Operation Omega

By August 1971, the first two Operation Omega teams arrived in Calcutta. The Omega Team One members were: Marc Duran, Christine Pratt, Roger Moody and Dan Due. In Omega Team Two were Ben Crow, Dan Grotta, Doreen Plamping and Freer Spreckley.[13]

The teams crossed from India into East Pakistan on 17 August, carrying food and saris. Both teams were immediately apprehended by members of the Pakistani Army.[14] After a day of negotiations with the army, the Omega teams decided to sleep in their cars and attempt to continue with their missions the following morning. At 9:20 pm on the evening of 17 August, both teams were arrested by Pakistani forces and taken to Jessore.[15]

The next morning both teams were returned to the Indian border and told not to return to East Pakistan, or they would face arrest and prosecution.[16]

There was disagreement about the best way to resume operations. One group believed that relief distribution, in secret, was the primary goal, while the second group preferred to instigate a direct, non-violent confrontation with the Pakistanis. The next crossing attempt took place on 5 September 1971. The first team of Freer Spreckley, Marc Duran and Gordon Slaven successfully took food supplies into a region that the Pakistani Army had abandoned, delivered the food to the local population and returned to India after two days in East Pakistan. They believed these were the first foreign aid supplies to be distributed there since the outbreak of the civil war.[17]

On the same day, the second crossed the border near Petrapole. This group was: Christine Pratt, Joyce Keniwell, Ben Crow and Dan Due. They were detained by the army about 300 yards (270 m) inside East Pakistan. The British consulate was informed that all four would be tried by a military tribunal.[18][19] Initially held without trial, the team began a hunger strike, demanding that they be formally charged and tried. After five days, they were tried for carrying "subversive literature". They were told before the trial that they would be found guilty and sentenced to eight years.[20] They were found guilty, but were deported from East Pakistan rather than jailed, around 15 September 1971.[21]

On 6 October 1971, a third crossing was made by a team of two, Gordon Slaven from London and Ellen Connett - Paul Connett's pregnant wife, from Philadelphia. They were arrested and tried under the Foreigners Act of 1946. They were convicted of unauthorised entry into the country and were sentenced to two years imprisonment. The Pakistani press claimed that Operation Omega had been "making deliberate attempts to embarrass the government".[21][22]

The pair spent two months of their sentence in jail, before being released after the surrender of the Pakistani army and the beginning of the transition to the new Bangladeshi government.[23]

Peace activist April Carter wrote that Operation Omega was successful in overcoming illness, equipment malfunction and mistrust from those it was trying to help. It delivered food to those at risk before conventional relief agencies could do so,[12] and largely achieved its aims of political resistance to the Pakistani regime.

Operation Omega continued relief efforts into 1973. They took aid into Bangladesh and assisted with reconciliation and long-term reconstruction projects, especially in the Bihari community.[24] In August 1973, the Operation Omega team decided to stop their direct relief efforts and focus instead on a campaign for a political solution on the Indian subcontinent.[25]

• Peace News (1977). "Operation Omega". In Hare, A. Paul; Blumberg, Herbert H. (eds.). Liberation Without Violence: A Third-Party Approach. London: Rex Collings. pp. 196–206. ISBN 0860-36-0237.