War Criminals

“ War Criminals are still in this country just because of political unrest and corruption” ‘The flag of independent Bangladesh flies at the front side of the car of war criminals (? ) of 1971.. ‘(Manik 2008). It’s the most hatred truth now-a days like story or poetry to the Bangladeshis who got a huge loss of lives, properties and threat in existing their lives during and after the war only for the unexpected conspiracy of those war criminals among whom many are surprisingly involved till today in leading our country. Who’ have given them rights to rule and even impose laws on us?? Why are they still in this country with more than all facilities where even a freedom fighter who sacrificed his life for this country can not ?? Theanswer of those questions is commonly known to the people now a days. Do not you also guess the greater interest for being stable in politics, the corrupted political parties allow them to live peacefully in Bangladesh?

Exactly due to the political unrest and corruption, the war criminals are still here in our country whose conspiracy is not finished yet. This is the national fact for what I am going to show that the political unrest and corruption gives strong position to the war criminals to be here. Before having my stand let me clarify about the powerful war criminals of our country under whom other criminals are being hidden for years.

The most marked war criminals of our bloody War of 1971 are specifically present in Bangladesh with strong handling power and voice from Jamaat e-islami along with others involved directly in forming RazakarBahini, Al-Shams, AL-Badar who heavily drawn into mass murdering, rape, arson, looting and especially killing of intellectual during the last part of our glorious liberation war. Jamatis were related with most genocide that happened during nine months of liberation warthat is proved to us from the different sources and ‘MuktiyuddhaCetanaBikasa Kendra’.

Ashraf Hossain, a leader of Jamaat’s student wing IslamiChhatraSangha, created the Al-Badar militia in Jamalpur District on 22 April 1971 (Editorial, DailyPurbodesh, 23 April 1971). In May, 1971, Jamaat leader Mawlana Yusuf created the Razakar militia in Khulna (Editorial, Daily Sangram, 14 November 1971). As getting information from the book ‘Genocide ’71, an account of the killers and collaborators’ by AhamadaSharif and MuktiyuddhaCetanaBikasa Kendra (1987) , the large group of ilitia named AL-Shams was also created at the mid of the war led byJamat leader Ali AhsanMujahid who did the same massacre during the war. However, some people say, here in Bangladesh we have a quite sustainable constitution which is representing a complete freedom of country. But in that constitution there is nothing about war criminals and their definition. Constitution of Bangladesh does not make any specific words about the existence of the war criminals. From the ISN report 4thNovember, 1972 we get the whole overview of our constitution easily.

Here according to The Article-6 (1) and (2) [talks about ‘Citizenship’] ,Article-19 (1) [talks about ‘Equality of opportunity’] and Article-32 [talks about ‘Protection of right to life and personal liberty’] of the constitution, war criminals along with everyone after the war got the clear acknowledgement to be a citizen of Bangladesh. So they deserve to be with all facilities like us. Therefore the clarification of Constitution is responsible to give the opportunity to the war criminals to be still here in Bangladesh. So justonly the political interest and corruption is not thefact.

Butmany Specialists and intellectuals gave different types ofopinions opposing the above logic . Ema. E. Hasana and War Crimes Facts Finding Committee (Bangladesh) in their combined and most acceptable book ever ‘Papers on genocide, war crime and crime against humanity in Bangladesh(2001) proved having many statistics and incidentsthat for political and individual soft corner, the makers of constitution who were the only political power at that time made a diplomatic composition of Constitution which had not given any specific definition for the war criminals.

That is why war criminals are the citizens of Bangladesh now. Besides, for political interest they changed and amended many parts of constitution (Malik 2009). We have seen that in the elections, those political leaders use the war criminals for having privilege. Kabir (1998) said from the report of Primary Resource in International Affairs(PRIA) that three specified war criminals (Ahmed Sarwer, Kamal Azam, Ruhitbillah) were appointed in the Local administration on September, 1972.

So we see the ultimate cause of staying of war criminals strongly in country is the political corruption and interest for having power. In addition, the position of the war criminals has been lastingfor years by the strong influences of the foreign countries. Blackburn (2008) indicates a matter thatUSA has less concentration on the illegal terrorism happened in the poor countries where they have no profit.

Absolutely it’s true that to overpower the developing and underdeveloped countries like our country Bangladesh the powerful and developed countries like USA and UKdo not assist the Government of us being informed about theunfair activities of the many fundamentalist parties who always opposed the national war in the name of peace as wrong way having brutal massacre on innocent patriotic people rather they try to take advantages from the cases and if they can not make their self-interest from us then they threat us with their rich nuclear power as a complain of having fundamentalist terrorists.

That is the chance for the fundamentalist war criminals of our country getting indirect influence from them and for this some of us argues that it’s not all about thepolitical corruption which is only responsible for the present position of the war criminals in our country. Yes it may be right and correct that the foreign influence has. But the latent history is, Bangladesh Govt. is not supposed to become an undertaker govt. Rather, to get the support from the strong foreign govt. , for holding the power and having more favour and self-interests doing corruptions within own country, our politicians lose their soveiregnity and own character.

For the greater political interests they have been using the war criminals as their partner. So again the main cause is political corruption for what still the war criminals are here in Bangladesh. Moreover, the war criminals have the international networks in many countries. Jamaat-Bangladesh has the direct control under the Jamaat-Pakistan(Blackburn 2009). According to the report of Blackburn (2009), both two groups get supports including financial aids from the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA).

He found that MueenUddinChowdhury and Asrafuzzaman Khan from Jaamt-Bangladesh who are involved in war crimes make funds in UK, US, Germany and Austrialia and keep it to the Al-Khidmat Foundation that helps to support the HizbulMujahideen, Jamaat’s armed wing and other groups which are designated by the US and UK as a terrorist organization. Those groups have very strong supports in almost many countries of Asia. That is the weak point for Bangladesh to stop those war criminals involved with them. But we see at present we have no strong political strength where the political parties are busy with their own interests.

That is why Bangladesh did not either make its enough image as stand internationally. As political parties just think about their own interest, they always hope to get assistances from the different sources as well as those groups. For that reason they do not have any bravery say against those strong networks getting money from them. The most important thing is that the unconsciousness and unwillingness of the general people who always silently has been allowing the war criminals to freely live in peace.

Besides, many of us directly support the war criminals and try to give them the power to lead the country. But we all experience that we the general people are bound to be silent under the power of corrupted political parties. It is well planned to rehabilitate the war criminals in Bangladesh. Here war criminals are given power to control politics and given the post of minister of this country. And by this, the public are cheated so that they can not remind the matter again. So frequently under the only political corruption war criminals are still existingin this country.

However the key volume of the strength of war criminals increased from 1972 while they were pardoned as a ‘General Bail 1972’ by Sheikh Mujib which was said to be having a great political advantages and supports for them (Ahmed 2010). But the most favourable chance came to the war criminals during 1975, 1977, 1979 as those years when the acceptation of religion based politics started. kabir (1994) thinks that MAJOR JIA and ERSHAD tried to make the people more emotional and made them more sentimental by religion in a wrong way with the wrong explanation of Islam by the fundamentalistsJamaatis .

They invitedthose war criminalsto take pure political support and they both gave chance to them to be their political partner. Going to do that they changed the constitution for the betterment of the war criminals but not more than any development. That is why they rehabilitated the war criminals. On the other hand, no step has been taken till now to make trial of the war criminals due to political interest of the the major political parties after the liberation. So many govt. leaders came and gone but not tried to trial the war criminals only for political cause.

Even some of the political parties made Joint Group to win the election which is a practical example. We saw the Ameer of Jamaat-Islami had been the minister of our country. Mohaiemen (2003) found that an alleged war criminal SalauddinQuaderChy. has just became Bangladesh’s nominee for Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) with his power getting the support from the own political parties.

To sum up, it’sinfact necessary to say that the war criminals are used as a great vote bank in elections which actually increases unrests among the political parties. abir (1994) realized that the supporters of the war criminals were increasing day by day by the chance of the corrupted politics. The consequence of it reflects very soon. It is impossible to determine how much support the Jamat actually had in the 2001 election as it was part of an alliance whose various members voted for each other against the Awami League, but its 17 seats in the new parliament – and two ministers in the government – suggest a dramatic increase. So it’s clear to know that just for the political unrest and corruption the war criminals are existing in our country still now.