This Innocent Corner

“The Bengali spring ended at 11:30 on Thursday night when convoys of army trucks moved into Dacca with fire and sword.  I saw the sword this morning, raised in the hand of an army private as his truck drove behind a jeep fluttering an enormous Pakistani flag — a standard that has been rare in Bengal these past four weeks.  The fire billowed from various sites around the town, most noticeably from a massive conflagration in the direction of the new university campus where rocket launchers opened up at 1:20 am and from which smoke is still rising nine hours later.”

So begins the report of journalist Martin Adeney of The Guardian who was confined to his hotel on the night of March 25, 1971 along with most of the rest of the foreign journalists when a dramatic army attack on the city of Dhaka began.  His reports, available in The Guardian archive, are charged with emotion.  Though unable to leave his hotel room, he recounts in chilling detail everything he did see and hear, from machine gun and bazooka fire, to army personnel setting fire to a market, scrap yard and a newspaper office that Adeney could see from his hotel window.  Less than 24 hours later, he and the 30 other foreign journalists were put on a plane for Karachi.  Every note he had taken in the last six weeks, every book he carried, even his address book, was taken from him by the martial law authority.

The attack was dubbed “Operation Searchlight.” It was planned by the Pakistan government to curb the growing nationalist movement in its eastern wing.  It was supposed to be over in one month.  But no one anticipated the level of resistance that the army met with in East Pakistan.  The operation gave birth to civil war.  It ended nine months later – with up to 3 million people dead – only two weeks after the Indian army intervened in the conflict.

It’s not easy to describe what happened in that nine-month period.  The army attacked in an organized fashion, beginning indeed with the university and the institutions and neighbourhoods in the cities which threatened the existence of a united Pakistan.  But it did not stop there.  Villages were attacked and burnt to the ground.  Especially targeted were university students, intellectuals, Hindu and Buddhist communities and anyone else suspected of Bengali nationalism.  An estimated 10 million people left the country, seeking refuge across the border in India.   In addition, some Bangladeshi sources say 200,000 women were sexually assaulted during the war – and clearly, many would have become pregnant and given birth.  But because of shame attached to the crime, few women go public with their stories.

It was a chaotic, bloody time in the country, and a time of great fear for many people.  So many shocking atrocities are documented in newspaper reports, photographs, film and video, eye-witness accounts – even in the Pakistani government’s report on the conflict, the Hamoodur Rahman Commission. I’ve opted not to post any of these images here, as the copyright status of many of the best-documented photos will not allow it.  Besides, the images are more than upsetting.  They are numbing.  However, all you need do is type “1971 Liberation War” into any search engine.  You can browse through what shows up until you’ve seen enough.

As noted by the International Center for Transitional Justice among many many others, the perpetrators of those atrocities were never brought to justice.  Although efforts were made and subsequently undone (and then remade once again) as the parties in power in the country changed over the last 40 years, the war remains unfinished for many people as long as the perpetrators remain unprosecuted.

But how do you begin to investigate things that happened forty years ago?  On the other hand, how can you ignore them?

The government of Bangladesh took steps, beginning in early 2009, to establish an International Crimes Tribunal which will prosecute people who committed crimes as defined by a 1973 law, the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act.  Rules of procedure have been established, and next week, the tribunal will begin hearing charges against the first accused, Salauddin Qadr Chowdhury.  He says he was out of the country during the war.

But according to the International Center for Transitional Justice, “certain factors raise concerns that the process could fall short of international standards or suffer from serious challenges.”  In its excellent briefing document “Fighting Past Impunity in Bangladesh: A National Tribunal for the Crimes of 1971″, it says the independence of the process, both real and perceived, is in question.  It also states that the international community is going to have a hard time supporting the process as long as the death penalty remains in place in Bangladesh.

However, the ICTJ also calls these developments in restitution “rare.”  “The International Crimes Tribunal is faced with a historic opportunity to bring truth and justice to victims, who have been fighting for these ideals for the past four decades.”

In my next post, I will be continuing this discussion with emphasis on the “collaborators” (those people who aided the Pakistani army in carrying out its operations in East Pakistan), some of whom allegedly remain in positions of power in Bangladesh.