by SARAH RICHARDS
Forty years ago this month, the country of Bangladesh declared its independence from Pakistan. Then-President Richard Nixon supported Pakistan during the war because he wanted to prove the US would stand by an ally.
Many Americans disagreed with that stance. And when a ship headed for Pakistan with military equipment and ammunition was set to stop at a US port, one group of Americans felt it was necessary to get involved.
“I was ready to risk my life there,” says 78-year-old Richard Taylor. “I just wanted to get in front of that ship.”
In July 1971, Taylor and a group of protesters used canoes and kayaks to try and block the Pakistani freighter Padma from reaching the Port of Baltimore.
The ship was coming from Canada, bound for Pakistan. It was said to be carrying military equipment and ammunition, presumably to aid the government in its war with what was then called East Pakistan.
The US had ordered an arms embargo on new shipments to Pakistan. But newspapers reported that Pakistani freighters like The Padma were still visiting US ports to load military equipment that had been purchased before the embargo.
Taylor’s flotilla of two canoes, three kayaks and a rubber raft left from Baltimore’s Broening Park. The police and Coast Guard tried to stop it. But Taylor says the group was undaunted.
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Forty years on, Bengalis are expressing a renewed interest in their country’s independence movement. One of them is New Yorker Aris Yousuf. He finds the canoe blockade story so fascinating that he’s making a documentary on it.
“I wanted to see if I could make a film about the history of 1971, Bangladesh’s independence war and what happened in the US and be able to put it together from the people who participated at that time,” says Yousuf.
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(Thanks to Robin Khundkar)