ROMÂNIA ŞI RĂZBOIUL INDO-PAKISTANEZ (1971)
ROMANIA AND THE INDO-PAKISTAN WAR OF 1971

Summary/Abstract: The Indo-Pakistani conflict was sparked in 1971 by the Bangladesh Liberation war, a long conflict between the traditionally dominant West Pakistanis and the majority East Pakistanis. The Bangladesh Liberation war ignited after the 1970 Pakistani election, in which the East Pakistani Awami League won 99% seats in East Pakistan and secured a simple majority in the lower house of the Parliament of Pakistan. The beginning of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 is considered to be the Pakistan’s preemptive strike on 11 Indian airbases (3 December 1971). During the war, Indian and Pakistani forces clashed on the eastern and western fronts. The war effectively came to an end after the Eastern Command of the Pakistani Armed Forces signed the document of surrender (16 December 1971) following which East Pakistan seceded as the independent state of Bangladesh. Romanian authorities sympathized neither Pakistan, nor India and Nicolae Ceauşescu tried to explain the equilibrium necessary for everybody involved in the conflict, to stop the war and start the negotiations about the autonomy of East Pakistan.

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