Bangladesh: Justice and Blood

SANCHITA BHATTACHARYA

ON FEBRUARY 5, 2013, at least three people were killed and another 35 were injured when cadres of the Jamaat-e-Islam (JeI) and its student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS), protesting against the ongoing War Crimes (WC) Trial, clashed with the Police during the party enforced country wide dawn-to-dusk hartal (general shut down) in Chittagong District. Two ICS cadres (Imran Khan and Afzal Hossain) and Shafiqu, a factory worker, were killed during a clash with Police. Police later arrested 15 ICS cadres from the same District. Protests and demonstrations, disrupting normal life and commercial activities, were also reported from other Districts, including Dhaka, Comilla, Rajshahi, Khulna, Sylhet, Satkhira, Bogra, Natore, Bhola, Chuadanga and Dinajpur, in which at least another 65 persons were reported injured.

Earlier, on January 31, 2013, six persons, including four JeI-ICS cadres, one Policeman and a civilian, had been killed during nationwide protests and demonstrations. In Bogra town (Bogra District), four JeI-ICS cadres were killed in a clash with Police; while another clash in the Manirampur sub-District of Jessore District saw one Police Constable killed. In Feni District, an auto rickshaw driver succumbed to his injuries after his vehicle was attacked by JeI-ICS cadres. In Jessore District, 20 people, including Policemen, were injured in clashes. Protests and demonstrations, disrupting normal life and commercial activities, were also reported from the Districts of Dhaka, Jhenaidah, Sylhet, Chittagong, Lakshmipur, Barisal, Moulvibazar and Sirajganj.

Since the constitution of International Crime Tribunal (ICT), on March 25, 2010, Bangladesh has experienced a resurgence of street violence and protests, resulting in the death of 13 people, including seven JeI-ICS cadres, five civilians and one Policeman, and injuries to another 818, including 404 Policemen, according to partial data compiled by the Institute for Conflict Management. As many as 2,691 JeI-ICS cadres have been arrested for their involvement in violence over this period.

Significantly, protests and demonstrations, culminating in street violence, have intensified in the aftermath of recent judgments pronounced by the ICT-2 against two of the seven JeI leaders indicted for war crimes during the Liberation War of 1971.

On January 21, 2013, a death sentence was meted to JeI leader Moulana Abul Kalam Azad aliasBachchu, by ICT-2 (constituted on March 22, 2012), for war crimes. The prosecution had stacked eight charges against the expelled JeI leader including: abduction and torture of Ranjit Kumar Nath; abduction and torture of Abu Yusuf Pakhi; murder of Sudhangshu Mohan Roy; murder of Madhab Chandra Biswas; rape of two Hindu women; murder of Chitta Ranjan Das; genocide of Hindu majority in Hasamdia village of Faridpur District and abduction and torture of an unnamed Hindu girl. Azad was found guilty on seven of the eight charges, including ‘genocide’, and was sentenced to be hanged by the neck till dead. However, the judgment noted, “Since the convicted accused has been absconding the ‘sentence of death’ as awarded above shall be executed after causing his arrest or when he surrenders before the Tribunal, whichever is earlier.”

Azad had escaped from Dhaka city on March 30, 2012, and went into hiding seven hours before an arrest warrant was issued by ICT-2, on April 3, 2012. According to an unnamed official of Detective Branch of Police, Azad fled to India crossing the Hilli border in the Dinajpur District of the Indian State of West Bengal illegally, and proceeded to Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh in Pakistan, where he is currently believed to be staying. He was, however, indicted in absentia by ICT-2 on November 4, 2012.

Following the judgment, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni, on January 25, 2013, declared, “You know he (Bachchu) has been awarded death penalty… he’ll be brought back home as soon as possible through diplomatic efforts after being sure of his hideouts… We are carrying our coordinated efforts to that end.”

Meanwhile, on February 5, 2013, ICT-2 awarded life term imprisonment to another JeI leader Abdul Quader Molla on war crimes charge. Molla, who was arrested on July 13, 2010, in a criminal case and on August 2, 2010, was shown arrested in connection with War Crimes, was indicted by ICT-2 on May 28, 2012. The ICT-2 convicted Molla on five charges including the murder of a student, Pallab, of Bangla College; the murder of pro-Liberation poet Meherun Nesa, her mother and two brothers in the Mirpur area of Dhaka city; the murder of Khondoker Abu Taleb, also in Mirpur; the murder of 344 civilians in Alubdi village, in Mirpur; and the murder of Hazrat Ali, along with five members of his family in Mirpur area. The final verdict found the accused guilty of ‘crimes against humanity’ and sentenced him to imprisonment for life and for a second sentence of 15 years which was, however, ‘merged’ into the sentence of life imprisonment.

War crime trials for another seven indicted persons continue. They include five JeI leaders – nayeb-e-ameer (deputy chief) Delawar Hossain Sayeedi (indicted on October 3, 2011); former JeI chief Golam Azam (indicted on May 13, 2012); present JeI chief Motiur Rahman Nizami (indicted on May 28, 2012); JeI ‘general secretary’ Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed (indicted on June 21, 2012); JeI ‘assistant secretary’ Mohammed Qamaruzzaman (indicted on June 4, 2012); as well as two Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) political figures and lawmakers – Salauddin Quader Chowdhury (indicted on April 4, 2012) and Abdul Alim (indicted on June 11, 2012).

Conspicuously, reiterating that the ongoing WC trials cannot be stopped by the anti-Liberation forces by unleashing attacks and enforcing hartals, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed on January 31, 2013, categorically reiterated that the war criminals would not be spared. Sheikh Hasina said the present Government is pledge-bound to try the war criminals responsible for killing three million people and shaming many women during the Liberation War. Sheikh Hasina declared, “We’ve got a verdict against one war criminal…the verdicts against the other war criminals will come one after another and no war criminal would be spared.”

Significantly, massive and sustained protests, which commenced just hours after Molla’s sentencing, and that are still continuing, were initiated against the ‘leniency’ of the sentence imposed, and demanded the death sentence for the accused. By February 8, 2013, in what has been described as ‘Bangladesh’s Tahrir Square’, nearly 100,000 people had gathered in the Shahbag Avenue of Dhaka, demanding the death penalty for Molla. On February 10, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni joined the ongoing popular pro-WCT protests, even as protestors submitted a six-point demand, including the death penalty for Molla and all other war criminals, to the Speaker of the National Parliament, Abdul Hamid.

The six point demand also included trial of all political parties, forces, individuals and organisations trying to save war criminals and conspiring to foil the WC trials; and revocation of the state's power to declare general amnesty for the persons convicted by the tribunals. Earlier, on February 6, 2013, residents of Thakurgaon, Chandpur, Nilphamari, Lalmonirhat, Mymensingh, Rangpur and Manikganj Districts formed human chains and took out processions demanding capital punishment for Molla.

With their very existence at stake, anti-Liberation forces can be expected to continue their efforts to discredit and subvert the WC trials and decisions. The country can, consequently, be expected to experience cycles of disruption and violence, certainly till general elections that fall due between October 26, 2013, and January 24, 2014. However, the recent and protracted mass demonstrations in favour of the trials and protesting against the ‘light sentence’ of life imprisonment imposed on the second convict, Abdul Quader Molla, have set a new dynamic into motion, and will give the Sheikh Hasina Government greater strength. The outcome of the elections of end-2013 or early 2014, however, will remain pivotal: if a hostile regime is, once more, elected, it would be likely to allow the WC trial process to fall into neglect, and to reverse the present judgments – unless the process of appeals and execution of sentences has already been completed by this stage. The present sentences are, of course, major milestones in the long, slow journey to justice for the atrocities of the 1971 Liberation War, but they are yet to secure their legitimate goal, and bring closure to this hideous phase of Bangladesh’s history.

 

First published in South Asia Intelligence Review, Weekly Assessments & Briefings, Volume 11, No. 32, February 11, 2013

Sanchita Bhattacharya is Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

Progressive Bangladesh takes to the streets at Shahbagh Square

ZAFAR SOBHAN

To the public, although there is no evidence, the stench of back-room deal-making and cold political calculus is in the air.

  

They say a good compromise leaves everyone mad. The International Crimes Tribunal must have thought that giving Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Mollah life in prison was a judgement Solomonic in its wisdom. Little could they have guessed that the judgement would ignite a firestorm of protest and fury that continues to burn brightly as I write this.

They are calling it Shahbagh Square. Ever since the verdict against Mollah came down around noon on Tuesday, voices began to be raised in anger and anguish, and many of the aggrieved started to congregate around Shahbagh Mor, an intellectual hub of the city and legendary site of political activism, to register their unhappiness with the verdict and to call for the death penalty for Mollah and all other war criminals.

Today, the movement is coming to the close of its fourth day, and shows no signs of abating, the cumulative crowd over the time having swollen to tens of thousands and with thousands of young activists at its permanent core, the beating heart of a deeply felt and electrifying political awakening. A spontaneous uprising of conscientious and conscious young men and women, deliberately distancing itself from the established political leadership and entities, this is the most exciting moment in Bangladeshi politics for years.

The protesters have a good case. Five separate counts of murder, the numbers butchered totalling in the hundreds, would seem to merit the death penalty under any reasonable interpretation of Bangladeshi law. Either the man is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt or he is not. And if he is, then a life sentence is absurd.

To the public, although there is no evidence for such a suggestion, the rancid stench of back-room deal-making and cold political calculus is in the air. They place the blame for the verdict squarely on the government's shoulders.

Interestingly, the anger ignited by the verdict shows both that there is political life stirring among progressives and that the war crimes trials remain popular among the public. In the run up to the Mollah verdict, public and government anxiety all revolved around the Jamaat, who were flexing their muscles in clashes with the police and alarming displays of violence in support of their shut-downs around the country.

But ever since the verdict, they have been on the back foot. The streets are ruled by the progressives, calling for the execution of their leaders, the banning of the party, and threatening to meet them in the streets if they want to take it there. The balance of power has shifted dramatically.

If anyone thought that the controversies that have dogged the trials have caused the public to sour on the process, they will have to think again. Those out on the streets at Shahbagh weren't protesting the insufficiencies of the trial process. Their unhappiness is targeted in a totally different direction.

On the face of it, this outpouring of emotion would seem to be good news for the ruling Awami League (AL). They are the ones who have brought us the war crimes trials. The movement would seem to be an endorsement of the centre-piece of their political philosophy and policy platform. And the public's demands for the death penalty for war criminals must give the government confidence that they can see the trials through without meaningful backlash.

But there is a chance that the movement will take an unexpected turn in a direction less to the government's liking. While the movement is in favour of the trials and targeted at the Jamaat, there is also a lot of anger directed towards the government. AL leaders joining the rally were not permitted to speak, and one was pelted with water bottles.

It is richly ironic that the current opposition to the government is from those supporting the war crimes trials and not against them. This is opposition from a direction the government never anticipated, and if they are not able to either co-opt or cool down or otherwise contain this mobilisation of consciousness and awakening of activist emotion, it may yet consume them.

First published in The Sunday Guardian, 9TH FEBRUARY 2013

Zafar Sobhan is editor of the Dhaka Tribune, an English daily newspaper

'Bangla Spring' brings back spirit of 1971

SUBIR BHAUMIK

IF THE Arab Spring was all about democracy and people power, this spring in Bangladesh is all about rejuvenation, a return to the spirit of 1971 that made independence from Pakistan a reality.

Since last Tuesday, tens of thousands of men and women, mostly young people, have thronged at Shahbagh, one of Dhaka's busiest intersections, demanding death for the 'killers of 1971'.

Over the last few days, many of them have refused to leave, some have stayed on even with their little children and whole families.

Songs, poetry, films and slogans have enlivened the cultural muscle of Bengali nationalism as it takes on the Islamists in an emerging confrontation that Lawrence Lifschultz had christened "the Unfinished Revolution".

It all started with a verdict of life imprisonment for Jamaat-e-Islami's assistant secretary general Abdul Quader Molla, popularly known as the "Butcher of Bengalis" for his role in the mass murders during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

The Jamaat stood for undivided Pakistan and opposed the Bengali struggle for independence from the Islamic state. Its activists joined the 'support forces' of the Pakistan Army in some numbers the Razakars, Al Badr and the Al Shams. Some of the horrendous atrocities perpetrated during the 1971 Liberation War were perpetrated by these 'support forces'.

Ever since Bangladesh returned to democracy from military rule in the early 1990s, the demand for trial of these Islamist activists who were responsible for the mass murders, the gang rapes and other atrocities have been growing.

The Awami League, which led the 1971 Liberation War against Pakistan, promised trial for the war crimes if elected to power in the rundown to the December 2008 parliament elections.

Once in power, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government set up two war crimes tribunals one in 2010, the other in 2012 to expedite the trials of the war criminals under a 1973 law promulgated by her father Sheikh Mujibur Rehman's administration.

It is not possible to try Pakistani officers and men but locals who perpetrated 'crimes against humanity' during the 1971 war can be brought to justice.

Nine top leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami and two of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party are now facing trial in these two tribunals.

On January 21, it pronounced its maiden verdict against former Jamaat leader Abul Kalam Azad alias Bachchu Razakar. That was a death penalty but Azad is reportedly hiding in Pakistan.

Last Tuesday, it was expected that Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Molla will get a death penalty as well.

That did not happen as one of the six charges against him could not be proved. He got away with a life sentence.

That galvanised the nation, specially its youth, as messages flew fast and furious on social networking sites to turn up at Shahbagh for protest.

By Tuesday evening, the busy Dhaka intersection was full of men and women, demanding 'death' for Quader Molla.

As days passed, the crowds only swelled, the enthusiasm only grew, with those assembled there now demanding death for all killers of 1971.

On Saturday, someone in the crowd said Jamaat's former chief Ghulam Azam is under treatment in a nearby hospital.

"Let us shout so loud that he gets a heart attack," roared a few young men in the crowd.

A martyrs' monument has been built at the roundabout with flowers and paper.

Now the protests are spreading to other cities of Bangladesh.

On Saturday, thousands continued the protests in the port city of Chittagong, defying a strike called by the Jamaat-e-Islami that is asking for release of their leaders and a repeal of the war crimes trials.

Life was normal though Chittagong is where the Jamaat supporters had gone on the rampage just before Tuesday's verdict on Quader Molla, attacking police stations and patrols with firearms and bombs, leading to four deaths.

According to the official statistics handed out by Bangladesh, between 2.5 to 3 million people died and nearly a quarter of a million women were raped and dishonoured during the eight months of the 1971 Liberation War.

That was some price to pay for independence, hence passions run high because so many suffered.

It is rare for trial of 'war crimes' forty years after the war. But in Bangladesh, the war crimes trials are seen as justice delayed but not denied.

First published IBN Live, The North East Blog, February 11, 2013

Subir Baumik is a journalist based in India, who specialise in conflict and peace journalism on North East India. He has worked with BBC World Service for 20 years

Bangladesh War Crimes Trial: Healing the wounds

Sheikh Hasina went ahead with the trial single-mindedly

HAROON HABIB

The International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh gives its first verdict in the crimes against humanity committed during the war of liberation in 1971.

FOR BANGLADESH, which was born out of a bloodbath and which has been through repeated political shocks, the trial of those accused of crimes against humanity during its war of independence against Pakistan in 1971 is the biggest challenge. On January 21, the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in Bangladesh in its first verdict awarded the death penalty to Abul Kalam Azad (65), a former leader of Jamaat-e-Islami’s infamous students’ wing. Azad, also known as “Bachchu Razakar”, was found guilty of murdering 14 people, raping scores of women, and torturing villagers and setting their homes ablaze when he was the local commander of the Razakar, an auxiliary force of the Pakistan Army.

The judgment of the ICT-2, one of the two courts trying 12 top war crime suspects, turns the spotlight on the nine-month-long war during which the marauding Pakistan Army, along with its local cohorts, killed three million people and violated an estimated 400,000 women.

“We should not forget the millions of victims who wanted their tormentors held accountable,” Justice Obaidul Hassan, the chairman of the tribunal, and his two fellow judges, Justice M. Mozibur Rahman Miah and Justice M. Shahinur Islam, observed while pronouncing the historic verdict. “The passage of time does not diminish the guilt. Justice delayed is no longer justice denied,” they said.

The trial was long overdue. In fact, the process started way back in 1972, but was frustrated by General Ziaur Rahman after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh, in 1975. On March 25, 2010, the government of Sheikh Hasina formed a tribunal on the basis of the country’s International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973. The Act was amended in 2009 and 2012. The second tribunal was formed in March 2012.

Azad was tried in absentia as he had reportedly fled the country hours before a warrant of arrest was to be issued against him on April 3, 2012. He used to appear regularly on a television channel to deliver religious sermons.

The ICT-2 held Azad guilty on seven out of eight counts including genocide and rape. It noted that the accused deserved imprisonment for three offences but it decided not to award separate sentences as he had already received the death sentence. The court awarded him the death penalty, to be carried out by hanging under the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973.

Azad was involved with the Islami Chhatra Sangha, the then militant student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami, and was a close associate of Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, the then president of the wing in former East Pakistan. Mojaheed, who is also facing war crime charges, is now the Jamaat’s general secretary. As an active accomplice of the Pakistan Army, Azad was directly involved in the killings, genocide and instances of rape in Faridpur and its neighbouring areas. Before going into hiding, he was the chairman of the Masjid Council, a non-governmental organisation, founding general secretary of the Council for Interfaith Harmony, country representative of the Islami Fiqah Academy of Jeddah and the editor of Jiggasa.

Since the tribunal enjoys the legal status of a High Court, a convict has the right to file an appeal with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court within 30 days of the judgment. Azad will not have the right to appeal unless he surrenders or is arrested within 30 days. But some legal experts say that if he is arrested or surrenders after the 30-day period and seeks the permission of the Appellate Division to file an appeal, the apex court has the special power to consider it. Given the human tragedy that preceded the formation of Bangladesh, many people were unable to control their tears when the 112-page verdict was read out. One of the victims’ son, Gopal Das, said: “My father’s soul will now rest in peace. Like me, thousands of sons, daughters and family members of martyrs are waiting to see other war criminals walking to the gallows.”

In all, 22 prosecution witnesses, including some victims, victims’ family members and the investigation officer of the case, testified against Azad. The state-appointed defence counsel failed to produce any witnesses because of the “non-cooperation” of Azad’s family members.

Generally, people welcomed the verdict and thanked the court for bringing to justice one of the notorious Razakars, whose hands were stained with the blood of innocent people. They demanded that Pakistan extradite the convict who is widely believed to have fled to that country.

Tribunal’s Observation

The tribunal held that Azad was “guilty of crimes against humanity beyond a reasonable doubt” and that “evading trial for the offences of which he has been charged with signifies his culpability”. Law Minister Shafique Ahmed said a red alert would be issued through the Interpol to have the convict brought back home.

“Undeniably the road to freedom for the people of Bangladesh was arduous and torturous, smeared with blood, toil and sacrifices. In the contemporary world history, perhaps no nation paid as dearly as the Bangalees did for their emancipation,” the tribunal observed. “The perpetrators of the crimes could not be brought to book, and this left a deep wound on the country’s political psyche and the whole nation. The impunity they enjoyed held back political stability, saw the ascent of militancy, and destroyed the nation’s Constitution.”

The judgment said: “And most of them committed and facilitated the commission of atrocities in violation of customary international law in the territory of Bangladesh.” As a result, three million people were killed, about a quarter million women raped, about 10 million people forced to flee to India and millions of others internally displaced. The verdict said women were tortured, raped and killed. With the help of its local collaborators, the Pakistani military kept numerous Bangalee women as sex slaves inside their camps and cantonments.

The Jamaat-e-Islami had not only opposed the creation of Pakistan in 1947 but also the independence of Bangladesh in 1971. It was the brains behind the creation of auxiliary forces such as Razakar, Al Badars and Al Shams to help the Pakistan Army. These forces were formed to collaborate with the Pakistani military in identifying and eliminating all those who supported with the war of independence, individuals belonging to minority religious groups, especially the Hindus, nationalists, secular intellectuals and “unarmed” civilians.

Gravest of crimes

As the trial faced political criticism at home and hostile propaganda abroad, the judges also gave their views on some questions. The tribunal pointed out that Nazi war criminals of the Second World War were still being tried, and the trials of genocides committed during the 1973 Chilean revolution and the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia in the 1970s were still going on. Besides, neither the Genocide Convention of 1948 nor the Geneva Conventions of 1949 contain any provision on statutory limitations to try war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“In the absence of any statutory limitation, as a procedural bar, only the delay itself does not preclude prosecutorial action to adjudicate the culpability of the perpetrator of core international crimes,” the judges observed. Crimes against humanity and genocide, the gravest crimes of all, never get old. “In Bangladesh, the efforts initiated under a lawful legislation to prosecute, try and punish the perpetrators of crimes committed in violation of the customary international law are an indication of valid and courageous endeavour to come out from the culture of impunity,” the tribunal stated.

The tribunal has also dwelt on the country’s failure to try the 195 listed Pakistani war criminals as they were released, thanks to the tripartite agreement between India, Pakistan and Bangladesh signed in 1974. “Such tripartite agreement, which is merely an executive act, cannot liberate the state from the responsibility to bring the perpetrators of atrocities and system crimes into the process of justice.”

Even though the verdict has come four decades late, Bangladesh badly needed a closure of its historic wounds. The Islamists and their patronisers dubbed the trial as the fulfilment of a political agenda of the ruling Awami League. Sheikh Hasina, whose government is facing stiff opposition from the Jamaat-e-Islami and the major opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to abandon the process, remarked: “Today is a special day for the nation. We have pledged to try the war criminals to free the nation from a stigma. And through the verdict the process of implementation of the pledge has started.” Except Begum Khaleda Zia’s BNP, which described the trial as a “political agenda”, the people of Bangladesh and all major political parties have welcomed the verdict. The political parties insisted that the verdict be executed soon. The war veterans of 1971, the families of the victims and the new generation of Bangladeshis have expressed happiness at the fulfilment of one of their long-cherished dreams. They felt that the trial was transparent and conducted under the due process of law.

Attention is now focussed on the cases involving other top Jamaati leaders, who include Ghulam Azam, the founder of East Pakistan Jamaat, Matiur Rahman Nizami, the current chief of Jamaat, Delwar Hossain Sayedee, Abdul Quader Molla, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed, and Kamaruzzaman. The cases of Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Abdul Alim, the two widely suspected war criminals who later joined the BNP, are also in their final phases. Three other suspects—ATM Azharul Islam, Mir Kashem Ali and Abdus Subhan—all belonging to the Jamaat-e-Islami, are awaiting charge sheets.

The verdict will surely go down in Asia’s history as the first judicial order on heinous crimes on humanity and remove the stigma that the nation had to bear for four decades. Despite various limitations and shortcomings, the Sheikh Hasina government single-mindedly went ahead with the trial.

First published in FRONTLINE magazine, India, Vol 30 - Issue 03, Feb. 09-22, 2013

Haroon Habib, Bangladesh correspondent of The Hindu, a prestigious Indian daily and General Secretary of Bangladesh Sector Commanders Forum, an alliance of liberation war veterans of 1971

Shahbagh today-Remembering and Linking History

JULIAN FRANCIS

Yesterday afternoon I went down to Shahbagh to absorb some of the atmosphere of the protests related to the War Crimes judgement in the case of Quader Mollah. I talked to some old friends and made some new ones and my mind went back to early December 1990 when, at midnight, I joined young and old on Mirpur Road, Dhanmondi, and we hugged each other on the occasion of the ‘return of democracy’ to Bangladesh. The emotions in the air on the two occasions were somewhat similar.

After running Oxfam’s Refugee Relief Programme in India assisting 600,000 refugees, I was in Dhaka in January 1972 to assist in the assessment of the rehabilitation needs of Bangladesh after months of destruction by the Pakistan Army and those collaborators who had made the work of the army much easier. I was in Dhaka on January 24^th 1972 when, as I remember, an order was issued to put on trial those who had collaborated with the Pakistan Army. I remember having animated discussions then with excited Bangladeshis about what might happen next and talking with them about the Nuremberg war crime trials which took place after the Second World War (1939-45).

I was not, of course, a witness to any of the atrocities which are related to the War Crimes trial. I did however meet many people who came to India as refugees who had been wounded and/or raped by people who had been their neighbours but who had in 1971 suddenly become collaborators of the Pakistan Army. Two incidents remain clearly in my memory.

One day in early July 1971, I was at the Bongaon/Benapol border crossing where our medical teams were providing all refugees with cholera vaccine, first aid, food and water as they streamed across the border into India in their thousands. I noticed one family carrying a dead man. I asked why they had not organized the burial earlier. I was told, “Father was killed by a Razakar, a man who had been my father’s friend and neighbour for many years. We were so shocked that, as we live close to the border, we decided to bring father’s body to India where we can bury him with a more peaceful frame of mind.”

On another occasion, I was visiting one of the refugee camps in Barasat, West Bengal, and came across a man who had a bayonet wound which had turned septic. As a result of the high fever he had, he was delirious and kept repeating that it was not an Army person who had attacked him, but a Bengali Razakar.

In addition, when I came in January 1972, I visited Shakhari Bazaar, Rayer Bazaar and, later, Jalladh Khana and learnt about the respective slaughtering that that happened at those places.

When I lived in Bangladesh in the late 1980s, people did not talk so readily about the history of the Liberation War and I have found that some of the generation that were born after Liberation did not learn so much about 1971 unless there were family members who had been Freedom Fighters who could teach them the true facts. It was therefore a very positive aspect of the gathering at Shahbagh that I saw so many people there were clearly born after 1971.

In March 2012, at the time of receiving the ‘Friends of Liberation War Honour’ from the Government of Bangladesh, the media frequently asked me for my opinion about the War Crimes trial and if I felt it was too late. My reply was that it is never too late to set the record straight and bring people to justice. I pointed out that even more than 60 years after the Second World War, Nazi criminals were still being tried and that the trials following the wars in Cambodia and Bosnia were taking place many years later too. In 2007, the leaders of the Jamaat, who are now being tried, made statements that there were no anti-liberation collaborators of the Pakistan Army. It is to the great credit of the Sector Commanders that their pressure resulted in the War Crimes Trial being re-started. However, what about those who had been tried and sentenced prior to 1975? What has happened to them? What about the thousands who were awaiting trial but who were released after 1975? The masses, the patriotic thousands, who are gathering in most district towns of Bangladesh and Shahbagh as I write, want some clear answers very soon.

Julian Francis, who has had an association with Bangladesh since 1971, was honoured in 2012 as a foreign friend of Bangladesh for his role in the country's War of Liberation in 1971

Spending in Bangladesh: The most bucks for the biggest bang

Buddy, can you spare a dime? A very, very large one?

THERE is no lack of world-beating records in Bangladesh. It starts as the world’s most densely populated country (not counting city-states and the like). Its capital, Dhaka, merely an undistinguished district headquarters at time of partition from India in 1947, can now be counted as the fastest-growing city in the world. Female leaders have ruled the country for longer than have men—which is to say, longer than women have anywhere else. No country at peace with its neighbours has more citizens shot dead by the security forces of one of its neighbours. The world’s biggest NGO, also apparently the best, BRAC (formerly the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee), bears the name of its home country. Despite astounding progress, 53m Bangladeshis, fully one-third of the population, still live below the poverty line.

Until the end of January, Bangladesh was also the location of South Asia’s biggest infrastructure project to funded by donors. The Padma bridge, a proposed river crossing that was to cost $3 billion to build, would also have been the world’s longest, at a length of about 10km. But its fate has become forlorn, since the Bangladesh government withdrew its request to the Word Bank for financing, on January 31st. The decision to turn down $1.2 billion in cheap loans—the biggest pile of cash the World Bank has ever offered to a single country—came a day after the bank’s president, Jim Yong Kim, forcefully stated his commitment to not allow crony capitalism to persist under his watch. (Mr Kim went on to use the Padma bridge as an example of the bank’s stance in the face of “insufficient response by the authorities to the evidence of corruption”.)

Thanks, but no thanks, seemed to be Bangladesh’s reply. With the refusal of the World Bank’s conditions went the loans that had under negotiation with the Asian Development Bank and the Japan International Co-operation Agency: altogether nearly $3 billion. Since Bangladesh cannot borrow from international markets, the net result of the government’s apparent intransigence is that 30m people, who are cut off from Dhaka by the vast Padma and the Jamuna (known to India as the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, respectively), and cut off from the rest of the country as well, will have to be patient.

But forget the bridge for a moment. It appears that the government has developed a taste for other symbols of power, of the kind that were till recently in the preserve of regional-powers-with-adversaries. No longer. Last year Bangladesh ordered its first satellite. Only last week it announced plans to buy its first submarines. Finally, Bangladesh intends to spend the single-largest amount of cash it has ever seen devoted to a single project—and start building nuclear power plants.

More than 50 years after politicians in what was then East Pakistan conceived the idea, the government has found a donor in Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia. Mr Putin’s conditions, compared with those of Bangladesh’s other international partners, are financially inferior but politically irresistible.

This is a country, after all, where as recently as 2007 the army stepped in to lock up the political class, including the two heads of dynasty, and installed its own military-backed administration. One must be prepared for exigencies, and it helps when the men in green see things the same way. Russia made a $1 billion loan to Bangladesh, to buy Russian-made arms, last month, which might well punch a hole in those recent statistical estimateswhich showed that Bangladesh might be at especially high risk of suffering a coup d’etat in 2013.

The arms sale however will be small in comparison. The price tag for the country’s first nuclear plants is believed to be somewhere between $2 billion and $4 billion; the Russians have agreed to lend $500m to kick-start the project. The idea is for Rosatom, the Russian state’s nuclear company, to build and operate two plants in Rooppur, in western Bangladesh. If all goes well Bangladesh may soon be the seventh Asian country with an operational nuclear power plant (the others being China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Pakistan).

So how bad an idea is it?

The first thing to say is that Bangladesh has an energy problem the scale of which tends to be, like the country as a whole, hugely underreported. According to the World Bank, there is no country where businesses find it more difficult to get electricity than Bangladesh. In its latest “Doing Business Survey”, the bank ranks Bangladesh an unflattering 185th out of 185 countries in this category. More than 60% of people do not have access to electricity.

So if the size of the problem were to suggest the size of the solution, a chunky 2,000MW more from two nuclear power stations might be a good start. The Russian plants would generate enough power to fill the current supply gap and would be a big step towards meeting the government’s goal of producing 20,000MW by 2020. The country’s current electricity-generation capacity stands at a mere 5,000-6,000MW. Domestic reserves of gas, the main source of energy, are not plentiful. The government’s short-term strategy, to fix the power crisis by installing oil-based power plants, is both unaffordable and environmentally precarious. Coal deposits exist, but too many people live on top of them. Any politician who dares touch the coal is likely to get a hostile reaction similar to the one experienced last week by foreigners who offered to help in digging it up.

The obvious solutions to Bangladesh’s long-term energy future would be a mix of coal and gas imports from Myanmar or the Middle East. But they don’t sound nearly as impressive as indigenous nukes, do they? Bangladesh’s political parties cannot agree on much, but they both like the idea of nuclear power.

There are a few problems with trying to produce 5,000MW of nuclear power (ie a fifth of the total projected generating capacity) by 2030 in what is essentially one big hot river delta. The lack of an alternative source of power, in case cooling systems collapse, and annual flooding, which, in a bad year, can cover up to two-thirds of the delta, come to mind. An earthquake once shifted the course of the mighty Brahmaputra, which used to flow east of Dhaka, to its current riverbed, 150km west of the capital. Experts may find that the plants’ proposed site on the bank of the Padma river is safe. Yet public protests, like the one in Kundankulam in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, over the same type of Russian reactor, are to be expected nonetheless. 

Bangladesh is not set to enrich its own uranium in any case; Russia would provide the radioactive fuel rods. But both the Bangladeshi public and neighbouring India, whose border with Bangladesh is only 25km from the proposed site, are likely to demand guarantees concerning the safe transport of nuclear material. The rods would have to travel from the port of Chittagong on roads that are among the world’s deadliest.

And if the transport of nuclear material is to circumambulate the urban sprawl of Dhaka, then they will have to cross the Padma. So unless the government puts the Chinese, say, in charge of constructing that bridge quite swiftly, the nation’s first nuclear-fuel cask will have to take a boat.

First appeared in The Economist, February 6th 2013

Diaspora-driven development: how to turn wealth to health in Bangladesh

Policymakers need to understand the diaspora and incentivise its involvement in the country's development

MISHA HUSSAIN

Sylhet division in north-east Bangladesh, where around 95% of all British-Bengalis trace their origin to, should in theory be the wealthiest and healthiest part of country. The region receives around US $1bn in remittances every year from expatriate Bengalis in the UK alone.

However, wealth hasn't translated to health in Sylhet. According to theBangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Sylhet has worse literacy and school enrolment rates than all other regions, child malnutrition rates are well over the WHO emergency threshold of 15%, fertility rates are the highest in the country and expectant mothers are more likely to die during child birth in Sylhet than any other part of Bangladesh.

"While remittances play a significant role in Bangladesh's development, most of it is transferred to individual households rather than to charity or community development," ex-Bangladesh foreign minister Farooq Sobhan explains. "Amongst key concerns are issues of corruption and red tape, the political schism between the Awami League and the Bangladesh National Party, and resulting instability, insecurity and a feeling of not knowing how to help," said Sobhan, who currently heads the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute, a research and advocacy organisation that focuses on the growth of private enterprise in Bangladesh.

How then can policymakers respond to the commitment and resources of British-Bengalis, and shape them to meet local development targets?

Understand the challenges 

"When you ask those in the Nigerian diaspora with a specific skillset, in the health care, for example, if they would give a year of their time to help develop the capacity of midwives in northern Nigeria so they can deliver babies safely, the answers are overwhelmingly positive," said John Minto, co-founder of Fund Finders Africa, an organisation that connects diaspora with their communities.

"As such, the diaspora needs to be profiled and targeted according to the specific backgrounds of the individuals, whether it be in health, IT, banking or education, so they can be linked to the needs of the communities abroad," said Minto.

Facilitate return economic migration

In November 2012, an estimated 23,000 British-Indians went back to live in their land of origin. India's booming economy – in the face of the current financial crisis – as well as better immigration policies for non-resident Indians (NRIs) are thought to be the major driving factors. "This should not be considered as a moral obligation; rather one that makes absolute social and economical sense," said Ayub Korom Ali, ex-councillor for the London borough of Tower Hamlets, and part of the "4 Bangladesh," a network of British-Bengali professionals who are interested in contributing to development in Bangladesh.

Korom Ali added: "In the current economical climate, the UK has a surplus of graduates who are looking for jobs. Bangladesh on the contrary has an increasing demand for these very same people. Why not take this opportunity to get some work experience, make some money and help people who need it."

But the support structures needed to encourage return migration matter. India's returning diaspora, or NRIs, were offered "visas for life" [pdf], athe Reserve Bank of India liberalised its policies towards NRIs and persons of Indian origin (PIOs) to promote easier foreign exchange transactions between India and its diaspora and a number of funds set up to aid Indian missions from abroad.

Similarly, the US government has introduced the African Investment and Diaspora Act 2011, which is expected to "facilitate broadened socio-economic relations between the US and the African continent" and "embraces the idea of helping African countries help themselves". A similar policy change in both the UK and in Bangladesh could help Britain's Bengali diaspora connect with their communities.

Reduce tax and transfer fees

A large number of Bangladeshi expatriates are unskilled labourers so cash transfers will still dominate the way they contribute to development back home. However, due to high tax on remittances and high money transfer fees, many chose to use informal channels. The Daily Star, a Bangladesh English language broadsheet reported that up to 24% of remittances are brought into the country through informal channels. Reducing tax, as well as transfer fees by organisations such as Western Union could encourage more people to use formal channels and hence increasing government revenues

Provide incentives

A survey funded by Comic Relief in 2012 showed that diaspora professionals in the UK were "hesitant to dedicate time and other resources on a volunteer basis". Policymakers – and NGOs – wanting to garner support from the diaspora must recognise the need to provide a reward for involvement.

First appeared in The Guardian, Guardian Professional, 5 February 2013

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On a slow boat through Bangladesh

Umgrot River at Indo-Bangladesh border — Ritu Raj Konwar

SANTANU SANYAL

The potential of routing trade from Kolkata to the North-East through Bangladesh can be exploited.

In a bid to cash in on the shortage of coal faced by industrial consumers for quite some time, a Kolkata-based trader sometime ago wondered about transporting coal from Meghalaya by the river route (a large part of which is through Bangladesh) to Kolkata to meet the requirements of brick kilns in the State.

He did try, but the experience left him thoroughly disappointed. It took three months to transport 5,000 tonnes of coal from Meghalaya to Kolkata — first by truck from the mines to Karimganj river port in Assam and then by barge from Karimganj to Kolkata via Ashuganj (Bangladesh) where transhipment from small river craft into large barges had to take place. The transhipment too took an unusually long time. And the cost? The less said the better. It was prohibitive, to say the least.

TRADE POTENTIAL

Interestingly, a study funded by the Switzerland-based International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) advocates use of the Karimganj-Ashuganj stretch of the Kushiara river to promote both bilateral and transit trade by the river route between India and Bangladesh. Quoting an estimate by India’s Inland Waterways Authority of India, the study says about 1.5 million tonnes of cargo can be moved along the stretch.

One reason for this advocacy may be the various problems facing both the countries on promotion of bilateral trade by river route. The Bangladeshi barge operators active in the trade are particularly keen that the Karimganj-Ashuganj section develops because the bilateral trade traffic throughput by river route is showing a declining trend. In 2011-12, the throughput was 1.48 million tonnes and in the first seven months of the current fiscal, only 3,39,000 tonnes.

At this rate, even the one million tonne-level will not be achieved this fiscal, it is feared. An estimated 300 vessels carrying the Bangladeshi flag participate in the bilateral trade and a large number of them now are idle for want of traffic. The owners of the vessels, therefore, would like to participate in transit trade.

The trade by river route between India and Bangladesh is governed by the India-Bangladesh Protocol on Trade and Transit first signed in 1972, almost immediately after the emergence of Bangladesh as a separate nation, and was renewed thereafter from time to time. It will be wrong to presume that the renewal has always been a smooth and easy process. Between 2003 and 2006, for example, the renewal took place virtually on a month-to-month basis.

The Protocol has two components — one for bilateral trade and the other for the transit trade, i.e. for transportation of goods between Kolkata and Assam and other parts of the North-East through Bangladesh river system. For various reasons, the transit trade has not picked up.

The bilateral trade traffic by river route has some interesting features. First, it is one-way traffic, i.e., from India to Bangladesh; second, it is virtually a one-commodity trade, namely, fly ash, and finally, the trade is handled almost exclusively by Bangladeshi barge operators. There is virtually no presence of Indian barge operators, for whatever reasons.

The Bangladeshi barge operators now realise the pitfalls of depending on only one commodity. They, therefore, would like to diversify their portfolio by handling other types of cargo, preferably through participation also in transit trade. The importance of transporting cargo along the Karimganj-Ashuganj stretch becomes critical in this context.

NAVIGABILITY ISSUES

At a workshop at Guwahati organised by the IUCN recently, traders from both sides expressed the view that while fly ash may continue to be an important bilateral trade item for the stretch, other items such as coal, iron ore, iron ore pellets, foodgrains and raw materials for and finished products of the paper units of Assam-based Hindustan Paper Corporation held out promise for the Karimganj-Ashuganj sector for the promotion of both bilateral and transit trade, more so because the sector was also part of the Protocol route.

There are several reasons why the Karimganj-Ashuganj sector may not be the preferred option to boost either bilateral or transit trade. First, the poor navigability of the Kushiara river.

There are nearly 20 shoals in the river totalling 25 km in length which must be dredged first to make the river navigable for movement of large-capacity barges. Right now, only country boats with capacity to load 50 to 100 tonnes can ply, and that too for three months in a year.

Interestingly, there is no proper study on the extent of dredging needed for the stretch, nor on how much money is needed to make the stretch navigable.

Some experts also feel that dredging can improve the river draft between 1.5 and 1.8 metres. For more improvement, so critical for movement of large-capacity vessels, dredging alone will not be enough; higher headwater discharge will be needed.

Next, the IUCN study suggests extension of the present Protocol route from Karimganj to Silchar in the Barak valley in Assam. However, the experts are not sure if such an extension will yield the desired result.

POLITICAL HURDLES

There is a proposal to develop Ashuganj as a major transhipment port to facilitate cargo movement to Tripura and the Indian Government is supposed to create the facility (though not much progress has been made in this direction). Which means, Kolkata-Ashuganj-Agartala river-cum-road route, when it materialises, will pose a threat to the proposed river route.

Inquiries reveal that other initiatives are under way to boot connectivity between India and the North-East through Bangladesh. For example, there are talks of recommissioning the Kulaura-Mahisasan-Karimganj rail link (39 km), construction of a 10-km long new rail link between Akhaura (Bangladesh) and Agartala (Tripura) and reconstruction of the old Silchar (Assam)-Sylhet (Bangladesh) road link (170 km).

The IUCN study draws attention to several other issues, such as the absence of night navigation, simplification of Customs rules, renewal of the Protocol every five years, introduction of multimodal operation and encouraging private sector participation. For obvious reasons, the study could not touch upon the biggest stumbling block, which is political.

India’s bid to promote trade by river route through Ashuganj, particularly to send cargo to Tripura on a regular basis, has not been a success. Bangladesh insists on the signing of the Teesta river treaty first. There is a stalemate now over the signing of the treaty, thanks to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

First published in The Hindu, January 25, 2013