Around the world, the war of Independence that Bangladesh fought against Pakistan is either a faded memory or an unknown quantity.
Yet news are filling with the stories of the people in Bangladesh, who are demanding death penalties for those who were implicated in the brutal crimes committed against civilians at the hand of Islamists and radicals.
Why now? The slow, grinding wheels of justice have finally convicted some of the leaders culpable of the atrocities committed more than 30 years ago.
But Bangladeshi, weary and tired of the long delayed justice, are now demanding that the people not just be sentenced to prison terms, but simply be put to death.
A movement has risen from the ashes of that terrible conflict. Its name is Shahbag. It started with a few, and now has tens of thousands.
Just recently, a Muslim radical, Abdul Quader Mollah, was put to death for the crimes he committed during the war. He had been convicted of rape and murder of 300 people. After his killing, thousands of Muslims took to the streets to protest the sentence. Jamaaat-e-Islami, the party that was headed by Mollah vowed revenge. Supporters of Jamaat set fire to buildings and cars. The clashes themselves have already claimed 250 victims.
But Shahbag is firm. They contend that the level of atrocity committed by Islamists, and supporters of Jamaat, rise to such a level that only death sentences can repay the Bangladeshis' suffering. Shahbag speaks of what had been, and could have been if Jamaat had not killed innocent civilians in some act of support for the Pakistani army. Many Bengalis were killed: doctors, poets, engineers. Thousands of women were raped and brutalized.
More than 200,000 civilians died during the war. Bangaldeshi however, claim that the number has been doctored, and that the real casualties could amount to more than 3 million. 10 million alone people fled the country.
But it's not just the sheer number of victims that brings horror to the memories of the war. It was the level of atrocity, of unbridled violence. Stories collected by NGOs tell of unspeakable horrors: women kept in captivity for days and months, some just girls or children, raped each day, several times a day, for weeks, some for months.
Political upheavals had precluded a swift prosecution of those people who were responsible for the crimes. One of the things that underlies the present level of anger against these criminals is just the knowledge that they have roamed free, and healthy, and powerful in their midst for so long, without any justice being done.
Just recently the war tribunal was finally reestablished, which led to Mollah's conviction and sentence. Thanks to Shahbag, seven life sentences have been commuted to death penalties.
Jamaat meanwhile, is crying foul. They are saying that the executions are nothing more than a political ploy ahead of important elections, in which Jamaat had a large stake. Jamaat, after all is, a looming presence in Bangladeshi politics. It is, effectively, the opposition party to the ruling BNP.
For that reason, members of Shahbag are mobilizing even more. They fear that the BNP might cower under Jamaat's accusation of 'politicizing' the war tribunal, and put a stop to it.
Jamaat is not alone in criticising the war tribunals. Human rights organizations are accusing the Bangladeshi government of conducting trials without accountability nor transparency. There are reports that witnesses are being intimidated. To make matters worse, war criminals, by statute cannot appeal their sentences.
That however, will not stop Shabag. To them, taking to court and executing accused war criminals has becoming a raison d'etre, an all consuming passion that risks trampling all rationality or fairness. To them, prosecuting Indepedence War criminals is equal to the pursuit of Nazi criminals.
Source : Deutsche Welle/ 1.1.14
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