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The Terrible Blood Bath of Tikka Khan
Newsweek [June 28, 1971; pp. 43-44]
Ever since the Pakistani civil war broke out last March, President Mohammad Yahya Khan has done his utmost to prevent reports on the ruthless behavior Pakistani Army in putting down the Bengali fight for independence from reaching the outside world. Most foreign journalists have been barred from East Pakistan, and only those West Pakistani newsmen who might be expected to produce "friendly" accounts have been invited to tour East Pakistan and tell their countrymen about the rebellion. In at least one instance, however, that policy backfired. Anthony Mascarenhas, a Karachi newsman who also writes for London Sunday Times, was so horrified by that he and his family fled to London to publish the full story. Last week, in the Times, Mascarenhas wrote -that he was told repeatedly by Pakistani military and civil authorities in Dacca that the government intends "to cleanse East Pakistan once and for all of the threat of secession, even if it means killing off 2 million people." And the federal army, concluded Mascarenhas, is doing exactly that with a terrifying thoroughness."
That the Pakistan Army is visiting a dreadful blood bath upon the people of East Pakistan is also affirmed by newsmen and others who have witnessed the flight of 6 million terrified refugees into neighboring India. NEWSWEEK's Tony Clifton recently visited India's refugee-dogged border regions and cabled the following report:
Anyone who goes to the camps and hospitals along India's border with Pakstan comes away believing the Punjabi Army capable of any atrocity. I have seen babies who've been shot, men who have had their backs whipped raw. I've seen people literally struck dumb by the horror of seeing their children murdered in front of them or their daughters dragged off into sexual slavery. I have no doubt at all that there have been a hundred My Lais and Lidices in East Pakistan-and I think there will be more. My personal reaction is one of wonder more than anything else. I've seen too many bodies to be horrified by anything much any more. But I find myself standing still again and again, wondering how any man can work himself into such a murderous frenzy.
Slaughter: The story of one shy little girl in a torn pink dress with red and green Bowers has a peculiar horror. She could not have been a danger to anyone. Yet I met her in a hospital at Krishnanagar, hanging nervously back among the other patients, her hand covering the livid scar on her neck where a Pakistani soldier had cut her throat with his bayonet. "I am Ismatar, the daughter of the late Ishague Ali," she told me formally. "My father was a businessman in Khustia.
About two months ago he left our house and went to his shop and I never saw him again. That same night after I went to bed I heard shouts and screaming, and when I went to see what was happening, the Punjabi soldiers were there. My four sisters were lying dead on the floor, and I saw that they had killed my mother. While I was there they shot my brother-he was a bachelor of science. Then a soldier saw me and stabbed me with his knife. I fell to the floor and played dead. When the soldiers left I ran and a man picked me up on his bicycle and I was brought here."
Suddenly, as if she could no longer bear to think about her ordeal, the girl left the room. The hospital doctor was explaining to me that she was brought to the hospital literally soaked in her own blood, when she pushed her way back through the patients and stood directly in front of me. "What am I to do?" she asked. "Once I had five sisters and a brother and a father and a mother. Now I have no family. I am an orphan. Where can I go? What will happen to me?"
Victims: "You'll be all right," I said stupidly. "You're safe here." But what will happen to her and to the thousands of boys and girls and men and women who have managed to drag themselves away from the burning villages whose flames I saw lighting up the East Pakistani sky each night? The hospital in Agartala, the capital city of Tripura, is just half a mile from the border, and it is already overcrowded with the victims of the rampaging Pakistani Army. There is a boy of 4 who survived a bullet through his stomach, and a woman who listlessly relates how the soldiers murdered two of her children in front of her eyes, and then shot her as she held her youngest child in her alms. "The bullet passed through the baby's buttocks and then through her left arm," Dr. R. Datta, the medical superintendent, explains. "But she regained consciousness and dragged herself and the baby to the border." Another woman, the bones in her upper leg shattered by bullets, cradles an infant in her arms. She had given birth prematurely in a paddy field alter she was shot. Yet, holding her newborn child in one hand and pulling herlelf along with the other, she finally reached the border.
"Although I know these people, I am continually amazed at how tough they are," says Datta. Still, there are some who cannot cope. I step over two small boys lying on the floor, clinging to each other like monkeys. ..Refugees say their village was burned about a week ago and everyone in it was killed except these two," the doctor says. "We have had them for three days and we don't know who they are. They are so terrified--- by what they saw they are unable to speak. They just lie there holding onto each other. It is almost impossible to get them apart even long enough to feed them. It is hard to say when they will regain their speech or be able to live normal lives again."
New Jersey Congressman Cornelius Gallagher, who visited the Agartala hospital, says he came to india thinking the atrocity stories were exaggerated. But when he actually saw the wounded he began to believe that; if anything, the reports had been toned down. A much-decorated officer with Patton in Europe during World War II, Gallagher told me: "In the war, I saw the worst areas of France-the killing grounds in Normandy-but I never saw anything like that. It took all of my strength to keep from breaking down and crying."
Rape: Other foreigners, too, were dubious about the atrocities at first, but the endless repetition of stories from different sources convinced them. "I am certain that troops have thrown babies into the air and caught them on their bayonets," says Briton, John Hastings, a Methodist missionary who has lived in Bengal for twenty years. "I am certain that troops have raped girls repeatedly, then killed them by pushing their bayonets up between their legs."
All this savagery suggests that the Pakistani Army is either crazed by blood ###### or, more likely, is carrying out a calculated policy of terror amounting to genocide against the whole Bengali population.
The architect appears to be Lt. Gen. Tikka Khan, the military governor of East Pakistan. Presumably, Pakistan's President knows something about what is going on, but he may not realize that babies are being burned alive, girls sold into virtual slavery and whole families murdered. He told the military governor to put down a rebellion, and Tikka Khan has done it efficiently and ruthlessly. As a result, East Pakistan is still nominally part of Pakistan. But the brutality inflicted by West on East in the last three months has made it certain that it will only be a matter of time before Pakistan becomes two countries. And those two countries will be irreparably split-at least until the last of today's maimed and brutalized children grow old and die with their memories of what happened when Yahya Khan decided to preserve their country.
| How did rape become a weapon of war? | |||||||
Rape and sexual abuse are not just a by-product of war but are used as a deliberate military strategy, it says. The opportunistic rape and pillage of previous centuries has been replaced in modern conflict by rape used as an orchestrated combat tool. And while Amnesty cites ongoing conflicts in Colombia, Iraq, Sudan, Chechnya, Nepal and Afghanistan, the use of rape as a weapon of war goes back much further.
Spoils of war? From the systematic rape of women in Bosnia, to an estimated 200,000 women raped during the battle for Bangladeshi independence in 1971, to Japanese rapes during the 1937 occupation of Nanking - the past century offers too many examples. So what motivates armed forces, whether state-backed troops or irregular militia, to attack civilian women and children? Gita Sahgal, of Amnesty International, told the BBC News website it was a mistake to think such assaults were primarily about the age-old "spoils of war", or sexual gratification. Rape is often used in ethnic conflicts as a way for attackers to perpetuate their social control and redraw ethnic boundaries, she said. "Women are seen as the reproducers and carers of the community," she said.
"Therefore if one group wants to control another they often do it by impregnating women of the other community because they see it as a way of destroying the opposing community." A report by Medecins Sans Frontieres says it first came across rape as a weapon in the 1990s. "In Bosnia systematic rape was used as part of the strategy of ethnic cleansing," it said. "Women were raped so they could give birth to a Serbian baby." The same tactic was used in a "very strategic attack" by state-backed Pakistani troops during the fight for Bangladesh's independence in 1971, Ms Sahgal said.
"They were saying 'we will make you breed Punjabi children'," she said, with the aim of weakening the integrity of the opposing ethnic group. Amnesty this year accused the pro-government Janjaweed militias in Sudan's Darfur region of using mass rape in order to punish, humiliate and control non-Arab groups. Such attacks cause women and children to flee their homes, lead to fragmentation of communities and bring the risk of infection with HIV/Aids. Sexual violence is also used to destabilise communities and sow terror, Amnesty says in its Lives Blown Apart report. In Colombia, rival groups rape, mutilate and kill women and girls in order to impose "punitive codes of conduct on entire towns and villages", so strengthening their control. Act with impunity The strategic use of rape in war is not a new phenomenon but only recently has it begun to be documented, chiefly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia and Sudan, said Ms Sahgal. And even after conflicts are resolved, few countries seem willing to tackle what is often seen as a crime against individual women rather than a strategy of war. In many nations the collapse of the rule of law leaves them unable to deal with allegations of rape, while in others women feel too exposed to stigma to accuse their attackers. International courts have tackled some cases in Bosnia, where Muslim women were forced into sexual slavery in the town of Foca in the 1990s, and in Rwanda, but the vast majority of perpetrators act with impunity.
Representatives of the 200,000 "comfort women" forcibly drafted into military sexual slavery by Japan from 1928 until the end of World War II are still fighting for restitution. Far from colluding, women from Korea, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and East Timor were "severely coerced" into prostitution, says Ms Sahgal. And whether a woman is raped at gunpoint or trafficked into sexual slavery by an occupying force, the sexual abuse will shape not just her own but her community's future for years to come. "Survivors face emotional torment, psychological damage, physical injuries, disease, social ostracism and many other consequences that can devastate their lives," says Amnesty. "Women's lives and their bodies have been the unacknowledged casualties of war for too long." | |||||||
Wikileaks cables on Bangladesh reveal truth behind 'Minus 2', DGFI's role in forming IDP The first batch of US embassy cables related to Bangladesh, released on whistleblower site WikiLeaks, has failed to reveal much that the public will find particularly enlightening or interesting, except maybe an affirmation that the "Minus 2" strategy to remove the leaders of the Awami League and BNP had in-fact been in place in 2007.
In probably the most damaging revelation contained within the handful of cables released so far that touch upon Bangladesh, the DGFI is implicated in an effort to absorb the banned terrorist organization, the Harkat ul Jihad, into mainstream politics through a misbegotten attempt at forming the Islamic Development Party (IDP), just before the December 2008 elections.
Hasina, Khaleda's return put CTG at 'crossroads' The most intriguing cable as far as Bangladesh is concerned, originating from the US mission in New Delhi dated April 27, 2007, reveals the thinking between the US, the UK and India in the aftermath of the '1/11' political changeover in 2007.
This was four days after the arrest warrant out against Sheikh Hasina at that time was suspended, and two days after the ban on her re-entering the country was lifted.
The subject of the cable is given as "Indian official sees Bangladesh at crossroads, Sri Lanka deteriorating, Burma becoming uni-dimensional." The content of the cable describes a meeting between a joint-secretary at the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, Mohan Kumar, and the political counselor at the US embassy in Delhi, Ted Osius.
In the meeting, Kumar is said to have told Osius that "the caretaker government in Bangladesh has reached a crossroads by allowing Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia to return, stating such a move weakens the government and will force it to reassert itself in some way."
The cable goes on to assert the role that can be played by the US, the UK and India in cajoling the caretaker government of the time into holding "credible" elections, while insisting that the army "needs to remain out of politics."
Kumar also briefed the US diplomat with an assessment of Chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed, lending credence to the widely-held view that Dr Ahmed was not in control of the government, but rather an "executor" for the military.
There is some praise for the progress made between BDR-BSF relations, and Kumar is also said to have asked for US help in getting Bangladesh to open up its economy. The British High Commission's then-political counsellor in Delhi, Alex Hall, also attended the meeting, with Osius entering to find the other two already discussing Bangladesh.
All three men agreed that the decision by the caretaker govt to allow Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia back into the country had put Bangladesh "on the crossroads." In a clear reference to what became known as the infamous 'Minus 2' strategy in Bangladesh, the three men all noted that the government had "gone back on its decision to remove the two women from the political scene."
In lieu of that, the three men foresaw three possible alternative scenarios, including an "unlikely" military coup. They assert that their respective countries should agree on "a core message" to take to the Fakhruddin government, pressing for elections and voter-list reforms, while again making clear that the military needs to stay out of politics.
The cable also notes how Kumar said Indian conglomerate TATA had complained to him about the caretaker government "impeding its entry" into Bangladesh. The rest of the cable contains some Indian frustrations over the volume of trade between the two countries, and then goes on to discuss Burma and Sri Lanka.
DGFI, and other topics The allegations made about the DGFI can be very damaging. The cable also reflects wide discrepancies between the NSI and RAB's assessments back then of the threat posed by HuJi. It also notes matter-of-factly that any move to enter the mainstream of Bangladeshi politics by the Huji, through the formation of the IDP, would probably not meet with much success, as the people would reject them.
The DGFI's efforts were also met with harsh resistance from the US embassy, and eventually shelved, according to a cable from the US Secretary of State in November 2008 to US embassies in Tripoli, Casablanca and Johannesburg. None of the cables released so far originate from the US embassy in Dhaka, although data compiled on the total cache of cables by The Guardian and Der Spiegel, indicates as many as 1984 cables sent from Dhaka to Washington, among the total of 251,287.
As of Saturday evening in Bangladesh, only 1618 of these cables have been released. That is less than 1% of the total number of cables obtained by WikiLeaks. Only a handful mention Bangladesh. Apart from the two mentioned above, the others refer to Bangladesh more generally within a group of nations, for example one that reveals the French government was planning to DNA-test visa applicants from Bangladesh and 8 other countries.
It may be expected that cables from the Dhaka embassy will start coming out in the near future, and they will contain the really juicy bits on what the thinking has been surrounding Bangladesh in international corridors of power. With the cables released so far representing only the tip of the iceberg, much more can be expected in the days to come. A time-series graph of the data relating to Bangladesh, specifically those originating from Dhaka, shows a great spike in the number of dispatches in 2009, as the world looked closely at Bangladesh's return to democracy.
Of the 1984 dispatches from Dhaka yet to be released (contrary to how the news has been represented in some sections of the Bangladeshi media today), 29 enjoy the top status 'Secret-No foreigners'; 93 are marked 'secret'; a further 28 are said to be 'confidential-no foreigners'; 693 are 'confidential'; 227 are 'unclassified-for official use only' and 914 are 'unclassified', according to Der Spiegel.
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http://www.bdnews24.com/Bangladesh/the-US-embassy-cables/#wob
WIKILEAKS EXPOSÉ: Bangladesh
More than 250 embassies. More than a quarter of a million cables obtained and unleashed on the internet by WikiLeaks. The revelations sent shockwaves throughout the diplomatic world. The exposes embarrassed kings and courtiers, presidents and prime ministers, monks and ministers.
Aladin Photo: Andrew Atkinson (2008)The US government and its vast army of diplomats had swung into damage control mode long before the flood-gates themselves were opened at the end of November, releasing myriads of cables confidently emblazoned 'SECRET'.
In a world exclusive, Bangladesh's first online newspaper presents the cables obtained by bdnews24.com Editor Emeritus aladin in London.
INTRODUCTION
So finally – the coming to light of WikiLeaks' dossier on Bangladesh, a cache of secret US diplomatic cables relating to confidential assessments and off record exchanges about developments in the country. I have viewed and will précis these; they cover the period October-November 2008 and none other exists.
On its track record of disclosures so far, Wikileaks' Bangladesh documents too had every potential for containing spectacular, incendiary revelation. I cannot have been alone in speculating about the confidences and contacts about to be outed and in imagining the horror at this prospect amongst some of Bangladesh's elite (the ones with skeletons in their closets).
Either way – whether you approach them gleefully or with a sinking heart – the documents make for grim reading. A treatise on Real Politik. Should we have been surprised?
Whatever embarrassments for Bangladesh's political cadres the cables could have contained, their contents in the first instance reveal authors' leaden pre-occupation with what is best described as American geo-strategic self interest.
The above US diplomatic cables, replete with its accounts of vigilance against putative threats, build up an unappetising profile of Bangladeshi civil society. From a wider perspective it seems almost risible the thought of a superpower secretly collecting data about the expatriate population of a small developing nation and also keeping tabs on its peacekeeping presence in Africa which it feels is propelled by less than humanitarian objectives.
The sheer monotony of focus on containing challenges to American interests does not so much paint a picture of Real Politik as it depicts a punctilious, micro-managing diplomacy which does not appear to leave much room for empathy with the indigenous context it operates in. It feels a one-dimensional narrative.
I found the cumulative effect of these cables to be dirge-like and unsettling – conveying the sense of a Bangladesh and its diaspora perpetually at odds with the mores of wider civil society. It is however important to add the caveat that 'good' news rarely get classified as 'secret'; conversely it is the complex ('bad' news) that often pre-occupies the diplomats. We should also bear in mind that Wikileaks' disclosures for other parts of the world similarly seem to paint unrelentingly unflattering pictures. As well, these cables cover a very brief period of two months towards the end of 2008 – perhaps other cables covering other periods would express a very different picture.
One can ponder at the opportunities for Bangladeshi diplomacy and its external relations afforded by these scant cables. It goes without saying that some of the most outstanding diplomatic interventions go unrecorded – including in the Wikileaks cables. Society needs its public servants and we need to blow their trumpets from time to time and not scapegoat the messenger. While Wikileaks does not quite qualify as a recruiting sergeant to the cause – it does remind us of the importance of inculcating a strong culture of public service.
HIGHLIGHTS
Seven items afford cases in point and make for some uncomfortable reading. They relate to direct or indirect USA-Bangladesh interactions over:
1- The establishment of the IDP.
2- Criminal and other threats to USA interests.
3- The allegedly terrorist-front, Kuwaiti origin RIHS charity.
4- French government immigration service piloting of DNA testing in Bangladesh
5- Richard Holbrooke ascertaining Saudi cognizance of Bangladeshi terrorist networks.
6- Forecasting Muslim, including Bangladeshi, population growth in the UK.
7- Characterising Bangladeshi peacekeeping as influence-building needing to be monitored.
THE CASE MATERIAL
The establishment of the IDP
COMMENTARY : This cable notes that a Bangladeshi security agency actively/covertly condoned the development of Islamic Democratic Party as an offshoot of the terrorist-labelled Harakat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh. It notes US Embassy opposition to the moves and also differing/conflicting Bangladeshi agencies' assessments of threats against US interests. It could be seen as depicting a lack of co-ordination between agencies of the Bangladesh government and revealing of naivete/poor judgement in relation to a Bangladesh government agency supporting the development of a purportedly terrorist-linked political group. The analysis adds – as if to reassure US interests about the propriety of the Bangladeshi mainstream – that the majority of the population wishes that the leaders of the Awami League and BNP be freely able to take part in upcoming elections.
"The IDP is a nascent political party formed by senior members of the Islamic terrorist group Harakat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami Bangladesh (HUJI-B). Bangladesh,s Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) supported the formation of the IDP as a way to bring HUJI-B into the mainstream and reported it tightly monitored the group,s activities; U.S. Embassy Dhaka strongly opposed the creation of the IDP. [Believes] the party may respond with violence possibly against U.S. Mission or interests. HUJI-B, entirely plausible the group is pursuing the creation of a political wing to improve its ability to support and carry out terrorist activity. A late-September assessment from Bangladesh,s National Security Intelligence Organization (NSI) voiced concern that the party,s creation would free extremists to pursue extremist activity under the cover of a moderate front organization"
"Analysis from the DoS, Office of Research noted the majority of Bangladeshis want Awami League and Bangladesh National Party leaders Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia to participate in the December elections."
"HUJI-B,s current membership likely does retain the ability to manufacture and use explosives the group has publicly articulated its anti-Western and -Indian stance"
"In regards to HUJI-B,s capabilities, DGFI,s, Rapid Action Battalion,s (RAB,s), and NSI,s assessments vary significantly."
"Following the early-March U.S. designation of HUJI-B as a foreign terrorist organization, RAB assessed HUJI-B would not respond with violence due to the severe degradation of the group,s capability and leadership structure from arrests and active surveillance. DGFI likewise reported HUJI-B was &an organization on the run8 and that it did not pose a threat to U.S. interests in Bangladesh"
"NSI conversely assessed HUJI-B would react violently to the designation and would attempt to conduct an attack against the U.S. official presence in Dhaka"
Criminal and other threats to USA interests
COMMENTARY: This item notes unspecified 'pressure' US officials placed on the Bangladesh government in relation to protecting US personnel and interests in Dhaka. Unspecified 'threat letters' are referred to; it is not clear whether these are seen as terrorist or wider criminal-related.
"U.S. Embassy Dhaka officials met with the secretary of Home Affairs to discuss concerns over an uptick in crimes directed against foreigners in Dhaka's Diplomatic Enclave; threat letters were sent to several diplomatic missions. Post officials will keep pressure on the GoB to provide adequate security to the U.S. Mission"
The allegedly terrorist-front, Kuwaiti origin RIHS charity
COMMENTARY : This item expresses concern over the operation in Bangladesh of the Kuwait-based charity the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society which is depicted as having terrorism and money-laundering connections. It also depicts an apparent contradiction between US officials believing its operations to have ceased and evidence that in fact the Bangladesh government had authorised an extension of its operations. An inference could be drawn from the item that Bangladesh government officials somehow could not be relied upon.
"Patrick O'Brien met with senior GOK officials on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism finance (AML/CTF) issues. He conveyed USG concerns about the activities of the Kuwait-based charity the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS), specifically the activities of branches including in Bangladesh. O'Brien described enforcement actions taken by the governments of Bangladesh and others against RIHS branch offices. He added that the USG is working with foreign governments that have RIHS branches of concern to gather additional evidence and pass to the GOK."
"Bangladesh: xxxxxxxxxxxx asserted that USG charges are different from those of the GOB. "The USG non-paper said RIHS' accounts were frozen while in reality the Bangladesh NGO Office renewed RIHS' registration for another 5 years in November 2006," he stated. He added that the GOK has been told RIHS projects in Bangladesh are going well. (Note: the two issues are separate, and restrictions on RIHS Bangladesh's bank accounts should merit more concern by the GOK. The government of Bangladesh canceled RIHS's license on May 18"
French government immigration service piloting of DNA testing in Bangladesh
COMMENTARY : The news of the piloting of DNA testing in Bangladesh for French immigration management purposes raises questions about any negotiations which may have taken place between the two governments including any subsequent 'deal' to allow France to undertake the trial.
Classified By: Political Minister-Counselor Kathleen Allegrone, Another part of Sarkozy's immigration policy -- the program to test DNA to verify kinship as a basis for immigration.The DNA testing program appears to be going forward. Bangladesh one of nine countries where France plans to start.
Richard Holbrooke ascertaining Saudi cognizance of Bangladeshi terrorist networks
COMMENTARY: Holbrooke's intervention with the Saudis incidentally brought to light the detainment of Bangladeshi citizens being held in connection with the use of Islamic charities as terrorist fronts. No further questions are asked about the legalities surrounding the detentions.
"Holbrooke noted terrorist financing through Islamic charities and asked whether the Saudis were consulting with the governments of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh about the issue. xxxxxxxxxxxx said the Saudis had detained numerous individuals from these countries and were seeking cooperation to investigate their activities"
Forecasting Muslim, including Bangladeshi, population growth in the UK
COMMENTARY : US analysis points to a 'jump' in growth of the UK Muslim including Bangladeshi population whilst shortly after asserting the growth rate is slowing. Asks the question whether the US government is in fact concerned at the growth of the Muslim population; it raises further questions about whether the US Government also monitors US Muslim populations for similar ends.
"This cable provides information on the demographics of the Muslim community in the UK. Among the findings are that the UK Muslim population has jumped in seven years from 1.6 million to 2 million. At that rate of increase, HMG estimates that the Muslim population of the UK at the next census in 2011 will be over 2.2 million. End Summary. Overall Muslim Population Growing But Rate Slowing -- Muslims are the second least-likely of all religious groups to have been born in the UK, with the majority being born outside the UK; 46% were born in the UK, 39% were bornin Asia (Bangladesh – 9%)."
"-- 74% of Muslims are from an Asian ethnic background (Bangladeshi - 16%), Almost 1.2 million Asian Muslims were living in Great Britain in 2001"
Characterising Bangladeshi peacekeeping as influence-building needing to be monitored
COMMENTARY : Intricate details of personal information of UN personnel which US interests are encouraged to gather. Striking is the proposition that Bangladesh conducts peacekeeping operations in Africa with a view to gaining influence in the region – the inference one is clearly expected to draw being that US interests should be suspicious of such motives which is a possible justification for the direction to conduct surveillance of that country's UN personnel.
"Request for continued DOS reporting of biographic information relating to the United Nations B. (S/NF) Reporting officers should include as much of the following information as possible when they have information relating to persons linked to : office and organizational titles; names, position titles and other information on business cards; numbers of telephones, cell phones, pagers and faxes; compendia of contact information, such as telephone directories (in compact disc or electronic format if available) and e-mail listings; internet and intranet "handles", internet e-mail addresses, web site identification-URLs; credit card account numbers; frequent flyer account numbers; work schedules, and other relevant biographical information."
"-- Efforts by to gain influence in Africa via UN peace operations. Countries: Bangladesh [and others]."
A PERSONAL NOTE/DISCLOSURE OF INTERESTS
There is a particular irony to me reporting on this event for I have some personal intimacy with US-Bangladeshi/Bengali international relations. I felt an almost forensic inclination therefore when settling in front of the freshly excavated texts in question.
I am American-born though I hold Bangladeshi nationality. I have attended American schools in several countries. I researched (and occasionally taught) American diplomacy - financial, economic and military - at the London School of Economics, having also graduated from there. My work today encompasses civic diplomacy.
My mother Mahfuza Fateh (nee Banu) inaugurated Bengali language news broadcasts from Washington D.C. to South Asia for the Voice of America in the 1950s. She and her friends and family apparently had to be vetted by the CIA prior to her being appointed. At the time it would be fair to say that the VOA was an adjunct to American diplomacy worldwide.
My late father Abul Fateh had unique personal experience of and insight into the complexities of American and regional, South Asian, diplomacy.During the 1971 War of Liberation and subsequently as Bangladesh's first Foreign Secretary he had a key role managing relations with the United States and India whilst heading the nascent country's diplomatic service.
His American connections were already extensive: in 1949-50 he had been a Carnegie Foundation Fellow in International Peace; he was posted as a Pakistani diplomat to Washington 1956-60 (and shortly after became the founding Director of Pakistan's Foreign Service Academy in Lahore); he was a Rockefeller Foundation Scholar and Research Fellow at Geneva's Institut de Hautes Etudes Internationales (International Relations Institute), subsequently becoming one of Pakistan's few Bengali ambassadors.
Shortly before the war he was also stationed in India (Delhi and Kolkata) as Pakistan's highest ranking Bengali origin diplomat and so became an absolute repository of in-depth knowledge of the USA's 'secret diplomacy' in the region; for the USA then as now was a key ally of Pakistan's. Hence when he switched sides to Bangladesh in 1971, my father found himself re-engaging with his American colleagues but now 'from the other side' and with the advantage of his insider's insight into their modus operandi.
My father worked without partisanship as a public servant throughout his long career from 1949-1983 – except during that passage in 1971 when he chose to be counted. He also had to serve under an extraordinary variety of leaders in as many different circumstances and whatever his personal views he always took great pains when describing these individuals to me, which he also did with not inconsiderable humanity. In the contemporary Bangladeshi context my father may seem anomalous but there are his equivalent across public service and public life here and abroad.
Here are a few axioms my father (who was a Sufi too) mentioned to me and I know he stayed true to:
"Do not speak anything that you do not yourself know to be true."
"Speak in the spirit of offering, without the need to draw attention to yourself."
"You should stand up when it matters."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
aladin is Editor Emeritus of bdnews24.com and the son of Bangladesh's first Foreign Secretary, Abul Fateh. Based in London, aladin works across disciplines, including as a strategy consultant, academic and artist. He has a long-sustained interest in civic diplomacy. www.aladin.me
WIKILEAKS EXPOSÉ What do the cables mean?  bdnews24.com Editor Emeritus aladin on the leaked US embassy cables The cables portray a one-sided relationship between a perpetually vigilant America preoccupied with geo-strategic self interest and a Bangladesh unappetisingly at odds with wider society. Whatever embarrassments for Bangladesh's political cadres the cables could have contained, their contents in the first instance reveal authors' leaden pre-occupation with what is best described as American geo-strategic self interest. The US diplomatic cables, replete with their accounts of vigilance against putative threats, build up an unappetising profile of Bangladeshi civil society. From a wider perspective it seems almost risible the thought of a superpower secretly collecting data about the expatriate population of a small developing nation and also keeping tabs on its peacekeeping presence in Africa which it feels is propelled by less than humanitarian objectives. The sheer monotony of focus on containing challenges to American interests does not so much paint a picture of Real Politik as it depicts a punctilious, micro-managing diplomacy which does not appear to leave much room for empathy with the indigenous context it operates in. It feels a one-dimensional narrative. I found the cumulative effect of these cables to be dirge-like and unsettling – conveying the sense of a Bangladesh and its diaspora perpetually at odds with the mores of wider civil society. It is however important to add the caveat that 'good' news rarely get classified as 'secret'; conversely it is the complex ('bad' news) that often pre-occupies the diplomats. We should also bear in mind that Wikileaks' disclosures for other parts of the world similarly seem to paint unrelentingly unflattering pictures. As well, these cables cover a very brief period of two months towards the end of 2008 – perhaps other cables covering other periods would express a very different picture. |
Becouse all intellectuals nowadays were not intellectual in 1971- all were dump at that time
Fresh vow to try war criminals by any means
16-point declaration read out at convention of sector commanders
The Daily Star
The national convention of Sector Commanders Forum (SCF) was held on Friday in the capital with a vow to put the war criminals on trial by any means so justice can prevail in the society.
Dear Mr. Isha Khan
The daily Star's propaganda and as well as Shahariar Kabir's Propaganda all about targeting their political opponent for gaining political benefit actually not to try the real crime doer why ??????
1. On what ground the main culprit 195 pakistani soldiers war criminals were given pardon and freed by Sheikh Muzibur Rahaman ? you must give reply first this.
2. And how today after 39 years it is justifiably to try for the some pakistani supporters only ? is it not a political game?
3. Auxiliary Forecs of Pakistan Army how officially & Lawfully be under the command of Jamat e Islami while Jamat e Islami was civilian entity only - you please must justify.
4. The bottom picture is a murdered person from Bhihari Community, slaughtered by Bengali Mukti Bahini just after 16 december, 1971
5. Shanti Bahini was not made by Golam Azam; it was made by that 66 Awami MPs who turned to Pakistani supporter in 1971, stand against Bangladesh the liberation War.
Therefore, the following writing in the daily Star by Shahariar Kabir is completely politically viased.
Thanking you
Mohammed Ramjan Ali Bhuiyan
Kuwait
A front line freedom Fighter - 1971
Bangladesh Holocaust of '71
SHAHRIAR KABIR gives an account of the genocide perpetrated by the Pakistan army and its auxiliary forces during the liberation war.
RASHID TALUKDAR
AFP
Women were raped so they could give birth to a Serbian baby 
