Untold Facts

War Crimes and Missing Links for Indictment

The issue of war crimes of 1971 in Bangladesh is a long talked about issue, now orchestrated and fanned in the wake of the long overdue 2008 December 29 election for the 9th Parliament of the country.

37 Years Silence

It is not any secret that the issue has been there for the last 37 years or so, and the party who is now seen spearheading the matter are none but those who not only reigned Bangladesh for two terms, once in 1972-75 and 1996-2001, but also swallowed themselves the pill of immunity, if not for anything else but for political expediency and holding on to the power of the State at huge cost of miscarriage of justice and abuse of rule of law. How could they on any moral ground now in December 2008 re emerge as the champion of the issue for trial of the war crimes of 1971?

Abuse of Issues

Some of the enthusiasts have been citing examples of trial of the Second World War crime perpetrators as of now being put on trial, still some other citing the trial of the 1994 genocide of Ruanda. There are other examples of trial for war crimes like Kosovo etc. and is, no doubt, being put on trial. Mind that all these are being done under the UN auspices and not by the country concerned. The concerned country’s part in such trials is not of adjudication but merely for lodging complaint with sufficient evidence against individuals and nothing summarily against any group or party. The simple reason is that any human rights violation is a person to person matter, and in case of army involved the onus pass on also to the commander or who would order any violation including killing. Based on such reason, in case of war, the army in operation is indicted. That is what was done in 1972 by the then government in listing 195 of the Pakistan Army who remained in operation in Bangladesh/East Pakistan in 1971. The collaborators Act of 1972 was however a different one, not for trial of armed forces men violating human rights, but for civilians committing crimes against Bangladesh movement that for its internal inherent weakness obviously and ultimately turned to be against basic human rights and conflicted with fundamental rights of the Constitution enforced in December 1972. The so-called collaborators act being thus void, the government in mid 1973 made an act ‘Special Tribunal’ to bring to justice some specific criminal offenders of 1971.

195 ‘Forgiven’

Unfortunately, the then Bangladesh Government despite making many high sounding rhetoric let all of the listed 195 war criminals release without any indictment in about one year and a half in mid 1973.Why? One can not take the rhetoric ‘we know how to forgive’ shouted in public by the then top leader but bound by many other issues of greater concern then boggling the head and heart of the top leader and the Bangladesh Government.

The Number One for Indictment

First, the government despite having had recognition by many countries as independent country following the 1971 war outside the federal framework of Pakistan, non-recognition of Pakistan, China, Saudi Arab etc. obviously made many problems unbearable for the new country. In addition, the top leader himself was being the votary of the united Pakistan fresh then in his memory as he had refused to be the secessionist being the majority group representing the then people of East Pakistan. He had in addition for his being a ‘true Pakistani’ despite being a Bengali kept many instances on record, if not the previous set up of united federal Pakistan but a confederation (See, Stanley Wolpert, Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan, OUP, 1993, p.175, Impact International, London, 25th September, 1987, p.19, etc.). Having these personal weaknesses and bites of his own conscience in post 1971 period the top leader had been very much anxious to mend relations not only with Pakistan (remnant) but also with China and Saudi Arabia that forced him to compromise on many issues including the trial of the 195 listed ones.

China’s Non-Recognition of Bangladesh until 1975 Mid August

China did not accept post 1971 government of Bangladesh anything more than a simple puppet and a colony of India always dancing in tune with the Indian ruling group, and so she did not recognize Bangladesh as an independent country until the fall of the government in August 1975. They had their own reason not only for friendly relations with Pakistan but also the way things were being run at the dictation of Delhi.

Saudi Arabia’s Non-Recognition until Mid August 1975 and Problems for Dhaka

Saudi Arabia had also her own logic for not recognizing of Bangladesh until the revolutionary change and fall of the first government in Mid August 1975. The Saudi issue had been very critical for the Bangladesh government not only for not according recognition but also for the fact that the majority Muslim people of Bangladesh for religious reason started to distance away from their own government for failing to bring in recognition. Several top level Bangladesh delegations lobbied with Riadh but had no result. Even a political party chief of Saudi liking and closeness miserably failed to initiate any little amount of thaw as I knew that he was trying to plea for goodness of the top leader to the Saudi King Khaled in late December 1974 (if my memory does not fail me) by literally got slamming of the door on the mediator’s face. During 1972 to 1975, that is, as long as Saudi Arabia did not accord formal recognition to Bangladesh, the Hajj pilgrims of Bangladesh had to take visas from Saudi Embassy in India or through some other country’s embassy in Dhaka, not as Bangladeshis but as East Pakistanis. This was ludicrous not for the pilgrims alone but also for the government, as well. Average people of Muslim majority Bangladesh took the issue everyday growing with anger against the government.

People’s Life and Living became Unbearable

Other issues of every day life and living constraints that mounted each day in and out against the back drop of loud promises made to the common people of ‘milk and honey’ should the Pakistanis go away came up very harshly to the people as only hollow rhetoric of the self-seeker politicians of the time, and in total frustration having memories of better days prior to 1971. The government then had to forget many issues of 1971 and tried to concentrate on other life threatening matters. The famine of 1974 had by then took lives of thousands, according to government figures, if not lakhs. Help from China, Saudi Arabia and even from Pakistan were much sought for. Pakistan came forward soon after the real war criminals had been forgiven and let go free in mid 1973 to Pakistan (West) that also made Pakistan accord recognition to Bangladesh as an independent country in February 1974.

The So-Called Collaborators Act and its Fall Outs

Those were some of the compulsions that the Bangladesh faced and encountered the way soon after the 1971 war. In the difficulties, the government had to abandon in practical terms the so-called Collaborators Act of 1972 for which they had to declare ‘general amnesty’ for the thousands of imprisoned so-called collaborators of Pakistan held without trial. In the parlance of political ideology, the so-called collaborators had been the prisoners of conscience for they refused to yield to the machinations of dismemberment of their own country their forefathers had acquired in 1946-47 through popular will of the people.

Collaborator Khawja Khairuddin became Emissary of Dhaka to Islamabad

One such collaborator Khawja Khairuddin, top leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (Council) told me an interesting story about his trial under the collaborators act. When the trial began in mid 1973 he made his own submission to the court stating that he came from the very Dhaka Nawab family that established the Muslim League in 1906; the same League established Pakistan through a long drawn struggle of the Muslims of British India in 1947; it was as such his legal and moral duty to preserve the integrity of Pakistan, particularly in the period of civil commotion of 1971. He did as such nothing wrong in opposing the secessionist movement that had no clear mandate of the people of East Pakistan. He told me further in 1982 in London in a private meeting with few others that the presiding judge, interrupted him in about the mid of the statement and then adjourned the court not for the day only but also for good in his case. He was then freed; but soon re-arrested, again freed and the top leader or the Prime Minister of the Government in a haste returned his citizenship forfeited in early 1972. The matter did not end there; he was then given a Bangladeshi passport under special order of the government and sent him to Pakistan as a special emissary to make rapport for Bangladesh with the Prime Minister Zufiquer Ali Bhutto to mend relation with Pakistan. One may as such have one’s own conclusion of the Bangladeshi leader in regard to the collaborators’ case.

The Number One Collaborator not Indicted

It may be amazing to recall here that any trial under the collaborators act should have been applied first for the top leader of former East Pakistan who had publicly refused to be a secessionist arguing that the majority (East Pakistanis) could not be secessionists. That the top leader escaped the trial for refusing to be secessionist and yet for unknown reason for trying those under the collaborators act who opposed secession in 1971, and further that he let off the real criminals go free, should not escape prosecution for the same offence in some honorable court of justice to examine in depth and settle if there was any link of collaboration of the top leader for which the non-secessionists were being tried.

Fiasco of the Special Tribunal

That the Government and the top leader holding then absolute power did not do anything, not even a single case, in follow up of the act after enacting that in July 1973 as the ‘Special Tribunal’ for bringing in to justice the specific human rights violators, should be held accountable for all such omissions. Is not it?

Civilians not Indictable in the International Court

One must further wonder if there is any provision to try any civilian in the International Court for any crime of 1971 in the back drop of the real criminals went free with all immunity.

Violations Perpetrated from Both Sides of the Divide

The international scholars like Harvard (USA) based Sisson and Rose, New York based Small and Singer, Indian scholar Sharmila Bose, to name some known to me, had had their figures of 1971 violation human rights in Bangladesh wherein they found figures not in full agreement but all had one conclusion in common that there had been violations more or less by both sides of the divide, pro-Bangladeshis and anti-secessionists of 1971 fell on each other at their own opportune moments. That was really the facts of 1971.

1971 War was India’s War for Avenging the Defeat of 1000 Years

Those who wish to make an analogy of other war crimes and trial thereof like the Second World War forget to identify and clearly sort out that the Bangladesh 1971 episode had in no way been a war of the World War kind for years involving the divided world powers but a war of revenge of Indian Brahminism against Muslim power in the Himalayan subcontinent that had a history of defeats for the Brahminists for one thousand years in the past except the historic 1971 one  just as the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had also spontaneously remarked on the 16th December victory day evening of 1971 as  ‘HAZAR SALOKE BADFLA LE LIYA’, that is, ‘We have taken the revenge of the defeats of the last one thousand years’. It was an internal fight between the Federalist and the secessionists in which the opportunist Indians took the best advantage of in 1971 to dismember Pakistan, teaching a good lesson to their ‘enemy number one’, notwithstanding the fact that many patriotic freedom fighters of Bangladesh fought heroically in the war for freedom and independence.

Crying Wolf

I would have thought that unless and until the above collaboration matter of the top leader is rightly settled in independent court, there is no point in crying wolf for the trial of the ‘war crimes’ now in Bangladesh just to make a hype of the dead issue of 1971 just before the 29 December general election to secure some votes one way or the other. How can any sensible person be oblivious of the missing links and phenomena? How could the UN and the International Court of Justice do anything in the matter unless and until the core and the prior issues are rightly sorted out first of everything and anything?

Witch-Hunting Once Again

However, if some one wishes to make witch hunting as the 1972-75 government did but largely stopped soon after the then living politician and octogenarian Maolana Bhashani had warned them of the gross injustice being done through all forms of miscarriage of justice perpetrated under the so called collaborators act of 1972. His verbatim in the matter of miscarriage of justice was, ‘CHIKON ALIR FANSI HOLO EKHON MOTA ALIR KI HOBE’ or in English version, the poor man Chikon Ali Razakar got hanged, what would be the fate of the big shot collaborators and Razakars’? Chikon Ali happened to be the only one hanged to death in 1973 for being an active anti-secessionist fighter in Kustia, about 300 kms. North- west of Dhaka.

No Moral Ground to Try Alone the Vanquished

Viewed in the total context could any one, at least in moral ground, demand trial in Bangladesh of war crimes for 1971 violations of human rights giving all immunity to the victorious and condemning only the vanquished?

Dr. M.T. Hussain