Pakistan is rightly told off, but…

It is audacious and off limits, and importantly it shouldn’t have been an issue for them to be concerned. Specially if, as often claimed, they wanted ‘the relationship’ between the two nations to improve – healing past wounds. As though they did not have enough issues to worry about, their parliament pounced on an external issue that would have been better left alone.

42 years after the atrocious, brutal and inhumane crime, for which they never repented or showed remorse, when only dodgy delaying tactics were offered whenever we asked for repatriations of the stranded Biharis or when we raised the issue of compensation or demanded reparation for the unspeakable violation of our women.

And yet as and when we are trying to come to terms with the result of their savagery, the ills that were left behind to blossom – though may be through myriad of inappropriate short cuts, and perhaps through a series of questionable special court proceedings – they were quick to voice their anger, poking their noses via an official parliamentary resolution, on our Victory Day — a day that is probably rued or mourned by them.

What right do they have? None. We are moving on with our own issues. We have enough of them. We have our share of political misfortune. We are paying a hefty economic, social and political price for it and we do not know when this will stop. The war crimes trial process has been controversial, becoming a political pawn. The process could have been better, matching an international standard.

But none of those issues can suppress the fact that there is a strong desire among the overwhelming majority of people to see the ‘traitors’, the war criminals, convicted, brought to justice for their crimes. This issue has hung around the nation’s neck like a dead albatross. There has been a strong demand for these trials. The current government, for all its follies and misdeeds, gave the citizens a commitment to bring those criminals before the law.

This is our prerogative. What business is it of Pakistan? This vile move confirms that even after all these years, its present generation of politicians — and perhaps a significant section of the population — are still content to deny its horrible act.

And how dare they? Whenever under various governments we have tried to seek their cooperation, all we have received was obfuscation.

With all our shortcomings we are trying to face up to our own issues. We have huge challenges ahead of us. In fact, as every day passes with more violence and vengeance we are precipitated towards a bottomless pit from which re-emergence would take many years. We have landed in a bizarre situation where the results of an upcoming election are already known due to the lack of trust between our major parties, and their uncompromising approach, as the government steadfastly executes its plan.

Yet we do not need or deserve a big brotherly condemnation from a past enemy who is not prepared to accept its wrongdoing. Mind you, this is a country whose military intelligence service trains militants and sends them to attack ordinary civilians of a neighbouring country, and then denies it vehemently. This is a country which deceives its prime guarantor and apparently long- standing ally, the USA, and provides sanctuary to world-renowned terrorists in one of its garrison cities, in close proximity to an army barracks. The list could go on and on.

So, NO Pakistan, you do not have any moral high ground from which you can criticise our internal affairs.

What is also very sad is that while it is understandable that the Jamaat-e-Islami probably having a close ideological ties and associations with its sister organisation in Bangladesh, which has flourished here, raised the resolution in the Pakistani Parliament, why did the other political parties support the move? For example, couldn’t they listen to the PPP leader Abdul Sattar Bachani who said: “The execution of Molla was an internal matter of Bangladesh and Pakistan should not interfere in the internal matters of an independent and sovereign country.”

The answer is simple — they still do not see or are not prepared to admit to their despicable crime.

As we take solace knowing that some of the Pakistanis have come out expressing their concern over the resolution, there remains another angle. Personally, it was very disappointing to hear Imran Khan’s remark. In months leading to his election campaign when he was advocating non-military peaceful solutions to resolve the Kashmir or the Afghanistan issues, in a number of interviews he gave reference to the horrible wrong that was committed by the west Pakistani junta.

So why has he made such a remark? To support his ally Jammat-e-Islami in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formally, the Northwest Frontier Province)? Or is he ill-informed by the global coverage of the trials, or simply uninformed, making a spur-of-the-moment comment that he will try to reverse later, as celebrities and politicians back-paddle from faux pas. In the media we find him claiming that, “a lawyer (Clive Stafford Smith) of the international human rights organisation Reprieve, who was defending Molla, told him that the JI leader was innocent and had nothing to do with the charges against him”.

It is not our job to double guess. He is wrong and should not have made such a strong claim without knowing the facts. If you listen to what he has actually said in the parliament you would realise that the media, as they normally do, emphasized a single statement out of a 6.46 minute speech which also honed in on how Pakistan should learn from its mistakes – that when a nation, a region is against you and your oppression, military actions cannot be the solution.

But this opens another much bigger issue on which many of our commentators have yet to focus and concentrate; how or why does the global media fail to deliver the whole story – the good and the bad of these trials?

If you have been following the coverage of the Economist on the issue, an interesting trend would emerge; they have been toeing a line where they criticise the trial process and highlight its weakness, which is fair. But who gathers the information for it? I imagine that reputable global media outlets assign their representatives to cover various regions. These reporters usually have very good network and hot links with relevant machineries, diplomatic circuits and friends’ network as sources of their information – for example, Bangladesh issues are mostly covered by Tom Felix Joehnk. His latest is here.

Instead of getting into an unproductive debate about who is supplying misinformation (and/or funds) to the Economist for what purpose, perhaps we should consider how we can better feed the information – not only to the Economist but to the world. As it is not only the Economist who has raised concerns. Almost all global media heavy weights — the Financial Times, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal — and the United Nations or Amnesty International have been vocal against the trial.

The real issue, therefore, for any serious commentator and specially those with some influence, ought to be how to counter a misleading perception that the individuals who have been put on the trial may be innocent, mere victims of political vendetta. They may be victims now as they are not getting a fair trial, but who would account for their past deeds?

I am often asked by non-Bangladeshi acquaintances why are we persecuting opposition/Islamic party leaders? Bangladeshis (at least some Bangladeshis) may know that they are not simply Islamic opposition leaders, and have a past that has not been accounted for; but foreigners don’t and why would they? Unless, of course we try to tell about their past, as objectively as possible. And I know that we have acclaimed scholars, historians, authors and movie makers (both Bangladeshi and of foreign origin), whose work on this can be methodically put together to debunk confusion or the untruth that the accused are innocent.

In spite of all the shabbiness of the court (which has been discussed in the past by more qualified commentators), without going into the never-ending debate of whether death sentences are the right form of punishment, or even discussing the political motivations behind these trials, Bangladeshis should hold (in the way we used to) the moral high ground when it comes to trying the war criminals.

Has it taken a blow through relentless international media coverage, which at times has not portrayed the whole story? More importantly, what unforeseen consequences do flawed trials (as stated by the Economist), even when they are very popular, bear for the future of the nation?

This is a valid reason, in fact an impetus for us, as much as criticising the government’s failures which is absolutely justified given its performance, to refocus our energy in explaining the resounding case for these trials.