Kissinger reveals the dark heart of his realpolitik by what he leaves out
Henry Kissinger has captured headlines and captivated some of the world's best minds with his 580-page book, On China. Most reviews have been favourable, though Professor Andrew Nathan in the upcoming issue of Foreign Affairs neatly dismisses the tome as 'really neither history nor memoir'. 'Its purpose is to argue that the United States should yield gracefully to China's rise in order to avoid a tragic conflict,' he says.
For me, Kissinger's biggest failure is what he omits. While he was pretending to be ill in Pakistan in 1971, so he could fly secretly to China to prepare the ground for Richard Nixon's historic visit, Kissinger's diplomacy was also helping to perpetrate one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century - the slaughter and displacement of millions whose only crime was to express their wish for democracy through the ballot box and peaceful protests.
Yet there is no mention in the book, not a sentence of regret, not a word of apology, not even a passing note, that the bloody birth of Bangladesh was brought about because Kissinger, reaching out to China, simultaneously encouraged the Pakistan military to butcher the people of East Pakistan (today Bangladesh).
To set out the facts, in December 1970, the Bengalis of East Pakistan, separated by 1,600 kilometres of India from West Pakistan, where the military lived and ruled, voted overwhelmingly in free and fair elections for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Awami League, which stood on a platform of greater autonomy - not independence - from West Pakistan.
For three months there was deadlock, as president General Yahya Khan and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, leader of the People's Party, which had majorities in two of the four provinces of West Pakistan, played obstructionist games about the terms on which the assembly would meet to arrange a new civilian constitution.
The deadlock was broken when Yahya Khan's troops arrested Sheikh Mujib and his key lieutenants and let the army loose on East Pakistan. Tanks were sent to deal with Dhaka University students, who had been active in protests against the military regime. The army set fire to apartments and then mowed down their fleeing occupants. By all witness accounts, the soldiers conducted mass murder and rape. Estimates of the dead go up to three million. About 200,000 women were raped and almost 10 million Bengalis fled to refugee camps in India.
The rest of the world condemned the atrocities and sent aid for the refugees. Nixon and Kissinger said nothing but kept supplying aid, including military aid, to West Pakistan. Kissinger sent a message to Yahya Khan praising his 'delicacy and tact' in the crackdown.
