Deconstructing Al Jazeera’s War Crimes Timeline

aljazeera_graphic

 

Al Jazeera has published a comprehensive timeline of 1971 war crimes issue. We thought it was worth reproducing, along with our crowd-sourced commentary on what is missing.

What is missing in Al Jazeera’s timeline

* 1971 gender violence is inadequately discussed. See one accounting here, there are many others.
Women of 1971

* Historical information on the activities of Jamaat as a party and its leadership is largely absent. There are many such posts on blogs such as Alal O Dulal, all of which were accessible on internet before AJ published its timeline– but they appear not to have consulted them.

The Jamaat Factor

The Right Stuff

This is not “civil war”, Jamaat wanted situation to be exactly like this!

Counter Movements, Propaganda, and Hate Speech (sometimes in disguise)

Deconstructing the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh

* Shadakalo blog discussed Sheikh Mujib’s pardoning of war criminals. In AJ infographic Abdur Razzak claims that no attempt was made in the last 40 years to try war criminals, but information regarding initial attempts to try the war criminals are left out.

* Jamaat’s direct or indirect linkage (via patronage of smaller parties) to some of the major “blasphemy” cases from 1972-2012, and resulting domestic instability is not mentioned. See forthcoming Chronology of Censorship (1972-2012) to be published in Daily Star’s Forum next week.

* Major incidents of hate crimes against religious communities, including numerous violent attacks against Ahmadiya Muslims, is not listed. These all happened in a climate of intolerance instigated by Jamaat and allied smaller parties. See Ain Salish Kendra’s annual reports: Annual Reports

* Role of Jamaat leadership, especially fiery orator Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, in instigating post-1971 violence against authors such as Humayun Azad and Shamsur Rahman are not listed. In all these cases, the attacks came from independent, “freelance” would-be assassins, but came right after major infammatory statements by Sayeedi. Both Azad and Rahman survived the brutal attacks, but Azad later died from possibly related complications. A fact file on DHS hate speech is here: Delwar Hossain Sayeedi fact file

* The “series of blasts” in 2005 followed by the “series of grenades”: The 300 blasts were claimed by the now-banned Jamatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). The grenades was an assassination attempt on Hasina. Not clear if incidents are linked. Later investigation that showed possible link of intelligence agencies DGFI and NSI are not mentioned, which evoked in many people’s mind the active intervention role of Pakistan’s ISI in their domestic affairs.

* Pre-election rigging leading to Jan 2007 coup is absent, making Iajuddin Ahmed’s declaration of a state of emergency devoid of context. There is no mention of the caretaker/military govt headed by Fakruddin Ahmed from 2007 to 2008. In particular, no mention of the manner in which both BNP and AL top leadership was arrested, but Jamaat was not. During the CTG period, there were major muscle-flexing incidents by JI linked smaller parties, including the Baul state smashing campaign, which increased the public perception that “defeated forces of 1971″ have returned.

* During 2007-2008, Jamaat-aligned spokespersons specifically went on TV to describe 1971 as a “civil war,” and argued that no unilateral war crimes were committed. This was seen as setting groundwork for later legal argument against any WCT.

Source: Alal O Dulal