also their professional competence for taking vital and critical decisions.''
The commission blamed the start of the 1971 violence on the Awami League Party of Bangladesh, but said excesses were also committed against the people by the military. It recommended the setting up of a high powered court to look into the allegations of atrocities committed by the Pakistani army.
``Our examination of the available evidence shows that there is substance in the allegations that during and after the military action, excesses were indeed committed on the people of east Pakistan, although the versions and estimate put forward by Dhaka authorities are highly coloured and exaggerated,'' it said.
The government has not given any indication whether it will take any action against surviving former Pakistani generals for alleged crimes committed in Bangladesh.
Musharraf said in October that the incidents in 1971 had been a political as well as a military debacle, and that calls for generals to be tried were not fair.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has demanded in the past that Pakistan make a public apology for alleged massacres by its troops and the rape of women in Bangladesh. Islamabad has asked Dhaka not to revive such memories, saying they could damage the prospects of better relations.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
