Chabot-Khanna resolution and 1971 Genocide

More than a half century has gone by since the Pakistan occupation army, through its so-called Operation Searchlight, launched a systematic and indeed systemic ethnic cleansing in Bangladesh. 

In the nine months of what has come to be known in history as our War of Liberation, as many as 3,000,000 of our people were killed by the occupation army and its local collaborators. Tens of thousands of Bangalee women were raped by the soldiers, with many of them giving birth to babies born out of the rape.

The tragedy for Bangladesh is that in an era when instances of genocide in places like Armenia, Rwanda, Cambodia and Bosnia have been duly recognised by the international community --- and add here the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan in the Second World War --- it remains for the genocide committed in Bangladesh to be officially taken note of by the United Nations, indeed by the world.

Now that two US Congressmen, Republican Steve Chabot and Democrat Ro Khanna, have come forth in bipartisan manner with introducing a resolution in the House of Representatives aimed at a call for an acknowledgement of the 1971 genocide, it becomes imperative for the global community to take note of this dark period in modern history. 

That men like Pradip Kumar Dutta here in Bangladesh --- and Dutta is among many who saw their parents and other members of their families fall victim to the atrocities of the Yahya Khan junta --- have consistently been campaigning for a recognition of the genocide is a reality hugely welcome.

The move made by Steve Chabot and Ro Khanna, both reputed political figures in the US, should now translate into a more concrete step geared to acquainting world public opinion on the trauma the Bangalee nation was subjected to in 1971. 

We in Bangladesh expect the US Congress to undertake serious deliberations on the resolution the two Congressmen have brought in, the specific goal being to bring a closure to the issue through having Pakistan acknowledge the crimes committed by its army in Bangladesh. 

'Recognising the Bangladesh Genocide of 1971', the eight-page resolution by Chabot and Khanna, offers light at the end of what has been a long, dark tunnel for Bangalis. Indeed, the UN ought on its own to have examined the realities arising out of the conflict in 1971, the better to put on record the history of one of the more gruesome instances of state-organised murder of a people. That it did not do so was essentially an undermining of the noble principles enshrined in its charter as also the Declaration of Human Rights.

It is unfortunate that successive governments in post-1971 Pakistan have consistently looked away from the atrocities indulged in by Pakistan's soldiers in Bangladesh. The Bhutto government, having taken over from a disgraced Yahya Khan regime days after the surrender of the Pakistan army in Dhaka, commissioned a study on the causes of the country's military defeat in Bangladesh but shied away from going for a detailed study of the havoc the soldiers caused in Bangali life. 

As a matter of fact, Pakistan's administrations have never owned up to the murder of Bangali intellectuals, politicians, civil servants, journalists, students, women and a broad spectrum of citizens in the nine months of the war. The Pakistani military commander, General A.A.K. Niazi, is on record as having promised that his soldiers would change the nature of future Bangali generations through their rape of Bangali women. 'Hum unke nasal badal denge', he boasted.

Soon after Bangladesh's liberation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's government made it known that Pakistani military officers responsible for the genocide would be tried in Dhaka for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Eventually a list of 195 Pakistani officers, at the time in prisoner of war camps in India, was prepared. However, in light of the 1974 India-Bangladesh-Pakistan tripartite agreement, all Pakistani POWs, including the 195 listed for trial by Dhaka, went back home. The Bhutto government promised the Bangladesh government that the men would be tried in Pakistan, which of course did not happen.

A good number of Pakistani leaders visited Bangladesh after 1971, but not one of them could bring himself or herself to publicly acknowledge the atrocities unleashed by the Pakistan army in the occupied country. An indignant Bhutto, on his visit to the National Martyrs Memorial at Savar, refused to doff his cap in homage to the Bangalis killed during the war. General Ziaul Haq, visiting the memorial, was asked about his views of the 1971 conflict. He offered a response bereft of clarity or meaning: 'Your heroes are our heroes', he said. Benazir Bhutto, who made a brief visit to Bangladesh in the Ershad era, never acknowledged the army atrocities. 

General Pervez Musharraf would not go beyond an expression of regret over the happenings of 1971. Before he assumed office as Pakistan's Prime Minister, Imran Khan publicly stated on his country's television channels his sense of grief over what his country's army had done in Bangladesh. In power, he remained silent. The Nawaz Sharif government notoriously adopted a resolution in Pakistan's parliament condemning the trials and executions of Bengali collaborators of the Pakistan occupation army by the Sheikh Hasina-led government in Bangladesh.

Sketch: TBS

Now that Steve Chabot and Ro Khanna have tabled the resolution on the 1971 genocide in the US Congress, it becomes the paramount responsibility of the Bangladesh government --- the Foreign Office, the Liberation War Affairs Ministry and the country's diplomatic missions abroad --- to add substance to the demand for the recognition of the genocide by the UN. All necessary documentation is available, thanks to researchers in Bangladesh. 

Besides, news reports, editorials and commentaries in overseas newspapers through March to December 1971 on the genocide are in the archives. Anthony Mascarenhas was not the only journalist to draw international attention to the killings. Media people like Claire Hollingworth, Simon Dring and scores of others in media organisations around the world filed reports on the organized killing of Bengali Muslims and Hindus by the army.

There are the children of Bengalis murdered by the soldiers. They are a vital source of evidence that the UN and global human rights bodies should take into account, facts our diplomats must compile and present in London, Washington, New York and in European capitals. In effect, the Chabot-Khanna resolution makes it imperative for the Bangladesh government to redouble its efforts in convincing governments everywhere of the need to have the 1971 genocide officially made part of the historical record.  

So what will a successful conclusion to the Congressmen's resolution, followed by the adoption of a resolution by the UN recognizing the 1971 genocide, do? Pradip Kumar Dutta speaks for all of us here in Bangladesh and beyond. He informs us that such a development will lead to three factors coming to the fore.

In the first place, it will compel the state of Pakistan to offer an unconditional apology to Bangladesh for the acts --- crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide --- of its army.

In the second, a UN recognition of the genocide will pave the path for Bangladesh to demand reparations from Pakistan for the families of the victims of genocide.

In the third, UN acknowledgement of the 1971 genocide will make it possible for Bangladesh to place Pakistan's war criminals, dead as well as alive, on trial for their acts more than fifty years ago.

In the longer term, one expects a positive outcome from the Chabot-Khanna resolution. For the United Nations to officially and unreservedly acknowledge that genocide was committed in Bangladesh, that millions of Bengalis were murdered, that women were raped, that villages and towns were left in ruins by the occupation army will serve as an opening to a new relationship between Bangladesh and Pakistan.

The mutual mistrust which has held Pakistan and Bangladesh back from meaningful collaboration in the diplomatic, economic and social sense --- because of Pakistani governments' reluctance to accept in all humility the carnage their soldiers let loose in Bangladesh more than five decades ago --- will certainly be rolled back once the US government and then the UN act on that welcome resolution placed in the House of Representatives in Washington.

It is a shame the 1971 genocide has remained ignored. It is time the shame was wiped off the human memory. It is that moment for the world to proclaim that the murder of millions of Bangalis was a blot on civilisation, that the era is now here for people everywhere to declare, loud and clear, "Never again!"