Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2013 15:51:00 +0600
Subject: Re: The incredible nonchalance
From: bdmailer@gmail.com
To:
Legitimate demands for war crimes trials do not justify turning a blind eye on standards
David Bergman
MAHFUZ Anam, the editor of The Daily Star, in his column titled, 'War crimes trial and failure of our politics' is absolutely right. He is also completely wrong. This is how.
He is right when he says that 'without the Awami League in power, and without Sheikh Hasina's determined leadership' there would not be war crimes trials now.He is also, of course, right to say that terrible atrocities were committed in 1971, with hundreds of thousands dying at the hands of the Pakistan military and their collaborators.
And yet again he is right to say 'We need to remember the atrocities of 1971 and the brutality perpetrated on our people, in order to fully understand the relevance of the war crimes trials.'
There is also nothing wrong with keeping hold of the memory of 1971. Few would argue against him when he says, 'There is no way we, as a self-respecting people, can and should forget what happened in 1971.'
These reasons — and the emotion with which they are attached — are why so many people, including myself, supported the establishment of war crimes tribunal, a process that appeared genuinely popular throughout Bangladesh.
However, Mahfuz is wrong when he tries to hitch these reasons and the emotions to an argument about providing unwavering support to the actual process of the trials.Supporting the demand for tribunals should not result in turning a blind eye to significant unfairness (and this is not a criticism of the judges) in the way in which the process has been conducted.
In the article Mahfuz minimises the concerns about the trial — wishing only that the tribunal was a bit 'more efficient,' 'more tech-savvy' and 'more up to the international standard.'These are however totally inadequate descriptions of the problems with the tribunal process.It is very difficult to write accurately about these trials.
Apart from the social stigma of being portrayed as pro-Jamaat or pro-war criminal (which is the inevitable knee jerk reaction of many towards those who raise issues about the tribunal), there is the real risk that the tribunal will issue contempt of court proceedings.But let me have a go by setting out some issues which have already been written about.
The first two scandals concerned the Sayedee case.
In May 2013, it emerged that the investigation and prosecution authorities had misled the tribunal about seven witnesses whose written statements they wished to be admitted as evidence.
Although the prosecution claimed that these witnesses could not be found, it in fact emerged, through copies of the safe house register, that the prosecution had brought them to Dhaka but decided not bring them to testify before the court.
Then five months later, in November 2012, the state authorities abducted from outside the court a witness, who was about to testify on behalf of Delwar Hossain Sayedee. When it happened, many chose to disbelieve it pointing out that the main eye-witnesses to the abduction were Jamaat lawyers, but the abduction has now been confirmed by Bali himself both in a statement provided to New Age newspaper, and more recently to an Indian court in his claim for asylum.
There was a good reason why state authorities would have wanted to prevent Bali from giving testimony in court; his evidence would have severely weakened a key case against Sayedee, one of two which finally resulted in him receiving the death penalty.
Then a month later there was the Skype scandal.
There were many things said in these conversations which raised concerns about the whole trial process — but perhaps the most shocking aspect of it was the collusion between a judge and a number of prosecutors.The judge concerned resigned. But the prosecutors involved in this 'collusion' continued in their role before the tribunal.
Arguably, in no other case in Bangladesh would there have been such an outcome; the High Court would have simply quashed the case. But here the accused has no right to seek such a remedy.
And then there are the witnesses.
One of the very basic tenets of a fair trial is to provide the defence opportunity to present their case. This is most obviously represented by a court allowing the defence lawyers to bring witnesses to court.
However, the tribunal has restricted, severely in some cases, the number of defence witnesses.In the case of Abdul Alim, the prosecution brought 35 witnesses, but the defence were restricted to only 3. In the Salauddin Quader Chowdhury trial the prosecution had 41 witnesses, but the defence were allowed only 5.
And then there is the actual assessment of evidence by the court.
The one case that can be discussed with a greater level of openness is the Quader Molla case where issues of sub-judice no longer prevail. Abdul Quader Molla has received a death penalty for an offence where the reliability of the evidence of the sole witness has to be in real question.
Prior to her testimony in court in which she said Molla was present at the scene of her family's massacre, the witness had given two statements (one of which was in to an investigation officer), neither of which mentioned that Molla was present at the scene of death. In fact one said that she was not even in Mirpur when her family was massacred.
Can it be appropriate for Molla to be put to death when the sole witness on which the court is reliant, had given prior contradictory statements — and had never in all the intervening years apparently ever mentioned Molla's presence at the scene? Using patriotic emotion to turn a blind eye to these substantial matters involving the country's most significant trials in its history is the wrong approach.
Mahfuz, in his personal columns, and The Daily Star as a paper, boldly take on the Bangladesh state on many issues. Why are these trials exempt from that scrutiny and searing analysis? Yes, the establishment of the trials was a great achievement in Bangladesh. Yes, it was right for the particular individuals detained by the tribunal to be subject to investigative and prosecution scrutiny.
However, the acclaim for the trial's establishment should not then preclude a proper assessment of the subsequent fairness of the proceedings — in which people are likely to be put to dea
Unless one protests now, these same unfortunate practices will simply be repeated and used against a different set of political opponents. And this time it will be people whose politics Bangladesh's civil society establishment supports.
The writer is a journalist based in Bangladesh.
See bangladeshwarcrimesblogspot.com
http://www.thedailystar.net/beta2/news/legitimate-demands-for-war-crimes-trials-do-not-justify-turning-a-blind-eye-on-standards/
David Bergman
MAHFUZ Anam, the editor of The Daily Star, in his column titled, 'War crimes trial and failure of our politics' is absolutely right. He is also completely wrong. This is how.
He is right when he says that 'without the Awami League in power, and without Sheikh Hasina's determined leadership' there would not be war crimes trials now.He is also, of course, right to say that terrible atrocities were committed in 1971, with hundreds of thousands dying at the hands of the Pakistan military and their collaborators.
And yet again he is right to say 'We need to remember the atrocities of 1971 and the brutality perpetrated on our people, in order to fully understand the relevance of the war crimes trials.'
There is also nothing wrong with keeping hold of the memory of 1971. Few would argue against him when he says, 'There is no way we, as a self-respecting people, can and should forget what happened in 1971.'
These reasons — and the emotion with which they are attached — are why so many people, including myself, supported the establishment of war crimes tribunal, a process that appeared genuinely popular throughout Bangladesh.
However, Mahfuz is wrong when he tries to hitch these reasons and the emotions to an argument about providing unwavering support to the actual process of the trials.Supporting the demand for tribunals should not result in turning a blind eye to significant unfairness (and this is not a criticism of the judges) in the way in which the process has been conducted.
In the article Mahfuz minimises the concerns about the trial — wishing only that the tribunal was a bit 'more efficient,' 'more tech-savvy' and 'more up to the international standard.'These are however totally inadequate descriptions of the problems with the tribunal process.It is very difficult to write accurately about these trials.
Apart from the social stigma of being portrayed as pro-Jamaat or pro-war criminal (which is the inevitable knee jerk reaction of many towards those who raise issues about the tribunal), there is the real risk that the tribunal will issue contempt of court proceedings.But let me have a go by setting out some issues which have already been written about.
The first two scandals concerned the Sayedee case.
In May 2013, it emerged that the investigation and prosecution authorities had misled the tribunal about seven witnesses whose written statements they wished to be admitted as evidence.
Although the prosecution claimed that these witnesses could not be found, it in fact emerged, through copies of the safe house register, that the prosecution had brought them to Dhaka but decided not bring them to testify before the court.
Then five months later, in November 2012, the state authorities abducted from outside the court a witness, who was about to testify on behalf of Delwar Hossain Sayedee. When it happened, many chose to disbelieve it pointing out that the main eye-witnesses to the abduction were Jamaat lawyers, but the abduction has now been confirmed by Bali himself both in a statement provided to New Age newspaper, and more recently to an Indian court in his claim for asylum.
There was a good reason why state authorities would have wanted to prevent Bali from giving testimony in court; his evidence would have severely weakened a key case against Sayedee, one of two which finally resulted in him receiving the death penalty.
Then a month later there was the Skype scandal.
There were many things said in these conversations which raised concerns about the whole trial process — but perhaps the most shocking aspect of it was the collusion between a judge and a number of prosecutors.The judge concerned resigned. But the prosecutors involved in this 'collusion' continued in their role before the tribunal.
Arguably, in no other case in Bangladesh would there have been such an outcome; the High Court would have simply quashed the case. But here the accused has no right to seek such a remedy.
And then there are the witnesses.
One of the very basic tenets of a fair trial is to provide the defence opportunity to present their case. This is most obviously represented by a court allowing the defence lawyers to bring witnesses to court.
However, the tribunal has restricted, severely in some cases, the number of defence witnesses.In the case of Abdul Alim, the prosecution brought 35 witnesses, but the defence were restricted to only 3. In the Salauddin Quader Chowdhury trial the prosecution had 41 witnesses, but the defence were allowed only 5.
And then there is the actual assessment of evidence by the court.
The one case that can be discussed with a greater level of openness is the Quader Molla case where issues of sub-judice no longer prevail. Abdul Quader Molla has received a death penalty for an offence where the reliability of the evidence of the sole witness has to be in real question.
Prior to her testimony in court in which she said Molla was present at the scene of her family's massacre, the witness had given two statements (one of which was in to an investigation officer), neither of which mentioned that Molla was present at the scene of death. In fact one said that she was not even in Mirpur when her family was massacred.
Can it be appropriate for Molla to be put to death when the sole witness on which the court is reliant, had given prior contradictory statements — and had never in all the intervening years apparently ever mentioned Molla's presence at the scene?
Mahfuz, in his personal columns, and The Daily Star as a paper, boldly take on the Bangladesh state on many issues. Why are these trials exempt from that scrutiny and searing analysis?
However, the acclaim for the trial's establishment should not then preclude a proper assessment of the subsequent fairness of the proceedings — in which people are likely to be put to dea
th.It is also very short-sighted.
Unless one protests now, these same unfortunate practices will simply be repeated and used against a different set of political opponents. And this time it will be people whose politics Bangladesh's civil society establishment supports.
The writer is a journalist based in Bangladesh.
See bangladeshwarcrimesblogspot.com
http://www.thedailystar.net/beta2/news/legitimate-demands-for-war-crimes-trials-do-not-justify-turning-a-blind-eye-on-standards/
On Fri, Oct 11, 2013 at 4:46 PM, Isha Khan <bdmailer@gmail.com> wrote:
THE THIRD VIEW
The incredible nonchalance
Seldom has a PM anywhere shown such "couldn't care less" attitude towards an imminent political crisis.
Mahfuz Anam
AS citizens, as tax payers, as journalists we really cannot believe that there can exist leaders who can be so unbelievably indifferent to impending political crisis with all the potential of spilling over into violence, loss of property and lives. And all this is being done in the name of democracy. How democracy is strengthened by prospect of violence is something we fail to comprehend.
Sheikh Hasina is repeating herself hoarse that she will only hold the elections under the present constitution. This would have been a perfectly justifiable position but for the fact that she changed the constitution most recently to suit her own game plan.
It is a supreme irony that she did away with the caretaker government system (CTG), the very system that she literally pushed down the throat of the nation in the mid-nineties through nearly three years of relentless mass agitation and with nearly two hundred days of hartals. Having brought about the CTG system, she arbitrarily and without any consultation with her own members of parliament and constitutional experts, leave alone those from the opposition, changed it, using a Supreme Court judgement, that while declaring the CTG system illegal, yet permitted its use for the next two terms on the grounds of 'safety of the people and safety of the nation.'
The PM keeps on repeating that the 15th Amendment was the result of a year long work of a constitution reform committee that she had set up. What she conveniently omits to say is that that very committee suggested retention of the CTG government in its draft recommendation submitted to the PM. In response to the draft Sheikh Hasina insisted that the committee reconsiders its recommendation and incorporate the proposal to do away with the CTG system. We have written about it in details and yet the PM keeps on repeating her narrative.
In post-facto justification of her action the PM argues that CTG provides for un-elected individuals to run our "republic" for 90 days which is against the fundamental spirit of our constitution and of democracy that insists — as it should — that we must always be governed by elected representatives of the people.She is right. But the is as true now as it was true in 1994-96 period when she insisted that it be incorporated in our constitution. So one can be quite justified in suspecting that CTG is good when AL is in opposition but not good when in power. If BNP had won the elections in 2008 and it abolished the CTG system for the same reasons, would Sheikh Hasina and the AL have accepted it? We seriously doubt it.
PM's other argument against CTG is that it provides a very weak link between two elected governments. CTG opens up possibilities of unelected governments to lengthen their stay in power as it happened in 2006-8 period.
She is again right. But that happened because of the activities of BNP and the AL during the pre-election period and also due to some lacunae in the existing provisions.Those should and could have been corrected and the CTG system could have been made fool-proof. We also believe that if Khaleda Zia did not make President Iajuddin the Chief Advisor, and then try to remote control the CTG then the crisis could have been averted. So instead of correcting the faults she did away with the system. It was like cutting off the head to get rid of headaches.
Now let us look at the other side. Why did the CTG system become so popular and gain public support as it did. In a way it can be termed as Sheikh Hasina's grand success that the idea she and her party promoted and made into law had become so successful and so popular that people of the country want it continued, including the opposition whose leader who once said: "Only a child or a mad person can be neutral."
The reason for CTG's success is that it responded to a very special need of our politics. That need was for a neutral governmental structure to oversee the elections held every five years. That need arose from a deep seated suspicion between the AL and the BNP. Neither side trusted the other to control the levers of government machinery during elections, lest it uses it to its own advantage.
That suspicion has increased over the years. So while our PM may repeat a million times that she will hold the freest and fairest of elections ever, if her opponents do not have confidence and if they do not want to participate in that process, the AL chief cannot ignore that position.
The onus of ensuring that the elections are held on a level playing field definitely rests with the government. This is especially so because the "level playing field" has been upset by Sheikh Hasina's own constitution amendment.There is no hiding away from the fact the PM, her government and her party have made no attempt so far to talk with the opposition. So far all saner elements within the country and all major international friends of Bangladesh have repeatedly urged Sheikh Hasina to initiate talks with the opposition. So far all such advice have fallen on deaf ears. The UN, no friend of the opposition, had sent two special missions both of which insisted on a dialogue. Chinese, who never express views on internal politics, have this time around, along with the EU, US and UK, publicly suggested that a dialogue with the opposition is good for the country.
We find it absolutely incomprehensible that the prime minister can be so very nonchalant about the impending political conflict that most concerned citizens seem to be predicting. Instead of trying to find a solution the PM is busy daring her opponents to prevent her from holding theelections, as if the technical holding of the elections is everything.
There appears little concern that if election is to reflect public opinion then it must be participated by all leading parties. Without BNP's participation the election will lack credibility, and consequent acceptability.
Most importantly, holding a one-sided election will not give the country the peace and harmony that it so badly needs to move towards greater economic advancement.
The writer is Editor and Publisher, The Daily Star.
__._,_.___