The fundamentalist party Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami has found a friend in the United States for their efforts in preserving the party’s existence. They are strange bedfellows, as Jamaat has sponsored militancy and violence while the US wants to uproot both from Bangladesh – as far as their statements are concerned.
US Ambassador-at-Large Stephen J Rapp told reporters, after visiting the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) and meeting both the prosecution as well as the defence, that it was not right to prosecute a political party: “Do not take the step of moving forward to use the criminal process to persecute a political party or a large group.” The only party that falls into those criteria in Bangladesh is Jamaat.
He defended his country’s stance saying the Nurembourg trial “did not convict any organisation, but they found Nazi leadership was criminal, not the Nazi party.”
However, it is important to remember here that Jamaat has been termed a “criminal organisation” by Bangladeshi courts.
The Jamaat not only helped the Pakistani army to kill and rape Bengalis, but also set up militias like Razakar, al-Badr, and al-Shams to follow on the footsteps of the enemy forces. Those who not only fell victim to these militias, but many who witnessed the brutality cannot agree with Rapp.
Only last week, I wrote that I was disappointed at the observation of the US Ambassador-designate, Marcia Stephens Bloom Bernicat told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that, the US supports “bringing to justice those who committed atrocities in the 1971 war, but those trials should be fair and transparent, and in accordance with international standards.”
Now we have Ambassador Rapp making another of his country’s positions clear, that whatever Jamaat has done is forgivable as Washington too had supplied weapons to Islamabad in 1971 to kill Bengalis.
The US special envoy admitted that there was a death penalty in both US and Bangladesh, but must be used in exceptional cases. Indeed, Jamaat was involved in the history’s worst genocide, and exceptional cruelty was meted out to the freedom fighters as well as the women and men who fell prey to the militias.
Rapp praised the prosecution for carrying out its responsibilities without fear and favour. Thank you, as I had earlier mentioned that this was no “kangaroo court.”
We notice a little change in Washington’s stance as far as the trial is concerned. Hopefully, they will understand sooner rather than later that the Awami League is not on a witch-hunt. Due thanks to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for remaining firm on this issue, despite massive local and international pressure.
The Pakistani army brutally tortured my father in the early days of the war. He was administered shocks on an electric chair and was beaten mercilessly for “being a traitor” to Pakistan and supporting Bangladesh in the war. Later, when these militias were born, they followed suit.
A glaring example is Shaheed Rumi – the son of the late Jahanara Imam. Jahanara had launched the campaign to bring to trial the war criminals and ban Jamaat.
My late mother Hasna Hena Qadir, one of the principal founders of Jahanra Imam’s Ekkaturer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul committee, despite being ill, had joined in the marches, the protests, and the rallies held for this trial. Losing her husband at a very young age was not easy for her, but seeing these killers brought to justice is the only thing that can heal her wounds.
Decades after the war, much evidence remains. I found my father’s grave in 2007 after a 36-year search. He was killed in a brush fire along with a few others on April 17, 1971 in Chittagong. Witnesses and those who buried him are alive, which helped me and the army investigators to determine whether it was his grave or not. Bullets had hit my father on the chest and forehead, and he lay on the ground face-up.
We have not tried the Pakistanis involved, but we must not allow any quarter to disrupt these war crime trials, which includes the punishment of Jamaat. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has promised that the war criminals will be brought under the trial, and we believe her one hundred percent.
Source: bdnews24
