An Open Letter to Madam Prime Minister Major General (retired) Amin Ahmed Chowdhury Madam Prime Minister You are on a war footing. Enemy has declared war against the elected government and partially succeeded because they could bluff the whole country. It is highly probable that many of them, especially those who initiated the killing and ignited the unruly activities are not BDR personnel but intruders. Kindly take simultaneous and bold action. Kindly do not hesitate in taking drastic action against hardened criminals. You may have pardoned them but they would never pardon you. Banga Bandhu pardoned anti-liberation elements but at an opportune moment they did not hesitate to eliminate him and other family members. It is their characteristics. Our beloved Prophet pardoned Abu Sufian and Bibi Hendha yet after 50 years it is Abu Sufian's grandson who mercilessly wiped out almost all the family members of our beloved Prophet (Bibi Fatima's children). Kindly take prompt, simultaneous and judicious actions. For that all the Intelligence Branches of Armed Forces, Police, CID, RAB, BDR, DG DGFI, NSI as well as Home Ministry and Secretariat as a whole need to be reorganized and made efficient. Initiative is the cardinal point of any such operation besides inherent elements like surprise, timely and appropriate all out actions coupled with boldness will ensure success which has to be cost effective.. One has to be proactive whereas being reactive means the receiving end is behind the time schedule. Mobilizing appropriate resources in time in right direction, carefully selecting soft target, concentration of firepower and making a dash with all available resources shall ensure cost effective win in the battle. Any half-hearted attempt is just suicidal. Put full thrust with a concentrated dose and wipe out threat in one go otherwise it will be very costly affairs. Aim and objective should be crystal clear and that is wiping out the enemy, otherwise the enemy will do the same thing. Time is a vital issue. One stitch in time saves nine. For the enemy, it is the question of survival, so invariably they will regroup again and in a very short time they would hit again so that the ongoing inquiry into the incident may be disrupted. It is better to keep in mind that adage that everything is fair in love and war. In retrospect, if we look back we shall find that while they were negotiating with the government, while the culprits were conveniently masquerading as negotiators in front of the government house, their cohorts were carrying out indiscriminate gang rape, killing, looting and burning of dead bodies, hunting down unarmed officers and their families. Initially they killed 40 officers in one go and in following 33 hours they killed another almost 100 officers including wives and children and the visiting friend of DG and his wife along with DG'S wife. It is alleged that wives had undergone inhuman torture and they ultimately succumbed to their gang rape for hours together by waves of rapists. Again when they were surrendering their weapons they put off light and putting BDR personnel in the front those notorious group quietly left Peel Khan and in all probability with weapons. It was just like 14th Dec'71 as done by Al Badr and Al Shams. They are now at large and still remaining as a perpetual troublemakers all over the country and they are now free to create nuisance particularly at and across the border belt. They took full advantage of our simplicity. Had there been one Stalin or King Saud, they would have wiped them out then and there. No doubt a human right worker would have cried out in despair but while facing politically motivated professional killers and rapists armed with live bullets and heavy weapon at their disposal, was there any better solution one could conceive of? Probably the answer is no. In 1976 in Myanmar, 140 members of Arakan Liberation Force after they got trained and armed from China, they were tracked down (over 400miles) one by one by the Myanmar Army starting from Shan State/Golden Triangle Area. Then all the 140 persons following different routes assembled at the entry point of Arakan in extreme cold weather of the month of January'77 at about 8,000ft height at a vintage point of Kochin hill. But then and there, they were gunned down and it was ensured that none of them could get an opportunity to escape. The Myanmar Army did not even bother to arrest them but wipe all of them in one go. Whereas, if we look at the Pakistani (alleged) terrorists who carried out sabotaging raids on Mumbai Hotel Taj, whatever wrong they might have committed, they at least did not do any such inhuman crimes. They rather boldly tried to put up resistance at their own knowing fully well that they would not be able to survive, but still they did not take any such reprisal actions. Because it is a coward who normally carries out this type of inhuman crime but a brave never indulge in killing unarmed human being particularly women and children. Gen Shakil while facing bullet did not allow his gunman to open fire on the approaching armed Jawans, better termed so-called Jawans, because he was a brave judicious Commanding Officer. Madam Prime Minister, immediately after surrendering of weapons by the Jawans of BDR and those rascals, we could have hauled them up. But we missed that golden opportunity and allowed them to be scattered all over the country side. Now it will be a Himalayan task to get them. Whosoever is responsible for this type of lapse should be taken into task. Madam Prime Minister, It seems that exploiting and taking advantage of some aggrieved group's sentiment, maybe they created one, against Army, they wanted to destabilize the democratic process and the elected government by creating a permanent rift between the Army and the BDR, the two vital organs of our state to marginalize our security and strength. Any undesirable confrontation between the Army and BDR would have jeopardized country's sovereignty. Our agile and prudent Prime Minister's timely unique action saved the country. It was a wonderful speech, perhaps one of the best speeches we ever heard since 7th March 1971. But it should have been delivered on the first day immediately after the incident occurred followed by combing and mopping up operation with a lightning speed. The rebels wanted to malign Army on baseless accusations. Initially, primarily because of ignorance and irresponsible reporting they succeeded but later on countrymen were stunned to see their inhuman and barbarous activities and their ulterior motives were thoroughly exposed although irreparable damage has been done to BDR and the Army. BDR as an organization is now hardly in existence. It has to be disbanded and in some other name to be raised again. Army lost over 137 officers of major rank and above. Command structure of Army will have adverse effect. It will take years to fill up the gap. It will take decade to rebuild BDR, may be in some other name. In our Defense strategy BDR along with Ansars and VDP provides 2nd line of defense (Citizen Army) and that is why BDR and Ansars are embedded in the Army. It is a cost-effective defense strategy. Otherwise, these two organizations could have been commanded by their own officers but it will be expensive and to train their officers on military aspect you need further training facility which will be cumbersome. In that case, quality, command and control would be extremely difficult. The rebels carried out horrendous operation with lightning speed and precision. It was a total surprise and hardly anybody was in the knowledge and if at all, did not give any importance. And we are yet to know why they were so naïve! Intelligence information might have been gagged by some quarter. It seems that they are around in highly placed positions in our society and who have not only been coordinating within the country and abroad but were also guiding and directing the operations. They are well organized, and outwardly, however gentle they might look, actually, they are ruthless and hardened criminals. Till now they are invisible. Inquiry committee must look deep into it. The way they carried out horrifying killing, looting and inhuman raping, it reminded us of 1971's horror committed by Pak Army and the Bengali collaborators. It confirmed that not only Pak Army personnel but in fact some of us are worst than animals. All these heinous crimes committed, may be, by fake BDR personnel, it was with such ferocity that out of anger, the Army took over the administration. But in spite of being terribly shocked and emotionally charged, the Army till now has been showing tremendous amount of patience and rendering tremendous support to the government for which they deserve full credit. The government, to dispense justice expeditiously, no delay should be allowed to complicate the problem further. The way rebel groups carried out their operations with initial supply of ammunition and arms made by a group from outside, who dashed with a dodge, of course must have been connived by a selected group from inside BDR Camp. It speaks volumes for the fact that the operation was a well-coordinated and well-planned quasi-political massacre amounting to genocide with a view to toppling the government and giving a clear-cut message to the government that do not try to try the War criminals of 71. The other day one Pak envoy called on our PM and requested her not to hold trial of war criminals. Obviously, the government will be in the horns of a dilemma but it should better not be in hesitation. One has to hit the iron while it is hot. The prevailing situation is the best time to hold trial of war criminals. It is now or never. Until one can punish war criminals and quickly dispose of the cases against all other killings which took place at the state level since Independence, we would not be able to establish the rule of law. Similarly, the present culprits in the BDR incident are required to be punished expeditiously and ruthlessly. Of course, after carrying out thorough inquiry and identifying the actual culprits. To do justice we should get every body arrested whosoever was present at the Peel Khana BDR Camp and to interrogate them thoroughly. It seems there were three groups. One is certainly political cadre group limited in numbers, may be not even 100/150, inside and outside of BDR. They may not be trained soldiers who might have been recruited during the political regime. And before or after little or no training, they got their posting at different lucrative border belt (smuggling-prone area including arms/ammunition smuggling route) BOP who actually led the operation including killings and raping. Many of them may be intruders. The second group, most of whom might be connivers, could bee DAD level BDR officers; many of them highly corrupt who must have provided internal support without exposing themselves. Most of the ring leaders of this group are supposed to remain behind the scene. I am drawing inferences from TV coverage, press clippings and from the talk/ expression of the culprits and from my own experience, though I may also be wrong. The 3rd group would be the smooth sailing group who moves with the crowd and turn with the wind and the inquiry committee may go wrong in assessing their involvement although many of them might have been involved in looting, while a large number of them being innocent soldiers who wanted to do correct thing even taking the risk of their own lives and they did a lot of such work and few of them got killed by those culprits and the so-called own comrades. Along with the brave Shaheed Army officers and those who survived in that holocaust and their brave family members, they too are the heroes of this episode. We salute them all.. They are our pride so is our brave and disciplined Armed Forces. Yet there could be 4th group. They are the most dangerous elements. Most of them are invisible and stay at the high levels and many of them are filthy rich or even smugglers involved in money laundering, arms smuggling and even might have infiltrated into the banking sector too. They must have financed the whole operation simultaneously as they financed many overt and covert political parties too to ensure their own safety and unhindered movement at the higher echelons. Some of them act as or pretend to be informers. Some of them are extremely articulate and polished gentleman but at heart are ruthless power hungry elements. They do not nourish any political philosophy except giving lip service to the so-called extremist religious group or underground elements. They always take shelter of those that have political clout at home and abroad. We must identify them. There should absolutely be no compromise. The elected government, to safeguard democracy and democratic process of the country, must act fast in arresting the real culprits and punishing them ruthlessly to set an example. The government should concentrate on those who went to the office of the PM. They are one of the main culprit groups. They should be thoroughly interrogated and DAD Tauhid know them very well. He knows many other things. Their group always is found without cap with button of their shirts/ uniform always remaining opened. They lost all their soldierly qualities. Those who wore mask over their faces and red band on their heads or white cummerbunds and many of them did not have belt and cap at all and many of them do not know how to hold weapon or grenade, I am positive they do not know how to carry out aimed fire and the enquiry committee must test their firing abilities and rifle drill. In all probability, they are intruders or untrained political elements recruited by notorious influential smugglers including arms smugglers who ultimately, with the help of local or national level political touts, could manage to post them to various vital and lucrative smuggling vantage points and at the required time they were brought into Dhaka to unleash this holocaust amounting to genocide. Who brought them, who distributed all the leaflets among BDR troops, which reminds us of the night 06/07th November of 1975 incident which took place in the Army barracks. They all came from outside and distributed ammunition and in many cases loaded weapons etc. These are important leading information and a number of times. Unruly elements shouted back that they would surrender once their commander ordered them. Because they wanted safe withdrawal from Peel Khana without being caught and in that they succeeded. Who was their commander, most probably at that time staying outside BDR HQ? This one single information will lead to major breakthrough in getting real story behind this episode. It is said that one Lance Corporal Shahid is one of the ring leaders. In the mean time, the guard of the late DG was caught. So are cooks, gardener and their families and others are available. They must have seen or witnessed many untold horrifying incidents, before they get lost or threatened by the offenders the Inquiry Committee to get their statements. In these types of incidents, eyewitnesses remain very tense and scared. So providing security of their life and property is of utmost importance. We have to remember that newly posted officer like Col Gulzar (who joined BDR on Friday and by Monday he was dead) and many others who carried out exceptional operations against terrorists and smugglers were trapped and gunned downed while they were unarmed apparently by their own troops. Gen Manzur was also killed by apparently by his own troops, so are Gen Khaled, Col Haider and Huda who were branded as Indian agents. During War of Liberation'71 both Gen Manzur and Khaled were treated to be leftists and anti-Indian. In fact, all of them were nothing but true nationalists, although they might have made mistakes and made faulty steps. Even then one will find that it is nationalists who are normally targeted by vicious circle at home and abroad. Madam Prime Minister To deal with the offenders of BDR incident I recommend that l A bill may kindly be moved in the Jatiya Sangsad immediately say by 03 March'09 to enact a law in the name of Special Tribunal (trial of armed conspiracy) Act 2009 with a provision to :- a. Formation of Special Tribunals with the option to hold its session anywhere in Bangladesh as the government may direct including the option to sit on holidays without any time bar. b. The Tribunal shall be formed with not less then three members to be headed by a Judicial Officer not below the rank of District and Sessions Judge. Amongst the members, one shall be organizational expert including from the Armed forces not below the rank of Major or equivalent post and the other is a Judicial magistrate or a legal expert. At the discretion of the government Judge of higher court and officers holding higher rank, if available, could be the members of the Tribunal. In case of any difference of opinion amongst the members of the Tribunal, decision of the majority shall be the decision of the Tribunal. c. The Jurisdiction of the tribunal shall be to try the offences of killing of the members of armed forces, para -military forces and their family , including any other citizen and injuring them in the name of mutiny or organizing any mutiny, breaking normal chain of command of disciplined forces, calling strike or taking arms for materializing any personal or organizational problem, instigating others to break chain of command, maligning own, other organization or any individual or taking arms to revolt against establishment or taking hostage of senior management or command echelon of own organization or any other organization and subsequently carrying out killing, genocide, looting, rape, opening fire or any other act of sabotage or unruly activities or abetting the commission of offence. Main offence followed by series of other offences could be tried as single offence or could be charge-sheeted separately on each crime. Serving Defense personnel while serving in any such organization other than Defense Forces could be tried under this act. All the offences shall be non-bailable and non-compoundable. d.The Tribunal shall have a Special investigation committee, may be more than one committee, composed of as many members as required with expert of from Police, Armed forces and intelligence agency who shall investigate the case, collect evidence, even from print and electronic media from home and abroad and submit charge sheet before the Special Tribunal within a limited time but not more than 3 weeks. Tribunal to appoint Prosecutor for each case or senior most IO could be the prosecutor to conduct the case. e. Tribunal shall have a right to accept relevant newspapers and electronic media news items, video, tape recorded versions, CD, photographs, photocopies of any document as evidence. f. The Tribunal shall have the discretionary power to dispose of the case in a summary fashion without any adjournment after the trial started g.Except Defense Forces, all Paramilitary Forces, Border Security Forces, Ansars and VDP, Police and all other security personnel who are supposed to carry firearms while performing their normal duties shall come under the purview of this Act. h. The maximum punishment for the crimes described in the Act shall be death sentence to be executed by firing squad as exemplary punishment and the minimum punishment shall be not less then 10 years RI. i. There shall be provisions to prefer appeal against the decision of the Tribunal to the High Court Division of the Supreme Court and the High court Division shall dispose of the appeal within six months without fail. The Supreme Court shall constitute special bench for the purpose. The writer is an ex-military officer and former Ambassador http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/2009/03/03/60237.html |
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