Bangladesh govts blamed for no resolution of issues with Pakistan

The successive governments in Bangladesh have failed to resolve the outstanding issues with Pakistan in the past 49 years such as trial of 195 Pakistani military officials for conducting genocide during the War of Independence in 1971.

Observers criticised the governments for not making requisite efforts for the trial of those Pakistani officers who were allowed to go to Pakistan from Indian prisons in 1974.

They left for their country following a tripartite agreement between Bangladesh, Pakistan and India in April 1974 aimed at restoring peace in the subcontinent.

But according to the agreement, they said, Pakistan was committed to try them.

The successive governments also overlooked or ignored a requirement in the pact that Pakistan as a state would apologise to the people of Bangladesh.

The Bangladesh authorities not even tried enough to get the due share of the common assets from Pakistan after independence though the issue was placed before the UN General Assembly in 1974 and in a bilateral negotiation the following year, they said.

‘The governments in the past 49 years did not make enough efforts to settle the unresolved issues with Pakistan,’ Dhaka University professor emeritus Serajul Islam Choudhury told New Age, adding that they were rather busy for their interests or making lists of freedom fighters.

‘The governments, for their own benefits, rather took pro-Pakistan or anti-Pakistan stances being part of the regional politics,’ he lamented.

It is a pity that they forgot that Pakistan committed genocide in 1971 killing an estimated 30,00,000 people and raping about 2,00,000 Bangladeshi women, he resented.

Dictated by India, he said, Bangladesh let the 195 Pakistani officers identified to have committed war crimes go back to Pakistan in 1974 following two treaties in 1973 and 1974 in Delhi.

‘The Indians treated them as prisoners of war as both they and the Pakistanis maintain a common version that Bangladesh was born out of the 1971 war between them, which is just a lie,’ he said.

In April, 1974, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan reached an agreement that the 195 war criminals might be repatriated to Pakistan along with the 90,000 prisoners of war then being repatriated under the 1973 Delhi agreement ‘for establishment of durable peace in the sub-continent’.

Then Bangladesh foreign affairs minister Kamal Hossain, Indian external affairs minister Swaran Singh and Pakistan minister of state for defence and foreign affairs Aziz Ahmed signed the pact.

Kamal Hossain in the agreement said that the 195 Pakistani officers should be held to account and subjected to the due process of law for committing crimes against humanity and genocide according to the relevant provisions of the UN General Assembly resolutions and the international laws.

‘The government let the 195 Pakistani military officers go back to Pakistan as that country had committed to try them,’ said Shahriar Kabir, president of a forum for secular Bangladesh and trial of the 1971war criminals.

‘Even though Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman did not like the agreement, but there was no other alternative left for repatriating the stranded Bangladeshis from Pakistan,’ Shahriar explained.

But, Pakistan did not keep the commitment it made in the agreement, not even it apologised for committing crimes against humanity, he pointed out.

Shahriar blamed the successive governments after 1975 for ignoring the unresolved issues in the agreements and creating confusion among the masses that the 195 Pakistani officers were forgiven by the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

‘Actually the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973 was enacted for punishing those military officers while a separate law was framed for trying the local collaborators,’ Shahriar went on.

He also said that their research found the number of Pakistani military officers committing war crimes to be higher than said.

The relations between Pakistan and Bangladesh, he maintained, will not be normal unless Pakistan tries its generals and apologise for the crimes they committed against the common people.

He further said that many common people and intellectuals in Pakistan also observed that the country should officially tender apology and try the perpetrators. 

‘If they don’t try their generals, the government of Bangladesh should try them under the purview of the 1973 act,’ he said.

‘But,’ Shahriar lamented, ‘we don’t see any effort in this regard even from the Awami League government, the party that led the war.’

He also said that the government should pursue the issue of getting Bangladesh’s share of the common assets from Pakistan.

‘It was not stated in the tripartite agreement but was discussed between the two governments before 1975,’ he said.

‘India paid Pakistan Rs 70 crore after the partition of 1947 as its share from the common assets of the undivided India. So, Pakistan should also pay our dues, especially from the revenue that they earned selling jute,’ Shahriar said.

Taking advantage of the successive governments’ apathy to the issues, he said, the Pakistan regime is distorting history saying that Bangladeshis killed them and Bangladesh owes money to them. 

Pakistani daily Express Tribune in 2016 published a report stating that the country was about to ask Bangladesh to pay the money it claimed as its due and the value of the outstanding amount was 9.21 billion Pakistani rupees (Tk seven billion).

Then finance minister AMA Muhith, however, told the press that the Pakistani claim was ‘rubbish’.

He rather claimed that Pakistan owed Bangladesh $5 billion.

‘Such claims and counter-claims will earn no result,’ Dhaka University international relations professor Amena Mohsin observed.

Bangladesh will first have to obtain recognition from the international forums of the genocide committed by Pakistan and then it can press Pakistan to resolve these unsettled issues, she said.

‘In order to get this recognition, a lot of research must be done and a lot of efforts have to be made through diplomatic channels,’ she added.

Law minister Anisul Huq refused to say whether Bangladesh would try the Pakistani generals under the purview of the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973.

Liberation war affairs minister AKM Mozammel Huq said that the government was taking initiatives for the recognition of the genocide that took place in 1971.

Foreign affairs minister AK Abdul Momen said that it would be difficult to obtain international recognition of March 26 as Genocide Day for Bangladesh.

His argument was that the UNGA in 2015 declared December 9 as International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and the Prevention of this Crime.

‘Our parliament in 2017, however, recognised March 26 as Genocide Day. Now, we are trying to obtain recognition of the 1971 genocide following the example of Armenia,’ Momen said.

‘We opened genocide corners at the foreign affairs ministry and the historic building Sugandha. We will keep them open for display when heads of government or state will visit Dhaka and request them to write about their comments,’ he said.

He also said that the government was pressing the Pakistan government for trying the 195 officials and paying the share of the common assets.

‘But we cannot force them to do that after so many years,’ he said.

Professor Serajul Islam Choudhury asked that when many countries could punish German generals so many years after the War World II why can’t Bangladesh ask for what it deserves?

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net