US Congress To Recognise Bangladesh Genocide In 1971

SALEEM SAMAD

Recently United States Congressman Steve Chabot along with co-sponsor Congressman Ro Khanna and Congresswoman Katie Porter introduced a bipartisan resolution 1430 “Recognising the Bangladesh Genocide of 1971” in Capitol Hill, Washington DC.

The resolution demands that the United States government should recognise the genocide committed by the Pakistan armed forces during the brutal birth of the country in 1971, which disproportionately targeted members of the Hindu community, secularists, and nationalist groups in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

Congressman Steve Chabot is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, and Co-Chair of the Bangladesh Caucus, introducing the resolution said, “There was a genocide. Millions of people were killed [in 1971] in what is now Bangladesh, and what was then East Pakistan.

About 80 per cent of those millions that were killed were Hindus. And it was, in my opinion, a genocide just like other genocides – like the Holocaust – happened. “

The historic resolution observes that the Pakistani ruling elite and officials harboured well-documented anti-Bangalee sentiment, considering Bangalees to be a lesser people group that had been corrupted by un-Islamic practices.

The infamous brutal crackdown “Operation Searchlight” involved widespread massacres of civilians. The operation targeted the Bangalee nationalists and especially the Hindus, who are dubbed with the demeaning word “Malaun” (cursed).

“The genocide against Bengalees and Hindus is one of the forgotten genocides of the 20th century and its lack of recognition remains an open wound for millions of people who were directly affected by the atrocities, remarked Senator Tabo”

Pakistan’s President, General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan, is recorded as saying to his top military brass “[k]ill 3 million of them and the rest will eat out of our hands”.

Unfortunately, the genocide against ethnic Bangalees and Hindus is one of the forgotten genocides of the 20th century and its lack of recognition remains an open wound for millions of people who were directly affected by the atrocities.

Earlier, the United States based non-governmental organisations Genocide Watch and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention sought international recognition of the atrocities committed by the Armed Forces of Pakistan as ‘genocide’.

An estimated number killed in the atrocities was 3 million (an official figure of the Bangladesh government). Nearly several hundred thousand were victims of rape as a weapon of war.

The bloody war caused nearly 10 million war refugees and took shelter in camps along the borders of India for their safety and up to 50 per cent of the population was internally displaced.

On March 28, 1971, United States Consul General in Dhaka, Archer Blood, sent a telegram to Washington titled “Selective Genocide” in which he wrote “Moreover, with support of Pak[istan] military, non-Bengali Muslims are systematically attacking poor people’s quarters and murdering Bengalis and Hindus. Streets of Dacca are aflood with Hindus and others seeking to get out of Dacca…”

Senator Edward Kennedy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in a report to the Committee on November 1, 1971, states “Nothing is more clear, or more easily documented, than the systematic campaign of terror—and its genocidal consequences—launched by the Pakistan army on the night of March 25th. Field reports to the U.S. Government, countless eye-witness journalistic accounts, reports of international agencies such as the World Bank, and additional information available to the Subcommittee document the continuing reign of terror which grips East Bengal. 

Hardest hit have been members of the Hindu community who have been robbed of their lands and shops, systematically slaughtered, and, in some places, painted with yellow patches marked ‘H’. All of this has been officially sanctioned, ordered and implemented under martial law from Islamabad.”

In a study published in 1972 titled “The Events in East Pakistan”, the Secretariat of the International Commission of Jurists states “There is overwhelming evidence that Hindus were slaughtered, and their houses and villages destroyed simply because they were Hindus.”

During the nine months of the war, the Pakistani military forces persecuted, tortured, and murdered representatives of Bangla culture and identity, including poets, musicians, professors, journalists, physicians, scientists, writers, and filmmakers.

Often debates are alive on the definition of genocide, persecution, atrocities and massacre rage among scholars and historians. The attempt to eliminate Hindus and the rape of women constitute crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.

There is no confusion after the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, signed on December 9, 1948, declares that genocide “means any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” and “The following acts shall be punishable: (a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; (d) Attempt to commit genocide; (e) Complicity in genocide.”

The resolution calls on the Pakistan authority, in the face of overwhelming evidence, to offer acknowledgement of its role in such genocide, offer formal apologies to the Government and people of Bangladesh, and prosecute, in accordance with international law, any perpetrators who are still living, the resolution said.

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities (HRCBM) held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington DC which was attended by journalists, human rights defenders, academics, social entrepreneurs, members of the Bangladeshi diaspora and also exiled rights defenders of Sindh and Balochistan.

Priya Saha, Executive Director of HRCBM said, “The Pakistani military and its militia forces, namely the death squad Al-Badr carried out the targeted assassination of more than 1,100 Bangla-speaking intellectuals and other professionals, to create an intellectual vacuum in the country. In Bangladesh, 1,942 mass graves were discovered.”

Speakers at the press conference discussed and answered questions about the impact of this historic resolution on the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific and radical groups originating from Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Among the speakers were Dr Sachi Dastidar, distinguished professor emeritus at SUNY, recalled his family’s personal experience as victims of genocide.

Prof Dwijen Bhattacharjya of Columbia University and General Secretary of the Bangladeshi Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council in the United States believes that resolution 1430 will be departing from the 1971 United States policy on the genocide in Bangladesh.

Saleem Samad, General Sectary of the Forum for Freedom of Expression, Bangladesh said the Pakistan military committed genocide with an “intent to eliminate” a race, language, culture, heritage, traditional practices and of course religion

The ‘rape as a weapon of war’ was executed for several reasons. Firstly, to give birth to “war babies” to establish a so-called ‘superior’ race. Secondly, to change the identity of race and ethnicity. Thirdly to break the morale of a defiant nation.

Munawar “Sufi” Laghari, the Executive Director of Sindhi Foundation said the resolution to recognise the Bangladesh genocide would enable Pakistan’s ‘military establishment’ to halt ongoing ethnic persecution of Sindhi and Baloch, enforced disappearances and forced conversion of Hindus girls in the restive province of Sindh and Balochistan.

The press conference moderated by Adelle Nazrarian, Media Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy (GIIS) and Communication and Legislative Director at HinduPACT urged the Bangladeshi diaspora in the United States, in particular, to work with their local representatives and requested that they support the resolution.

First published in The News Times, October 30, 2022

Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

Remands will soon be found in the museum

SALEEM SAMAD

The outspoken human rights lawyer Zahirul Islam Khan Panna assertively said that “the practice of remand will soon be found in a bolted iron cage in the museum.”

Remand, as Dr Masum Billah, a teacher of law at the Jagannath University, has said, is not found in the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), the Bible for judiciary and police crime management. The practice of obtaining remands for suspects or the accused from judicial magistrate courts is unconstitutional.

The police exercise section 167 of the CrPC, which ushers the victim into legal harassment and also intimidates victims with ill motives, flexing their political power. 

Advocate Panna did not hesitate to add that remands are mostly used for extortion from families after they hear about the police brutality the alleged accused face in police stations. From January to August of 2021, legal rights organization Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK) reported 44 deaths in judicial custody. The report points fingers at the perpetrators from the police force, elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), and Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB).

Unsurprisingly, the RAB has been blamed for 17 custodial deaths caused by torture. Next is the police for the deaths of 11 suspects, followed by the BGB (9 deaths). Most of these victims died in custody during interrogation, which has been practised since the British colonial era. 

Most senior officers of law enforcement agencies have participated in training courses in different countries on crime management, techniques of interrogation, investigation, and knowledge of forensic science vis-à-vis the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.

During the ongoing War on Terror campaign, also known as the Global War on Terrorism spearheaded by the United States in the aftermath of 9/11, hundreds of officers from the Bangladesh Police, security intelligence from the armed forces, and national intelligence attended courses on how to handle a suspect red-flagged as a terrorist. 

In addition, hundreds of police officers were deployed in peacekeeping under UN missions abroad training them in human rights. 

While in remand in November 2002, my torturer was in a UN peacekeeping mission in Kosovo and the interrogator from the DGFI attended a counterterrorism course in America under the WoT program.

Many human rights researchers claim that the century-old torture in custody has significantly decreased, while rights groups say that the curve of death in custody has not straightened. 

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has continued to urge the members of the Bangladesh Police to build themselves as a “pro-people force” -- a call that could not be more appropriate for ensuring human rights and strengthening democracy. Human rights abuses are endemic and most citizens who come in contact with the police complain of corruption and torture. 

In its assessment report, the International Crisis Group stated that a successful police reform can only be sustained if it is linked to a judiciary that enforces the rule of law and effectively protects individual rights and assures citizen security. 

It warned that if the police continue to be used for political ends, it will affect democracy, law and order, crime and corruption, national security, and the economic growth in Bangladesh.

The much ado about the Police Reform Program (PRP), which was funded by the United Nations, European Union, and British DFID, is back to square one. Ironically, the pro-Islamist alliance Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami-led government scuttled the PRP. The military-backed caretaker regime resuscitated the program in 2008.

With police reforms, Bangladesh could have been a more secure and stable country, where the human rights of citizens, particularly the vulnerable and marginalized, were promoted and protected to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), economic growth, and social justice.

The police bundled up their learning experience from the police reforms initiative and instead resorted to torture in judicial custody in name of extracting “vital” information needed for their investigations. 

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 21 September 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, a media rights defender, and a recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter @saleemsamad

Remand is torture, extortion in police custody

SALEEM SAMAD

“Remand” is a common word used in crime stories in newspapers and television news, mentioned when a suspect is detained and a remand is sought from a magistrate court for further interrogation.

Each time a remand is sought, the suspect experiences torture and humiliation in police custody. Any suspect in police custody is supposed to be safe and secured. In Bangladesh, it’s dangerous for an accused person to be in police custody.

Unfortunately, this legacy has been inherited by the police from the autocratic regime of Pakistan, and Pakistan inherited it from the British colonialists, who tortured revolutionaries and activists of the Swadeshi Movement.

In November 2002, I was accused of sedition, along with other foreign journalists of Channel 4 TV. In the wee hours of Friday in the month of Ramadan, I was hauled up from my friend’s apartment in Uttara. After Jumma prayers, I was driven to the Dhaka District Judicial Magistrate court in the old town.

Four armed plainclothes policemen in an unmarked van with shotguns protruding from the windows. A decoy vehicle accompanied us to cheat the paparazzi photographers and TV cameras. Two lorries with scores of police in riot gear escorted the “person of interest.”

The Friday traffic was thin and reached the court premise quickly. I wanted to get down but was asked to stay put while the detective police officers with walkie-talkies smoked and chewed pan (betel leaves). After several minutes, an officer snarled at the policemen to board the vehicles and head towards the Detective Branch (DB) HQ at Minto Road.

The unknown magistrate granted remand for five days without my appearance at the court. That was the reality of a democratically elected regime of Begum Khaleda Zia (2001-2006), which swept back to power after the October 1, 2001 elections.

Her regime refused to tolerate any critics, dissidents, and opposition. Delinquents were severely reprimanded. The reign of terror by police and intelligence agencies was to instil fear among nonconformist citizens.

Arbitrary arrests, torture, death in custody, legal harassments, enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings were rampant. This situation further deteriorated when her administration launched “Operation Clean Heart'' in the winter of 2001-2002. World leaders and international organizations expressed grave concern over the violation of the fundamental rights of the citizens.

On return from the magistrate court, Kohinoor Miah, the deputy police commissioner of DB who had close ties with Hawa Bhaban, took me to a powerhouse outside the prime minister’s office run by Khaleda’s rogue eldest son Tarique Rahman and thrashed me with a baton wrapped with electric wires and hit my knee cap (which does not swell). After iftar, he again assaulted me and threw me on the floor and held his service revolver on my forehead and screamed that he should shoot me for defaming the country.

During five days of remand, three military officers of DGFI tortured me during interrogation and wanted me to confess a fairytale conspiracy that they had written on their storyboard. I was determined not to confess, nor did I sign any print-outs downloaded from the internet. Thus the scale of suffering increased. I was also denied food, drinking water, a toothbrush, and soap to clean after defecation.

Suddenly the torture stopped on the fourth day of the remand. A detained underworld don living in the same prisoner’s cell said that the torturer did not want to show fresh marks of torture to the magistrate.

Recently, the High Court made an exception to remand popular movie star Pori Moni three times. The judge observed that conceding multiple remand conflicts with the Supreme Court guidelines on arrests, detention and interrogation of suspects. Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam and Justice KM Zahid Sarwar Kajol said the repeated permission for remanding Pori Moni challenged the independence of the judiciary.

Veteran human rights lawyer Zahirul Islam Khan Panna told the court on a petition seeking directives that the guideline for remand is only followed by the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) during the arrests, detention, and interrogation of war crime suspects.

First published the Dhaka Tribune, 14 September 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter @saleemsamad