Why The Complete Truth About Bangladesh Eludes Us

From all available indications the so-called mutiny in Bangladesh was actually a conspiracy to badly destabilise and, if possible, topple the Sheikh Hasina Government, so that the truth about the war-crimes and 1975 killings which this government had promised to investigate remains buried. The conspirators caused a lot of bloodshed but did not succeed in achieving their final aim of disrupting a government elected by the people with overwhelming support. However, it is less likely that the complete truth about the war-crimes committed during the Bangladesh freedom struggle and the 1975 killings of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family members will be ever revealed.

What is already well-known is that the forces known to be associated with religious funda-mentalism/extremism had collaborated with the Pakistan Army to kill perhaps one million people in Bangladesh before and during the freedom struggle. In addition, many women were raped. Nearly ten million people had to leave their homes for refugee camps in India.

After 1975 following the murder of President Mujibur Rahman and his family, many of these fundamentalist forces and individuals (several of whom had fled) became powerful once again and occupied an important part of the establishment. As the Bangladesh Army and intelligence agencies developed close relations with the Pakistan Army and intelligence agencies (particularly the ISI), these fundamentalist forces and individulas played an important role in cementing these ties. These forces and alliances became the worst enemies of religious tolerance and secularism in Bangladesh. These forces also contributed to the emergence of terrorist groups or support of terrorist groups some of whom carried out killings in India, particularly in Assam. These forces were also inherently anti-democratic as they were quite willing to use violence to harm the forces of secularism and tolerance; in particular they were willing to use violence against the Awami League and its leader, Sheikh Hasina.

What is extremely tragic is that at a particular juncture of history, these forces also got the support of the USA and its Western allies. In a carefully researched, widely acclaimed paper titled ‘Bangladesh: Anatomy of a Coup’ (EPW, December 8, 1979) Lawrene Lifschults and Kai Bird concluded: “According to new information obtained from interviews with senior US embassy officials then in Dacca, well-informed Bengali sources, and from official documents available in US consequent upon the new Freedom of Information Act it appears that not only did the US have prior knowledge of the coup (the 1975 coup in which Mujibur Rahman and his family members were killed), but that American embassy personnel had discussed possibilities of a coup more than six months earlier.”

Further this paper said that the contacts of the conspirators with the US went back to 1971.

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In fact the history of these times cannot be understood without an adequate appreciation of the fact that in the course of the hot pursuit of the Cold War, the USA often supported religious conservative and fundamentalist forces to get rid of even moderately Leftist regimes, or regimes which the US did not consider friendly. In important countries like Indonesia this led to the US support for very violent and bloody coups which overthrew leaders genuinely loved by the people of these countries.

When Russia invaded Afghanistan (a highly deplorable action which caused massive bloodshed), the efforts of the USA to support all manners of fundamentalist extremist militants to fight the Russians in Afghanistan multiplied several fold. The USA had advance knowledge of the impending Russian invasion and this possibly explains the coup in Pakistan which brought the least deserving dictator, Zia-ul-haq, to power in Pakistan, and his hurry to execute Zulfikar Ali Bhutto so that the path could be cleared for Pakistan to play the leading role in assembling fundamentalist militants from all over the world to fight the Russians.

Anyway, what concerns us here is that in the violence and bloodshed which took Bangladesh towards military dictatorships, religious fundamentalism and finally the emergence and support of several terrorist groups, it is clear that the hands of Pakistan are extremely dirty but even the hands of the USA are not clean, to say the least. This is why it will not be easy to establish the complete truth of Bangladesh’s troubled history of violence, murder and coups.

However, the least that the international community led by the USA can do now in these troubled times is that it can extend full support to the efforts of the Sheikh Hasina Government to strengthen democracy, secularism and religious tolerance in Bangladesh. Any efforts by Pakistan’s ISI or anyone else to create any future troubles for this government elected with massive support of the people should be opposed and stopped by the entire international community.