Going Deeper
It is never too late
CRIME and punishment have attracted the attention of the people from the dawn of history. While in the earlier years punishment was more connected with scriptures, the advent of modernism gave rise to the recognition by humanity that it is responsible for law, both political and moral, and, by extension, the state of the world. Even the constitution of the Nuremberg Tribunal was criticised on the grounds that without law to fit the cases the Tribunal would essentially pronounce ex-post facto political judgment.
These arguments were countered by stating that if the atrocities committed by the German Nazis, that went against all norms of civilised behaviour, were left unpunished then a moral vacuum would emerge that would prevent the further development of intra- and international law. In short, the civilised world had to punish the perpetrators of unspeakable brutalities to prevent their recurrence in the future. Unfortunately, leaders are known not to take lessons from history.
What surprises many is the deliberate lack of display of common modes of civilised behaviour, such as gratitude, that distinguish a man from other living creatures. One may ask, at what point does a nation fear that display of gratitude to another nation that had come to its rescue in its hour of greatest need, and forgets its debt of human sacrifice made and the shelter given to millions of its nationals, could be construed as servility? And the nation that received help starts to convince itself that the country that had helped to get its independence from marauders who had engaged in an orgy of rape and killing comparable to that carried out by the 5th century Asian conqueror Attila the Hun or the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan, or the holocaust of the Jews carried out by Adolph Hitler, was only doing it solely to serve its own national interest.
The countries that were given back their lost independence, or those that were helped to secure their sovereignty from the German-Japanese onslaught by the Allied powers during the Second World War, or even those defeated and occupied by the Allied powers, did not show the ingratitude that Bangladesh has displayed since our war of independence. No one questions why there is no statue, or even a road, honouring General Aurora who commanded the joint forces of the Indian army and the Bangladesh Mukti Bahini to whom "Tiger" Niazi had surrendered unconditionally.
The contribution of our valiant freedom fighters has never been in doubt, but for whose supreme sacrifice we would not have this independent country called Bangladesh. Why, then, do we not acknowledge the contribution made by India and other countries in our independence war?
Some quarters have raised questions about the visit of the Indian generals (who have retired) who participated in the war as part of Eastern Command. The questionsthat should have been raised is, why did it take Bangladesh more than three decades to invite the Indian army commanders who had shed blood and tears for our war of liberation.
It is often forgotten that India did not station its troops in Bangladesh, like US troops in Germany and Japan who have been stationed there since 1945, nor like the American bases in South Korea. The differences in the Bangladesh situation with those of the aftermath of the Second World War and the Korean War are obvious. Bangladeshis would never have countenanced substitution of one "master" for another. Nor there is any evidence that Mrs. Indira Gandhi had any desire to make Bangladesh a vassal state.
The regime change the Bush administration embarked upon in Iraq by executing Saddam Hussein to "liberate" the Iraqis can be cited as a close example, because expulsion of the Pakistan army resulted in the institution of the government of Bangladesh. But, then again, as the dislodgement of Saddam Hussein as an instrument of the doctrine of preemption received opposition from America's closest allies who opposed uni-polarity as an unwelcome byproduct of the end of the Cold war, Indian humanitarian intervention in the Bangladesh war, perhaps, encouraged the promotion of concepts to prevent genocide.
Now we have witnessed Nato intervention in Kosovo, and the UN resolution on Darfur endorsing sending of African troops to rein in the Sudanese para-militia's rampage against unarmed civilians in Darfur. The international community will no longer tolerate the retributive genocide of about a million Tutsis in Rwanda by extremist Hutus, nor the ideological genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia or the massacre at Srebenica of Bosnian muslims by the Serb forces.
Though the UN Genocide Convention that took effect in 1951 provided a legal definition of genocide and established genocide as a crime under international law, it was not until the 1990s that the UN began its efforts to bring to book the criminals by instituting tribunals to prosecute those accused of crimes against humanity in Yugoslavia and Rwanda and, finally, by adopting a statute to form a permanent International Criminal Court. The Court came into being after ratification of the statute by 60 countries in July 2002.
The demand of the sector commanders to try the war criminals has become a national demand. It is commendable that the foreign affairs adviser has informed the UN secretary General Ban Ki-Moon of this fact.
The government would be well advised to officially involve the United Nations and its affiliated agencies to help initiate legal proceedings that would assist Bangladesh in its task of trying the war criminals. It is never too late, and the argument why the government should take it upon itself this task when earlier governments did not is facile. To ignore this national demand would be a most unwise decision.
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