The most significant motion is among the Pathans of Pakistan. Occupying the Baluchistan and North-West Frontier provinces in West Pakistan, the Pathans are excluded from many areas of Pakistani life by the dominant Punjabi minority. The Feb. 27 New York Times carried a dispatch from Peshawar, Pakistan, stating that the Pathans "are ready for war if their demands are not met. During the past week the police here, mostly Pathans, have smashed the local headquarters of [President Zuffikar Ali Bhutto's] Pakistan People's party...."
On Feb. 27 a massive armed demonstration was held in Peshawar, calling for the end of martial law and for Pathan self-government within Pakistan. New York Times correspondent Malcolm W. Browne, reporting from Peshawar on Feb. 27, said the crowd numbered more than 10,000 and "bristled with rifles and shotguns...."
The Pathans are traditionally a military people and even in normal times are highly armed with modern weapons made in small factories in their country. Police in both the North- West Frontier Province and Baluchistan are thought to side with them, and large portions of the Pakistani regular army also support the Pathan movement. Bhutto has had to rely in large part on the People's Guard, a paramilitary group organized to bolster his regime.
March 22, 1947
Truman's demand for authority to send military supplies
and missions to Greece and Turkey represents a long step
down the road to war with the Soviet Union. Truman has
served notice that U.S. imperialism will stop at nothing,
including atomic war, to secure world domination. Hereafter
no nation will be free from the threat of intervention by
Washington. Workers struggling to establish socialism in
other countries will have American imperialism as well as
their own capitalists to contend with.
Truman reported to congress that Britain's economic crisis necessitated withdrawal or reduction of her "commitments" in many countries, including Greece and Turkey. He therefore asked for 400 million dollars to be used in propping up their governments and armed forces until July 1948. He also asked for the authority to send American military and civilian personnel to supervise the use of this money and to train Greek and Turkish personnel.
He made no bones about his unqualified support of the Greek and Turkish governments. Disregarding the well-known facts about the brutal dictatorships in these countries, he went out of his way to paint them up as free and democratic regimes.