<*>[Attachment(s) from Jiten Roy included below]
--- On Tue, 3/18/14, Unity Couniclusa <unitycouncilusa@aol.com> wrote:
> From: Unity Couniclusa <unitycouncilusa@aol.com>
> Subject: Our Meeting with the Hon. Ambasssador Dan W. Mozena
> To: bhbcop@dhaka.net
> Cc: chittasaker@hotmail.com
> Date: Tuesday, March 18, 2014, 8:20 PM
>
>
> Press
> Release
>
>
>
> For Immediate Release
>
>
>
>
> New York
>
>
>
> March 17,
> 2014
>
>
>
>
>
>
> BHBCUC, USA's
> Meeting with the US Ambassador
> to Bangladesh,
>
>
> His Excellency Dan W. Mozena
> Held
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Dear Minority
> Rights Advocates/Activists:
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Bangladesh Hindu
> Buddhist & Christian Unity Council, USA is held a meeting with the US Ambassador to
> Dhaka the Honorable Dan W. Mozena on Sunday, March 16, 2014
> at the Gulshan Terrace of
> Woodside, Queens, New York
> City. Ambassador Mozena
> accompanied by two Department of State officials, Dr. Erick
> Eide and Mr. Christopher Elms, arrived promptly at 9: 45 AM
> and were greeted by 350 to 400
> members of the
> Bangladeshi-Americans belonging to various Hindu, Buddhist
> and Christian organizations, a dozen print media and TV
> cameras (BHBCUC, USA
> apologizes to the scores of
> people who, responding to our invitation, enthusiastically
> came there braving the Sunday morning cold to express their
> solidarity with the victims of religious & ethnic
> cleansing in Bangladesh and let the Hon. Ambassador know
> that America must act to protect them).
>
>
>
>
>
> Seated on the stage
> were the three co-presidents of the organization Dr. Jiten
> Roy, Mr. Julius Gomez and Mr. Ranabir Barua, the Honorable
> Ambassador Mozena and the two other State Department
> officials: Dr. Erick Eide and Mr. Christopher Elms. And, the meeting was very efficiently
> conducted by the organization's Vice Chairman/Board of
> Director and an articulate speaker Mr. Bidyut Das.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The meeting started with Anandita
> offering the ambassador a bouquet of flowers and President
> Julius Gomez offering him a gift on behalf of BHBCUC, USA.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Figure 1Ambassador Mozena with Presidents Dr. Jiten
> Roy & Mr. Julius Gomez
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Ambassador Mozena
> was introduced by young Attorney Rakesh Roy and Professor
> Dastidar by Mr. Akash Das, an intern of BHBCUC, USA. All the presentations were supported
> by relevant Power Point slides containing pictures
> portraying atrocities as well as data, which were prepared
> and/or projected on the screen simultaneously with the
> speech by BHBCUC, USA Advisor Mr. Ranjit Roy.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The speakers
> included Distinguished Professor of SUNY Old Westbury
> Campus, Dr. Sachi Ghosh
> Dastidar, Dr. Dwijen
> Bhattacharjya, Lecturer in
> Bengali/Columbia University,
> Mr. Amit Chowdhury, Director Policy, Mr. Rup
> Kumar Bhowmick, Director Communications &
> Publications, and Ms. Sathi
> Roy.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Following the
> welcome address by Mr. Amit Chowdhury, Director Policy, Mr.
> Rup Kumar Bhowmuck, Director of Communications &
> Publications, apprised the audience of the fact that BHBCUC,
> USA was a politically non-aligned Human Rights advocacy
> group, focused only on helping the religious & ethnic
> minorities of Bangladesh regain their equal rights and the
> right to live in their ancestral homeland, Bangladesh, with
> human dignity and safety of life and property. He pointed out that this organization
> brutally honest when it comes to presenting facts about
> which political party or its leaders & cadres have
> played what role in this on-going state-sponsored campaign
> of religious & ethnic cleansing in Bangladesh.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> In presenting the
> Position Paper on behalf of the organization, Dr. Bhattacharjya ( henceforth "the
> paper") started out by arguing that the vicious campaign
> of blatant discrimination and religious & ethnic
> cleansing that has raged in Bangladesh for decades, has been a state sponsored,
> goal-oriented and targeted campaign.
> The paper substantiated the claim by citing Kennedy
> Report of November 1971, Sydney Shanberg's (NY Times Dhaka
> correspondent in 1971 who is world famous for his role in
> "Killing Field") reports, both of which says that
> particularly the Hindus were targeted in 1971 – their
> houses were marked "H," reminiscent of what the Nazis
> did to the Jewish population during World War-II.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Then by referring
> as well as showing in slides such notices served by the
> Islamists' as "Leave Bangladesh or face dire
> consequences," "Islam has
> been declared state religion, and therefore you must convert
> to Islam or leave the country,"
> "Hindus must convert to Islam if they want to
> vote., etc.," including in January 2014, the paper argued
> that the campaign has always been driven by the Islamic
> nationalist's and extremists goal of ridding the country
> of its minorities through violence.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> By describing
> select heart rending cases of atrocities that occurred
> between 1988 and 2014, e.g.,
> that of the Logang Massacre of
> the indigenous people on April 10, 1992 by Prime Minister
> Begum Zia's armed forces and
> Muslim settlers (referring to the letter that 17 US
> Congressmen wrote Prime Minister Begum Zia expressing
> concern it was stated that 600 residents of that village
> were systematically killed after raping their women and
> looting their dwelling houses), the Banskhali Massacre, the
> slaughtering of the internationally famous Buddhist monk
> Gnanajyoti Mahasthabir, Principal Muhuri, the celebration of
> their election victory by the cadres of BNP and Jamaat-
>
> e- Islami by raping 200 girls in
> one night (The Daily Star Editorial), and the case
> of rape-murder where they
> urinated in the mouth of dying person begin for a drop of
> water, the paper further argued
> that when the deadly combination of BNP and
> Jamaat-E- Islami returns to power Bangladesh becomes
> a "killing field" for its minorities as well as the
> secular Muslims (the case of the cadres of BNP gang raping
> a secular Muslim girl after
> their election victory in 2001 was cited).
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Although everything
> that was included in the Position Paper was shown in the
> Power Point slides along with the presentation, the Hon.
> Ambassador was also provided two
> books: one our own publication Bangladesh: a
> portrait of covert Genocide (2004) and Professor
> Barakat's book (about the
> effects of Enemy Property Act on the minorities), in
> which such documents as the letter that 17 US Congressmen
> wrote to Begum Zia in November 1992, expressing concern over
> the Logang Massacre, the Kennedy
> Report of 1971, the Shanberg
> Report, American Taliabn John Walker Lindh's interview
> with CNN On Line etc., were
> conspicuously flagged.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Referring to
> Professor Barakat's resercah the paper Dr. Bhattacharjya
> told the audience that BNP and Awami League both seized the
> highest quantiy of peroperty during the time they were in
> power, and, thus, there is little difference among parties
> when it comes to minority persecution/cleansing.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Upon firmly establishing that the
> minorities have been persecuted regardless of which party
> has been in power, varying only in terms of the degree of
> intensity, the paper argued that while the goal of the Islamic extremists ( Jamaat, Shibieer and its allies) behind this campaign has
> been to (i) rid the country of its "infidel" population,
> i.e., the Hindus, Buddhists and Christian including the
> indigenous peoples, so the country could be turned into a
> monolithic Islamic; the goal of the Islamic nationalist BNP has been also been the same for a
> different reason: reduce Awami League's vote bank by 14%,
> so it could never win the
> parliamentary election again.
> The Awami League's goal has been totally different
> -- by not preventing or stopping pogroms by using the the
> police or armed forces, when the attacks are conducted
> against the minorities, it has always wanted to show the
> world how evil BNP and Jamaat-E- Islami are. Thus, to all the parties the
> minorities are simply an expandable commodity, and not human
> beings like them.
>
>
>
>
>
> The paper then
> pointed out how BNP reinstated the killers and murderers of
> 1971 into politics and started the process of Islamizing
> Bangladesh through the passage of the 5th
> amendment and how Lt. General Ershad firmly established
> Islam as the state religion through the 8th
> Amendment, thus rendering the minorities as 2nd
> rate citizens and other religions as less important. It also pointed out that Awami League
> and its so called secularist allies put a permanent seal on
> the issue by reaffirming what Lt. General Ershad had done to
> the minorities by passing the 8th Amendment or
> the State Religion bill. Dr.
> Bhatatcharjya argued that by taking this unthinkable
> backward action Awami League reverted to its original
> character that it had when it was born as the Awami
> Muslim League.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The paper further
> argued that Bangladesh experienced an astronomical rise in
> Islamic militancy during the BNP-Jamaat rule between 2001
> and 2006. It pointed out that
> Prime Minister Begum Zia - Nijami's government provided
> shelter to the shipload of Al-Qaeda soldiers who entered
> Bangladesh by M. V. Mecca after the fall of Kandahar.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> By citing the
> American Taliabn John Walker Lindh's interview with CNN On
> Line, the paper pointed out that
> they sent a full Brigade
> of Bangalee jihadists to Afghanistan to fight
> alongside Bin Laden's' Ansar Al Islam and the
> Urdu speaking Pakistani brigade. He clearly told the Ambassador
> that the combination of BNP and Jamaat is lethal one, which
> brought Bangladesh to the brink of being turned into a semi
> Taliban state. The paper citing
> two famous reports established that Islamic Chatra
> Shibeer is the third most danger non-governmental armed
> terrorist group in the world and hence must be banned along
> with Jamaat-E- Islamic, which is its funding source.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> He said that in
> 1971 it is today's leaders of the Jamaat-E-Islami who
> collborated w ith the pakistani army in the killing of 3
> million unarmed civilians raping of 200, 000 women and the
> exodus of nealry 10 million people to India, majority of
> whom were minorities.
> Pointing out that a lot is being said about the trial of the War Criminals, but
> BHBCUC, USA holds the postion that if anyone is found guilty
> of crime agsint humanity in during the war or afterwards,
> that person must be brought to justice like the Nazis are
> being tried and punished if found.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The paper also
> pointed out how the minorities were shocked and stunned
> again and again by the centrist party of Awami League
> and its secular democratic allies. This included reference to the
> Father of the nation Bangobondhu's refusal to return the
> Ramna Kali Temple to the Hindus after liberation, deliberate
> failure to to repeal the Enemy Property Act (thus
> allowing successive government seize 2.8 million acres of
> land from the minorities), and create Hindu, Buddhist and
> Christian Foundations along with the Islamic Foundations
> that he had created through legislation.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> He criticized the Bangobondhu
> government for looking the other way when the Islamic
> nationalists & extremists desecrated deities and temples
> during the Durga Pooja in October 1972, thus signaling to
> the Islamists that minority persecution was all right in
> secular democratic Bangladesh as it had been in Islamic
> Pakistan.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The paper accused Prime Minister
> Sheikh Hasina's government for all the above plus her failure to prosecute the
> perpetrators of crime against the minorities despite the
> existence Shahabuddin Commissions' report which lists
> thousands of them.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> He also pointed out how it took
> decades before the minorities got access to the Ramna Kali
> Temple and finally repeal the Enemy or Vested Property Act,
> under tremendous international pressure, which was
> still an exercise in chicanery
> in that the losers of property , unlike the Jews of Nazi
> Germany or the Armenians of
> Turkey, cannot reclaim their
> property. He also criticized
> Prime Minister Hasina for her failure failure to take
> decades before addressing the issues only under tremendous
> international pressure (e.g. rebuilding the Buddhists
> Temples under international pressure but not the hundreds of
> Hindu Temples that have been destroyed). The position Paper also criticized
> Prime Minister Hasina for her failure to implement the
> Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord of 1997 that she herself
> had signed.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The paper pointed
> out that although whenever a minority candidate was
> nominated they won the parliamentary election, e.g., 14 in
> the 2008 election, the centrist Awami League and its allies
> refuse to nominate them, and that there is not single
> cabinet minister in the current cabinet, whereas in India
> there have been several Muslim Presidents and even the
> current External Affairs Minister is a Muslim.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The paper pointed
> out that due to the campaign of discrimination and
> atrocities there has been an exodus of 16 million minorities
> to India since 1971, who live there as stateless people for
> India doesn't grant asylum to Bangladesh's minorities
> and thus they were not economic migrants, which is what has
> been claimed by the agents of BNP and Jamaat, who have
> consistently denied that minority persecution has ever
> occurred in Bangladesh.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Having thus very
> fairly criticizing all the
> political parties and arguing that perpetrators of crime
> against the minorities are primarily the cadres of BNP and
> Jamaat, Dr. Bhattacharjya
> profusely praised Awami League for completely separating the
> state and Mosque/Church and for Prime Minister Sheikh
> Hasina's stellar records in combating terrorism, women
> empowerment, child mortality, economic development,
> generation of electricity, etc and that her government does
> not bar the promotions due to the minorities which is why
> they vote for the secularists and that he himself would also
> vote for Awami League, if he were to go back to Bangladesh.
> He clearly let the ambassador
> know that, as in every nation, the minorities always tend to
> vote for the relatively more secular party and they will
> thus vote for Awami League and its allies, as would he
> himself.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Dr. Bhattacharjya,
> gratefully acknowledged the assistance the secular
> democratic people of Bangladesh have provide whenever the
> minorities have have come under attack by the cadres of BNP
> and jamaat and pointed out that in every country the
> minorities have been able to survive and even regain their
> rights only with the help of the secular democratic forces
> of the majority group and that the same is the case in
> Bangladesh, too.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Having said that,
> he urged the Ambassador to support the secular democratic
> forces in Bangladesh and roll the country back into a
> secular democratic state like his predecessor Ambassador
> Moriarty did in Nepal.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> He pointed out that
> the religious minorities of Bangladesh looked up to the
> United States to device a permanent solution because it has
> done so all over the world, e.g., in East Timor, South
> Sudan, Bosnia and the likes.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Dr. Bhattacharjya
> suggested that the US take the following steps to accomplish
> that goal:
>
>
> i.
> Advise BNP and Jamat-E- Islami to end
> their vicious campaign of religious & ethnic cleansing
> in Bangladesh.
>
>
>
>
>
> ii.
> Advise Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to take
> precautionary measures whenever attacks on the minorities
> are anticipated, and not use them to show the world how evil
> the BNP and Jamaat are for the world already knows
> that.
>
>
>
>
>
> iii.
> Encourage Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to
> constitutionally uphold secular democracy (as opposed to
> Islamic democracy that her party has perpetuated by
> reaffirming Islam as the state religion through the
> 15th Amendment to the
> constitution).
>
>
>
>
>
> iv.
> Encourage Prime
> Minister Sheikh Hasina to enact a Hate Crime Law and try the
> perpetrators of crime against the country's minorities
> under that law in a special tribunal, starting the process
> using the Justice Shahabuddin Report or Probe Commission
> report.
>
>
>
>
>
> v.
> Encourage Prime
> Minister Hasina to create separate foundations for the
> Hindus, Buddhists and Christians like the existing Islamic
> foundation.
>
>
>
>
>
> vi.
> Encourage Prime
> Minister Sheikh Hasina to complete the trial and punishment
> of the perpetrators of crimes against humanity (If this is
> done the Islamist will not dare conduct pogroms against the
> minorities and secular Muslims of the country. Trial of those criminals is as
> non-negotiable as that of the Nazis, RSS and).
>
>
>
>
>
>
> vii.
> Encourage Prime
> Minister Sheikh Hasina to empower the country's minorities
> politically and economically.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> viii.
> Advise Prime
> Minister Sheikh Hasina to rehabilitate and compensate the
> victims of violence by rebuilding their places of worship,
> dwelling houses that have ever been destroyed by the
> religious nationalists and extremists, and making
> arrangements for dealing with their psychological
> trauma.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ix.
> Encourage Prime
> Minister Sheikh Hasina ban religious extremists parties like
> Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Chatra
> Shibir and Islami Oikya Jote who have links to
> terrorist activities as per proposal of European
> Parliament.
>
>
>
>
>
> x.
> Advise Prime
> Minister Sheikh Hasina to fully implement the Chittagong
> Hill Tracts Peace Accord of 1997, so the indigenous peoples
> of Chittagong Hill tracts may live in peace.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> xi.
> Encourage Prime
> Minister Sheikh Hasina to empower the country's minorities
> politically and economically (Please note that, in her
> current cabinet there is not a single full minister from
> among the minority groups.)
>
>
>
>
>
> xii.
> Consistently promote
> and support the secular democratic
> forces.
>
>
>
>
>
> xiii.
> Provide a permanent
> solution to the problems facing the minorities of Bangladesh
> like you did in East Timor, South Sudan, Bosnia and the
> likes.
>
>
>
>
>
> Dr. Bhattacharjya ended the presentation of
> the position paper by reiterating three requests to the Hon.
> Ambassador:
>
>
> i.
> Consistently promote
> and support the secular democratic forces in Bangladesh.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ii.
> Roll Bangladesh back
> into a secular democracy that it was at
> birth.
>
>
>
>
>
> iii.
> Device a permanent
> solution to the problem facing Bangladesh's religious and
> ethnic minorities.
>
>
>
>
>
> Professor Sachi Dastidar's valuable paper
> focused on the minority exodus of over 50 million people
> under duress, which was supported by a detailed statistical
> analysis, very much like the papers he previously presented
> at two Congressional Hearings in Washington D.C., in 2008
> and 2011.
>
>
> Ms. Sathi Roy's insightful paper focused on
> the use of rape and conversion as tools of choice in the
> campaign of religious and ethnic cleansing. It argued that when these tools are
> used in combination the victims have no alternative but to
> leave the country because no parents want to witness their
> daughters violated again and again in front of their eyes.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Responding to the
> presentations, Ambassador Mozena held the hands of the
> introducer from the young generation, Attorney Rakesh Roy
> and Akash Das, and said, they were the future of Bangladesh.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> He said having
> traveled throughout Bangladesh he noticed that at the deeper
> level the majority group was willing to live side by side
> with the minorities as they have for centuries; however that
> he has also witnessed this harmony disrupted through violence
> against the minorities again and again, in 2014, 2013, 2012,
> 2011, etc. He argued that in
> order to maintain that history of peaceful coexistence
> Bangladesh's majority group must respect the rights and
> dignity of the minorities. He
> said a few times that he personally believed and also it was
> the U. S. policy to protect the minorities everywhere. The ambassador said that Bangladesh
> could not make progress complete neglecting the minorities,
> and hence minority persecution must stop.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The Hon. Ambassador
> said he believed in Lord Krishna's statement that he is
> present inside every human being, and thus he believes that
> people must love each other. He
> ended his speech by thanking BHBC, USA for hosting this
> event.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> In the
> question/Answer session, Dr. Jiten Roy asked: "We hear
> that another election might be held soon. But experience shows that, another
> election is unlikely to help the democratic process because
> the opposition parties never go to the parliament. What another election would certainly
> do is cause another wave of atrocities against the
> country's minorities followed by yet another wave of
> minority exodus. So, what would
> be the point of another election soon?
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The ambassador
> skillfully avoided this question.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The meeting ended
> with the thank You note from Mr. Ranabir Barua,
> President who had previously introuduced Councilman
> Weprin to the audience.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Finally, on a
> different note we would like our fellow human rights
> advocates/ activistsworldwide to know that, the man who has
> created counter-Oikya Parishad committees in various places defying the central
> committee yet claiming that he was the international
> coordinator of this organization, and who had his surrogate writers write articles
> in New York's weeklies likening Major General C.R. Datta
> to the traitors Jogendra Mandal and Rasaraj Mandal and then
> e-mailed to most of you in order to defame him ( He also did the same thing with the
> General Secretary of the Central Committee Advocate
> RananDas-Gupta the prosecutor of Delwar Hossain Syedee and
> Salhauddin Qader Chowdhury), simply because they refused to
> make Oikya Parishad a tool for promoting the his political
> masters, called many people of New York City trying to
> dissuade them from coming to our event. Recipients of that
> villain's call contacted us one after another to
> find out what was going on, but did show up, thus overcrowding the hall, and
> raising the number of attendees to well above 350 (
> Journalists told us they never saw so many people show up at
> a meeting so early in the morning and then attend it for
> three hours on their feet.)
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Thank
> you.
>
>
>
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
>
>
>
>
> Mr. Rup Kumar
> Bhowmick, Director
> Communications & Publications
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Behalf of
>
>
>
> Presidents: Dr. Jiten Roy Ph. D., Mr. Julius Gomez & Mr. Ranabir
> Barua
>
>
> General
> Secretary:
> Dwijen
> Bhattacharjya, Ph. D. &
> Treasurer: Mr. Dilip
> Chakraborty
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Chairman/Board of
> Directors:
> Mr. Shyamal
> Sharma
>
>
> Vice Chairman/Board of
> Directors:
> Mr. Bidyut
> Das
>
>
> Members
> Secretary:
> Mr. Ranjit
> Bhaduri
>
>
> Director
> Policy :
> Mr. Amit Chowdhury
> & Director
> Organizaiton: Mr. Bappi Sen Chowdhury
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
<*>Attachment(s) from Jiten Roy:
<*> 2 of 2 Photo(s) https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/mukto-mona/attachments/2082119328
<*> Ambassador Mozena with Presidents Dr. Jiten roy & Mr. Julius Gomez
<*> Attorney Rakesh Roy & Akash Das.JPG
<*> 2 of 2 File(s) https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/mukto-mona/attachments/2082119328
<*> PRESS RELEASE - OIKYA PARISHAD'S MEETING WITH HIS EXCELLENCY AMBASSADOR MOZENA.docx
<*> Attorney Rakesh Roy and Akash Das.htm
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