Lesson for Bangladesh in the aftermath of Benazir's assassination
Shabbir Ahmed
A pall of gloom has descended on Pakistan by the untimely death of the charismatic leader Mrs. Benazir Bhutto. She was murdered in cold blood in a public rally organized by her party. The death toll is more than twenty. With her death, the already chaotic political condition of Pakistan will become more and more volatile and uncertain. One might anticipate that going forward the death of Benazir Bhutto will cause more destruction, more instability, and more loss of human lives in Pakistan. It is yet to be seen who were the main conspirators behind her killing. Immediately after her return a few months ago, the killers blasted bombs with an attempt to kill her. Her party pointed fingers toward some people in the government run mainly by the Pakistan's military. This time her supporters and her party leaders are blaming the military dictator Gen. Musharraf for her killing. Benazir Bhutto's husband has blamed the Pakistan military intelligence ISI for the killing.
It is well known to the conscious people of Pakistan and Bangladesh on how Pakistan's military and their intelligence tried to eliminate popular political leaders in the past. The rogue military and their intelligence captured power and manipulated the politics to maintain their supremacy, power, and vested interests. To achieve their mischievous goals, the military junta did not hesitate to put leaders like Husein Shahid Suhrawardy and Sher-e-Bangla Fazlul Haque in jail by bringing fabricated charges against them. The rogue military of Pakistan overturned even the election results that were held in 1970. To maintain their grip on power and continue their dictatorial rule, the undemocratic military rulers of Pakistan adopted a "minus two" policy by forcing Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to live in exile. The military rulers and the military-backed government of Pakistan brought charges of corruption against these leaders to implement their "minus two theory." It is known that under pressure from USA, the military-backed government of Pakistan recently withdrew all the charges against Benazir Bhutto. The military and the civil conspirators of Pakistan had to abandon the "minus two" policy and let both Benazir Bhutto and Miah Nawaz Sharif return to Pakistan. After all, the conspirators do not tend to follow rule of rule, they try to rule by force, and they understand the meaning of force thrust upon them. The civil-military nexus of Pakistan bowed down to the pressure from USA and allowed Benazir to participate in the upcoming election. It is alleged that the ruling oligarchs allowed her but did not provide adequate and necessary security for her protection from dangers. There are charges made by the independent observers and by the supporters of Benazir against Musharraf and the ruling elites for letting her die in the hands of the killers. In fact, Benazir herself wrote about the lack in her security before her death. She even wrote that Musharraf would remain responsible if anything bad happened to her. Now it is proven that the civil-military conspirators did not provide security protection only to let her die.
Now turn your attention to Bangladesh, which is following the legacy of Pakistan. This nation of 145 million became independent by fighting against the Pakistani military and their extremist allies such as fundamentalist Jamaat -i-Islami. Unfortunately, Bangladesh could not able to get out of the system that was created by the military rulers of Pakistan. The civil-military bureaucrats eventually captured power by killing the founding father and his associates, who were time-tested leaders of the people of Bangladesh. The cantonment-born parties named Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and Bangladesh Jatio Party (BJP) were formed by the civil-military conspirators with the help of a few political leaders devoid of any popularity and people's support. These parties continued to remain in power for a long time mainly to serve the purposes of the powerful quarters. They did not allow democracy to grow and even played conspiratorial role in eliminating leaders like Mrs. Sheikh Hasina. Similar to what happened to Mrs. Bhutto, the security for Mrs. Sheikh Hasina were made inadequate by the cantonment-born BNP while they were in power. On August 21, 2004 Sheikh Hasina and her associates were attacked by the terrorists in a rally in Dhaka. It was reported that the security for Sheikh Hasina were relaxed by the government. The killers charged grenades on the rally of a former prime minister and the head of a leading political party but escaped without getting any resistance.
There are many similarities between the attack on Mrs. Bhutto and on Mrs. Hasina. Mrs. Hasina was addressing a rally organized by her party while the killers attacked. Similarly, Mrs. Bhutto was attacked while addressing a rally organized by her party. More than twenty people died immediately after the attack on Mrs. Hasina. Here in the case of attack on Mrs. Bhutto, so far twenty two people have been killed. In both cases, the respective government did not bother to provide adequate security for the protection of the two leaders. In Sheikh Hasina¢s case, the government twisted the information and deliberately misguided the course of investigation. The ruling military of Pakistan have already started twisting the information of the killing of Mrs. Bhutto. The doctors and the eyewitnesses said that the attackers shot Mrs. Bhutto while the government has released information quite contrary to what has been reported so far. Unfortunately, in the case of Mrs. Bhutto, the attackers were able to succeed by killing her. Mrs. Sheikh Hasina critically survived the attack but still trying to survive politically by overcoming the conspiracies of the powerful oligarchs who are now ruling Bangladesh.
The civil-military bureaucrats and the conspirators destroyed the political institutions of Pakistan. Through conspiracies, they brought charges of corruption against both honest and dishonest politicians. Defiant but honest and liberal politicians were eliminated through many conspiratorial means. Many times, the dishonest politicians were rewarded for cooperating with the powerful quarters to maintain their vested interests. By doing conspiracies and adopting many "minus theories," the oligarchs created vacuum in the political arena. In the vacuum, the Islamic fundamentalists and the extremists grew with the direct and indirect supports of the civil-military bureaucrats. Pakistan has gone close to the point of anarchy and destruction due to the manipulative policies of the military and their notorious intelligence called ISI. Fortunately, Bangladesh is not yet there. But, there are ample signs and indications that tell us poignantly that a similar fate waits for senior most political figures. Hopefully, the ruling elites of Bangladesh will try to learn from the dismal happenings in Pakistan and take corrective actions so that the lives of 145 teeming millions will not plunge into darkness.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Is Bangladesh Emergency different?
Is Bangladesh `Emergency' different?
Narendra Ch
27 December 2007, Thursday
Source: Merinews
EVEN AS the Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf finds himself compelled to don civvies and withdraw the state of emergency, the dispensation in Dhaka continues to receive accolades for its ’clean-up’, which it believes it has achieved by the simple process of detaining scores of persons and subjecting them to warped trials.
South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre(SAHREDC) Executive Director Ravi Nair wondered that the international response to the Bangladesh crisis have been founded on the patronising belief that the country needs a benevolent regime that must be allowed the time and space to ’reform’ a gravely distorted polity. History shows, however, he warned that there are no benevolent dictators.
As security analyst Ayesha Siddiqa pointed out recently, the military is "not an organisation which can be trusted to remain a junior partner once the civilian policymakers and stakeholders begin to use it to gain power." Bangladesh’s ruling elite, which has sought to use military rule to its own advantage, she adds, would do well to remember that the use of extra-constitutional measures is likely to lead to disenchantment among the common people.
The United States stated that it was "deeply disturbed" and that it did not "support extra-constitutional measures that would take Pakistan away from the path of democracy and civilian rule." The European Union said it regretted the step and condemned "any provisions of the state of emergency that are unconstitutional."
The Commonwealth swiftly warned that it would expel Pakistan if the state of emergency was not repealed, and proceeded to carry out its threat ten days later, terming the situation "a serious violation of the Commonwealth’s fundamental values."
The international consensus was clear: President Musharraf may have been an acceptable, indeed, favoured, figure to lead Pakistan, but his new, blatantly oppressive moves warranted a sharp public critique.
In the Human Rights Feature on "Our Kind of Emergency" released by Ravi Nair on Wednesday, deplored that the international community is seems to be silent on Bangladesh’s ’caretaker’ government thought it was an opportune moment to pronounce on the qualitative distinctions between the emergency in Pakistan and the one at home.
"There is a difference," Bangladesh’s foreign advisor Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury stated. The imposition of emergency in Bangladesh, he said, was "within the country’s constitution." The state of emergency in Bangladesh is governed by the Emergency Powers Ordinance of 2007 which is a supplement of the Emergency Powers Rule 2007.
This state of emergency "shall cease to operate at the expiration of one hundred and twenty days, unless before the expiration of that period it had been approved by a resolution of Parliament."
Bangladesh’s state of emergency should, by this reckoning, have ended in April 2007. With no explanation given for this blatant breach of the constitution, it is submitted that Bangladesh’s Emergency Rule is ultra virus. This is not dissimilar from the emergency in Pakistan.
A team of European Union diplomats in Dhaka recently noted that human rights abuses had decreased and reportedly encouraged the government to continue on this "positive track". This, when the Bangladesh media as well as human rights groups have been expressing concern about the ongoing routine of secret detentions, extrajudicial executions, and deaths by ’crossfire’.
In conjunction with the current restrictions on freedom of the press and criticism, this indicates that human rights abuses are in reality continuing and increasing, but fewer reports are surfacing. In October 2007, Odhikar, a Dhaka-based organisation, stated that there had been 153 extrajudicial executions in the country in the 10 months following the declaration of emergency.
Odhikar observed that the actions of the current government were being "dictated less and less by the law", and called on the government to follow the due process of law in cases against corruption suspects, refraining from selective application of the law, and holding independent judicial inquiries into every incident of extrajudicial killing.
The EU was stridently critical of the political turbulence that came to a head in the last few months of 2006. It has continued to emphasise that a return to that situation would "catastrophic." Thus it was silent on the present prevailing political situation.
The EU is Bangladesh’s biggest trade partner, importing 54 percent of its goods. European Commission aid commitments in Bangladesh are the second largest in Asia after Afghanistan. The EU undoubtedly has an interest in the economic and political stability of Bangladesh.
Ravi Nair lamented that to give a gold star to a military-backed administration that has steadily whittled down fundamental rights and effectively clamped down on political activity speaks volumes about the duplicitous nature of the EU’s support and about the hollowness of its international human rights policy.
Bangladesh thus remains a member of the Commonwealth club which sees no incompatibility between Commonwealth principles and the actions of Bangladesh’s present government.
The day before the declaration of emergency, the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Dhaka had warned of repercussions for the deployment of Bangladeshi troops in peacekeeping missions abroad if there was any move towards military rule. There has been no reported suspension of such deployment following the declaration of emergency.
The UN has also failed to respond to individual cases of human rights violations, not even when it concerns one of its own experts. On 13 July 2007, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) stated that it had sought clarification on the condition of Sigma Huda, UN Special Reporter on trafficking of persons, who had been arrested on charges of corruption.
As with many other high-profile detainees, Ms. Huda’s trial was conducted without due process, eventually culminating in a three-year sentence. She suffers from coronary heart disease, diabetes and chronic renal failure, has not been given adequate medical treatment, and has been denied bail pending disposal of appeals. Her treatment is in gross violation of the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
Following its July 2007 statement, however, the OHCHR has given no indication that it is monitoring the case. It would only be appropriate for the OHCHR to demand that it be kept informed regularly on the status and treatment of one of its own experts. Ms. Huda is not immune from prosecution and the OHCHR was not required to demand Ms. Huda’s release or for special treatment.
It was, however, required to insist that all due process safeguards be followed in Ms. Huda’s trial as well as in the trials of other detainees. It was also required to strongly urge the Bangladesh government that Ms. Huda be provided adequate medical treatment and be considered for bail in view of her poor health.
These international bodies have now pinned their hopes on a putative Human Rights Commission, and on a reorganised Election Commission, which are suffering from "an irretrievable loss of credibility" and that its actions have reinforced "the public suspicion that the commission may be working as an extension of the military-controlled interim government," Ravi Nair added.
Narendra Ch
27 December 2007, Thursday
Source: Merinews
EVEN AS the Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf finds himself compelled to don civvies and withdraw the state of emergency, the dispensation in Dhaka continues to receive accolades for its ’clean-up’, which it believes it has achieved by the simple process of detaining scores of persons and subjecting them to warped trials.
South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre(SAHREDC) Executive Director Ravi Nair wondered that the international response to the Bangladesh crisis have been founded on the patronising belief that the country needs a benevolent regime that must be allowed the time and space to ’reform’ a gravely distorted polity. History shows, however, he warned that there are no benevolent dictators.
As security analyst Ayesha Siddiqa pointed out recently, the military is "not an organisation which can be trusted to remain a junior partner once the civilian policymakers and stakeholders begin to use it to gain power." Bangladesh’s ruling elite, which has sought to use military rule to its own advantage, she adds, would do well to remember that the use of extra-constitutional measures is likely to lead to disenchantment among the common people.
The United States stated that it was "deeply disturbed" and that it did not "support extra-constitutional measures that would take Pakistan away from the path of democracy and civilian rule." The European Union said it regretted the step and condemned "any provisions of the state of emergency that are unconstitutional."
The Commonwealth swiftly warned that it would expel Pakistan if the state of emergency was not repealed, and proceeded to carry out its threat ten days later, terming the situation "a serious violation of the Commonwealth’s fundamental values."
The international consensus was clear: President Musharraf may have been an acceptable, indeed, favoured, figure to lead Pakistan, but his new, blatantly oppressive moves warranted a sharp public critique.
In the Human Rights Feature on "Our Kind of Emergency" released by Ravi Nair on Wednesday, deplored that the international community is seems to be silent on Bangladesh’s ’caretaker’ government thought it was an opportune moment to pronounce on the qualitative distinctions between the emergency in Pakistan and the one at home.
"There is a difference," Bangladesh’s foreign advisor Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury stated. The imposition of emergency in Bangladesh, he said, was "within the country’s constitution." The state of emergency in Bangladesh is governed by the Emergency Powers Ordinance of 2007 which is a supplement of the Emergency Powers Rule 2007.
This state of emergency "shall cease to operate at the expiration of one hundred and twenty days, unless before the expiration of that period it had been approved by a resolution of Parliament."
Bangladesh’s state of emergency should, by this reckoning, have ended in April 2007. With no explanation given for this blatant breach of the constitution, it is submitted that Bangladesh’s Emergency Rule is ultra virus. This is not dissimilar from the emergency in Pakistan.
A team of European Union diplomats in Dhaka recently noted that human rights abuses had decreased and reportedly encouraged the government to continue on this "positive track". This, when the Bangladesh media as well as human rights groups have been expressing concern about the ongoing routine of secret detentions, extrajudicial executions, and deaths by ’crossfire’.
In conjunction with the current restrictions on freedom of the press and criticism, this indicates that human rights abuses are in reality continuing and increasing, but fewer reports are surfacing. In October 2007, Odhikar, a Dhaka-based organisation, stated that there had been 153 extrajudicial executions in the country in the 10 months following the declaration of emergency.
Odhikar observed that the actions of the current government were being "dictated less and less by the law", and called on the government to follow the due process of law in cases against corruption suspects, refraining from selective application of the law, and holding independent judicial inquiries into every incident of extrajudicial killing.
The EU was stridently critical of the political turbulence that came to a head in the last few months of 2006. It has continued to emphasise that a return to that situation would "catastrophic." Thus it was silent on the present prevailing political situation.
The EU is Bangladesh’s biggest trade partner, importing 54 percent of its goods. European Commission aid commitments in Bangladesh are the second largest in Asia after Afghanistan. The EU undoubtedly has an interest in the economic and political stability of Bangladesh.
Ravi Nair lamented that to give a gold star to a military-backed administration that has steadily whittled down fundamental rights and effectively clamped down on political activity speaks volumes about the duplicitous nature of the EU’s support and about the hollowness of its international human rights policy.
Bangladesh thus remains a member of the Commonwealth club which sees no incompatibility between Commonwealth principles and the actions of Bangladesh’s present government.
The day before the declaration of emergency, the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Dhaka had warned of repercussions for the deployment of Bangladeshi troops in peacekeeping missions abroad if there was any move towards military rule. There has been no reported suspension of such deployment following the declaration of emergency.
The UN has also failed to respond to individual cases of human rights violations, not even when it concerns one of its own experts. On 13 July 2007, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) stated that it had sought clarification on the condition of Sigma Huda, UN Special Reporter on trafficking of persons, who had been arrested on charges of corruption.
As with many other high-profile detainees, Ms. Huda’s trial was conducted without due process, eventually culminating in a three-year sentence. She suffers from coronary heart disease, diabetes and chronic renal failure, has not been given adequate medical treatment, and has been denied bail pending disposal of appeals. Her treatment is in gross violation of the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
Following its July 2007 statement, however, the OHCHR has given no indication that it is monitoring the case. It would only be appropriate for the OHCHR to demand that it be kept informed regularly on the status and treatment of one of its own experts. Ms. Huda is not immune from prosecution and the OHCHR was not required to demand Ms. Huda’s release or for special treatment.
It was, however, required to insist that all due process safeguards be followed in Ms. Huda’s trial as well as in the trials of other detainees. It was also required to strongly urge the Bangladesh government that Ms. Huda be provided adequate medical treatment and be considered for bail in view of her poor health.
These international bodies have now pinned their hopes on a putative Human Rights Commission, and on a reorganised Election Commission, which are suffering from "an irretrievable loss of credibility" and that its actions have reinforced "the public suspicion that the commission may be working as an extension of the military-controlled interim government," Ravi Nair added.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Tribute to Benazir Bhutto
Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has died in a bomb attack at an election rally. Benazir sacrificed her life for democracy. She showed the world mixing militants and military could be how dangerous. Pakistan's dream for democracy has been shattered once again. Watch this video from CNN:
Bangladesh gets new version of independence history
Bangladesh gets new version of independence history
Source: AFP
DHAKA (AFP) — School textbooks in Bangladesh have been revised to reflect the latest government version of the role of two slain leaders when the country won independence in 1971, an official said Wednesday.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led Bangladesh's bitter independence struggle against Pakistan, is now once again referred to as the "father of the nation," said Mosir Uddin, head of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board.
Sheikh Mujib, who died in a military coup in 1975, is credited with the independence declaration at midnight on March 25, 1971 and referred to by his popular name of "Bangabandhu" or friend of Bengalis in the new texts.
In another change, former president Ziaur Rahman, who was slain in an attempted military coup in 1981, was acknowledged to have made an independence proclamation "on behalf of Bangabandhu at Kalurghat Radio Station in Chittagong, on March 27", he added.
School textbooks containing the changes have already been printed and would be read in the schools from January 2008, Uddin said.
The place of the two leaders in the nation's history remains a deeply sensitive subject in Bangladesh.
Since 1991, textbooks have been subject to alterations by governments led alternately by Sheikh Mujib's daughter, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, and Ziaur's widow, Khaleda Zia. The two women are bitter rivals and lead the country's two main political parties.
Supporters of Sheikh Hasina's Awami League believe that independence was proclaimed by a regional party leader acting on the instructions of Sheikh Mujib.
Members of Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), however, say it was the former army chief Ziaur who made the historic proclamation.
Sheikh Hasina led the country from 1996 to 2001 while Zia held power twice, from 1991 to 1996, and from 2001 to 2006.
A military-backed government took power in January after vote-rigging allegations led to elections being cancelled and the imposition of a state of emergency.
Immediately after the takeover, the country's powerful military chief General Moeen U Ahmed said that the new government would give due honours to the national leaders.
The textbook board head said the latest version of the history was close to the facts.
"This is more authentic than the others we have seen in the past. This is based on authentic documents. All the references are taken from the official history of the war of independence published by the information ministry in 1982," he said.
Bangladesh, formerly called East Pakistan, won its independence from Pakistan in 1971after a bloody nine-month war.
Source: AFP
DHAKA (AFP) — School textbooks in Bangladesh have been revised to reflect the latest government version of the role of two slain leaders when the country won independence in 1971, an official said Wednesday.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led Bangladesh's bitter independence struggle against Pakistan, is now once again referred to as the "father of the nation," said Mosir Uddin, head of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board.
Sheikh Mujib, who died in a military coup in 1975, is credited with the independence declaration at midnight on March 25, 1971 and referred to by his popular name of "Bangabandhu" or friend of Bengalis in the new texts.
In another change, former president Ziaur Rahman, who was slain in an attempted military coup in 1981, was acknowledged to have made an independence proclamation "on behalf of Bangabandhu at Kalurghat Radio Station in Chittagong, on March 27", he added.
School textbooks containing the changes have already been printed and would be read in the schools from January 2008, Uddin said.
The place of the two leaders in the nation's history remains a deeply sensitive subject in Bangladesh.
Since 1991, textbooks have been subject to alterations by governments led alternately by Sheikh Mujib's daughter, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, and Ziaur's widow, Khaleda Zia. The two women are bitter rivals and lead the country's two main political parties.
Supporters of Sheikh Hasina's Awami League believe that independence was proclaimed by a regional party leader acting on the instructions of Sheikh Mujib.
Members of Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), however, say it was the former army chief Ziaur who made the historic proclamation.
Sheikh Hasina led the country from 1996 to 2001 while Zia held power twice, from 1991 to 1996, and from 2001 to 2006.
A military-backed government took power in January after vote-rigging allegations led to elections being cancelled and the imposition of a state of emergency.
Immediately after the takeover, the country's powerful military chief General Moeen U Ahmed said that the new government would give due honours to the national leaders.
The textbook board head said the latest version of the history was close to the facts.
"This is more authentic than the others we have seen in the past. This is based on authentic documents. All the references are taken from the official history of the war of independence published by the information ministry in 1982," he said.
Bangladesh, formerly called East Pakistan, won its independence from Pakistan in 1971after a bloody nine-month war.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Tribute to Poet Mahbub ul Alam
Bangladesh has lost one of its national heroes Mahbub ul Alam Chowdhury, a language movement veteran and a poet, at the age of 82. He wrote the acclaimed first poem on February 21st to protest Pakistan's atrocity against the Bangladeshis demanding Bangla as a state language in 1952. We are paying respect to our national hero. Please listen to this historical poem from youtube:
THE FIRST POEM ON EKUSHEY
Mahbub Ul Alam Chowdhury
I have not come, where they laid down their lives
under the upward looking Krishnachura trees,
to shed tears.
I have not come, where endless patches of blood
glow like so many fiery flowers, to weep.
Today I am not overwhelmed by grief
Today I am not maddened with anger
Today I am only unflinching
in my determination.
The child who will nevermore get a chance
to rush into his father's arms,
the house-wife who, shielding the lamp
with her sari, will nevermore wait
by the door for her husband,
the mother who will never more draw
to her breast with boundless joy
her returning son,
the Youngman who, before collapsing
on the earth, tried again and again
to conjure before his eyes the vision
of his beloved,
in their name,
in the name of those brothers and sisters,
in the name of my language,
nourished by the heritage of a thousand years,
in the name of the language in which
I am accustomed to addressing my mother,
in the name of my native land,
I say, I have come today,
here on the open grounds of the university,
to demand their death by hanging,
the death of those who killed
my brothers and sisters indiscriminately.
I have not come here to weep for them
who gave their lives under Ramna's
sun-scorched Krishnachura trees
for their language,
those forty or more who laid down their lives
for Bangla, them mother tongue,
for the dignity of a country's great culture,
for the literary heritage of Alaol,
Rabindranath, Kaikobad and Nazrul,
for keeping alive the bhatiali, bawl,
kirton and the ghazal,
those who laid down their lives
or Nazrul's unforgettable lines:
"The soil of my native land
is purer than the purest gold"
Forty blooming lives fell
like innumerable Krishnachura petals
on Ramna's soil.
In the husks of the seeds
sprouting there form I can see
endless drops of blood,
the blood of young Rameswar and Abdus Salam,
the blood of the most brilliant boys of the university.
I can see each drop of blood
shining on Ramna's green grass like burning flames,
each boy a piece of diamond,
forty jewels of the university,
who, had they lived, would have become
the most precious wealth of the country, in whom
Lincoln, Rolland, Aragon and Einstein had found refuge,
in whom had flourished some of the
most progressive ideals of this century's civilization.
We hive not come here to shed tears
where forty jewels sacrificed their lives.
We have not come, either, to plead
for our language to the killers
who had arrived with their rifles loaded,
with orders to shoot our brothers and sisters.
We have come to demand the hanging
of the tyrants and the murderers.
We know that our brothers and sisters were killed,
that they were mercilessly shot,
that one of them was perhaps called 'Osman'
just like you,
that perhaps one of them had. a clerk for his father
just like you, or that one's father was growing
golden crops in some remote village of East Bengal,
or was a government functionary.
Today those boys could be living just like you or me.
Perhaps one of them had his wedding day fixed
just like me.
Perhaps one of them had left on his table,
just like you, his mother's letter
received a moment ago,
hoping to read it when he got back
from the procession he went out to join.
Those boys had harboured concrete dreams
in their breasts,
and they were killed by the bullets
of the cruel tyrants.
In the name of those deaths
I demand that those who wanted to
banish our mother-tongue be hanged,
I demand that those who ordered
the killings be hanged,
I demand that the traitors
who climbed to the seats of power
over the dead bodies of my brothers and
sisters be hanged.
I want to see them tried and shot
as convicted criminals
on ‘that very spot in this open field.
Those first martyrs of the country,
those forty brilliant boys of the university,
each of them had dreams of building
a quiet home in the bosom of this earth
with his wife, children and parents.
They dreamed of analysing
the scientific theories of Einstein with greater depth,
they dreamed of finding ways
to put the atomic power to man's service
in the cause of Peace.
They dreamed of writing a poem
more beautiful than Tagore's `The Flute Players'.
O my martyred brothers,
the spot where you laid down your lives .
will continue to glow
even after a thousand years.
No footprints of civilization can wipe out
the marks of your blood from that soil,
although procession after procession
will one day converge here
and shatter its vague silence.
The tolling of the university bells
will daily announce the historic hour of your deaths,
even if one day a violent storm
erupted and shook the building's very foundation.
Whatever came to pass
the brightness of your names as hallowed martyrs
would never grow dim.
The cruel hands of the murderers
can never throttle your long cherished hopes.
Some day we shall surely win
and hail the advent of justice and fair play.
O my dead brothers,
on that day, your voices,
the strong voice of Freedom,
will soar from the depths of silence.
The people of my country, on that day,
will surely hang from the gallows
those tyrants and murderers.
On that day, your hopes will shine like flames
in the joy of victory and sweet vengeance.
Translated by Kabir Chowdhury
The poem was written at 7.00 pm on 21st February 1952
THE FIRST POEM ON EKUSHEY
Mahbub Ul Alam Chowdhury
I have not come, where they laid down their lives
under the upward looking Krishnachura trees,
to shed tears.
I have not come, where endless patches of blood
glow like so many fiery flowers, to weep.
Today I am not overwhelmed by grief
Today I am not maddened with anger
Today I am only unflinching
in my determination.
The child who will nevermore get a chance
to rush into his father's arms,
the house-wife who, shielding the lamp
with her sari, will nevermore wait
by the door for her husband,
the mother who will never more draw
to her breast with boundless joy
her returning son,
the Youngman who, before collapsing
on the earth, tried again and again
to conjure before his eyes the vision
of his beloved,
in their name,
in the name of those brothers and sisters,
in the name of my language,
nourished by the heritage of a thousand years,
in the name of the language in which
I am accustomed to addressing my mother,
in the name of my native land,
I say, I have come today,
here on the open grounds of the university,
to demand their death by hanging,
the death of those who killed
my brothers and sisters indiscriminately.
I have not come here to weep for them
who gave their lives under Ramna's
sun-scorched Krishnachura trees
for their language,
those forty or more who laid down their lives
for Bangla, them mother tongue,
for the dignity of a country's great culture,
for the literary heritage of Alaol,
Rabindranath, Kaikobad and Nazrul,
for keeping alive the bhatiali, bawl,
kirton and the ghazal,
those who laid down their lives
or Nazrul's unforgettable lines:
"The soil of my native land
is purer than the purest gold"
Forty blooming lives fell
like innumerable Krishnachura petals
on Ramna's soil.
In the husks of the seeds
sprouting there form I can see
endless drops of blood,
the blood of young Rameswar and Abdus Salam,
the blood of the most brilliant boys of the university.
I can see each drop of blood
shining on Ramna's green grass like burning flames,
each boy a piece of diamond,
forty jewels of the university,
who, had they lived, would have become
the most precious wealth of the country, in whom
Lincoln, Rolland, Aragon and Einstein had found refuge,
in whom had flourished some of the
most progressive ideals of this century's civilization.
We hive not come here to shed tears
where forty jewels sacrificed their lives.
We have not come, either, to plead
for our language to the killers
who had arrived with their rifles loaded,
with orders to shoot our brothers and sisters.
We have come to demand the hanging
of the tyrants and the murderers.
We know that our brothers and sisters were killed,
that they were mercilessly shot,
that one of them was perhaps called 'Osman'
just like you,
that perhaps one of them had. a clerk for his father
just like you, or that one's father was growing
golden crops in some remote village of East Bengal,
or was a government functionary.
Today those boys could be living just like you or me.
Perhaps one of them had his wedding day fixed
just like me.
Perhaps one of them had left on his table,
just like you, his mother's letter
received a moment ago,
hoping to read it when he got back
from the procession he went out to join.
Those boys had harboured concrete dreams
in their breasts,
and they were killed by the bullets
of the cruel tyrants.
In the name of those deaths
I demand that those who wanted to
banish our mother-tongue be hanged,
I demand that those who ordered
the killings be hanged,
I demand that the traitors
who climbed to the seats of power
over the dead bodies of my brothers and
sisters be hanged.
I want to see them tried and shot
as convicted criminals
on ‘that very spot in this open field.
Those first martyrs of the country,
those forty brilliant boys of the university,
each of them had dreams of building
a quiet home in the bosom of this earth
with his wife, children and parents.
They dreamed of analysing
the scientific theories of Einstein with greater depth,
they dreamed of finding ways
to put the atomic power to man's service
in the cause of Peace.
They dreamed of writing a poem
more beautiful than Tagore's `The Flute Players'.
O my martyred brothers,
the spot where you laid down your lives .
will continue to glow
even after a thousand years.
No footprints of civilization can wipe out
the marks of your blood from that soil,
although procession after procession
will one day converge here
and shatter its vague silence.
The tolling of the university bells
will daily announce the historic hour of your deaths,
even if one day a violent storm
erupted and shook the building's very foundation.
Whatever came to pass
the brightness of your names as hallowed martyrs
would never grow dim.
The cruel hands of the murderers
can never throttle your long cherished hopes.
Some day we shall surely win
and hail the advent of justice and fair play.
O my dead brothers,
on that day, your voices,
the strong voice of Freedom,
will soar from the depths of silence.
The people of my country, on that day,
will surely hang from the gallows
those tyrants and murderers.
On that day, your hopes will shine like flames
in the joy of victory and sweet vengeance.
Translated by Kabir Chowdhury
The poem was written at 7.00 pm on 21st February 1952
Govt prepares to showcase its successes
Govt prepares to showcase its successes
Dhaka, Dec 25 (bdnews24.com) – The emergency government is preparing to build an impressive CV of its successes as it completes a year of assumption of power.
The chief of the government's press wing said they had asked the ministries to forward information for compilation at the year-end.
"No specific decision has yet been taken about publishing any comprehensive account of achievements by the caretaker government, though," Iftekhar Hossain, principal information officer for the Press Information Department, told bdnews24.com by telephone.
"We gathered similar progress reports and relevant information from all ministries at the end of the first six months too."
A circular sent to the ministries and departments mentioned that a special supplement to be published highlighting the government's successes has been envisaged.
The supplement will contain success stories in economy, policy planning, project implementation, production, services, administration, research and anti-corruption drive and the future plan.
The PID passed on the directive to all the relevant government offices soon after it had received a similar notification from the top tier of the government.
The political governments too carried out similar exercises at the end of the year to 'highlight their successes' in the past, said a top brass in the caretaker government, wishing to remain unnamed.
Dhaka, Dec 25 (bdnews24.com) – The emergency government is preparing to build an impressive CV of its successes as it completes a year of assumption of power.
The chief of the government's press wing said they had asked the ministries to forward information for compilation at the year-end.
"No specific decision has yet been taken about publishing any comprehensive account of achievements by the caretaker government, though," Iftekhar Hossain, principal information officer for the Press Information Department, told bdnews24.com by telephone.
"We gathered similar progress reports and relevant information from all ministries at the end of the first six months too."
A circular sent to the ministries and departments mentioned that a special supplement to be published highlighting the government's successes has been envisaged.
The supplement will contain success stories in economy, policy planning, project implementation, production, services, administration, research and anti-corruption drive and the future plan.
The PID passed on the directive to all the relevant government offices soon after it had received a similar notification from the top tier of the government.
The political governments too carried out similar exercises at the end of the year to 'highlight their successes' in the past, said a top brass in the caretaker government, wishing to remain unnamed.
Valuables stolen from Bangladesh
Valuables stolen from Bangladesh
SYLHET, Bangladesh, Dec. 24
RATER ZONAKI
Source: UPI Asia Online
Column: Humanity or Humor?
Two statues of the Hindu god Vishnu were stolen from the Zia International Airport in Dhaka Saturday at midnight, while under "tight security." Government officials were about to load the statues onto a French cargo plane, along with other artifacts headed for a three-month exhibition at the Guimet Museum in Paris. The lost terracotta statues are 1,500 years old, and are insured for 4.5 million takas (around US$66,000).
According to the reports, the government had decided to send 187 artifacts, all around 1,000 years old, to the French museum. A first batch of 42 items had been sent on Nov. 30 to France, which has not ratified the International Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects, issued by UNESCO in 1995. These artifacts had been on exhibit or stored in various museums around the country.
Despite serious protests from cultural activists, the government went ahead with the shipment of these national treasures, despite a complaint to the High Court which resulted in a stay order, which was later lifted by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court so the shipments could go ahead.
Following the loss of the irreplaceable statues, the government set up a committee to investigate the theft, headed by a group of bureaucrats. Eleven people, mostly airport staff and cargo handlers, were arrested.
On Sunday, Indian customs authorities reported seizing four artifacts, including two statues of Vishnu, at India's border with Nepal. Many Bangladeshis believe that the seized statues are the same ones that were stolen from Bangladesh one day earlier.
It is no wonder that the military-backed government, which has utterly failed to protect its citizens from atrocities even while in police custody, failed to protect these artifacts no matter what their value.
Officials have failed to take responsibility for the outrageous incident. In a statement to the press, former director of the Bangladesh National Museum, Dr. Shamsuzzaman Khan, tried to cast suspicion on the Guimet Museum, saying that in the past it had cheated the government of Turkey by failing to return a collection of tiles from the grave of an Ottoman emperor.
Local media quoted an adviser to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Ayub Quadri, as saying he was thinking of resigning over the incident. Quadri was one of the people responsible for sending the artifacts abroad. He should not be left to ponder whether or not to leave his job; he should simply be removed from his post.
Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed, chief adviser to the Ministry of Home Affairs, which looks after security issues, is also keeping mum about the stolen artifacts. This is no surprise, as he has remained silent over even the most serious violations of human rights since his government began to share power with the armed forces. Perhaps Fakhruddin has already lost all sense of shame and capacity to feel, which enables him to remain shameless in his position as head of government.
None of the officials of the Bangladeshi government has so far explained what benefit was intended for the country in sending the artifacts to the Guimet Museum of France, which does not even respect the UNESCO Convention.
Everyone in Bangladesh is aware of the capacity of the investigating committee and the authorities who make up the committee, as well as the culture of filing reports that lack key information. For instance, the five-member committee set up following the theft of the artifacts from the Zia International Airport was asked to investigate whether any of the France-bound items were lost or stolen, to make a list of the lost items and determine the persons responsible for handling them. The government did not even ask the committee to discover how the actual theft occurred.
Inefficiency and irresponsibility are rooted so deeply within the government, including officials in ministerial positions and in public service, they do not seem to understand the purpose of sitting in official chairs, as evidenced by the decision to send the artifacts to France and forming the investigating committee afterward.
Bangladesh is daily losing its valuables at the hands of the ruling class; this includes its artifacts, its humanity, its national morality and patriotism, its social values and the rule of law. The nation is gaining nothing but an ever-deeper frustration over a corrupt system that is ruining the country.
(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender of Bangladesh who has been working on human rights issues in the country for more than a decade and who was a journalist in Bangladesh in the 1990s.)
SYLHET, Bangladesh, Dec. 24
RATER ZONAKI
Source: UPI Asia Online
Column: Humanity or Humor?
Two statues of the Hindu god Vishnu were stolen from the Zia International Airport in Dhaka Saturday at midnight, while under "tight security." Government officials were about to load the statues onto a French cargo plane, along with other artifacts headed for a three-month exhibition at the Guimet Museum in Paris. The lost terracotta statues are 1,500 years old, and are insured for 4.5 million takas (around US$66,000).
According to the reports, the government had decided to send 187 artifacts, all around 1,000 years old, to the French museum. A first batch of 42 items had been sent on Nov. 30 to France, which has not ratified the International Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects, issued by UNESCO in 1995. These artifacts had been on exhibit or stored in various museums around the country.
Despite serious protests from cultural activists, the government went ahead with the shipment of these national treasures, despite a complaint to the High Court which resulted in a stay order, which was later lifted by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court so the shipments could go ahead.
Following the loss of the irreplaceable statues, the government set up a committee to investigate the theft, headed by a group of bureaucrats. Eleven people, mostly airport staff and cargo handlers, were arrested.
On Sunday, Indian customs authorities reported seizing four artifacts, including two statues of Vishnu, at India's border with Nepal. Many Bangladeshis believe that the seized statues are the same ones that were stolen from Bangladesh one day earlier.
It is no wonder that the military-backed government, which has utterly failed to protect its citizens from atrocities even while in police custody, failed to protect these artifacts no matter what their value.
Officials have failed to take responsibility for the outrageous incident. In a statement to the press, former director of the Bangladesh National Museum, Dr. Shamsuzzaman Khan, tried to cast suspicion on the Guimet Museum, saying that in the past it had cheated the government of Turkey by failing to return a collection of tiles from the grave of an Ottoman emperor.
Local media quoted an adviser to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Ayub Quadri, as saying he was thinking of resigning over the incident. Quadri was one of the people responsible for sending the artifacts abroad. He should not be left to ponder whether or not to leave his job; he should simply be removed from his post.
Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed, chief adviser to the Ministry of Home Affairs, which looks after security issues, is also keeping mum about the stolen artifacts. This is no surprise, as he has remained silent over even the most serious violations of human rights since his government began to share power with the armed forces. Perhaps Fakhruddin has already lost all sense of shame and capacity to feel, which enables him to remain shameless in his position as head of government.
None of the officials of the Bangladeshi government has so far explained what benefit was intended for the country in sending the artifacts to the Guimet Museum of France, which does not even respect the UNESCO Convention.
Everyone in Bangladesh is aware of the capacity of the investigating committee and the authorities who make up the committee, as well as the culture of filing reports that lack key information. For instance, the five-member committee set up following the theft of the artifacts from the Zia International Airport was asked to investigate whether any of the France-bound items were lost or stolen, to make a list of the lost items and determine the persons responsible for handling them. The government did not even ask the committee to discover how the actual theft occurred.
Inefficiency and irresponsibility are rooted so deeply within the government, including officials in ministerial positions and in public service, they do not seem to understand the purpose of sitting in official chairs, as evidenced by the decision to send the artifacts to France and forming the investigating committee afterward.
Bangladesh is daily losing its valuables at the hands of the ruling class; this includes its artifacts, its humanity, its national morality and patriotism, its social values and the rule of law. The nation is gaining nothing but an ever-deeper frustration over a corrupt system that is ruining the country.
(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender of Bangladesh who has been working on human rights issues in the country for more than a decade and who was a journalist in Bangladesh in the 1990s.)
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Rare artifacts go missing from airport
This is a shameful incident for this army government who was irresponsibly sending these rare artifacts to Paris museum and now they are missing. This Government has done it unilaterally against the public will and the court order. Condemn this incident and we hope the army government will now find them. Otherwise, they'll be held responsible and forget about any immunity. Read this breaking news from bdnews:
Dhaka, Dec 23 (bdnews24.com) –A carton loaded with rare Bangladesh artefacts went missing from Zia International Airport, police said Sunday.
Ruhul Amin, officer-in-charge of the Airport Police Station, told bdnews24.com that two boxes of artefacts and relics went missing from the airport Friday night, but one was found later near a pond.
The government Friday shipped a second consignment of archaeological relics out of Bangladesh National Museum, en route to Paris for display at the Guimet Museum.
The police interrogated four museum officials and 10 airport cargo handlers.
Homebound Courier Services trucked 145 relics to ZIA.
The shipment of artefacts and relics by the government drew flak from artists, sculptors and students.
Some campaigners locked the gate to the National Museum Friday apparently to stop the government taking the relics from the museum, witnesses said.
But the police broke the lock open to allow the courier's trucks in around 3pm.
The government had earlier sent off 42 artefacts in 10 cartons on Nov 30.
The shipment of the relics ran into legal snags after an archaeological researcher, Nurul Islam, petitioned to the High Court on Dec 6, which, in turn, halted the shipment until Jan 15, 2008.
On Dec 13, the court rejected a government appeal to cancel the status quo.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court later put freezes on the High Court order.
The artefacts from five Bangladesh museums were scheduled to be on display at the exhibition under an agreement signed between the French ambassador to Bangladesh and the cultural affairs secretary.
Some 188 items were selected from Dhaka museum and the museums of Paharpur, Mahasthangarh, Mainamati and Barendra for the show.
Dhaka, Dec 23 (bdnews24.com) –A carton loaded with rare Bangladesh artefacts went missing from Zia International Airport, police said Sunday.
Ruhul Amin, officer-in-charge of the Airport Police Station, told bdnews24.com that two boxes of artefacts and relics went missing from the airport Friday night, but one was found later near a pond.
The government Friday shipped a second consignment of archaeological relics out of Bangladesh National Museum, en route to Paris for display at the Guimet Museum.
The police interrogated four museum officials and 10 airport cargo handlers.
Homebound Courier Services trucked 145 relics to ZIA.
The shipment of artefacts and relics by the government drew flak from artists, sculptors and students.
Some campaigners locked the gate to the National Museum Friday apparently to stop the government taking the relics from the museum, witnesses said.
But the police broke the lock open to allow the courier's trucks in around 3pm.
The government had earlier sent off 42 artefacts in 10 cartons on Nov 30.
The shipment of the relics ran into legal snags after an archaeological researcher, Nurul Islam, petitioned to the High Court on Dec 6, which, in turn, halted the shipment until Jan 15, 2008.
On Dec 13, the court rejected a government appeal to cancel the status quo.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court later put freezes on the High Court order.
The artefacts from five Bangladesh museums were scheduled to be on display at the exhibition under an agreement signed between the French ambassador to Bangladesh and the cultural affairs secretary.
Some 188 items were selected from Dhaka museum and the museums of Paharpur, Mahasthangarh, Mainamati and Barendra for the show.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Victory Day Talk Show
Watch this wonderful talk show at ATN Bangla on December 16th. Joined by Hasanul Haque Inu and M M Akash
Lifting emergency in Bangladesh
UK seeks 'clarification' on lifting Emergency in Bangladesh
Source: The Times of India
December 20, 2007
DHAKA: Britain has sought "clarification" from Bangladesh in regard to the time frame for lifting of the state of Emergency in the country, stressing that the parliamentary polls scheduled before December 2008 must be "seen by all sides as free, fair and credible."
"There are fresh challenges this country is facing. Next year, what is important is that the elections are held and seen by all sides as free, fair and credible. These are all essential characteristics of an election that would be crucial to the future of Bangladesh," British International Development Minister Douglas Alexander told mediapersons during his visit to Bangladesh.
He welcomed Chief Election Commissioner Shamsul Huda's statement that "should the voter list and electoral reforms be completed earlier than planned, the elections can be brought forward from December 2008."
"We asked for clarification when the state of Emergency will be lifted," British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury, who accompanied the minister, was quoted as saying by the UNB news agency in regard to the lifting of the Emergency rule in Bangladesh....
Source: The Times of India
December 20, 2007
DHAKA: Britain has sought "clarification" from Bangladesh in regard to the time frame for lifting of the state of Emergency in the country, stressing that the parliamentary polls scheduled before December 2008 must be "seen by all sides as free, fair and credible."
"There are fresh challenges this country is facing. Next year, what is important is that the elections are held and seen by all sides as free, fair and credible. These are all essential characteristics of an election that would be crucial to the future of Bangladesh," British International Development Minister Douglas Alexander told mediapersons during his visit to Bangladesh.
He welcomed Chief Election Commissioner Shamsul Huda's statement that "should the voter list and electoral reforms be completed earlier than planned, the elections can be brought forward from December 2008."
"We asked for clarification when the state of Emergency will be lifted," British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury, who accompanied the minister, was quoted as saying by the UNB news agency in regard to the lifting of the Emergency rule in Bangladesh....
News reports, photos enough for trial
News reports, photos enough for trial
Zayadul Ahsan and Shakhawat Liton
Source: Daily Star
December 20, 2007
The International Crimes Act 1973 provides the government with enormous power to still try the war criminals of 1971 by setting up tribunals without facing legal hurdles since the law makes newspaper reports and photographs of war crimes admissible in court as evidence.
The act which was promulgated under the blanket immunity for the government provided by the first amendment to the constitution in 1973 for trying war criminals, also scraps the usual protections ensured for the accused in the Criminal Procedure Code 1898 and in Evidence Act 1872, in an effort to ensure meting out of punishments to war criminals.
It empowers the government to establish an agency for the purpose of investigating war crimes, and provides the officers of the agency with enormous power to investigate the crimes, despite the cancellation of Bangladesh Collaborators Order 1972.
Legal experts said the government may enforce the law any time and may set up tribunals by issuing gazette notifications for trying the war criminals. A war criminal may be tried based on newspaper reports and photographs as the International Crime Act empowers the court to admit those as evidence.
The legal experts also said reports and statements, which were published in the Daily Sangram, the official voice of Jamaat-e-Islami, during the liberation war of Bangladesh, about the activities of the anti-liberation forces, might be sufficient to try the collaborators of the Pakistan occupation forces. Other national and international newspapers published during the liberation war also ran news and photographs about the activities of the anti-liberation local forces, which are also admissible in courts according to the law, said the experts.
Now it requires a government move to set up a tribunal, which according to the act will have almost unlimited power with the authority to sentence the war criminals even to the gallows.
Asked about the significance of the International Crimes Act, eminent jurist Shahdeen Malik told The Daily Star that the whole thrust of the law is to ensure punishment for war criminals.
"A crime has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in other criminal laws, but the standard is not applicable in trials under the International Crimes Act, making it much easier to prove war crimes," Malik said.
Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, accused of war crimes, are now denying their anti-liberation activities in 1971, but its official mouthpiece, the Daily Sangram, still bears the documents of their dastardly deeds. Other national and international news media of the time also carried news of Jamaat's atrocities on the struggling Bangalee nation. Jamaat leaders Golam Azam, Abbas Ali Khan, Motiur Rahman Nizami, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, Mohammad Quamarruzzaman, Abdul Quader Mollah, ATM Azharul Islam, Abdus Sobhan and others launched anti -liberation campaigns across the country and organised anti-liberation forces during the liberation war of Bangladesh.
With wholehearted cooperation from Jamaat and some other ultra-rightist political parties, the erstwhile Pakistan government formed forces like Razkars, Al-Badr and Al-Shams to resist the liberation of Bangladesh. The principal task of the forces were to provide the Pakistan occupation army with battle field support and intelligence about local resistance groups, and to identify and eliminate Bangalee nationalists.
The current Jamaat leadership, although did not deny their anti-liberation activities earlier and rather termed their activities of the time as the product of their political stance, are now issuing statements denying the allegations against them in the wake of a growing demand for trials of war criminals, since most of its central leaders are accused of war crimes.
"With honesty and sincerity, we had trust in the then Pakistan," Motirur Rahman Nizami, the then secretary general of Jamaat, told the nation on a state run Bangladesh Television programme 'Sabinoye Jante Chai', on June 4, 1996, ahead of the seventh parliamentary election.
Nizami's claim proved that Jamaat worked against the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971, but the current Secretary General of Jamaat Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed on October 25 this year denied their involvement in anti-liberation activities claiming that such forces never existed.
A large number of leaders and activists of Jamaat were accused of war crimes as the trial of war criminals began in 1972 following the enactment of the Bangladesh Collaborators (Special Tribunals) Order 1972. Citizenships of the erstwhile amir of Jamaat, Golam Azam, and of some others were also revoked soon after the victory in the war.
To ensure trial of war criminals the constitution was amended in 1973 providing the government with unlimited power to try war criminals by enacting any type of laws, no matter whether those contradict the constitution or not.
The amendment empowers the government to detain, prosecute and punish any person for war crimes any way it wants, without providing the accused with the protection of law, protection in respect to trials and punishment, and without providing him or her with any recourse to the Supreme Court (SC) for fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution otherwise.
Following the amendment to the constitution, the then government promulgated the International Crimes Act in July 1973, allowing itself to set up tribunals to try and punish members of military and 'auxiliary' forces from any country guilty of war crimes and genocide in Bangladesh.
The inclusion of 'auxiliary forces' in the act allows setting up of a tribunals by the government to try and punish war criminals from forces such as the Al-Badr, Al-Shams, Peace Committees, Razakars, and the Mujahids, that were formed in 1971 against the liberation war of Bangladesh.
But through the August 15 violent regime change in 1975, the process of trying the war criminals was halted since the Collaborators Order was repealed in December of that year by the then military government. The then government however did not repeal the International Crimes Act 1973, while it also did not take any step to set up tribunals for trying the war criminals either.
The central figure in drafting the act, Dr Kamal Hossain, told The Daily Star earlier, "In principle, this law is in force and can be invoked for all the cases that fall under its ambit."
WHAT THE ACT SAYS
The International Crimes Act says the government may, by notification in the official gazette, set up one or more tribunals, each consisting of a chairman with no less than two and no more than four members. Neither the constitution of a tribunal nor the appointment of its chairman or members can be challenged by the prosecution or by the accused persons or their counsels, the law adds.
About the rules of evidence, the law says a war crimes tribunal is not bound by technical rules of evidence, and it shall adopt and apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and non-technical procedures, and may admit any evidence, including reports and photographs published in newspapers, periodicals and magazines, films and tape recordings and other materials may also be tendered before it, if it deems them as having probative value.
According to the act, a war crimes tribunal will not even require proof of facts for common knowledge, but shall take judicial notice of it.
To ensure smooth trials, the act suspended application of the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code 1898 and the Evidence Act 1872 in the proceedings of war crime tribunals.
About judgments and sentences, the act says upon conviction of an accused, the tribunal shall award sentence of death or such other punishment proportionate to the gravity of the crime as appears to the tribunal to be just and proper.
The act also limited the scope of appeal against the verdicts of the war crimes tribunal as it says a convicted person may appeal only to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court against a judgment.
In the act, investigation officers of war crime cases are provided with enormous authorities to enquire into the crimes. The act says any investigation officer, who is appointed by the government, and is carrying out an investigation under the act, may by order in writing, require the attendance before him/herself of any person who appears to be acquainted with the facts and circumstances of the case, and such person/s must attend as so required. Subpoenaed persons are also bound to answer all questions put to him/her by an investigation officer and shall not be excused from answering any question on the ground that the answer may incriminate him/herself, or may tend to directly or indirectly incriminate him/herself.
"Any person who fails to appear before an investigation officer for the purpose of examination or refuses to answer the questions put to him [or her] by such investigation officer shall be punished with simple imprisonment which may extend to six months or with fines which may extend to Tk 2,000, or with both," the act says.
About the special salient points of the act, Shahdeen Malik said the act made it very easy to investigate, try and punish war criminals. The government may entrust any agency to investigate war crimes and the law provides wide power of investigation to the trusted agency, he said.
Zayadul Ahsan and Shakhawat Liton
Source: Daily Star
December 20, 2007
The International Crimes Act 1973 provides the government with enormous power to still try the war criminals of 1971 by setting up tribunals without facing legal hurdles since the law makes newspaper reports and photographs of war crimes admissible in court as evidence.
The act which was promulgated under the blanket immunity for the government provided by the first amendment to the constitution in 1973 for trying war criminals, also scraps the usual protections ensured for the accused in the Criminal Procedure Code 1898 and in Evidence Act 1872, in an effort to ensure meting out of punishments to war criminals.
It empowers the government to establish an agency for the purpose of investigating war crimes, and provides the officers of the agency with enormous power to investigate the crimes, despite the cancellation of Bangladesh Collaborators Order 1972.
Legal experts said the government may enforce the law any time and may set up tribunals by issuing gazette notifications for trying the war criminals. A war criminal may be tried based on newspaper reports and photographs as the International Crime Act empowers the court to admit those as evidence.
The legal experts also said reports and statements, which were published in the Daily Sangram, the official voice of Jamaat-e-Islami, during the liberation war of Bangladesh, about the activities of the anti-liberation forces, might be sufficient to try the collaborators of the Pakistan occupation forces. Other national and international newspapers published during the liberation war also ran news and photographs about the activities of the anti-liberation local forces, which are also admissible in courts according to the law, said the experts.
Now it requires a government move to set up a tribunal, which according to the act will have almost unlimited power with the authority to sentence the war criminals even to the gallows.
Asked about the significance of the International Crimes Act, eminent jurist Shahdeen Malik told The Daily Star that the whole thrust of the law is to ensure punishment for war criminals.
"A crime has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in other criminal laws, but the standard is not applicable in trials under the International Crimes Act, making it much easier to prove war crimes," Malik said.
Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, accused of war crimes, are now denying their anti-liberation activities in 1971, but its official mouthpiece, the Daily Sangram, still bears the documents of their dastardly deeds. Other national and international news media of the time also carried news of Jamaat's atrocities on the struggling Bangalee nation. Jamaat leaders Golam Azam, Abbas Ali Khan, Motiur Rahman Nizami, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, Mohammad Quamarruzzaman, Abdul Quader Mollah, ATM Azharul Islam, Abdus Sobhan and others launched anti -liberation campaigns across the country and organised anti-liberation forces during the liberation war of Bangladesh.
With wholehearted cooperation from Jamaat and some other ultra-rightist political parties, the erstwhile Pakistan government formed forces like Razkars, Al-Badr and Al-Shams to resist the liberation of Bangladesh. The principal task of the forces were to provide the Pakistan occupation army with battle field support and intelligence about local resistance groups, and to identify and eliminate Bangalee nationalists.
The current Jamaat leadership, although did not deny their anti-liberation activities earlier and rather termed their activities of the time as the product of their political stance, are now issuing statements denying the allegations against them in the wake of a growing demand for trials of war criminals, since most of its central leaders are accused of war crimes.
"With honesty and sincerity, we had trust in the then Pakistan," Motirur Rahman Nizami, the then secretary general of Jamaat, told the nation on a state run Bangladesh Television programme 'Sabinoye Jante Chai', on June 4, 1996, ahead of the seventh parliamentary election.
Nizami's claim proved that Jamaat worked against the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971, but the current Secretary General of Jamaat Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed on October 25 this year denied their involvement in anti-liberation activities claiming that such forces never existed.
A large number of leaders and activists of Jamaat were accused of war crimes as the trial of war criminals began in 1972 following the enactment of the Bangladesh Collaborators (Special Tribunals) Order 1972. Citizenships of the erstwhile amir of Jamaat, Golam Azam, and of some others were also revoked soon after the victory in the war.
To ensure trial of war criminals the constitution was amended in 1973 providing the government with unlimited power to try war criminals by enacting any type of laws, no matter whether those contradict the constitution or not.
The amendment empowers the government to detain, prosecute and punish any person for war crimes any way it wants, without providing the accused with the protection of law, protection in respect to trials and punishment, and without providing him or her with any recourse to the Supreme Court (SC) for fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution otherwise.
Following the amendment to the constitution, the then government promulgated the International Crimes Act in July 1973, allowing itself to set up tribunals to try and punish members of military and 'auxiliary' forces from any country guilty of war crimes and genocide in Bangladesh.
The inclusion of 'auxiliary forces' in the act allows setting up of a tribunals by the government to try and punish war criminals from forces such as the Al-Badr, Al-Shams, Peace Committees, Razakars, and the Mujahids, that were formed in 1971 against the liberation war of Bangladesh.
But through the August 15 violent regime change in 1975, the process of trying the war criminals was halted since the Collaborators Order was repealed in December of that year by the then military government. The then government however did not repeal the International Crimes Act 1973, while it also did not take any step to set up tribunals for trying the war criminals either.
The central figure in drafting the act, Dr Kamal Hossain, told The Daily Star earlier, "In principle, this law is in force and can be invoked for all the cases that fall under its ambit."
WHAT THE ACT SAYS
The International Crimes Act says the government may, by notification in the official gazette, set up one or more tribunals, each consisting of a chairman with no less than two and no more than four members. Neither the constitution of a tribunal nor the appointment of its chairman or members can be challenged by the prosecution or by the accused persons or their counsels, the law adds.
About the rules of evidence, the law says a war crimes tribunal is not bound by technical rules of evidence, and it shall adopt and apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and non-technical procedures, and may admit any evidence, including reports and photographs published in newspapers, periodicals and magazines, films and tape recordings and other materials may also be tendered before it, if it deems them as having probative value.
According to the act, a war crimes tribunal will not even require proof of facts for common knowledge, but shall take judicial notice of it.
To ensure smooth trials, the act suspended application of the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code 1898 and the Evidence Act 1872 in the proceedings of war crime tribunals.
About judgments and sentences, the act says upon conviction of an accused, the tribunal shall award sentence of death or such other punishment proportionate to the gravity of the crime as appears to the tribunal to be just and proper.
The act also limited the scope of appeal against the verdicts of the war crimes tribunal as it says a convicted person may appeal only to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court against a judgment.
In the act, investigation officers of war crime cases are provided with enormous authorities to enquire into the crimes. The act says any investigation officer, who is appointed by the government, and is carrying out an investigation under the act, may by order in writing, require the attendance before him/herself of any person who appears to be acquainted with the facts and circumstances of the case, and such person/s must attend as so required. Subpoenaed persons are also bound to answer all questions put to him/her by an investigation officer and shall not be excused from answering any question on the ground that the answer may incriminate him/herself, or may tend to directly or indirectly incriminate him/herself.
"Any person who fails to appear before an investigation officer for the purpose of examination or refuses to answer the questions put to him [or her] by such investigation officer shall be punished with simple imprisonment which may extend to six months or with fines which may extend to Tk 2,000, or with both," the act says.
About the special salient points of the act, Shahdeen Malik said the act made it very easy to investigate, try and punish war criminals. The government may entrust any agency to investigate war crimes and the law provides wide power of investigation to the trusted agency, he said.
Action against Jamat
Bangladesh's Guilty Men
ALLABAKSH
Source: Kashmir Herald
While pursuing its ‘minus two’ policy that seeks to exclude the two eternally quarrelling ‘Begums’, Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League and Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh National Party, from the country’s politics, the army-propped interim government in Bangladesh has been arresting and prosecuting a large number of politicians of the two major parties and their businessmen supporters. But lately, the two leading parties are reported to have joined hands to demand some similar action against ‘war criminals’ also.
The more surprising thing, if true, is that Khaleda Zia’s party backs this demand, because the BNP is suspected to nurse sympathy for at least some of the ‘war criminals’ while it displays open antipathy towards the founder of Awami League and Bangladesh and the father of Sheikh Hasina, Sheikh Mujib-ur Rahman. The ‘war criminals’ are the people who had unabashedly worked for the repressive Pakistani army during the nine-month war of independence in 1971. The demand to proceed against the ‘war criminals’ must have presented a dilemma before the ‘neutral’ government headed by Fakhruddin Ahmed.
One of the persons who, to begin with, will then face the prospect of a jail term is none other than Motiur Rahman Nizami. He happens to be the leader of the country’s third largest party, the Jamaat-e-Islami. It is a fundamentalist organisation that had gained disproportionate importance during the Khaleda Zia regime that ruled the country before the army installed the interim government.
The Jamaat traces its origin to the pre-Bangladesh (Pakistan) days when its student wing was actively involved through its militias like Al Badra, Al Shams and the Razakars in systematically abducting and killing a large number of the Bangla intelligentsia that had risen against the Punjabi-dominated Pakistan government and its army during the liberation war. The role of Nizami, then a youth leader of the fundamentalist organisation, in the atrocities committed by the Pakistani army was not hidden from anyone.
During 1971 the Jamaat had openly opposed worked against the birth of Bangladesh by feeding the Pakistani army information about the freedom fighters.
For a brief period in early 1970s the Jamaat was banned but within four years, in 1978, it had regained recognition and was active as a fundamentalist religious party in the country that had declared itself to be secular. It has been a consistent stand of the Jamaat that there are no ‘war criminals’ in Bangladesh. In fact, organisations like the Jamaat refer to events in 1971 not as freedom struggle but ‘civil war’.
The many twists and turns in Bangladesh politics since December 1971 have seen Nizami become a politician of some consequence even as many of the ‘war criminals’ in and out of the country roam freely. Arresting Nizami could create a situation that the government would like to avoid, just as it does not want to extend its ‘minus two’ philosophy into a politics of ‘minus three.’
The demand for action against the ‘war criminals’ from the principal parties is a bit mystifying for during their long rules in previous years they had done precious little about it. Some of the prominent characters who top the list of ‘war criminals’ are former army officers—mostly out of the country now. It may be that some sections in the Bangladesh army too are not very enthusiastic about initiating any move against the guilty men of 1971. At best, the army might like to see the Jamaat cut down to size, lest it create trouble for the interim government, which has apparently managed to establish peace in the country frequently ravaged by natural disaster.
But since the previous government had failed to prosecute the ‘war criminals’ it will be a surprise if the temporary government, in office till elections scheduled late next year are held, does move against the ‘war criminals.’ The present Dhaka administration is believed to favour action by private citizens. If that is the official stand it is merely seeking a way out for no private citizen can undertake an exercise as important and elaborate as proceeding against people involved in crimes against humanity a good 36 years ago.
The only reason why the question of prosecution of the ‘war criminals’ never fades away is that at popular level it is linked to the country’s identity, pride and dignity. Many in Bangladesh think that the failure to take action against the ‘war criminals’ is an unpardonable sin. They are the ones who want the guilty men of 1971 tried for genocide and crimes against humanity. They see the atrocities by the Pakistani army in 1971 as history’s biggest genocide on par with the crimes of Hitler who had ordered mass slaughter of the Jews in the name of ethnic cleansing. The Pakistani Generals, who used to call the Bangladeshis an ‘inferior race’, had repeated the same exercise in Bangladesh. One Bangladeshi commentator had wondered if there is any country in the world where those who opposed the birth of a nation and collaborated with its enemies are able to go about their business without any fear of prosecution. At one time one of the ‘war criminal’ was representing the country as ambassador in a friendly country.
But the undeserving freedom for the ‘war criminals’ has been a gift of the strange politics of Bangladesh, which is full of irreconcilable differences between the two main political figures and their mutual dislike and distrust. To the outside world it was Sheikh Mujib-ur Rahman who led the war of independence in Bangladesh. But that is not how some of the politicians, including the BNP leadership, see it. The BNP downgraded his role while playing up the role of Khaleda Zia’s husband, an army General who had staged a coup to come to power.
It could well be the result of subtle efforts by Pakistan which has extensive ISI network in Bangladesh, but Bangladeshis, like Pakistanis, are prone to see an ‘Indian hand’ in just about every unpleasant development in their country. India is said to be lurking even behind the demand for prosecution of ‘war criminals.’
Considerable number of Bangladeshis believe that India wants to annexe their country and its ‘help’ in the 1971 liberation war was part of that design. The demand for action against the ‘war criminals’ may be a move to restore the national pride but many in the country oppose it simply because they perceive it as something that will help India achieve that alleged Indian aim. That should be a good enough reason not to expect any movement on the demand for action against ‘war criminals’!
ALLABAKSH
Source: Kashmir Herald
While pursuing its ‘minus two’ policy that seeks to exclude the two eternally quarrelling ‘Begums’, Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League and Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh National Party, from the country’s politics, the army-propped interim government in Bangladesh has been arresting and prosecuting a large number of politicians of the two major parties and their businessmen supporters. But lately, the two leading parties are reported to have joined hands to demand some similar action against ‘war criminals’ also.
The more surprising thing, if true, is that Khaleda Zia’s party backs this demand, because the BNP is suspected to nurse sympathy for at least some of the ‘war criminals’ while it displays open antipathy towards the founder of Awami League and Bangladesh and the father of Sheikh Hasina, Sheikh Mujib-ur Rahman. The ‘war criminals’ are the people who had unabashedly worked for the repressive Pakistani army during the nine-month war of independence in 1971. The demand to proceed against the ‘war criminals’ must have presented a dilemma before the ‘neutral’ government headed by Fakhruddin Ahmed.
One of the persons who, to begin with, will then face the prospect of a jail term is none other than Motiur Rahman Nizami. He happens to be the leader of the country’s third largest party, the Jamaat-e-Islami. It is a fundamentalist organisation that had gained disproportionate importance during the Khaleda Zia regime that ruled the country before the army installed the interim government.
The Jamaat traces its origin to the pre-Bangladesh (Pakistan) days when its student wing was actively involved through its militias like Al Badra, Al Shams and the Razakars in systematically abducting and killing a large number of the Bangla intelligentsia that had risen against the Punjabi-dominated Pakistan government and its army during the liberation war. The role of Nizami, then a youth leader of the fundamentalist organisation, in the atrocities committed by the Pakistani army was not hidden from anyone.
During 1971 the Jamaat had openly opposed worked against the birth of Bangladesh by feeding the Pakistani army information about the freedom fighters.
For a brief period in early 1970s the Jamaat was banned but within four years, in 1978, it had regained recognition and was active as a fundamentalist religious party in the country that had declared itself to be secular. It has been a consistent stand of the Jamaat that there are no ‘war criminals’ in Bangladesh. In fact, organisations like the Jamaat refer to events in 1971 not as freedom struggle but ‘civil war’.
The many twists and turns in Bangladesh politics since December 1971 have seen Nizami become a politician of some consequence even as many of the ‘war criminals’ in and out of the country roam freely. Arresting Nizami could create a situation that the government would like to avoid, just as it does not want to extend its ‘minus two’ philosophy into a politics of ‘minus three.’
The demand for action against the ‘war criminals’ from the principal parties is a bit mystifying for during their long rules in previous years they had done precious little about it. Some of the prominent characters who top the list of ‘war criminals’ are former army officers—mostly out of the country now. It may be that some sections in the Bangladesh army too are not very enthusiastic about initiating any move against the guilty men of 1971. At best, the army might like to see the Jamaat cut down to size, lest it create trouble for the interim government, which has apparently managed to establish peace in the country frequently ravaged by natural disaster.
But since the previous government had failed to prosecute the ‘war criminals’ it will be a surprise if the temporary government, in office till elections scheduled late next year are held, does move against the ‘war criminals.’ The present Dhaka administration is believed to favour action by private citizens. If that is the official stand it is merely seeking a way out for no private citizen can undertake an exercise as important and elaborate as proceeding against people involved in crimes against humanity a good 36 years ago.
The only reason why the question of prosecution of the ‘war criminals’ never fades away is that at popular level it is linked to the country’s identity, pride and dignity. Many in Bangladesh think that the failure to take action against the ‘war criminals’ is an unpardonable sin. They are the ones who want the guilty men of 1971 tried for genocide and crimes against humanity. They see the atrocities by the Pakistani army in 1971 as history’s biggest genocide on par with the crimes of Hitler who had ordered mass slaughter of the Jews in the name of ethnic cleansing. The Pakistani Generals, who used to call the Bangladeshis an ‘inferior race’, had repeated the same exercise in Bangladesh. One Bangladeshi commentator had wondered if there is any country in the world where those who opposed the birth of a nation and collaborated with its enemies are able to go about their business without any fear of prosecution. At one time one of the ‘war criminal’ was representing the country as ambassador in a friendly country.
But the undeserving freedom for the ‘war criminals’ has been a gift of the strange politics of Bangladesh, which is full of irreconcilable differences between the two main political figures and their mutual dislike and distrust. To the outside world it was Sheikh Mujib-ur Rahman who led the war of independence in Bangladesh. But that is not how some of the politicians, including the BNP leadership, see it. The BNP downgraded his role while playing up the role of Khaleda Zia’s husband, an army General who had staged a coup to come to power.
It could well be the result of subtle efforts by Pakistan which has extensive ISI network in Bangladesh, but Bangladeshis, like Pakistanis, are prone to see an ‘Indian hand’ in just about every unpleasant development in their country. India is said to be lurking even behind the demand for prosecution of ‘war criminals.’
Considerable number of Bangladeshis believe that India wants to annexe their country and its ‘help’ in the 1971 liberation war was part of that design. The demand for action against the ‘war criminals’ may be a move to restore the national pride but many in the country oppose it simply because they perceive it as something that will help India achieve that alleged Indian aim. That should be a good enough reason not to expect any movement on the demand for action against ‘war criminals’!
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচার নিয়ে প্রহসন!
বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতার ৩৬ বছরে হঠাত করে যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচার নিয়ে যে তুমুল আবেদন আন্দোলন চলছে তা আমাদের স্মরণকালে বিরল। রাজনৈতিক দল ও নির্বাচনে সংস্কারের সূত্র ধরেই যুদ্ধাপরাধী রাজাকার জামাতীদের বিচারের কথা প্রথম উঠে আসে। এখন তা জনপ্রিয় দাবী হিসেবে রুপ নিচ্ছে। এমন অভাবনীয় সাড়া প্রত্যক্ষ করেও সরকার বেশ অবিচল ও নির্বিকার ভাব নিয়ে আছে। এখন পর্যন্ত এ ব্যাপারে সরকারীভাবে কোন বিবৃতি চোখে পড়েনি। তবে জামাতের মুখপাত্র ও আইন উপদেস্টা ব্যরিস্টার মঈনুল হোসেন এই দাবীর মধ্যে তত্বাবধায়ক সরকারকে বিব্রতকর অবস্থায় ফেলার গভীর ষড়যন্ত্রের গন্ধ খুঁজে পেয়েছেন। ....বাকী অংশ পড়তে হলে এখানে ক্লিক করুন।
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
National Security Council in Bangladesh
24-member national security panel planned
Source: Gulf Times
Date: Tuesday,18 December, 2007,
By Mizan Rahman
(Finally time has come to say goodbye to democracy in Bangladesh. Bangladesh Army's supreme command council is now finalizing planned alternative to democracy - a national security council to run the government. Read this news from Gulf Times - Deshivoice).
DHAKA: The army-led caretaker government is planning to reconstitute a 24-member National Security Council (NSC) led by Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed soon for taking decisions on national security, defence, anti-corruption drive and accountability in the government.
A draft on the NSC, prepared by the Law Ministry, has proposed inclusion of the chiefs of three armed forces - army, navy and air force, chiefs of Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), defence forces intelligence, and National Security Intelligence (NSI) as well as civil society personalities, as its members, highly-placed sources said yesterday.
Communication adviser, law adviser, finance adviser, foreign adviser, local government adviser, energy adviser, cabinet secretary, secretary to the chief adviser's office, secretaries to the ministries of home, defence, foreign, finance, and law, principal staff officer of the armed forces division and inspector general of police will also be included as members of NSC, sources added.
Law and Information Adviser Mainul Hosein said the draft of NSC had been sent to the chief adviser's office for placing before the advisory council meeting. “The NSC should be reconstituted for taking decisions on national security and accountability in the government,” he said.
The sources said that the NSC would be given the power to take decisions, and direct the authorities concerned to take actions, and to make recommendations to the cabinet, if necessary. Earlier, Communications Adviser Major General (retd) M A Matin said that a new NSC would be formed soon for strengthening the ongoing anti-corruption drive against the corrupt suspects and accountability in the government. “If the council sits from time to time and discusses such matters, irregularities will be made public and everybody will be careful,” he said.
Former military ruler Hussein Mohammed Ershad, for the first time, formed a NSC during his regime in 1985 and NSCs were formed during the regimes of BNP in 1992 and Awami League on May 4, 1997, but the councils could not play an effective role.
Source: Gulf Times
Date: Tuesday,18 December, 2007,
By Mizan Rahman
(Finally time has come to say goodbye to democracy in Bangladesh. Bangladesh Army's supreme command council is now finalizing planned alternative to democracy - a national security council to run the government. Read this news from Gulf Times - Deshivoice).
DHAKA: The army-led caretaker government is planning to reconstitute a 24-member National Security Council (NSC) led by Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed soon for taking decisions on national security, defence, anti-corruption drive and accountability in the government.
A draft on the NSC, prepared by the Law Ministry, has proposed inclusion of the chiefs of three armed forces - army, navy and air force, chiefs of Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), defence forces intelligence, and National Security Intelligence (NSI) as well as civil society personalities, as its members, highly-placed sources said yesterday.
Communication adviser, law adviser, finance adviser, foreign adviser, local government adviser, energy adviser, cabinet secretary, secretary to the chief adviser's office, secretaries to the ministries of home, defence, foreign, finance, and law, principal staff officer of the armed forces division and inspector general of police will also be included as members of NSC, sources added.
Law and Information Adviser Mainul Hosein said the draft of NSC had been sent to the chief adviser's office for placing before the advisory council meeting. “The NSC should be reconstituted for taking decisions on national security and accountability in the government,” he said.
The sources said that the NSC would be given the power to take decisions, and direct the authorities concerned to take actions, and to make recommendations to the cabinet, if necessary. Earlier, Communications Adviser Major General (retd) M A Matin said that a new NSC would be formed soon for strengthening the ongoing anti-corruption drive against the corrupt suspects and accountability in the government. “If the council sits from time to time and discusses such matters, irregularities will be made public and everybody will be careful,” he said.
Former military ruler Hussein Mohammed Ershad, for the first time, formed a NSC during his regime in 1985 and NSCs were formed during the regimes of BNP in 1992 and Awami League on May 4, 1997, but the councils could not play an effective role.
Most Political Parties Skipped Reception
Source: Daily Star
December 17, 2007
The major political parties, socio-cultural organisations and war heroes boycotted the Victory Day reception at the Bangabhaban to protest invitation to the anti-liberation forces.
None from Awami League (AL), Jatiya Party (JP), Liberal Democratic party (LDP), Bikalpa Dhara Bangladesh (BDB), Workers Party, Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) and newly formed Bangladesh Kalyan Party leaders showed up at the party hosted by President Iajuddin Ahmed and his wife Anwara Begum.
Besides, the sector commanders and freedom fighters stayed away from the gathering as part of their earlier announcement that they would not participate in any state programme having anti-liberation elements including leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, the party that had opposed the Liberation War and worked as the auxiliary force of the occupying Pakistan army.
Jamaat Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojahid and central executive committee members Maulana Abdus Sobhan, Mohammad Kamaruzzaman and Maulana Delwar Hossain Sayedee, who stand accused of numerous atrocities in the course of their campaign against the birth of Bangladesh, attended the function held late in the afternoon.
Leaders of pro-Saifur Rahman faction of the BNP including its acting chairman Saifur Rahman, acting secretary general Major(retd) Hafiz Uddin Ahmed and former minister Moyeen Khan were also present there.
Hafiz Uddin Ahmed told the reporters, "It's a state programme. That's why we went there."
On the growing public demand for trial of the war criminals, he said: "I definitely want the trial but it must not be politicised."
Pro-Khaleda faction of the BNP, on the other hand, opted out of the reception as Khandaker Delwar Hossain, secretary general appointed by the chairperson, was not invited as the party's secretary general.
Among others, Speaker Jamiruddin Sircar, Chief Justice M Ruhul Amin, advisers of the caretaker government, Chief Election Commissioner ATM Shamsul Huda, judges of the Supreme Court, diplomats, some other politicians, editors, business leaders, academics, artistes and senior civil and military officers attended the function.
Earlier, AL working committee decided that no-one from the party would attend the Bangabhaban reception if Jamaat leaders and war criminals are asked to be there.
Talking to The Daily Star on Saturday night, former army chief and Co-ordinator of Sector Commanders' Forum Lt Gen (retd) M Harun-ar-Rashid said they would boycott the event if anti-liberation forces are invited.
Bangladesh Kalyan Party Chairman Maj Gen (retd) Syed Mohammad Ibrahim refused to attend the reception for the same reason.
Watch this news coverage by Channel I:
December 17, 2007
The major political parties, socio-cultural organisations and war heroes boycotted the Victory Day reception at the Bangabhaban to protest invitation to the anti-liberation forces.
None from Awami League (AL), Jatiya Party (JP), Liberal Democratic party (LDP), Bikalpa Dhara Bangladesh (BDB), Workers Party, Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) and newly formed Bangladesh Kalyan Party leaders showed up at the party hosted by President Iajuddin Ahmed and his wife Anwara Begum.
Besides, the sector commanders and freedom fighters stayed away from the gathering as part of their earlier announcement that they would not participate in any state programme having anti-liberation elements including leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, the party that had opposed the Liberation War and worked as the auxiliary force of the occupying Pakistan army.
Jamaat Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojahid and central executive committee members Maulana Abdus Sobhan, Mohammad Kamaruzzaman and Maulana Delwar Hossain Sayedee, who stand accused of numerous atrocities in the course of their campaign against the birth of Bangladesh, attended the function held late in the afternoon.
Leaders of pro-Saifur Rahman faction of the BNP including its acting chairman Saifur Rahman, acting secretary general Major(retd) Hafiz Uddin Ahmed and former minister Moyeen Khan were also present there.
Hafiz Uddin Ahmed told the reporters, "It's a state programme. That's why we went there."
On the growing public demand for trial of the war criminals, he said: "I definitely want the trial but it must not be politicised."
Pro-Khaleda faction of the BNP, on the other hand, opted out of the reception as Khandaker Delwar Hossain, secretary general appointed by the chairperson, was not invited as the party's secretary general.
Among others, Speaker Jamiruddin Sircar, Chief Justice M Ruhul Amin, advisers of the caretaker government, Chief Election Commissioner ATM Shamsul Huda, judges of the Supreme Court, diplomats, some other politicians, editors, business leaders, academics, artistes and senior civil and military officers attended the function.
Earlier, AL working committee decided that no-one from the party would attend the Bangabhaban reception if Jamaat leaders and war criminals are asked to be there.
Talking to The Daily Star on Saturday night, former army chief and Co-ordinator of Sector Commanders' Forum Lt Gen (retd) M Harun-ar-Rashid said they would boycott the event if anti-liberation forces are invited.
Bangladesh Kalyan Party Chairman Maj Gen (retd) Syed Mohammad Ibrahim refused to attend the reception for the same reason.
Watch this news coverage by Channel I:
Monday, December 17, 2007
Phulbari Coal mine
Courtesy of: Bangla Praxis
Berne Declaration and Banktrack, Zurich, Utrecht, December 17 2007 UBS, a financial heavyweight from Switzerland, is facing scrutiny by civil society organisations for investing in a proposed coal mine in Bangladesh. The Phulbari coal mine, proposed by GCM Resources Plc, is set to cause major social and environmental upheavals in the region, displacing upwards of 50 000 residents. Despite strong local opposition, investors UBS, RAB Capital and Barclays continue to back GCM with significant shareholdings. GCM Resources’ strategic focus is the mine, and financial institutions with sights on easy profits derived from expropriation and significant environmental damage, are propping up a shaky project which has already been stalled for over two years. Swiss based Berne Declaration and the BankTrack network recently wrote to UBS on behalf of local community representatives outlining the grave environmental, social and human rights problems associated with the project. As proposed, the Phulbari Coal mine is “open cut” meaning that between 140 and 300m worth of earth will need to be removed to access coal seams deep under ground. Some 50 000 residents will need to be relocated, potentially reaching 200 000 should full scale expansion plans be realised. Extensive damage to the UNESCO declared world heritage site Sundarbans mangrove forest, the largest single block of mangrove forest in the world, is also expected from port facilities. Energy production from coal poses substantial impacts on climate change, and is also inappropriate at a time when Bangladesh is appealing to the rest of the world to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the project having reportedly cleared by advisors Barclays to satisfy the Equator Principles, development standards which encompass community and social considerations, the undertaking faces immense local opposition. In August 2006, 50 000 people protested outside the local offices of Asia Energy (now GCM Resources Plc). A paramilitary force peppered the crowd with bullets, killing five people, including a fourteen year old boy. Approximately 100 individuals suffered injuries from the shootings. Since then, GCM Resources Plc has fled the site and the Bangladesh government has signed an agreement with the local communities promising that the coal mine would be stopped. In January 2007, Bangladesh declared a state of emergency, and a military backed government was installed. The current ruling party has proceeded to infringe of fundamental rights of countless citizens whilst maintaining relationships with transnational corporations in an attempt to stoke foreign investment and additional income. Without the developer’s presence in the region and fearing reprimand from a heavy handed government, local opponents to the projects have little recourse within their own country or with project sponsors. Responsible financial institutions have been approached with evidence of environmental damage and extensive social harm, and have been asked to respect the human rights of those affected by divesting.
The Berne Declaration and BankTrack have offered to put financial institutions in direct contact with communities in the area.
Responding to questions about on their 11% investment listed in GCM Resources Plc, the second largest listed shareholding, UBS denies any strategic interest in the company. The large multinational communicated that “it does not comment on potential or specific client relations or transactions or its investments in any particular company”. UBS vaguely asserts to civil society and the communities affected that its holding may or may not be on behalf of other people. Andreas Missbach from the Berne Declaration says “responding to victims of actual and potential human rights abuses in this way, UBS has shown complete disregard for its duties to stakeholders, selectively and irresponsibly hiding behind bank secrecy provisions”. The transparency of financial institutions shareholdings is of major consequence to determine who is responsible for facilitating dodgy investments. Determining whether banks themselves are actual shareholders, or whether they are holding shares on behalf of another party, can sometimes be an impossible task for local communities. Banks have been known to take advantage of these vagaries to shun their responsibilities. Whoever are the real shareholders in GCM, by virtue of their involvement in share listings, financial institutions must fulfil their duty to respect the human rights of stakeholders.Read and download the letter to UBS. (Banktrack website)
Careless deaths in Bangladesh
Official failures lead to workers' deaths
SYLHET, Bangladesh, Dec. 17
RATER ZONAKI
Source: UPI Asia Online
Column: Humanity or Humor?
"Shall we not be allowed even to bury the dead?" moaned a man to reporters in front of a collapsed building in Dhaka. He had been waiting eight days to claim the body of his brother from the rubble of the Rangs building, which had crumbled and killed workers hired to demolish the illegal structure.
The dead worker was supposed to go home to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid, his brother said. "Now he cannot even go home as a corpse! What sins did we commit that we have to suffer like this?"
The building collapsed in the night on Dec. 8 upon the sleeping workers, who had been hired to tear down 16 floors of the 22-story building after the Supreme Court ruled that the building exceeded legal heights.
The Rangs building was constructed within a zone where building heights are restricted to 205 feet due to its proximity to Tejgaon Airport. In 1989, when General Hussain Mohammad Ershad's autocratic government was ruling the country, the Rangs' owners allegedly received approval to build a 10-story building by bribing officials of the Capital City Development Authority. The officer who initially rejected the plan because it did not comply with zoning restrictions was allegedly removed from the position. The man who replaced him gave permission for the construction to go ahead.
At first a six-story building was constructed, but it eventually grew into a 22-story high rise in the heart of the capital city, less than five minute's walk from the office of the prime minister. It went up in front of hundreds of officials of various governmental institutions, without any effective resistance.
When the military-backed government seized power in January, a group of interested bureaucrats took the chance to fight the construction. The cause provided the military officials an opportunity to exhibit their moral authority before the people. The Supreme Court, after a prolonged battle, declared in its Aug. 3 verdict that the floors from the 6th to the 22nd should be demolished in order to keep the zone safe for flying aircraft – even though the airport has been used by the armed forces for the past few years and is not controlled by civil aviation authorities.
As soon as the court declared the verdict the city authorities sent a group of workers to begin demolishing the building. A private company that began the work on Aug. 3 had reportedly been given a contract to demolish the tower within three months. Several hundred day laborers had begun hammering the building to break down the 16 floors. Needless to mention, the work was not only unscientific, but also careless; which ultimately caused the deaths of around 50 poor laborers.
This incident is related to the lawlessness and carelessness of the Bangladesh authorities. A 22-story building can be erected by owners who thumb their noses at the citizens because of their affinity with the rulers, ignoring the laws of the land. The concerned officials remain peaceful and happy in their jobs in various departments as the government also remains beyond any accountability to the people.
The Supreme Court ordered a demolition only after 22 floors were already built, decorated and occupied by many businesses. Then the building was beheaded so carelessly that it caused the deaths of the laborers. In a final disgrace, the authorities failed to retrieve the dead bodies of the ill-fated fellows for burial. The rescue teams declared that their work was done, even though the city air remained filled with the smell of decomposing bodies buried under pieces of concrete.
Nobody knows what is the use of so many government departments that do not serve the interests of the people, do not prevent lawbreakers from causing disorder and destruction, and do not rescue the citizens from the heaps of problems created by the authorities themselves. The failure to recover the bodies of the workers so their families can give them proper funerals is evidence of how irresponsible, immoral, inefficient and disrespectful the Bangladeshi authorities are! Will they ever get rid of these lawless and inhuman practices?
(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender of Bangladesh who has been working on human rights issues in the country for more than a decade and who was a journalist in Bangladesh in the 1990s.)
Nizami, Mujahid sued for 1971 murder, arson
Nizami, Mujahid sued for 1971 murder, arson
Dhaka, Dec 17 (bdnews24.com) – A freedom fighter Monday filed a case against 13 people including four senior leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh on charges of murder and arson in 1971.
Mozaffar Ahmed Khan, a sector-2 freedom fighter, filed the case with the court of additional chief judicial magistrate Ashiqul Khobir.
Jamaat chief Motiur Rahman Nizami, secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, assistant secretary general Abdul Kader Molla and Mohammad Qamaruzzaman are among the accused.
Some other leaders of the party, which openly gave statements, are also accused in the case.
Many of such statements were published in the Dainik Sangram throughout the nine-month war as a proof of their anti-liberation activities, said independent historians and several fact-finding groups.
According to case details, some 60 to 70 members of Razakar, Al Badr and Al Shams with assignment from the accused Jamaat leaders had allegedly killed a number of freedom fighters in Keraniganj in 1971.
The complainant also charged them with arson in Ghatarchar village in the area during the bloody war against Pakistani military and their local collaborators.
After the war ended, Ghatarchar had been renamed Shaheed Nagar, or 'Neighbourhood of Martyrs', since many freedom fighters were killed in the village by the collaborators of the Pakistani forces in 1971.
The complainant mentioned in his appeal that the accused killed his two nephews when they returned home from the camps of freedom fighters to see their mother on Nov 25, 1971.
They allegedly killed Osman Gani Khan and Golam Mostafa, after raiding their home and later set the home on fire.
On information, the complainant with his team of freedom fighters tried to approach the house from nearby Kolatia camp but Nizami, Mujahid, Kader Molla and Qamaruzzaman informed the Pakistani forces for action in the meantime, the case alleged.
The collaborators later set fire to the complainant's home and two villages, he said in his appeal to the court.
The charges came amid renewed calls by various socio-political groups that the government put the "war criminals" on trial.
On Sunday, some major political parties boycotted a Victory Day ceremony at the Bangabhaban protesting the invitation of Jamaat leaders to the presidential programme.
Dhaka, Dec 17 (bdnews24.com) – A freedom fighter Monday filed a case against 13 people including four senior leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh on charges of murder and arson in 1971.
Mozaffar Ahmed Khan, a sector-2 freedom fighter, filed the case with the court of additional chief judicial magistrate Ashiqul Khobir.
Jamaat chief Motiur Rahman Nizami, secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, assistant secretary general Abdul Kader Molla and Mohammad Qamaruzzaman are among the accused.
Some other leaders of the party, which openly gave statements, are also accused in the case.
Many of such statements were published in the Dainik Sangram throughout the nine-month war as a proof of their anti-liberation activities, said independent historians and several fact-finding groups.
According to case details, some 60 to 70 members of Razakar, Al Badr and Al Shams with assignment from the accused Jamaat leaders had allegedly killed a number of freedom fighters in Keraniganj in 1971.
The complainant also charged them with arson in Ghatarchar village in the area during the bloody war against Pakistani military and their local collaborators.
After the war ended, Ghatarchar had been renamed Shaheed Nagar, or 'Neighbourhood of Martyrs', since many freedom fighters were killed in the village by the collaborators of the Pakistani forces in 1971.
The complainant mentioned in his appeal that the accused killed his two nephews when they returned home from the camps of freedom fighters to see their mother on Nov 25, 1971.
They allegedly killed Osman Gani Khan and Golam Mostafa, after raiding their home and later set the home on fire.
On information, the complainant with his team of freedom fighters tried to approach the house from nearby Kolatia camp but Nizami, Mujahid, Kader Molla and Qamaruzzaman informed the Pakistani forces for action in the meantime, the case alleged.
The collaborators later set fire to the complainant's home and two villages, he said in his appeal to the court.
The charges came amid renewed calls by various socio-political groups that the government put the "war criminals" on trial.
On Sunday, some major political parties boycotted a Victory Day ceremony at the Bangabhaban protesting the invitation of Jamaat leaders to the presidential programme.
Are their wounds any different?
Are their wounds any different?
Sanam Amin
Source: New Age
December 16, 2007
Sanam Amin meets eight birangana women – victims of rape, abuse and physical torture by the Pakistani forces in 1971 and discovers how the treatment by their own people after the war has left bigger scars than the ones left by the occupying forces
‘Am I not your mother?’ asks Hasna Begum, smiling and reaching out to the young man before her, one of the volunteers for the cultural programme held at the Liberation War Museum. He bends his head towards her, almost reverential. ‘Of course you are. You are all our mothers.’
Hasna is one of the eight women who have come from various parts of Sirajganj to Dhaka for a three-day visit. ‘Many more of us wanted to come,’ says another one of the eight, Rohima. ‘Eleven more. There used to be even more, but so many of them died.’
They have all come to tell and retell their stories, which in fact is just one long story. During the war of liberation, these women were some of the thousands of women who were raped, beaten, burned by Pakistani soldiers, some dragged off to the soldiers’ camps. Some saw their families killed right before their eyes. And their plight did not end with independence.
‘Their husbands left them. They weren’t allowed to stay where they used to; they were driven out. They had to search for refuge in all sorts of places. For so long they did not open their mouths. They did not see themselves as part of the war. They went through such atrocities but after the war they were treated as though it was their fault,’ says Safina Lohani, executive director of Sirajganj Uttaran Mohila Sangstha (SUMS), a non-governmental organisation.
Right after the war, under government directives, Lohani, along with a few others went out to search for these women and rehabilitate them. ‘Many were pregnant when we reached them, some of them had infants in their laps,’ she recalls. ‘They survived somehow, they made their living in a small way by sewing and weaving taat. We told them, “You too are muktijoddha, you should be honoured in the same way. Come out before everyone and demand your rights.” But when Bangabandhu was assassinated, we were back to square one. I was the only one to go back to these women then. Since then they have been to many places, many programmes. They felt they should open their mouths, speak out against those who took their dreams away. And to seek some form of justice.’
In her novel Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, Susan Brownmiller wrote that ‘[r]ape in Bangladesh had hardly been restricted to beauty. Girls of eight and grandmothers of seventy-five had been sexually assaulted... Pakistani soldiers had not only violated Bengali women on the spot; they abducted tens of hundreds and held them by force in their military barracks for nightly use. Some women may have been raped as many as eighty times in a night.’ She compared the 1971 events in Bangladesh to the Japanese rapes in Nanjing and German rapes in Russia during World War II.
Statistics vary from 200,000, 300,000 to possibly 400,000 women raped in just those nine months. Brownmiller notes that ‘rape, abduction and forcible prostitution during the nine-month war proved to be only the first round of humiliation for the Bengali women. Prime Minister Mujibur Rahman’s declaration that victims of rape were national heroines was the opening shot of an ill-starred campaign to reintegrate them into society — by smoothing the way for a return to their husbands or by finding bridegrooms for the unmarried [or widowed] ones from among his Mukti Bahini freedom fighters. The “marry them off” campaign never got off the ground. Few prospective bridegrooms stepped forward, and those who did made it plain that they expected the government, as father figure, to present them with handsome dowries.’
Of so many thousands, SUMS and Lohani’s efforts reached about 30. The eight that came to visit Dhaka this week were some of the youngest raped during the war, such as Rahela. Rahela does not know her age today, but she remembers certain exact figures. ‘I was thirteen years and seven months old when I was married off. I was fourteen years and three months old when the war started. When the army men came to our village,’ she specifies. At the suggestion that she must be fifty, Rahela brightens. ‘Yes, I am fifty. And my brother, my older brother, he is fifty-three. We were five brothers and sisters. He and I are the only ones left alive. They killed my other siblings.’
‘I was so beautiful then, you wouldn’t believe it. I had such long hair, up to here.’ Rahela gestures towards her waist. She closes her eyes for a few moments and continues speaking. ‘I was so frightened when they came. They grabbed me, pulled out my sari. So many of them. They nearly killed me too. Here, I have a stab mark right here,’ she says, fiercely pointing right below her right breast. ‘A scar right here, this big.’ She opens her palm wide. ‘This big.’
Their stories echo each other. ‘At three am a military car came to our village,’ recalls Asiya. ‘We fled to the next village and we stayed there for some time. My husband started a store, a small shop for things. But then the military took my husband.’ She pauses and swallows hard. ‘After independence my husband came back, but he heard what happened from our relatives. I was left alone.’
Hasna Begum was five months pregnant when the military came. ‘There was burning everywhere, killing everywhere. I had to hold my mouth from screaming.
We fled but we were caught by the military procession. The rajakars asked where we were going. They tortured us. I had a child in my lap, a child in my womb. I was just crying, “Look, baba, you are my baba, you could be my child.”’
‘People ran, cows ran, fled with everything they had, with their cows,’ remembers Shurja Begum. ‘The military set fire to everything. We were about 14 people fleeing together. Everything, our homes were all burning. When we came back nearly two months later there was nothing left. Nothing. There were some baskets of eilish maach, they were burnt too, the fish were charred. Sultan, my brother was a muktijodhha. We stayed there and whenever the military came we ran. Allah, the shooting that started. We all dived into the pond water to save ourselves. Everything burned. No trees or anything left. Koran Sharifs also burned.’
Her narrative is erratic, going back and forth from the burnings, the killings and the fifteen days she was kept in a military camp. ‘I had five brothers and sisters. Again the military came and we fled. We saw them go by, laughing. My father, my brother, my husband, all gone.’
‘Mine is a dukkher itihaash,’ Shurja says of her own story. ‘My brother was shot; I saw the bullet go through the front of his head. My husband was shot. My sister and my cousin, my aunt’s daughter, they were dragged out in front of my mother. Killed in front of my mother. My head was cracked but I lived. They are dead. They are gone.’
Bahatun, a shrivelled old woman, was set on fire once her rape and torture was over. She seems aged beyond her years and is bent in half. She cannot stand straight nor walk normally, but hobble forward with her head just inches from the ground. But she, like the other seven, are happy to be where they are. They call Safina Lohani ‘Amma’ and dote on her daughters and grandchild, confide in her like children.
‘We first met her after independence. She came to us, told us that we would be looked after. That we were not forgotten,’ recalls Rahela.
Sanam Amin
Source: New Age
December 16, 2007
Sanam Amin meets eight birangana women – victims of rape, abuse and physical torture by the Pakistani forces in 1971 and discovers how the treatment by their own people after the war has left bigger scars than the ones left by the occupying forces
‘Am I not your mother?’ asks Hasna Begum, smiling and reaching out to the young man before her, one of the volunteers for the cultural programme held at the Liberation War Museum. He bends his head towards her, almost reverential. ‘Of course you are. You are all our mothers.’
Hasna is one of the eight women who have come from various parts of Sirajganj to Dhaka for a three-day visit. ‘Many more of us wanted to come,’ says another one of the eight, Rohima. ‘Eleven more. There used to be even more, but so many of them died.’
They have all come to tell and retell their stories, which in fact is just one long story. During the war of liberation, these women were some of the thousands of women who were raped, beaten, burned by Pakistani soldiers, some dragged off to the soldiers’ camps. Some saw their families killed right before their eyes. And their plight did not end with independence.
‘Their husbands left them. They weren’t allowed to stay where they used to; they were driven out. They had to search for refuge in all sorts of places. For so long they did not open their mouths. They did not see themselves as part of the war. They went through such atrocities but after the war they were treated as though it was their fault,’ says Safina Lohani, executive director of Sirajganj Uttaran Mohila Sangstha (SUMS), a non-governmental organisation.
Right after the war, under government directives, Lohani, along with a few others went out to search for these women and rehabilitate them. ‘Many were pregnant when we reached them, some of them had infants in their laps,’ she recalls. ‘They survived somehow, they made their living in a small way by sewing and weaving taat. We told them, “You too are muktijoddha, you should be honoured in the same way. Come out before everyone and demand your rights.” But when Bangabandhu was assassinated, we were back to square one. I was the only one to go back to these women then. Since then they have been to many places, many programmes. They felt they should open their mouths, speak out against those who took their dreams away. And to seek some form of justice.’
In her novel Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, Susan Brownmiller wrote that ‘[r]ape in Bangladesh had hardly been restricted to beauty. Girls of eight and grandmothers of seventy-five had been sexually assaulted... Pakistani soldiers had not only violated Bengali women on the spot; they abducted tens of hundreds and held them by force in their military barracks for nightly use. Some women may have been raped as many as eighty times in a night.’ She compared the 1971 events in Bangladesh to the Japanese rapes in Nanjing and German rapes in Russia during World War II.
Statistics vary from 200,000, 300,000 to possibly 400,000 women raped in just those nine months. Brownmiller notes that ‘rape, abduction and forcible prostitution during the nine-month war proved to be only the first round of humiliation for the Bengali women. Prime Minister Mujibur Rahman’s declaration that victims of rape were national heroines was the opening shot of an ill-starred campaign to reintegrate them into society — by smoothing the way for a return to their husbands or by finding bridegrooms for the unmarried [or widowed] ones from among his Mukti Bahini freedom fighters. The “marry them off” campaign never got off the ground. Few prospective bridegrooms stepped forward, and those who did made it plain that they expected the government, as father figure, to present them with handsome dowries.’
Of so many thousands, SUMS and Lohani’s efforts reached about 30. The eight that came to visit Dhaka this week were some of the youngest raped during the war, such as Rahela. Rahela does not know her age today, but she remembers certain exact figures. ‘I was thirteen years and seven months old when I was married off. I was fourteen years and three months old when the war started. When the army men came to our village,’ she specifies. At the suggestion that she must be fifty, Rahela brightens. ‘Yes, I am fifty. And my brother, my older brother, he is fifty-three. We were five brothers and sisters. He and I are the only ones left alive. They killed my other siblings.’
‘I was so beautiful then, you wouldn’t believe it. I had such long hair, up to here.’ Rahela gestures towards her waist. She closes her eyes for a few moments and continues speaking. ‘I was so frightened when they came. They grabbed me, pulled out my sari. So many of them. They nearly killed me too. Here, I have a stab mark right here,’ she says, fiercely pointing right below her right breast. ‘A scar right here, this big.’ She opens her palm wide. ‘This big.’
Their stories echo each other. ‘At three am a military car came to our village,’ recalls Asiya. ‘We fled to the next village and we stayed there for some time. My husband started a store, a small shop for things. But then the military took my husband.’ She pauses and swallows hard. ‘After independence my husband came back, but he heard what happened from our relatives. I was left alone.’
Hasna Begum was five months pregnant when the military came. ‘There was burning everywhere, killing everywhere. I had to hold my mouth from screaming.
We fled but we were caught by the military procession. The rajakars asked where we were going. They tortured us. I had a child in my lap, a child in my womb. I was just crying, “Look, baba, you are my baba, you could be my child.”’
‘People ran, cows ran, fled with everything they had, with their cows,’ remembers Shurja Begum. ‘The military set fire to everything. We were about 14 people fleeing together. Everything, our homes were all burning. When we came back nearly two months later there was nothing left. Nothing. There were some baskets of eilish maach, they were burnt too, the fish were charred. Sultan, my brother was a muktijodhha. We stayed there and whenever the military came we ran. Allah, the shooting that started. We all dived into the pond water to save ourselves. Everything burned. No trees or anything left. Koran Sharifs also burned.’
Her narrative is erratic, going back and forth from the burnings, the killings and the fifteen days she was kept in a military camp. ‘I had five brothers and sisters. Again the military came and we fled. We saw them go by, laughing. My father, my brother, my husband, all gone.’
‘Mine is a dukkher itihaash,’ Shurja says of her own story. ‘My brother was shot; I saw the bullet go through the front of his head. My husband was shot. My sister and my cousin, my aunt’s daughter, they were dragged out in front of my mother. Killed in front of my mother. My head was cracked but I lived. They are dead. They are gone.’
Bahatun, a shrivelled old woman, was set on fire once her rape and torture was over. She seems aged beyond her years and is bent in half. She cannot stand straight nor walk normally, but hobble forward with her head just inches from the ground. But she, like the other seven, are happy to be where they are. They call Safina Lohani ‘Amma’ and dote on her daughters and grandchild, confide in her like children.
‘We first met her after independence. She came to us, told us that we would be looked after. That we were not forgotten,’ recalls Rahela.
‘You are muktijodhha,’ Lohani reminds them over and over again. ‘Is it any fault of yours? No. My husband has wounds from the war. Are your wounds any different?’
Fighting for the soul of Bangladesh
Fighting for the soul of Bangladesh
Dr Ayesha Siddiqa
Source: Daily Times
December 17, 2007
In their eagerness not to be compared to Pakistan, the Bangladeshis have failed to notice that they are slowly creeping towards a situation subtly comparable to Pakistan and that if they are not careful, the military would soon begin to play a decisive role in the country’s politics.
Talk to an average Bangladeshi about civil-military relations and they will tell you that their country is not like Pakistan and that they will never allow the military to take control of politics.
Unfortunately, in their eagerness not to be compared to Pakistan, the Bangladeshis have failed to notice that they are slowly creeping towards a situation subtly comparable to Pakistan and that if they are not careful the military would soon begin to play a decisive role in the country’s politics. They must also realise that the elite of any country might be as myopic as that of any other country and may push the country to political disaster.
Bangladesh started its transition to democracy in 1991 when public protests put an end to the rule of General Ershad who had taken over after the assassination of his predecessor General Zia-ur-Rehman. Since then, the army has not returned to politics. Bangaldeshi political historians always forget the botched coup attempt of 1996 when Generals Naseem and Hilal Murshad conspired to take over. Had the military been fully professional then, which means tightly organised as a hierarchy, it would have managed to take control of the government. The fact that the conspiring generals did not have good communication channels with the battalion guarding Dhaka and could not convince some generals to move from strategic positions saved the country. So, in 1996, there were elements in the army who had the ambition to gain power.
However, the civilian rulers entered into an informal partnership with the military according to which the government would ensure the military’s interest in return for the latter staying out of politics. This arrangement could be managed because the armed forces were not completely professional. The legacy of the Bangladeshi military is a mix of freedom fighters and officers repatriated from the United Pakistan armed forces. The friction between the two schools of thought did not allow for the kind of consolidation of perception and interests which would result in building up of a praetorian military. The officer cadre was further enticed into submission through the opportunities gained from participating in the UN peace keeping missions. Apart from the defence budget, the military depends on the UN to obtain resources for the gratification of its personnel.
Some of the UN money was later re-invested in exploring other possibilities for economic expansion by the armed forces. The Bangladeshi military has used some of this money as venture capital and established stakes in business and industry which is also a carry forward from the pre-1971 Fauji Foundation.
Since the past ten years, there have been three developments in Bangladesh which have had an impact on its politics.
First, the military has consolidated its corporate ethos and culture which means that the organisation is building cohesion within itself which it lacked earlier. Along with this, the military has also become more conscious of its interests, which includes personal stakes of the officer cadre. For a military which was basically meant to provide security against external threat to Bangladesh, the bulk has now become engaged in the UN peacekeeping missions. Whether peace-keeping missions are the core task of a professional military is a moot point.
Second, a gap has emerged between the people and the political leadership. The politicians have become more intensely authoritarian and myopic in their thinking. Such a transformation is not new but dates back to the times soon after the country was born. However, the predatory instinct of the politicians has intensified resulting in policies which would destabilise the country.
Third, there is the development of an equally predatory middle class which is willing to use the military as a secondary partner to change the current political arrangement. Since the Bangladeshi political system is patronage-based, the common man is not able to look beyond Sheikh Hasina and Khalida Zia. The problem of the educated middle class, on the other hand, is that while it is not willing to ‘soil their hands’ in the ‘dirty game of politics,’ they would like to take power away from these two female leaders. Resultantly, the educated middle class is quite happy to use the military and unfair political means to change the domestic scene.
For instance, while making a speech in Canberra the Bangladeshi advisor on foreign affairs claimed that the caretaker setup in the country denoted the rule of ‘Baudhulouk’. This term means educated and more capable; it was traditionally used by the Calcutta elite to refer to themselves. The underlying message of the gentleman, which more or less represents the perception of the educated middle class, is that there are new groups which are ready to replace the old leadership. Since mass politics is too dirty a game, these new power aspirants will use unfair means and the military to negotiate power. These people would rather have military help them with some rigging than let Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khalida Zia return to power.
Surely, the two ladies must share their part of the blame for letting things come to this point. The misuse of power and ill-conceived policies rarely bring fruit. For example, the BNP strategically encouraged the Jama’at and other religious extremist factions to their own advantage. Interestingly, Khalida Zia was not the only beneficiary of cultivating religious extremism. The military benefited both directly and indirectly. A more rightist society is bound to be more nationalistic in a narrow sense.
However, the problem is that using the military is never a good option. This is not an organisation which can be trusted to remain a junior partner once the civilian policymakers and stakeholders begin to use it to gain power.
Pakistan’s example is a case in point. The 1958 coup by the civil bureaucracy was not meant to bring in the military. But once General Ayub decided to take over power, there was nothing which could stop him. Sadly, we are still unable to check the military from gaining power.
Any Bangladeshi might argue that their armed forces and society are different. They will not let the military rule for long nor will the army try to come into power directly. There are two points which are worth making.
First, the army does not necessarily have to come directly into power. The organisation could become influential while remaining in the back seat and yet constantly destabilise politics.
Second, the Bangladeshi ruling elite is no different from any other, especially when we look at the manner in which it has sought to use authoritarianism and military force to its own advantage. They, like any other short-sighted and predatory elite, have completely forgotten that people are not to be taken for a ride. Too much tempering with the masses, the propensity to use extra-constitutional methods for transfer of power, and inability to deliver services to the public leads to a certain disenchantment amongst the common people. The people no longer take active interest in politics nor do they offer their lives to stand up for right against wrong; in any case, after a while, they are unable to tell the difference.
The Bangladeshi state and society at this point is very close to getting on the track of Pakistan’s politics. Its elite and middle class must evaluate the advantage of using short-term versus long-term perspective to life and politics.
Ayesha Siddiqa is the author of Military Inc, Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy. She can be reached at ayesha.ibd@gmail.com
Dr Ayesha Siddiqa
Source: Daily Times
December 17, 2007
In their eagerness not to be compared to Pakistan, the Bangladeshis have failed to notice that they are slowly creeping towards a situation subtly comparable to Pakistan and that if they are not careful, the military would soon begin to play a decisive role in the country’s politics.
Talk to an average Bangladeshi about civil-military relations and they will tell you that their country is not like Pakistan and that they will never allow the military to take control of politics.
Unfortunately, in their eagerness not to be compared to Pakistan, the Bangladeshis have failed to notice that they are slowly creeping towards a situation subtly comparable to Pakistan and that if they are not careful the military would soon begin to play a decisive role in the country’s politics. They must also realise that the elite of any country might be as myopic as that of any other country and may push the country to political disaster.
Bangladesh started its transition to democracy in 1991 when public protests put an end to the rule of General Ershad who had taken over after the assassination of his predecessor General Zia-ur-Rehman. Since then, the army has not returned to politics. Bangaldeshi political historians always forget the botched coup attempt of 1996 when Generals Naseem and Hilal Murshad conspired to take over. Had the military been fully professional then, which means tightly organised as a hierarchy, it would have managed to take control of the government. The fact that the conspiring generals did not have good communication channels with the battalion guarding Dhaka and could not convince some generals to move from strategic positions saved the country. So, in 1996, there were elements in the army who had the ambition to gain power.
However, the civilian rulers entered into an informal partnership with the military according to which the government would ensure the military’s interest in return for the latter staying out of politics. This arrangement could be managed because the armed forces were not completely professional. The legacy of the Bangladeshi military is a mix of freedom fighters and officers repatriated from the United Pakistan armed forces. The friction between the two schools of thought did not allow for the kind of consolidation of perception and interests which would result in building up of a praetorian military. The officer cadre was further enticed into submission through the opportunities gained from participating in the UN peace keeping missions. Apart from the defence budget, the military depends on the UN to obtain resources for the gratification of its personnel.
Some of the UN money was later re-invested in exploring other possibilities for economic expansion by the armed forces. The Bangladeshi military has used some of this money as venture capital and established stakes in business and industry which is also a carry forward from the pre-1971 Fauji Foundation.
Since the past ten years, there have been three developments in Bangladesh which have had an impact on its politics.
First, the military has consolidated its corporate ethos and culture which means that the organisation is building cohesion within itself which it lacked earlier. Along with this, the military has also become more conscious of its interests, which includes personal stakes of the officer cadre. For a military which was basically meant to provide security against external threat to Bangladesh, the bulk has now become engaged in the UN peacekeeping missions. Whether peace-keeping missions are the core task of a professional military is a moot point.
Second, a gap has emerged between the people and the political leadership. The politicians have become more intensely authoritarian and myopic in their thinking. Such a transformation is not new but dates back to the times soon after the country was born. However, the predatory instinct of the politicians has intensified resulting in policies which would destabilise the country.
Third, there is the development of an equally predatory middle class which is willing to use the military as a secondary partner to change the current political arrangement. Since the Bangladeshi political system is patronage-based, the common man is not able to look beyond Sheikh Hasina and Khalida Zia. The problem of the educated middle class, on the other hand, is that while it is not willing to ‘soil their hands’ in the ‘dirty game of politics,’ they would like to take power away from these two female leaders. Resultantly, the educated middle class is quite happy to use the military and unfair political means to change the domestic scene.
For instance, while making a speech in Canberra the Bangladeshi advisor on foreign affairs claimed that the caretaker setup in the country denoted the rule of ‘Baudhulouk’. This term means educated and more capable; it was traditionally used by the Calcutta elite to refer to themselves. The underlying message of the gentleman, which more or less represents the perception of the educated middle class, is that there are new groups which are ready to replace the old leadership. Since mass politics is too dirty a game, these new power aspirants will use unfair means and the military to negotiate power. These people would rather have military help them with some rigging than let Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khalida Zia return to power.
Surely, the two ladies must share their part of the blame for letting things come to this point. The misuse of power and ill-conceived policies rarely bring fruit. For example, the BNP strategically encouraged the Jama’at and other religious extremist factions to their own advantage. Interestingly, Khalida Zia was not the only beneficiary of cultivating religious extremism. The military benefited both directly and indirectly. A more rightist society is bound to be more nationalistic in a narrow sense.
However, the problem is that using the military is never a good option. This is not an organisation which can be trusted to remain a junior partner once the civilian policymakers and stakeholders begin to use it to gain power.
Pakistan’s example is a case in point. The 1958 coup by the civil bureaucracy was not meant to bring in the military. But once General Ayub decided to take over power, there was nothing which could stop him. Sadly, we are still unable to check the military from gaining power.
Any Bangladeshi might argue that their armed forces and society are different. They will not let the military rule for long nor will the army try to come into power directly. There are two points which are worth making.
First, the army does not necessarily have to come directly into power. The organisation could become influential while remaining in the back seat and yet constantly destabilise politics.
Second, the Bangladeshi ruling elite is no different from any other, especially when we look at the manner in which it has sought to use authoritarianism and military force to its own advantage. They, like any other short-sighted and predatory elite, have completely forgotten that people are not to be taken for a ride. Too much tempering with the masses, the propensity to use extra-constitutional methods for transfer of power, and inability to deliver services to the public leads to a certain disenchantment amongst the common people. The people no longer take active interest in politics nor do they offer their lives to stand up for right against wrong; in any case, after a while, they are unable to tell the difference.
The Bangladeshi state and society at this point is very close to getting on the track of Pakistan’s politics. Its elite and middle class must evaluate the advantage of using short-term versus long-term perspective to life and politics.
Ayesha Siddiqa is the author of Military Inc, Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy. She can be reached at ayesha.ibd@gmail.com
Call for Justice in Bangladesh
Bangladesh has never seen this much popular demand echoed in its history to bring war criminals to justice. Is it real? Or it is another ploy to hide the misdeeds of the current military miscreants? Apparently, this misgiving stems from the recent developments in Bangladesh as the army is relentlessly trying to float a king's party to advance and defend its political interests. The current uproars for trying war criminal Jamatis have so far failed to put any dent on the army backed Caretaker Government's firm position as they're seemingly unmoved. Even the Government has backed down from its earlier position to try war criminals. Barrister Moinul Hossain clarified that it's not their role to try rajakars. The caretaker government has not even allowed a freedom fighter to bring a sedition charge against collaborator Jamatis. What a shameless face of an army backed caretaker government!! It can bring fabricated charges against university professors and students to put them in jail to satisfy arrogant army generals, when it can not try the jamati rajakars who evidently collaborated with the Pakistani army to kill three million innocent civilians.
We would like to share with our readers the documentation of Jamati news paper Daily Sangram (their on-line version is currently off the shelf) that consistently ignited hatred against freedom fighters in 1971. This documentation is presented at the courtesy of Suchinta that documents Dainik Sangram’s Role in 1971. As a primary move for reconciliation, the Government can immediately move to sanction Daily Sangram for its horrific role in 1971 and transfer its ceased property to Freedom Fighters Welfare Trust. Dainik Sangrm, a Jamati daily, preaches fundamentalism and hatred in Bangladesh. It evidently acted against our land and our independence as the documentation shows how this paper acted against Bangladesh. Dainik Sangram should never be allowed to come back in an independent Bangladesh. Why don't we start with this small step by banning Daily Sangram today? Bangladesh has been waiting for too long to bring the Jamati criminals to justice. It's never too late, if we can take one simple step just today to heal this grieving nation as the nation once again witnessed the supreme sacrifices of our freedom fighters.
Remembering Allen Ginsberg
American poet Allen Ginsberg wrote this poem September on Jessore Road after visiting the refugee camp in the West Bengal in 1971. Watch Mousumi Voumik's song based on Jessore Road:
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Victory Day 2007
Today Bangladesh is proudly celebrating its 36th victory day. The nation is paying tributes to its bravest children who valiantly sacrificed their lives in 1971 for freedom, justice and democracy. We salute our martyrs. How long will Bangladesh wait for independence from injustice, oppression and autocracy?
"Drowning all words and sounds with the trumpet of your fiery
announcement, by flying aloft the new flag high
beating the ringing echo of the drums of victory
you have to come to Bengal, O Independence."
Statement from Kean University
Date: 12/15/2007
Dear Editor/Columnist
On behalf of Kean University and the organizers of the seminar at Kean University, we are writing this letter to inform you that we have seen several errors in the reports that are being written about the recent seminar at Kean University on December 9, 2007 titled “Bangladesh 1971: Intolerance Violence and Genocide”
As Kean University staff/administrator/faculty we urge you to write a correction report and I urge you NOT to misrepresent facts and truth. All of reports affect the reputation of the faculty and staff of the university and also the university itself. We are a reputed and accredited university in New Jersey. We are also the third largest university in New Jersey. We cannot afford loosing our reputation and cannot afford anybody to misrepresent ourselves. We urge you to contact the university and its administrators before you write any facts about any university event and about its faculty and staff.
We are posting some errors below and we are posting the correction as well.
Report: Prothom-Alo, Dated: 12/14/2007 By: Hasan Ferdous
1. The reporter Ferdous mentioned here that Dr. Nuran Nabi approached the university administration about the seminar on behalf of the expatriate Bangladeshis. This is a misrepresentation of the true fact.
Dr. Nabi did not approach the university authority. Dr. Nabi was invited to come and see Dr. Weinstein by the main organizers of the seminar after the concept of seminar was drawn. However, he helped with his heart to organize and gather the speakers/family members of the victim and Bangladeshi audience.
As university employee and as organizers of the seminar, we hope every Bengali in the United States community and in Bangladesh understand that, a university authority does NOT talk to an unknown outside person until a staff or a faculty member refers that person and brings in him/her to the university. An outsider to the university community CAN NOT just walk in and talk to a program coordinator or the Dean or the President and propose that an event like this should be done for the bigger community that is out there. Everybody should understand that there is a protocol and there is a chain of command process for every institution.
The reporter has put the university, its staff/faculty members and their combined effort down by writing such an unwarranted statement.
2. The reporter mentioned that the university is going to write a course description within a year, hire faculty member and start offering course.
This is also misrepresentation; there has not been any official declaration yet from the university about the time frame of developing a course on Bangladesh Genocide. As a university administrator We are speaking on behalf of the university. The university authority is overwhelmed by knowing the magnitude of the genocide and by looking into resources available. It will look into the possibility of writing a course after collecting enough resources that can support the course curriculum. The university administration is looking into developing research network with other universities and researchers about this genocide so that there is a strong background work before the curriculum is developed. All these actions are yet to be taken by the university administration. Please verify with us before making any statement about course work and please wait until there is an official declaration from the university authority.
I hope the correction to the report will be printed without any distortion.
Thank you,
Arifur Rahman/Dr. Bernard Weinstein
Assistant Director/Coordinator, MAHGS Program
Founder of Bangladesh Genocide Study Group at Kean University
Kean University, New Jersey
Dear Editor/Columnist
On behalf of Kean University and the organizers of the seminar at Kean University, we are writing this letter to inform you that we have seen several errors in the reports that are being written about the recent seminar at Kean University on December 9, 2007 titled “Bangladesh 1971: Intolerance Violence and Genocide”
As Kean University staff/administrator/faculty we urge you to write a correction report and I urge you NOT to misrepresent facts and truth. All of reports affect the reputation of the faculty and staff of the university and also the university itself. We are a reputed and accredited university in New Jersey. We are also the third largest university in New Jersey. We cannot afford loosing our reputation and cannot afford anybody to misrepresent ourselves. We urge you to contact the university and its administrators before you write any facts about any university event and about its faculty and staff.
We are posting some errors below and we are posting the correction as well.
Report: Prothom-Alo, Dated: 12/14/2007 By: Hasan Ferdous
1. The reporter Ferdous mentioned here that Dr. Nuran Nabi approached the university administration about the seminar on behalf of the expatriate Bangladeshis. This is a misrepresentation of the true fact.
Dr. Nabi did not approach the university authority. Dr. Nabi was invited to come and see Dr. Weinstein by the main organizers of the seminar after the concept of seminar was drawn. However, he helped with his heart to organize and gather the speakers/family members of the victim and Bangladeshi audience.
As university employee and as organizers of the seminar, we hope every Bengali in the United States community and in Bangladesh understand that, a university authority does NOT talk to an unknown outside person until a staff or a faculty member refers that person and brings in him/her to the university. An outsider to the university community CAN NOT just walk in and talk to a program coordinator or the Dean or the President and propose that an event like this should be done for the bigger community that is out there. Everybody should understand that there is a protocol and there is a chain of command process for every institution.
The reporter has put the university, its staff/faculty members and their combined effort down by writing such an unwarranted statement.
2. The reporter mentioned that the university is going to write a course description within a year, hire faculty member and start offering course.
This is also misrepresentation; there has not been any official declaration yet from the university about the time frame of developing a course on Bangladesh Genocide. As a university administrator We are speaking on behalf of the university. The university authority is overwhelmed by knowing the magnitude of the genocide and by looking into resources available. It will look into the possibility of writing a course after collecting enough resources that can support the course curriculum. The university administration is looking into developing research network with other universities and researchers about this genocide so that there is a strong background work before the curriculum is developed. All these actions are yet to be taken by the university administration. Please verify with us before making any statement about course work and please wait until there is an official declaration from the university authority.
I hope the correction to the report will be printed without any distortion.
Thank you,
Arifur Rahman/Dr. Bernard Weinstein
Assistant Director/Coordinator, MAHGS Program
Founder of Bangladesh Genocide Study Group at Kean University
Kean University, New Jersey
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