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The resurrection of Bangladeshi Talibans on the face of
Bangladesh's
historical burden
By Jamal Hasan
It was the last week of November 2001. The September Eleven
tragedy was
still fresh in the collective memory of majority of the
Americans. I got a
phone call from an associate of a man who carried enough clout in
the
Republican Party of USA. He asked me if I could spare
a few moments with
his chief. Initially I felt a little bit apprehensive
interacting with
somebody whom I hardly knew. Nonetheless, I decided to
utilize the
opportunity to be face-to-face with somebody who had been a
familiar figure
in U.S. media for quite sometime.
In a cold winter morning I went to the office of this "well
connected"
policy analyst. Located in the downtown Washington,
the neatly decorated
office was not too far from the Capitol Hill. I was greeted
at the door and
the discussion started in no time. We touched upon such
subjects as Islamic
fundamentalism and its impact globally. In course of our
discussion, the
topics of 1971's Pakistani army sponsored Genocide in Bangladesh
and the
role of Islamic fascist war criminals were covered. The
listener appeared
to be quite receptive. It was quite obvious that memories
of the painful
chapter of Bangladesh tragedy were making me a bit
emotional. The bygone
days of a nation's struggle for freedom from colonial
subjugation, being
pawn in a Cold War chess game, Nixon-Kissinger' s wholehearted
support for
brutal Yahya junta-lots of surreal sequences rushed through my
mind. After
a while, as our discussion was almost over, I got a friendly
gesture from
the host. It seemed he could conceive the logical pattern
of Islamic
fascism in South Asia as it evolved in occupied Bangladesh of
1971. Thus,
an untold chapter of Islamic terrorism, happened in an obscure
Third World
country which was brought to the attention of a sympathetic
listener
belonging to a very influential power base of America.
The genesis of Bangladesh may disclose an unnerving
saga. Knowingly or
unknowingly, we are carrying a huge burden of history.
While US policy
makers were making good use of Islamist card whenever the need
was acute,
many Third World nations suffered miserably at the hand of the
blood thirsty
Islamic fascists. With historical patronage, a well groomed
"pro-West"
Islamic fascists' global entity was gradually becoming a
Frankenstein's
monster. That is why, while the rookie Islamic fascists
practiced blood
spilling on Bangladeshis in Rayer Bazar killing field of Dhaka in
1971, the
final showdown came upon America on September 11, 2001 in a big
thunderous
way.
What happened in Rayer Bazar in 1971? Who were the killers
and who were
killed? Weren't the killers pioneers of Islamic
fascism of twentieth
century, members of death squads like Al-Badr and Al-Shams and
Jamaat-i-Islami? Weren't those evil forces supported and
patronized by
Pakistani military junta of 1971?
The following excerpt from a book on genocide in Bangladesh will
take us
back to a different space and time. To the killing field
located in the
outskirts of Bangladeshi capital Dhaka in the year 1971.
After the surrender of the Pakistan army on December
16, the mass graves
at Mirpur and Mohammadpur were unearthed to reveal
the corpses of the dead
sons and daughters of Bangladesh. Accounts of the
discovery shocked and
horrified the entire world.
MASS GRAVES: AN EYEWITTNESS ACCOUNT
Hamida Rahman, in her article
"Katasurer Baddhabhumi "(The Mass
Grave
at Katasur), describes her visit to Rayer Bazar.
I soon came upon two huge bodiesthe noses had been cut off,
the ears too.
It seemed as if someone had torn away pieces of
flesh from near their
mouths. Their hands and feet were tied. The corpses had lain
there for two
days because they hadn't been identified. I cannot forget the
distorted,
mutilated faces of those two tall, fair men. Afterwards the
people of that
area buried the bodies where they lay.
A few steps ahead, at the foot of a mound of earth, lay a
woman's corpse.
The woman's eyes had been tied. The gamchha (towel)
with which her eyes
had been tied was still lying there. She was wearing
a black Dhakai sari.
On one foot she had on a sock. There was nothing left of
her face. It
seemed as if someone had torn and cut away the flesh so
that she would not
be recognized. The woman was fair and slightly plump. One
breast had been
cut off. The corpse was lying on its back. I could not
stand the sight of
that horrible, featureless face for very long. I could not
recognize her.
Afterwards she was identified as Selina Parveen, Editor of
Shilalipi. When
her relatives heard the news, they came in the
evening and took her body
away.
Proceeding a little farther, I came upon a skeleton with a
little flesh
still clinging to its legs and to its rib cage. Perhaps crows and
vultures
had eaten the flesh. The long hair attached to the skull,
matted with dirt
and mud, bore silent witness that this corpse had once been
a woman.
Ahead of me l saw a group of people
standing on a raised portion of
land, looking down at something. As I reached them,
one of them reached
out a hand and pulled me up beside them.
Looking down at the swamp in
front, I saw a horrible sight. There weren't just one
or two corpses
there; there were twelve or thirteen bodies of what had
once been twelve or
thirteen healthy, strapping men. They were lying there, one
after the
other. Next to this group of bodies lay the corpses of two
men; the heart
had been torn out from one of the bodies. This body was
that of Dr. Rabbi.
On a nearby stack were the bodies of Yakub Ali,
chairman of the Ramna
Union, and Sirajuddin Hossain of the
Ittefaq. Someone next to me said
that Munier Chowdhury's body had also been found here.
Kabir Chowdhury had
come in the morning and identified the body.
I was there for about an hour. I could not come away. One by one
people kept
on coming. Dr. Rabbi's corpse seemed still fresh. His
killers had torn
away his heart. They knew that he was a cardiologist, that
is why they had
torn out his heart. His eyes had been tied, and he had
fallen down. It
seemed as if someone had pushed him into the
ditch. The legs still
seemed to belong to a living man. His face had been
scratched and torn by
the nails of his killers.
An eye doctor of the calibre of Dr. Aleem Chowdhury will not be
produced in
one day; a journalist and writer of the calibre of
Shahidullah Kaiser will
not be created in one day either. That such a brutal
killing would be
committed on the very day that we got our
independence was something no
one would ever have believed.
Field after field, mound after mound, marsh after
marsh yielded corpse
after corpse, silent witnesses to the countless numbers who had
been brought
here to be killed [1].
The above gory details are testament to the brutality of Islamic
fascists
who terrorized the freedom-loving Bangladeshis for most of the
nine months
of 1971. Incredible as it may sound, today, two of the ring
leaders who
were directly responsible for committing such heinous crime are
notable
ministers of Bangladesh government. And as I said already,
the war
criminals do not pose any direct threat to U.S. interest.
So, their
presence in Khaleda Zia's cabinet does not seem to be an eyesore
to western
democracies. But, deeper assessment of Islamist politics in
South Asian
region may portray a disturbing picture. Khalid Duran in
his analytical
essay on Islamic terrorist network identified Jamaat-i-Islami of
Pakistan as
a strong patron of the shadowy forces of Taliban and
al-Qaeda. It goes
without saying Jamaat-i-Islami parties of Pakistan and Bangladesh
are
inter-linked on a historical premise. Also, the close
connection between
Jamaat-i-Islami and most other anti-Western Islamic outfits
in Pakistan is
an open secret now. As U.S. led coalition started to
eradicate terror
network from Afghanistan, Jamaat-i-Islami joined all other
Islamic
fundamentalist forces to indulge in anti-U.S. agitation on the
streets.
What is good for geese is also good for gender. The same
scenario occurred
in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Unlike a good number of army strongmen of Arab countries their
South Asian
counterparts were historically pro-Western in nature. While
main power
broker army leaders of Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Algeria or Turkey were
noticeably
secular, army rulers in Pakistan or Bangladesh were significantly
non-secular and tended to be appeasers of Islamists. USA
and many Western
countries became the beneficiaries of army rulers such as General
Ayub Khan,
General Yahya Khan, General Zia-ul Huq of Pakistan or General
Ziaur Rahman
and General H.M. Ershad of Bangladesh. It goes without
saying all those
rulers came to the echelon of power through a mischievous
way. And most of
their power base depended on the support of Islamists in their
respective
countries. In most of the sixties, seventies, and eighties
the so-called
Muslim fundamentalists were the good guys in the eyes of
West. So, the
concept of "good fundamentalists" evolved during this
era.
Jamaat-i-Islami was considered to be the "good
fundamentalists" during the
Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. Although this party was
directly
responsible for killing unarmed civilians especially Bangladeshi
intellectuals, the party played a pivotal role of enhancing Pak
army junta's
agenda. The brutal acts of the Bangladeshi Islamic fascists
was nothing
short of being privy to a genocide. But the crime against
humanity did not
impact the foreign policy direction of most of the Western
nations involved
in South Asia's geopolitical chess game of 1971. In
essence, the Jamaatis
were slaughtering Bangladeshi academicians, journalists, artists
in droves;
but they hardly posed any threat to U.S. interest in any part of
the world.
At the time the murderer fascists did not plan to harm American
civilians at
home or abroad. But things have changed dramatically.
Today, we are
appalled to see the degree of brutality inflicted upon journalist
Daniel
Pearl. In 1971, Bangladesh nation lost scores of
"Bangladeshi Daniel
Pearls" at the hands of merciless Islamic fascists.
And the whole world
especially the powerful west looked the other way.
On December 16, 1971 Bangladesh became independent as a result of
political,
diplomatic and military support from India and the Soviet bloc
countries.
It was quite natural the new administration of the new republic
got a cold
shoulder from most of the Western countries. So it hardly
mattered to many
key players of world scene as the first Bangladesh administration
led by
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman followed a secular and democratic path of
governance.
Sheikh Mujib made overtures to win friends in the West, but his
appeal
resonated like a voice in the wilderness. The country's
entanglement with
Indo-Soviet axis made already paranoid West to be distrustful of
Sheikh
Mujib administration. Those were the early days of the
nascent republic.
In this particular situation, the Saudi Arabia and a few other
Gulf
countries, Pakistan and much of the West were cynical of the
future of
Bangladesh. The assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
along with most of
his family members on August 15, 1975, which is widely believed
to be the
work of Islamists tied to Pakistani intelligence, cleared
the path to
change the status quo for good. This bloody chapter in
Bangladesh history
paved the way to bring in the war criminals of Bangladesh
liberation war,
the Islamic fascist Jamaatis, into country's political
arena. It is as if
Nazis coming to power in post-Second World War Germany.
After 1975,
Bangladesh went stage-by-stage in a perpetual motion of
Islamization. To
add insult to injury, two army generals, namely Ziaur Rahman and
H.M. Ershad
were responsible for shattering the country's secular fabric.
On 8th March, 2002, Khaled Ahmed wrote a piece titled
"Language and
religion in Bangladesh" in The Friday Times of Pakistan. A
quotation from
the essay may better explain the role of General Ziaur Rahman in
leading
Bangladesh towards Islamization.
"Sheikh Mujib gave Bangladesh a secular constitution in 1972
and asked the
Hindus to come back, promising them restitution of property. His
assassination brought to power the..... general Zia-ur-Rahman who
changed
Article 12 of the Constitution in 1977 through proclamation and
removed
secularism as one of the guiding principles. He later regularised
it through
the 5th Amendment in a parliament dominated by his Bangladesh
National Party
(BNP). To reflect the faith of the majority of the country he put
Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim at the beginning of the Constitution
and removed
Sheikh Mujib's ban on religious parties.
General Zia-ur-Rahman was killed after 20 military revolts
against him in a
year. ... in the army were overpowered by the repatriates led by
General
Ershad who introduced the 8th Amendment through his Jatio Party
majority,
naming Islam as the religion of the state. After 20 years of
direct and
indirect army rule in Bangladesh, Islamisation has taken root,
and religious
parties are rapidly spreading their communal message at the
grassroots
level. Of the four main parties of Bangladesh, three openly
defend
Islamisation, while Awami League has muted the pledge of its
return to
secularism. This state of affairs was reversed in 1997 when Awami
League
came to power again, but its appeal did not last into the new
millennium.
Today Bangladesh is well set in its destabilising pattern of
pendulum swings
between language and religious nationalisms.
Yes, once again the pendulum swung in favor of Bangladeshi
Islamists as they
have won a sizable majority in the nation's last parliamentary
election.
They have now the constitutional authority to change
constitution, national
anthem, flag and anything someone may think of. As soon as
the result of
the election was announced, the first assault came on religious
minorities.
The ugly face of Islamic fascism was unmasked as the B.N.P-Jamaat
coalition
cadres went on a rampage to terrorize country's religious
minorities. The
minority Hindus were singled out to be a main obstacle to the
rapid
Islamization process of the country. As the campaign of
harassing and
subjugating Bangladeshi Hindus was carried on methodically,
torture and rape
became a common scene. It was déjà vu all over
again! The situation became
so much intolerable that many of the Hindu citizens had no other
choice but
to abandon their property altogether. Human rights
organizations have been
following the sad saga closely. Recently, a fact sheet on
Bangladeshi
minority persecution has been compiled. That was produced
to U.S.
Congressman Joseph Crowley, a leading member of Congressional
Bangladesh
Caucus.
In the late seventies, a pro-western army ruler, Ziaur Rahman,
opened the
door to the Islamic terrorists who went underground en masse to
avoid the
revenge of Bangladeshi victims. Ideologically speaking,
these political
elements with dangerous mindset were aligned with most
pro-western Islamist
groups. Soviet invasion in Afghanistan and the
floodgate of petro-dollars
helped proliferate the cause of Islamism in Bangladesh.
During the eventful
period of late seventies two incredible political developments
were noticed
in Bangladesh society. Number one was, gradual diminishing
of Bangladesh
genocide episode from the collective consciousness of Bangladeshi
masses and
the number two was, subtle eclipse of secular values in the
society.
Islamists are extraordinarily skillful in the art of
deception. They could
be pathological liars to enhance their agenda. A great percentage
of young
Bangladeshis who were raised after nineteen seventies do not have
any clue
about the crime against humanity committed by Bangladeshi
Islamists.
Similarly, today, the Islamist propaganda machinery favoring the
criminals
of the September Eleven attack on America is successful in
attaining its
goal. USA Today on February 27, 2002 provided a front page
story on Islamic
World's view on 9/11 attack. It covered the result of a
Gallup poll where
sixty-one percent of the respondents said Arabs were not involved
in the
September 11 attacks. The poll also disclosed the mindset of the
majority of
the populations in countries like Kuwait, Pakistan, Indonesia,
Iran, Lebanon
and Turkey. The poll showed a great majority of the
citizens in those
countries believed U.S. led campaign against terrorism was
morally
unjustified.
Getting back to the story of Islamization in Bangladesh let me
resurrect the
sad but violent departure of the first military strongman of
Bangladesh.
General Ziaur Rahman's sudden departure from Bangladesh political
scene
resulting from a bloody coup left the country's Islamization
process in
jeopardy for a while. Enter General Ershad and his regime
took the mantle
from the predecessor in no time. During the period of 1982
to 1991 the
country experienced proliferation of religion-based schools,
popularly known
as Madrassahs. There was no control; mushroom growth of
Madrassahs in all
the nooks and corners of Bangladesh gave rise to thousands of
Islamic
zealots of Bangladeshi variety. They were the epitomes of
Bangladeshi
Talibans.
Like General Ziaur Rahman, General Hussain Mohammad Ershad became
a darling
of the Oil Sheikhs. The pouring of petro-dollars helped
strengthen parties
like Jamaat-i-Islami and its student fronts. Chittagong
University,
historically a secular dominated educational institution soon
became a Mecca
for the Islamic zealots. Although General Ershad kept a
iron grip on power,
armed training of the Islamist youth groups were done in almost
broad
daylight. According to some reports, financial backers of
such "project"
were a few Middle Eastern countries that included Libya and Iraq
as well.
During Ershad era, droves of Bangladeshi holy warriors left their
ancestral
land to join fighting in Lebanon and Afghanistan. Yossef
Bodansky, Director
of Congressional Task Force on Terrorism & Unconventional
Warfare mentioned
Bangladeshi Islamist zealots in one of his essays. I am
quoting from
Bodansky's "Beijing's surge for the strait of Malacca,"
which he wrote a few
years ago.
That setback did not diminish the promise of Thailand operations.
Indeed,
Iran and Pakistan soon transformed Thailand into a safe heaven
for Islamist
terrorists for the entire East Asia. Dozens of networks with
members from
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Syria are operating in
Bangkok alone.
Others are based in tourist resorts in predominantly Muslim area,
primarily
Pattaya, Phuket and Hat Yai (northern and southern Thailand).
Another alarming scenario was presented by Vikram Chobe in his
"Osama Bin
Laden: Upholding the Tradition of Jihad" essay. I am
giving a few lines
from this pre 9/11 piece.
The Indian Intelligence recently discovered that Bin Laden is
generously
donating funds to the Pakistan-based extremist outfit
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen,
which has contacts with the Dhaka-based Bangladesh
Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami.
Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami has been assigned the task of recruiting
Bangladeshi and Indian Muslims to fight in Kashmir under the
command of
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. The bureau has also discovered that the
Dhaka-based
terrorist organization has already recruited 1,000 Muslims who
will be
trained in the terrorist training camps at Kormi and Kasia in
Bangladesh.
The fallout of the terrorist attack on America is being felt
among the
expatriate South Asian community in USA. While a great majority
of the
detainees on U.S. mainland are of Arab and Pakistan origin, the
presence of
a few Bangladeshis has been authenticated by reliable
source. The American
Taliban John Walker Lindh said in an interview that Afghanistan's
Mullah
Omar's body guards composed of Bangladeshis also. In a CNN
interview,
Walker Lindh said that two important languages spoken in al-Qaeda
power
center were Urdu and Bengali. Bangladesh born U.S. Navy Chaplain,
Lt. Abu
Hena M. Saiful Islam had joined the Joint Task Force at
Guantanamo Bay more
than a month ago. In a recent interview with an American
news agency, Lt.
Islam said his media of communication with the detainees at Camp
X-Ray were
Urdu and Bengali. It is quite probable that there could be
a handful of
Taliban or al-Qaeda detainees at the camp who are of Bangladesh
descent.
As I was concluding this essay, an important news story in
today's
Washington Post (March 15, 2002; pp A3) drew my attention.
John Mintz's
"From Veil of Secrecy, Portraits of U.S. Prisoners
Emerge" disclosed
national origins of the detainees at Camp X-Ray. I am
quoting a few lines
from this revealing write-up.
"….According to Arabic newspapers, U.S. forces in
Afghanistan are holding
nationals from several Central Asian Republics, as well as
Jordan, Syria,
Bahrain, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Morocco, Indonesia and some Kurds
from Iraq,
although officials of some of those governments say they know
nothing about
such detention."
The October 1 election in Bangladesh gave a breathing space for
Bangladeshi
Islamists. Although the conduct of the election was
controversial to some
extent, most of the foreign observers found "no
irregularities" paving the
way for the Islamic zealots to share state power with the right
of center
Bangladesh Nationalist Party. The former Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina's
stubbornness regarding non-commitment of gas sale to India
alienated the
Clinton White House. The hard fact of life is, for the sake
of enhancement
of western free economy, a secular Awami League became less
attractive than
a Islamic fundamentalist dominated Bangladesh Nationalist
Party. In this
volatile world, religious zealotry and oil politics are
intertwined to a
great length. For the time being, the presence of Islamists
in Bangladesh
government may not pose any apparent threat to U.S. foreign
policy maneuver.
However, any covert patronization of global Islamist cause might
be
detrimental to U.S. interest in the long run. It is
about the time
American policy makers watch events in Bangladesh more closely
and plan on
the future course of bilateral relations based upon correct
assessment on
the ground. We don't want the re-play of post-Soviet Afghan
drama in
Bangladesh, do we?
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Jamal Hasan writes from Washington DC. His email address is
poplu@hotmail.com
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