War-crimes tribunal that has convicted three people has unleashed mass demonstrations and strikes in which more than 100 have been killed.
By: Haroon Siddiqui Columnist
The mass killings and rapes took place 42 years ago. It was worse than what we have seen since in the former Yugoslavia, Sudan, perhaps even Rwanda. Yet the world ignored it then and continues to do so. As Bangladesh now tries to come to grips with that horror, it is tearing itself apart, descending into anarchy and destroying the fragile economy it has painstakingly built over decades.
A war-crimes tribunal has convicted three people for inciting or aiding and abetting abduction, torture, rape and death squads. It is weighing the fate of seven others.
This has unleashed mass demonstrations and strikes, marred by violence in which more than 100 people have been killed. Tens of thousands are protesting the death sentence handed to two defendants. They question the credibility of the tribunal, as do several human rights groups, domestic and international. Others are demanding something different, a death sentence for the third defendant given “only” a life term.
The nation of 160 million is tearing itself apart.
Its trauma dates back to Bangladesh’s birth in 1971, when it seceded from Pakistan.
The seeds of that were sown in the 1947 partition of British India — indeed further back to 1905. That was when the British viceroy, Lord Curzon, divided the Bengali-speaking people into Hindu West Bengal and Muslim East Bengal.
When colonial rule ended with India split into largely Muslim Pakistan and largely Hindu India, the Muslim portion of Bengal became East Pakistan.
East and West Pakistan — separated by 1,600 kilometres of India — shared a religion but little else. The power rested in the west. The east remained a discriminated outpost. The break came after a rebellion triggered by the west’s criminal refused to accept the results of an election in which a party based in the east won a majority.
The Pakistani army, sent in to quell the rebellion, worked with local allies. The two together committed unspeakable war crimes. The carnage ended only when India intervened militarily.
It was said that 300,000 people had been killed. The figure has been steadily revised upward since. The present Bangladesh government puts it at 3 million dead and 200,000 raped.
Born in blood, Bangladesh was convulsed in internal bloodletting. Its first prime minister, Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated in 1975 by soldiers (one of whom was convicted in absentia in 2001 and now lives in Toronto — his refugee claim rejected but his deportation held up because Canada does not send people to places with a death penalty).
The general who replaced Rahman was himself assassinated in 1981.
Rahman’s daughter (Sheikh Hasina) and the general’s widow (Khaleda Zia) have since taken turns being elected prime minister, twice each. With their dynastic rivalries, the “Battling Begums” can’t stand each other. In 2007, the military took over again and sent both to jail on charges of corruption (the “Minus Two Solution.”)
In the 2008 election, Hasina made a comeback. Fulfilling a campaign promise, she set up the grandly titled International Crimes Tribunal, which is decidedly not international in either composition or legal standards. It has been accused of irregularities, initially by the Economist, the British newsmagazine.
The tribunal chair exchanged emails with a Brussels-based lawyer of Bangladeshi origin who coached the prosecutors. The chair hinted at a guilty verdict before all the testimony had been heard. He reported being under intense government pressure to finish early — “the government has gone totally mad. It’s absolutely crazy for a judgment.”
A witness for the defence was kidnapped, literally from the doorstep of a hearing. A three-member panel convicted a defendant even though one of the judges had heard only partial evidence and another heard none at all.
Eight of the 10 defendants belong to an Islamic party and two to Zia’s party. The parties were coalition partners in her last government. Both accuse Hasina, the prime minister, of a witch-hunt to wipe out the main opposition.
Hasina lent credence to the charge by recently expanding the power of the tribunal to go after groups and parties, not just individuals, opening the door to outright bans. She also changed the law to let the government appeal the tribunal’s ostensibly light sentences, and seek the death penalty, retroactively.
She scolded the judges that “they must listen to public opinion,” which she is busy whipping up.
Hasina has shown a vindictive streak. When Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus — the pioneer of microcredit, who did much to uplift poor women — wanted to run for office, she had him removed from the board of the bank he founded.
War crimes must be probed and the guilty brought to justice. But the process has to be impeccably fair and free of political interference to fulfill its role of bringing closure, rather than opening new wounds.
The Islamic party did oppose the formation of Bangladesh but it denies any role in genocide. Those charged need a fair trial. That’s why the tribunals that probed war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda had credibility.
The current International Criminal Court’s mandate dates back only to 2002. That’s why special tribunals had to be set up to probe the horrors of Cambodia and Sierra Leone, at the request of those two nations. But no such request is forthcoming from Bangladesh, for reasons of cost (annual budget for the Cambodia commission — $44 million a year) and, mostly, controlling the inquiry.
Bangladesh, one of the world’s poorest nations, has been a successful laboratory for self-help groups and small and medium enterprises. It has been billed as the next China. That seems at risk as well.
Haroon Siddiqui is the Star’s editorial page editor emeritus. His column appears on Thursday and Sunday. [email protected]
Source: The Star
