How come that the alleged war crimes trial kept pending for 36 years can’t be delayed for another year? I mean why can’t we wait for until the year beginning 2009 for the next elected government to take on the administration of Bangladesh? Why should one pressurize the present Caretaker Government (CG) to do the task what the governments of varied persuasions in the last 35 years could not do anything about?
The year 1971 of Bangladesh happened undoubtedly not only to be a period of war but also a political turmoil inside caused by two distinct opposing stance backed up by their own ideologies. On top of the situation, the 70 million people of the country faced external threats against sovereignty owing to the internal division who since 1947 waited for such a situation of internal division and strife to take advantage of for reprisal of 1947 division of India and of Bengal.
If we forget for the moment the complicacies of 1971 and presume that all the people of Bangladesh wished to have ‘independent Bangladesh’ prior to 16th December 1971 for argument’s sake, and that is why any crime against movement for independence of Bangladesh should be recognized and opponents be put to trial without any further question, it is very likely that such stance is likely to fall into ditch.
The first, to me, is the leader Sheikh Mujib who ditched himself in post 1972 period; had he been alive today, he would fall again into the same ditch, because, he left the people not only in dark about his real intention about freedom without giving Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) but also surrendered to the enemy, no matter will fully or not, thus also raising serious doubts in the minds of many intelligent people, including the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the external prime mentor in the ‘independence’ movement who was known to have blasted the leaders Tajuddin etc meeting her soon after the 25th March 1971 in Delhi in the absence of the number one leader!.
The second is also the Sheikh who without making the UDI on hearing the news in Mianwali prison about the December War proper offered to the President of Pakistan Yahya Khan to address the people of East Pakistan on the Pakistan TV to oppose Indian aggression against East Pakistan (see, London English fortnightly Impact International Sept 28- Oct 08 1987, p.19).
The third is again the Sheikh who according to American historian and academic Stanley Wolpert confided with the then Pakistan President Zuklfiquer Ali Bhutto to have ‘Confederation’ with Pakistan (See, Wolpert’s Zulfiquer Ali Bhutto of Pakistan, 1993, OUP, page 151) that clearly implied that the Sheikh did not take firm stand before for independence of Bangladesh from Pakistan. The matter he confided with Bhutto may as well be traced in his maiden speech he made on return from Pakistan as a ‘free’ man on the 10th January 1972 at the then Ramna Race Course in Dhaka, wherein he said at a point, BHUTTO SAHEB BALLEN AMADER EKTA SAMPORKO THAKTE HOBE; that in English version is, Mr. Bhutto proposed to me that we have to have a relation, then he gave a pause, the audience shouted ‘no’ ‘no’; the Sheikh then said, NE BHUTTO SAHEB NE, no Bhutto Sahib no. The reference to Bhutto should have clearly meant that the Sheikh had a deal that he wished to have a nod, but did not get, obviously due to high passions of the Bangladeshis against anything Pakistan at that point of time. Hasan Zaheer (The Separation of East Pakistan, UPL, 2001, preface, p. xxii) too has mentioned that Mujib had admitted to Anthony Mascarenhas on the 8th January in London 1972 on his way from Pakistan to Dhaka saying that he was ‘going to keep some linkage with Pakistan’ (quoted from Anthony Mascarenhas’ The Legacy of Blood).
The fourth is also the Sheikh himself who being the best beneficiary of the MUIBNAGAR declaration of independence on the 10th April 1971, hardly afterwards gave big credit to Tajuddin Ahmad for the otherwise historic job; instead he rebuked Tajuddin for dismemberment of Pakistan, ‘Tomra Shesh Parjantya Pakistan Bhenge Dile’- how come you people dismembered Pakistan- (see now late falling to assassins bullet, Prof. Dr. Aftab Ahmad’s confession published in several print media including weekly Ekaler Katha, late 2007 Issue) on the 10th January 1972 in the Tejgaon Airport Tarmac; never in three and a half years of his ruling the country, he spared a single moment to speak in praise of the Mujibnagar, much less visit the spot at all. One may recall the Sheikh’s encaging indefinitely of the first Prime Minister of Bangladesh Tajuddin in the Dhaka Central prison in about two years of independence of Bangladesh in late 1973!
The fifth is the Sheikh, because he had on many occasions dramatized the war crimes trial and collaborators’ issues, and yet he himself ate his own pies not only letting the real war criminals 195/118 set free, vainly boasting, ‘we know how to forgive’, but also freeing from prison dropping all charges and then sending the ‘number one collaborator’ Khawja Khairuddin as the ‘Special Emissary’ of the Sheikh to Pakistan’s President Bhutto for mending future formal relations with Pakistan, not merely for establishing diplomatic relation that had already been established soon after Pakistan’s formal recognition in February 1974, primarily obtained in exchange for returning to Pakistan from India the real war criminals (195/118) in exchange for recognition by Pakistan of Bangladesh as the independent country!
The alleged war crime trial has further lacuna. The 1971 period of Bangladesh is recorded in all international documents due mainly for the lack of UDI as ‘Civil War’ (See Brockhampton’s Dictionary of World History, London 1994, p.56), possibly, except the period of real war between India and Pakistan, 3rd December to 16th December (though three days war between 3-6 December was clearly India’s aggression for India had not recognized Bangladesh before 6th December). Whether war crime under the Geneva Convention would apply to the ‘civil war’ period is an additional lacuna. Along with these lacunas another crucial issue cannot escape the question of due process of law and justice for any and all non-combatant people killed, tortured, maimed etc. during the period of not only March 1971 to 16th December but also afterwards for shear reprisal or even personal enmity not only on both sides of the political divides, pro-Bangladeshis and pro-Pakistanis but also of the so-called ‘ethnic’ genre.
Although the Bangladesh Government in the last 36 years could not produce any authentic figure of the people killed in 1971, curiously though the government paid compensations to only about 9,000 victims killed in 1971 in fulfillment of their compensation commitment to be paid to each and everyone killed against the God sent figure of ‘3 million’, the Harvard group (USA) in their survey in late 1970s had figures of about 100,000 of Bengalis killed and about 200,000 non-Bengalis killed n 1971 (See, Robert Sisson and Leo Rose, 1980). The Harvard study figures has signaled the need for exact identification of the dead in 1971 in respect of ‘ethnic’ divide (Bengalis, Biharis, Pathans, Panjabis, Tribals etc.) for right forensic and DNA tests of whatever remains available whenever in future the cases would be taken for due process of law.
The brief presented above is in no way exhaustive, but an outline of hints on complicacies involved in the matter that the CG could hardly pay any attention to without sacrificing their main Herculean task to conduct in the time frame by December 2008 the general election in all possible fairness, neutrality and ensuring credibility. It is thus only reasonable and rational to expect that the complicated task of alleged war crime be taken up by the next elected government. Whether they would not fail just like the previous governments in the last 36 years is another matter that only the future can tell.
Author: M.T. Hussain
16 December 2007
