The Bangladesh experience should make a compelling case for the travails Bangladeshi people had to endure to secure justice for the mass atrocities suffered in 1971, said Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali.
He was speaking at the high-level political segment of the International Conference on Prevention of Genocides held in Brussels on Tuesday, said a Foreign Ministry media release.
The Foreign Minister informed the meeting that the International Crimes Tribunals, Bangladesh were set up in 2010 by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government to end the culture of impunity, establish the rule of law and bring justice to the victims and their families.
He also said the ICT Act, 1973 adheres to relevant international standards to ensure due process and fairness of the trials and the rights of the defendants.
Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders chaired the meeting which was attended, among others, by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.
Mahmood Ali highlighted that during the nine-month occupation in 1971 three million Bengali civilians were killed, more than 200,000 women were violated and 10 million people were rendered refugees.
“A small minority of ideologically motivated local collaborators and auxiliary forces participated and abetted in committing these mass atrocity crimes,” he said.
The Foreign Minister regretted that Bangladesh’s experience is of one of the worst genocides since the Holocaust has received rather scant attention in international scholarship till recently.
He thanked the European Parliament for acknowledging in its Resolution of 16 January 2014 that “the ICT-BD tribunals played an important role in providing redress and closure for victims and those affected by the Bangladesh war of independence”.
The two-day conference organised to mark the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide this year, was addressed among other by Ministers from Canada, Netherlands, Bosnia Herzegovina, Rwanda, Egypt, Cote D’Ivoire, Timor Leste, D R Congo, Liberia, Armenia, Hungary, Finland, Denmark and Algeria.
The Ministers all reaffirmed their resolve to work towards prevention of genocides and underlined the message of “never again” to the commission of genocides and other mass atrocities.
The meeting also heard presentations by Thorbjorn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Anders B. Johnsson, Secretary General of Inter-Parliamentary Union, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Chair of African Union Commission and Stephen Pomper, US Atrocity Prevention Board.
Mahmood Ali also attended the official lunch hosted by the Belgian Foreign Minister for the participating ministers.
Source: UNB Connect
