Dear Moderators,
Your readers might be interested in the attached article.
Mahfuzur Rahman
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Published On: 2008-04-24
Editorial
The day after
Mahfuzur Rahman
OF late, there has been a groundswell of demand for trial of people who committed war crimes during the liberation struggle of the country some thirty-seven years ago. It is time, too.
There can be no doubt that perpetrators of crimes against humanity must be brought to book. It is rarely too late to put them in the dock. Those who killed, tortured, maimed, and raped to stop the emergence of Bangladesh must account for their conduct, no matter how long ago the crimes might have been committed.
Yet, the loud calls for action have tended to obscure many critical issues that war crimes trials alone will never resolve. The drumbeat, if you like, has drowned out many other sounds that need to be heard. It is also necessary to understand the mainspring and motivation of the demands for the trials.
To start with, who are calling for the trials? Many of them are undoubtedly motivated by the genuine pain of witnessing years of apathy about the matter. I dare say, there are also many whose wish to see justice done appears little more than skin-deep. The motley gathering of the late protesters is worth watching.
It includes many of those who had the power to bring the criminals to justice but did precious little about it. Many of them are from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the Awami League, and the Jatiya Party (choose a faction), all of whom governed the country over the last thirty-six years at one time or the other. Of them, the longest tenure was of the BNP. Yet, many leaders of that party have now joined those calling for trial of the war criminals.
Perhaps the oddest thing is the frequent statements from leaders of these parties that the initiative for action �must come from the government.� You might be forgiven if you doubted you were hearing right. Leaders who are now saying that it is the government, which must start the process of putting alleged war criminals on trial, were themselves the government. What had they been doing when in power? It all smells distinctly hypocritical.
Then why are these people so vocal in their call for war-crimes trials? The question can legitimately be asked about some of those demanding the trial, though certainly not about all. One answer readily suggests itself.
There has been a new awareness among the population of the enormous sacrifices made during the liberation war. Resurgence is probably too strong a word, but it is popular now to denounce war crimes. Some of the political leaders may simply have been playing to the gallery, the elections being on the horizon, or appearing to be.
But suppose a government comes into office that genuinely wants to put the war-criminals on trial. Suppose it hangs the guilty or jails them for life. What happens then? I do not believe that much will happen to the political landscape of the country.
This is because, like the pernicious iceberg, the question of hostility to the ideology of Bangladesh that led to the crimes lies mostly submerged, the trials calling attention only to its tip above water.
Today, there is little attention to the dangerous bottom nine
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