Via Sahidul Hasan Khokon: How can an army dictator usurping energy after a carnage involving the country’s first circle of relatives be the beacon of freedom, liberty, nice governance and freedom of the click? That is the query being requested through the rustic’s warfare heroes, eminent researchers and households of warfare heroes who misplaced their close to ones throughout Normal Zia’s tenure.
This comes after a letter written through Bangladesh Nationalist Birthday celebration (BNP) leaders to former Jap premier Shinzo Abe, was once made public simplest just lately.
“BNP was once based through past due president Ziaur Rahman who declared warfare of liberation in 1971,” reads an excerpt of the letter dated January 27, 2020.
Celebrated writer Anthony Mascarhenas described Bangladesh’s first army dictator’s tenure as the beginning of the “legacy of blood”. However the households of 1971 warfare heroes say that BNP is on an overdrive of falsehood to undertaking him because the father or mother of democracy.
Such blatant glorification of an army ruler has drawn flak from many quarters. The BNP is it seems that seeking to push this feel-good narrative in regards to the occasion leader, Normal Zia, to shore up its personal legitimacy with tough international nations, researchers say.
The declare that “the BNP offered multi-party pluralistic democracy” within the letter, many really feel, issues to the wave of disinformation to deceive the sector leaders in regards to the situation in Bangladesh.
“The principle goal of the occasion is to institutionalize democracy in all spheres of the state to make sure freedom, liberty, independence of the judiciary, nice governance and freedom of the click,” the letter says.
It’s at the occasion’s respectable letterhead. Researchers really feel that the letter blacks out the cases of the BNP’s formation and the way the founder, Normal Zia introduced an olive department to ardent fundamentalist forces, like Jamaat-e-Islami, or even helped the then self-confessed warfare criminals and killers of the rustic’s founding father to open up fronts within the nation’s political panorama, inside six years into the rustic’s independence.
Those are makes an attempt to whitewash the legacy of bloodshed masterminded through Normal Zia earlier than Japan and different Western nations, the warfare heroes say.
“Normal Zia rose to turn into the rustic’s first army dictator and unleashed a wave of repression through putting ratings of squaddies and officials within the Bangladesh army, at the same time as his spin medical doctors projected him because the beacon of freedom, liberty, nice governance and freedom of the click,” mentioned Ajoy Das Gupta, a famous researcher.
BNP’s ‘portraying improper historical past’
Like his father, Normal Zia, who throughout his stint because the president of the rustic made all-out efforts to erase the secular beliefs, Tarique Rahman could also be accused of following a equivalent trail, a transparent pointer that the occasion’s bedrock was once nonetheless ruled through communal and anti-liberation components, it’s been alleged.
In 2014, Tarique desperately attempted to determine his father as the primary president and in his pursuit, he had first get a hold of the declare closing March that Gen Zia was once the rustic’s first president, in step with Bangladesh media.
At the same time as that remark brought about in style condemnation from the rustic’s best researchers, BNP’s appearing secretary common Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir requested Awami League leaders to do a little learn about of historical past, claiming that Tarique had printed some “historic truths” after finding out other books.
Fakhrul additionally went on to match Tarique with Cuban chief Fidel Castro and mentioned, “After the revolution, Castro had mentioned in a courtroom: ‘I is also hanged, however historical past will embody me.’ And we all know historical past has embraced him [Castro].”
“The BNP obviously must loose itself of Tarique Rahman. Of past due, the absconding elder kid of Normal Ziaur Rahman and Begum Khaleda Zia, has been busy distorting Bangladesh’s historical past in tones harking back to the Yahya Khan regime and its henchmen. This calculated transfer through a just about 50-year-old guy to hawk more moderen lies to the rustic simplest finds the lack of awareness which underlies his pondering. He forgets that it was once his father who introduced, on March 27, 1971, Bangladesh’s independence on behalf of Bangabandhu,” wrote the rustic’s best researcher and celebrated writer Syed Badrul Ahsan.
Tarique, in all probability, had now not learn his father’s article within the weekly Bichitra in 1972, the place Zia effusively paid tribute to the Father of the Country and said in unambiguous phrases that Bangladesh’s freedom have been accomplished underneath Bangabandhu’s management, added Badrul, who has additionally labored in nation’s best English dailies.
Gen Zia’s function in Bangabandhu assassination
Quickly after the assassination of Bangabandhu, the army took over the reins of the rustic and persisted in energy for 15 years. This, would possibly really feel, introduced the democratic procedure to an surprising halt inside the nation, and ended in the upward thrust of warfare criminals underneath the duvet of Jamaat-e-Islami.
Lawrence Lifschultz, an investigative journalist and previous South Asia correspondent of the Some distance Japanese Financial Assessment, has mentioned that during his view, Gen Zia was once one thing of a “psychopath” in his capacity to make use of and betray others and use violence.
Lifschultz mentioned the boys at the back of that assassination would now not transfer with out Gen Zia’s backing. Gen Zia would now not transfer with out American backing. “In my opinion, it must be additional investigated.”
Veteran BBC journalist Sir Mark Tully, who coated the Liberation Warfare of Bangladesh in 1971, just lately mentioned that there was once an Islamic movement at paintings within the nation after 1975, “in need of to press Bangladesh into being extra Islamic”.
Gen Zia blamed for executing 1,000 freedom opponents
With the upward thrust of Gen Zia as the military leader after the assassination of Bangabandhu, at the side of 19 of his members of the family on August 15, 1975, the warfare heroes, serving within the Bangladesh Armed Forces, knew they have been in hassle as Pakistan-returned repatriates ganged round Gen Zia. Quickly, their misgivings got here true as a chain of executions was once unleashed to strip the army of freedom opponents at the pretext of a purge.
Nonetheless ignorant of the stays in their close to ones, households of over 1,000 warfare heroes are nonetheless in quest of world consideration to finish the tradition of impunity, which they really feel was once perpetrated through Gen Zia.
Previous, in an unique interview with India Lately, sufferers of the largest human rights abuses have shared their ordeals about how their lives were given became the wrong way up as their close to ones fell sufferer to enforced disappearances.
“I nonetheless don’t know the place to search out the stays of my father, we have no idea why he was once done; all we’ve heard is that he was once hanged with none trial within the Central Prison. The killers didn’t even hassle to take care of any non secular ritual, like a correct burial,” mentioned the son of some of the sufferers.
Mamtaz Begum, the daughter of Corporal Mobarak Ali, mentioned, “When I used to be simply six months outdated, Gen Zia hanged my father. Killer Gen Zia ruined our lives and is just answerable for the demise of my father; nobody gave us any rationalization about why he was once hanged.”
Gen Zia’s ‘penchant for army genre rule’
Gen Zia was once at all times involved in army keep an eye on of the rustic as he envisaged a Pakistan-style army rule for Bangladesh amid the rustic’s combat in opposition to Pakistan in 1971, in step with writer and veteran columnist Sukharanjan Dasgupta, who reported at the Liberation Warfare through amassing data from freedom opponents in Bangladesh as the manager correspondent of Anandabazar Patrika.
In an interview with India Lately, he previous mentioned he was once briefed about Gen Zia’s political ambitions through a senior BSF officer throughout the 1971 warfare.
“The difficulty with international powers, together with Japan, is that they have a tendency to tackle face price no matter (lie) is peddled through the BNP-Jamaat coalition or Kamal Hossain’s Gana Discussion board. Some so-called rights teams additionally sign up for them on this disinformation marketing campaign, which is why even the UN listing on enforced disappearances comprises grave mistakes like Indian insurgents lengthy again repatriated to India,” mentioned Sukharanjan Dasgupta, writer of ‘Nighttime Bloodbath’ at the 1975 Bangladesh coup.
“However Bangladesh’s historical past, how it was once born thru an ocean of blood and its recent occasions are so widely recognized that the BNP’s pack of lies fall thru like a area of playing cards,” Dasgupta mentioned.
Edited Via:
Tirtho Banerjee
Printed On:
Mar 21, 2023