East Bengal War 1971 and Famine Abroad Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

East Bengal War 1971 and Famine Abroad - Essay Example This group named Amawi League won in the East Pakistan national election in 1970. The Western leader General Yahya Khan, in connection of the victory of Amawi League, ordered and said â€Å"Kill three million of them [East Pakistanis] and the rest will eat out of our hands,† as quoted by Ariana (2011) from Asia Times. West Pakistan ordered a genocide campaign on March 25, 1971 which included massive killing of East Bengal resistance group members and raping of Bengali women. Amawi League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was also assassinated during the war. In was on December 16, 1971 when East Pakistan won the war and declared independence from West Pakistan. East Bengal earned a new name, â€Å"Bangladesh† meaning â€Å"Country of Bengal†, and its own national language â€Å"Bengali† (Ariana, 2011). Under the British colony in Bengal, the land had 30 to 40 famines and the last of the big famine happened between 1942 and 1945. In a span of three years, almost four million had died due to famine in Bengal. Bengal was once the most fertile land in Ganges delta and was the granary of India before Great Britain occupied the land. The British was prosecuted for the organized and intentional genocide (Chawla, 2005). According to Anil Chawla (2005), â€Å"The ghastly genocide, which used hunger and starvation as tools, lasted for about eighteen decades and was carried out in Bengal, India (at present Bengal is partly in India and partly in Bangladesh) by the British colonial masters claiming about thirty million victims.† Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate, claimed that famine death of the people in Bengal was not caused by extreme fall of food production but because of the British policies (Chawla, 2005). Because of the drought that hit Somalia, millions of people are at risk of dying because of hunger. The drought struck in the summer of year 2011 causing thousands of Somalis dead because of malnutrition. The United Nations declared a famine and called for the international