Word: yahya
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...President Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan imposed martial law and a 24-hour curfew over East Pakistan on Friday. He called the insurgents traitors and vowed to restore central government control over the area...
Last December he held elections for a Constituent Assembly that would draft a new constitution-Pakistan's fourth since 1947. Yahya thought Sheik Mujib and his restive Awami League would win perhaps 60% of the East's allotment of 169 seats in the 313-seat Constituent Assembly. The remaining East Pakistan delegates, Yahya figured, would align themselves with West Pakistani parties and prevent Mujib from winning majority control over the entire country. But in a stunning victory that amounted to a vote for wide-ranging autonomy, if not outright independence. Mujib's Awami League...
Following the December elections, Mujib twice turned down Yahya's invitations to confer in Islamabad, the national capital located in the West. Yahya went to Dacca, the capital of East Pakistan, and so did Bhutto. They got nowhere with Mujib, who warned stiffly that the minority would no longer rule the majority...
...Their Knees. Two days before the Constituent Assembly was set to convene in Dacca last week, Yahya postponed it indefinitely to give the political leaders a chance to reach an understanding. The postponement infuriated the Bengalis. "I am not imposing the six-point program on West Pakistan," declared Mujib, "but the people of Bangla Desh are entitled to it, and they will have it." In protest, Mujib called an all-day general strike for the following day, and half-day strikes for the rest of the week, shuttering offices, shops and factories and halting trains, planes and even rickshas. Angry...
...week's end Yahya Khan announced in a radio broadcast that the Constituent Assembly would convene after all on March 25. "As long as I am in command of the armed forces, I will ensure the complete and absolute integrity of Pakistan." Nevertheless, it seemed doubtful that Yahya's decision to convene the assembly would pacify Mujib. Two days earlier, the East Pakistani leader said of the West Pakistanis: "I will break them and bring them to their knees." After such a statement, an outright declaration of independence could be little more than an anticlimax...