1971 Bangladesh atrocities

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The 1971 Bangladesh atrocities refer to the widespread killings and displacement of civilians in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) and widespread violations of human rights carried out by the Pakistan Army, which was supported by political and religious militias during the Bangladesh War of 1971. In Bangladesh, the atrocities are identified as a genocide, which is disputed by Pakistan.[1][2] The actual motives, extent and destructive impact of the actions of the Pakistani forces is disputed, as are figures for the death toll. Bangladeshi authorities and some independent organisations assert that between 1-3 million people were killed. Another 10 million fled the country to seek safety in India.

At the onset of the Bengali nationalist rebellion led by the Awami League, Pakistani forces targeted Hindus, Bengali intellectuals, students and political activists, especially at college campuses in the capital Dhaka and other cities.[3]. According to a report by TIME magazine, "The Hindus, who account for three-fourths of the refugees and a majority of the dead, have borne the brunt of the Muslim military hatred."[4]. A large section of the intellectual community of Bangladesh was murdered mostly by the Al-Shams and Al-Badr forces, at the instruction of the Pakistan army[5]. There are many mass graves in Bangladesh, and newer ones are always being discovered, such as one in an old well near a mosque in Dhaka located in the non-Bengali region of the city which was discovered in August 1999.[6] A smaller number of non-Bengali citizens were also killed in clashes with the Mukti Bahini. An egregious instances of mass killings was Operation Searchlight, a series of killings which began on March 25, 1971 and ended on December 16, 1971 and led to death of 3 million Bengalis in East Pakistan (present day Bangladesh), as well as other atrocities like rape and looting. The original plan envisioned taking control of the major cities on March 26, and eliminating all opposition within one month. The prolonged resistance by Bengali forces was not anticipated. The response of the Pakistani Army involved massive genocides in Dhaka, Chittagong, Comilla and other regions of Bangladesh.The main phase of Operation Searchlight ended with the fall of the last town in Bengali Hands in mid June. The aftermath would continue until Pakistani Army unconditionally surrendered to the Mukti Bahini and the Indian forces in December 16, 1971.

Contents

[edit] Casualties

The number of civilians that died in the liberation war of Bangladesh is not accurately known. The casualty figures put forth by Pakistan (26,000, as reported in the Hamoodur Rahman Commission[7] ) vary greatly from those put forth by India and Bangladesh. (From 1972 to 1975 the first post-war prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, mentioned on several occasions that at least three million died[8]). The international media and reference books in English have also published figures which vary greatly: from 5,000 – to 35,000 in Dhaka, and 200,000 – 3,000,000 for Bangladesh as a whole.[9][10] Some believe that the figure of three million has its origins in comments made by Yahya Khan to the journalist Robert Payne on February 22, 1971, "Kill three million of them, and the rest will eat out of our hands".[11][12]

The historian branch of the United States State Department held a two-day conference in late June 2005 on U.S. policy in South Asia between 1961 and 1972. The State Department invited scholars from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh to express their views on documents recently declassified by the State Department. According to Dawn, a Pakistani Newspaper, Bangladeshi speakers at the conference stated that the official Bangladeshi figure of civilian deaths was close to 300,000, which was wrongly translated from Bengali into English as three million. Ambassador Shamsher M. Chowdhury acknowledged that Bangladesh alone cannot correct this mistake and suggested Pakistan and Bangladesh should form a joint commission to investigate the 1971 disaster and prepare a report. However, the actual death figure is much higher than 26,000, as reported by the Hamoodur Rahman Commission. [13][14]

In 1997 R. J. Rummel published a book (available on the web) called Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900. In Chapter 8, Statistics Of Pakistan's Democide - Estimates, Calculations, And Sources, he states:

In East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) [General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan and his top generals] also planned to murder its Bengali intellectual, cultural, and political elite. They also planned to indiscriminately murder hundreds of thousands of its Hindus and drive the rest into India. And they planned to destroy its economic base to insure that it would be subordinate to West Pakistan for at least a generation to come. This despicable and cutthroat plan was outright genocide.[15]

Rummel goes on to collate what he considers the most credible estimates published by others into what he calls democide. He writes that "Consolidating both ranges, I give a final estimate of Pakistan's democide to be 300,000 to 3,000,000, or a prudent 1,500,000."

Further reports of genocide include that of Senator Edward Kennedy, who wrote in a report for a United States Senate Subcommittee testimony dated November 1, 1971, "Hardest hit have been members of the Hindu community who have been robbed of their lands and shops, systematically slaughtered, and in some places, painted with yellow patches marked "H". All of this has been officially sanctioned, ordered and implemented under martial law from Islamabad". In the same report, Senator Kennedy reported that 80% of the refugees in India were Hindus, and according to numerous international relief agencies such as UNESCO and WHO the peak number of East Pakistani refugees in India was close to 10 million. Given that the Hindu population in East Pakistan was around 11 million in 1971, this suggests that up to 8 million (more than 70% of the Hindu population) had fled the country.[16]

The Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Sydney Schanberg covered the start of the atrocities and wrote extensively on the suffering of the East Bengalis, including both the Hindus and the Bengali Muslims during and after the conflict. In a syndicated column "The Pakistani Slaughter That Nixon Ignored", he wrote about his return to liberated Bangladesh in 1972. "Other reminders were the yellow "H"s the Pakistanis had painted on the homes of Hindus, particular targets of the Muslim army" (i.e. the Pakistani army, which had targeted Bengali Muslims as well) [17]

[edit] Violence Against Women and Minorities

During the war, numerous women were tortured, raped, and killed. Again, exact numbers are unknown and remain a subject of debate. Bangladeshi sources cite a figure of 200,000 women raped, resulting in the births of thousands of war-babies. Some other sources, for example Susan Brownmiller, refer to an even higher number over 400,000. Pakistani sources claim the number is much lower, though they do not completely deny rape incidents.[18][19][20]

The Pakistan Army also kept numerous Bengali women as sex-slaves inside the Dhaka Cantonment. Most of the girls were captured from Dhaka University and private homes. [21]

Along with Brownmiller's work, Ami Virangana Bolchhi ("I, the heroine, speak") by Nilima Ibrahim is another work which includes direct experiences from raped women. The title of the work includes Virangana (Heroine), which is the title Sheikh Mujibur Rahman later gave to women who were raped and tortured during the war. This was a conscious effort to alleviate any social stigma the women might face. However, the success of this effort is doubtful.

The minorities of Bangladesh, especially the Hindus, were specific targets of the Pakistan army.[22] There was widespread killing of Hindu males, and rape of women. More than 60% of the Bengali refugees that had fled to India were Hindus.[23] It is not exactly known what percentage of the people killed by the Pakistan army were Hindus, but it is safe to say it was disproportionately high.[24] This widespread violence against Hindus was motivated by a policy to purge East Pakistan of what was seen as Hindu and Indian influences. The West Pakistani rulers identified the Bengali culture with Hindu and Indian culture, and thought that the eradication of Hindus would remove such influences from the majority Muslims in East Pakistan.[25]

At the historian branch of the United States State Department two-day conference on U.S. policy in South Asia between 1961 and 1972,[13] Sarmila Bose (a Harvard-educated Indian academic related to the Indian Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose), presented a paper suggesting that the casualties and rape allegations in the war have been greatly exaggerated for political purposes.[26] This work has been criticized in Bangladesh and her research methods have been attacked as shoddy and biased.[27]

[edit] Killing of intellectuals

During the war, the Pakistan Army and its local collaborators carried out a systematic execution of the leading Bengali intellectuals. A number of university professors from Dhaka University were killed during the first few days of the war.[28] However, the most extreme cases of targeted killing of intellectuals took place during the last few days of the war. Allegedly, the leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami and its paramilitary arm, the Al-Badr and Al-Shams forces created a list of doctors, teachers, poets, and scholars.[29] Some sources also allege the role of the CIA in devising the plan.[30] On December 14, 1971, only two days before surrendering to the Indian military and the Mukhti Bahini forces, the Pakistani army, with the assistance of local Islamist leaders and groups that chose to ally themselves with the Pakistani military and most notably the Al-Badr and Al-Shams systematically executed well over 200 of East Pakistan's intellectuals and scholars. Professors, journalists, doctors, artists, engineers, writers were rounded up in Dhaka, blindfolded, taken to Rajarbag in the middle section of the city, and executed en masse. In memory of this event, December 14 is mourned in Bangladesh as Buddhijibi Hotta Dibosh ("Day of Martyred Intellectuals").[5][31][32] Also, the Government of Bangladesh has constructed a memorial in Mirpur.

[edit] Allegations of genocide

After the minimum 20 countries became parties to the Genocide Convention, it came into force as international law on 12 January 1951. At that time however, only two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council were parties to the treaty, and it was not until after the last of the last five permanent members ratified the treaty in 1988, and the Cold War came to an end, that the international law on the crime of genocide began to be enforced. As such, the allegation that genocide took place during the Bangladesh War of 1971 was never investigated by an international tribunal set up under the auspices of the United Nations, so the alleged genocide is not recognised as a such under international law. However, the word ‘genocide’ was and is used frequently amongst observers and scholars of the events that transpired during the 1971 war. Within Bangladesh, ‘genocide’ is the term used to describe the event in almost every major publication and newspaper.[1][2]

On December 16, 2002, the George Washington University’s National Security Archives published a collection of declassified documents, mostly consisting of communications between US officials working in embassies and USIS centers in Dhaka and in India, and officials in Washington DC.[33] These documents show that US officials working in diplomatic institutions within Bangladesh used the terms ‘selective genocide’[34] and ‘genocide’ (Blood telegram) to describe events they had knowledge of at the time. They also show that President Nixon, advised by Henry Kissinger, decided to downplay this secret internal advise, because he wanted to protect the interests of Pakistan as he was apprehensive of India's friendship with the USSR, and he was seeking a closer relationship with China, who supported Pakistan.[35]

In his book “The Trials of Henry Kissinger”, Christopher Hitchens elaborates on what he saw as the efforts of Henry Kissinger to subvert the aspirations of independence on the part of the Bengalis. In elaborating, Hitchens not only claims that the term ‘genocide’ is appropriate to describe the results of the struggle, but also points to the efforts of Henry Kissinger in undermining others who condemned the then ongoing atrocities as being a genocide.[36]

A case was filed in the Federal Court of Australia on 20 September, 2006 for alleged crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during 1971 by the Pakistani Armed Forces and its collaborators. Raymond Solaiman & Associates acting for the plantive Mr. Solaiman, have released a press statement which among other things says:[37]

“ We are glad to announce that a case has been filed in the Federal Magistrate's Court of Australia today under the Genocide Conventions Act 1949 and War Crimes Act. This is the first time in history that someone is attending a court proceeding in relation to the [alleged] crimes of Genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during 1971 by the Pakistani Armed Forces and its collaborators. The Proceeding number is SYG 2672 of 2006. On 25 October 2006, a direction hearing will take place in the Federal Magistrates Court of Australia, Sydney registry before Federal Magistrate His Honor Nicholls. ”

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Editorial The Jamaat Talks Backin The Bangladesh Observer December 30, 2005
  2. ^ a b Dr. N. Rabbee Remembering a Martyr Star weekend Magazine, The [[Daily Star (Bangladesh)|]] December 16, 2005
  3. ^ Sajit Gandhi The Tilt: The U.S. and the South Asian Crisis of 1971 National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 79 December 16, 2002
  4. ^ Pakistan: The Ravaging of Golden Bengal,Time Magazine
  5. ^ a b Asadullah Khan The loss continues to haunt us in The [[Daily Star (Bangladesh)|]] December 14, 2005
  6. ^ DPA report Mass grave found in Bangladesh in The Chandigarh Tribune August 8, 1999
  7. ^ Hamoodur Rahman Commission, Chapter 2, Paragraph 33
  8. ^ "3 MILLION Slaughtered Sheik MUJIB Charges 'Greatest Massacre'" The Portsmouth Herald, Monday, January 17, 1972, Portsmouth, New Hampshire
  9. ^ Matthew White's Death Tolls for the Major Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century
  10. ^ Virtual Bangladesh : History : The Bangali Genocide, 1971
  11. ^ Pierre Stephen and Robert Payne References needs a page number
  12. ^ Scott Lamb Never Again? in Der Spiegel January 26, 2005
  13. ^ a b U.S Department of State South Asia in Crisis: United States Policy, 1961-1972 June 28-29, 2005, Loy Henderson Auditorium, Tentative Program
  14. ^ Anwar Iqbal Sheikh Mujib wanted a confederation: US papers, The Dawn, July 7, 2005
  15. ^ Rummel, Rudolph J., "Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900", ISBN 3-8258-4010-7, Chapter 8, table 8.1
  16. ^ Crisis in South Asia - A report by Senator Edward Kennedy to the Subcommittee investigating the Problem of Refugees and Their Settlement, Submitted to U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, November 1, 1971, U.S. Govt. Press, pp.6-7.
  17. ^ The Pakistani Slaughter That Nixon Ignored , Syndicated Column by Sydney Schanberg, New York Times, May 3, 1994
  18. ^ Debasish Roy Chowdhury 'Indians are bastards anyway' in Asia Times June 23, 2005 "In Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, Susan Brownmiller likens it to the Japanese rapes in Nanjing and German rapes in Russia during World War II. "... 200,000, 300,000 or possibly 400,000 women (three sets of statistics have been variously quoted) were raped.""
  19. ^ Brownmiller, Susan, "Against Our Will : Men, Women, and Rape" ISBN 0-449-90820-8, page 81
  20. ^ Hamoodur Rahman Commission, Chapter 2, Paragraphs 32,34
  21. ^ East Pakistan: Even the Skies Weep, Time Magazine, October 25, 1971.
  22. ^ U.S. Consulate (Dacca) Cable, Sitrep: Army Terror Campaign Continues in Dacca; Evidence Military Faces Some Difficulties Elsewhere, March 31, 1971, Confidential, 3 pp
  23. ^ US State Department, "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976", Volume XI, South Asia Crisis, 1971", Page 165
  24. ^ Kennedy, Senator Edward, "Crisis in South Asia - A report to the Subcommittee investigating the Problem of Refugees and Their Settlement, Submitted to U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee", November 1, 1971, U.S. Govt. Press, page 66. Sen. Kennedy wrote, "Field reports to the U.S. Government, countless eye-witness journalistic accounts, reports of International agencies such as World Bank and additional information available to the subcommittee document the reign of terror which grips East Bengal (East Pakistan). Hardest hit have been members of the Hindu community who have been robbed of their lands and shops, systematically slaughtered, and in some places, painted with yellow patches marked 'H'. All of this has been officially sanctioned, ordered and implemented under martial law from Islamabad."
  25. ^ The Sunday Times, London, June 13, 1971, ""The Government's policy for East Bengal was spelled out to me in the Eastern Command headquarters at Dacca. It has three elements: 1. The Bengalis have proved themselves unreliable and must be ruled by West Pakistanis; 2. The Bengalis will have to be re-educated along proper Islamic lines. The - Islamization of the masses - this is the official jargon - is intended to eliminate secessionist tendencies and provide a strong religious bond with West Pakistan; 3. When the Hindus have been eliminated by death and fight, their property will be used as a golden carrot to win over the under privileged Muslim middle-class. This will provide the base for erecting administrative and political structures in the future."
  26. ^ Sarmila Bose Anatomy of violence: An Analysis of Civil War in East Pakistan in 1971 later published in the Indian Journal, Economic and Political Weekly, issue October 8, 2005
  27. ^ In this website, we tried to collate information concerning this paper including Sarmila Bose’s original paper, relevant Bangla articles and rebuttals of Bose’s paper on the Drishtipat web site. Drishtipatis a non-profit, non-political expatriate Bangladeshi organization
  28. ^ Ajoy Roy, "Homage to my martyr colleagues", 2002
  29. ^ Dr. Rashid Askari, "Our martyerd intellectuals", editorial, the Daily Star, December 14, 2005
  30. ^ Dr. M.A. Hasan, Juddhaporadh, Gonohatya o bicharer anneshan, War Crimes Fact Finding Committee and Genocide archive & Human Studies Centre, Dhaka, 2001
  31. ^ Shahiduzzaman No count of the nation’s intellectual loss The New Age, December 15, 2005
  32. ^ Killing of Intellectuals Asiatic Society of Bangladesh
  33. ^ Gandhi, Sajit (ed.), The Tilt: The U.S. and the South Asian Crisis of 1971: National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 79
  34. ^ U.S. Consulate (Dacca) Cable, Selective genocide (PDF) March 27, 1971
  35. ^ Memorandum for the Record(PDF) August 11 1971
  36. ^ Christopher Hitchens The Trials of Henry Kissinger References Pages 44,50
  37. ^ Raymond Faisal Solaiman v People's Republic of Bangladesh & Ors In The Federal Magistrates Court of Australia at Sydney.
Liberation of Bangladesh
History and Events Partition of India • History of Pakistan • Awami League • Language Movement • Agartala Conspiracy Case • 6 Point Movement • 1970 Elections • East Pakistan Rifles Mutiny • Operation Searchlight • Bangladesh Liberation War • Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 • Battle of Garibpur • Clash over Boyra • Battle of Dhalai • Battle of Hilli • Battle of Kushtia • 1971 Bangladesh atrocities • History of Bangladesh   
Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman • Syed Nazrul Islam • Tajuddin Ahmad • A. H. M. Qamaruzzaman • M. A. G. Osmani • Ziaur Rahman • Khaled Mosharraf • Muhammad Mansur Ali • Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad • Matiur Rahman • Manjula Anwar • M A Hannan • Abu Sayeed Chowdhury • Awami League • Mukti Bahini • Mujibnagar • Mitro Bahini
Pakistan Yahya Khan • Zulfikar Ali Bhutto • Nurul Amin • Shah Azizur Rahman • Golam Azam • Motiur Rahman Nizami • Jamaat-e-Islami • Pakistan Army • Tikka Khan • A. A. K. Niazi • Razakars • Al-Badr • Al-Shams
India Indira Gandhi • Indian Army • Sam Manekshaw • Jagjit Singh Aurora
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