Re: The separation of East Pakistan
road runner,
Read it below. This was taken from an old thread, discussed zillions of times. Are you patroit paki like Wasi Zafar with big arm?
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1971 Bangladesh atrocities
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During the Bangladesh War of 1971, widespread atrocities were committed against
the Bengali population of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), at a level that within
Bangladesh, ‘genocide’ is the term that is still used to describe the event in
almost every major publication and newspaper [1] [2]. A smaller number of
non-Bengali citizens were also killed in clashes with the Mukti Bahini. The
actual extent of the atrocities committed is not clearly known, and opinions
vary, as the next section discusses. However, there is little doubt that
numerous civilians were tortured and killed during the war. 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[3]. 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[4]. The first night of war on Bengalis,
which is documented in telegrams from the American Consulate in Dhaka to the
United States State Department, saw indiscriminate killings of students of Dhaka
University and other civilians[5].
Contents [hide]
1 Casualties
2 Atrocities on women and minorities
3 Killing of intellectuals
4 Alleged genocide
5 References
6 Further reading
7 Footnotes
[edit]Casualties
The number of civilians that died in the liberation war of Bangladesh is not
known with any reliable accuracy. There has been a great disparity in the
casualty figures put forth by Pakistan on one hand (26,000, as reported in the
Hamoodur Rahman Commission [6] ) and India and Bangladesh on the other hand
(From 1972 to 1975 the first post-war prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman, mentioned that 3 million died on a dozen occasions [7]). The
international media and reference books in English have also have published
figures which vary greatly: 5,000–35,000 in Dhaka, and 200,000–3,000,000 in the
country of Bangladesh [8] [9]. According to the journalist Robert Payne on
February 22, 1971 Yahya Khan told a group of generals, “Kill three million of
them, and the rest will eat out of our hands”[10].
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. “Almost
all scholars agreed that the real figure was somewhere between 26,000, as
reported by the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, and not three million, the official
figure put forward by Bangladesh and India.” [11][12]
In 1997 R. J. Rummel published a book which is available on the web called
Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900, In Chapter 8 called
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.[13]
Rummel goes on to collate the what 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.”
If the rate of killing for all of Pakistan is annualized over the years the
Yahya martial law regime was in power (March 1969 to December 1971), then this
one regime was more lethal than that of the Soviet Union, China under the
communists, or Japan under the military (even through World War II).
[edit]Atrocities on women and minorities
Numerous women were tortured, raped and killed during the war. Again, exact
numbers are not known and are a subject of debate. Bangladeshi sources cite a
figure of 200,000 women raped, giving birth to thousands of war-babies. Some
other sources, for example Susan Brownmiller, refer to an even higher number of
over 400,000. Pakistani sources claim the number is much lower, though having
not completely denied rape incidents. [14] [15] [16]
Apart from Brownmiller’s, another work that has included direct experiences from
the women raped is Ami Virangana Bolchhi (“I, the heroine, speak”) by Nilima
Ibrahim. The work includes in its name the word Virangana (Heroine), given by
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman after the war, to the raped and tortured women during the
war. This was a conscious effort to alleviate any social stigma the women might
face in the society. How successful this effort was is doubtful, though.
The minorities of Bangladesh, especially the Hindus, were specific targets of
the Pakistan army [17]. There was widespread killing of Hindu males, and rapes
of women. More than 60% of the Bengali refugees that had fled to India were
Hindus [18]. 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[19]. 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 [20].
At the historian branch of the United States State Department two-day conference
in late June 2005 on U.S. policy in South Asia between 1961 and 1972[11],
Sarmila Bose (a Harvard-educated Indian academic related to the Indian rebel
Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose), presented a paper suggesting that the casualties
and rape allegations in the war have been greatly exaggerated for political
purposes[21]. This work has been criticized in Bangladesh and her research
methods have been attacked as shoddy and biased[22].
[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 [23][24]. 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 [25]. Some
sources also allege the role of the CIA in devising the plan [26]. 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,
most notably the Al Badr and Al Shams – systematicly 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”) [3] [27] [28]. Also, the Government of
Bangladesh has constructed a memorial in Mirpur.
[edit]Alleged 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 a 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 genocide 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[29]. These documents show
that US officials working in diplomatic institutions within Bangladesh used the
terms ‘selective genocide’[23] 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[30].
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. [31]
[edit]References
Pierre Stephen and Robert Payne: Massacre, Macmillan, New York, (1973). ISBN
0025952404
Brownmiller, Susan, Against Our Will : Men, Women, and Rape, ISBN 0449908208
Nilima Ibrahim Ami Virangana Bolchhi (“I, the heroine, speak”)
Christopher Hitchens The Trials of Henry Kissinger, Verso (2001). ISBN
1859846319
[edit]Further reading
Genocide in Bangladesh, 1971, A Gendercide Watch case study.
“Killing of Intellectuals”, Banglapedia article by Muazzam Hussain Khan,
Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 2003.
Martyred intellectuals: martyred history, Shaiduzzaman, The Daily New Age,
Bangladesh, December 14, 2005.
Bangladesh remembers intellectuals killed during 1971 war, India Daily,
December 14, 2005.
[edit]Footnotes
^ a b Editorial The Jamaat Talks Backin The Bangladesh Observer December 30,
2005
^ a b Dr. N. Rabbee Remembering a Martyr Star weekend Magazine, The December
16, 2005
^ a b Asadullah Khan The loss continues to haunt us in The December 14, 2005
^ DPA report Mass grave found in Bangladesh in The Chandigarh Tribune August
8, 1999
^ 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
^ Hamoodur Rahman Commission, Chapter 2, Paragraph 33
^ F. Hossain Genocide 1971 Correspondence with the Guinness Book of Records on
the number of dead
^ Matthew White’s Death Tolls for the Major Wars and Atrocities of the
Twentieth Century
^ Virtual Bangladesh : History : The Bangali Genocide, 1971
^ Pierre Stephen and Robert Payne References needs a page number
^ 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
^ Anwar Iqbal Sheikh Mujib wanted a confederation: US papers, The Dawn, July
7, 2005
^ Rummel, Rudolph J., “Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since
1900”, ISBN 3825840107, Chapter 8, table 8.1
^ Debasish Roy Chowdhury ‘Indians are *******s 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.””
^ Brownmiller, Susan, “Against Our Will : Men, Women, and Rape” ISBN
0449908208, page 81
^ Hamoodur Rahman Commission, Chapter 2, Paragraphs 32,34
^ U.S. Consulate (Dacca) Cable, Sitrep: Army Terror Campaign Continues in
Dacca; Evidence Military Faces Some Difficulties Elsewhere, March 31, 1971,
Confidential, 3 pp
^ US State Department, “Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976”,
Volume XI, South Asia Crisis, 1971", Page 165
^ 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.”
^ 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.”
^ 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
^ 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
^ a b Blood, Archer, Transcript of Selective Genocide Telex, Department of
State, United States
^ Ajoy Roy, “Homage to my martyr colleagues”, 2002
^ Dr. Rashid Askari, “Our martyerd intellectuals”, editorial, the Daily Star,
December 14, 2005
^ Dr. M.A. Hasan, Juddhaporadh, Gonohatya o bicharer anneshan, War Crimes Fact
Finding Committee and Genocide archive & Human Studies Centre, Dhaka, 2001
^ Shahiduzzaman No count of the nation’s intellectual loss The New Age,
December 15, 2005
^ Killing of Intellectuals Asiatic Society of Bangladesh
^ Gandhi, Sajit (ed.), The Tilt: The U.S. and the South Asian Crisis of 1971:
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 79
^ Memorandam for the Record(PDF) August 11 1971
^ Christopher Hitchens The Trials of Henry Kissinger References Pages 44,50
Retrieved from “Bangladesh genocide - Wikipedia”
Categories: History of Bangladesh | War crimes | Rebellion | Bangladesh
Liberation War
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