Shahriar Kabir: Impunity for 1971 war crimes bred Islamic militancy in Bangladesh (Times of India)

Times of India

Shahriar Kabir: Impunity for 1971 war crimes bred Islamic militancy in Bangladesh
By Rudroneel Ghosh | Feb 8, 2013, 12.00 AM IST

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Shahriar Kabir: Impunity for 1971 war crimes bred Islamic militancy in Bangladesh
Shahriar Kabir, executive president, Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee and war crimes researcher

Shahriar Kabir, executive president of Bangladesh's Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee and war crimes researcher, has been involved in a campaign to bring those accused of war crimes during Bangladesh's 1971 Liberation War to trial. Speaking with Rudroneel Ghosh, Kabir discussed the push for justice decades after the war, the larger significance of these trials — and safeguarding the legal process in a deeply divided polity:

More than 40 years after Bangladesh's Liberation War, how relevant is trying those accused of war crimes?

You have to understand the brutality that was unleashed during Bangladesh's Liberation War by the Pakistani occupation force and its collaborators. More than three million people were killed, more than 2,00,000 women raped, 20 million people forced to migrate to India and another 10 million internally displaced. The world hadn't seen such a large-scale massacre since the Holocaust in World War II.

After Liberation, the Mujibur Rahman government enacted a law to try war criminals and collaborators. But the process was derailed when Ziaur Rahman came to power. However, the victims and their relatives continued to fight for justice — and it was after a long and unprecedented civil society campaign that the trial of war criminals was achieved. No tribunal law stipulates a particular time frame for the trial of war crimes —and this trial is necessary to heal the long-festering wounds of 1971.

You've called for trying the Jamaat-e-Islami, a political party, for war crimes too — please elaborate.

Jamaat-e-Islami was directly involved in war crimes during 1971. It actively collaborated with the Pakistani military junta to unleash genocide on the Bangladeshi people. The Nuremberg trial also tried seven organisations including the Nazi party. Similarly, by trying Jamaat as a party, we will be sending out a clear message that communal politics will not be tolerated. Bangladesh was founded on secular ideals and using religion to justify genocide will not be accepted.

Also, impunity for the perpetrators of the 1971 war crimes bred Islamic militancy in Pakistan and Bangladesh — war crimi-nals came to occupy important positions in government, leading to the rise of Islamic radicalism in South Asia.

Some critics feel the trial doesn't match up to international standards — what is your response?

How do you define international standards? The same question was in fact raised during the Nuremberg trial of Nazi war criminals. Back then, the Allied forces were criticised by some people for carrying out a biased trial. But it's an accepted principle that the trial of war criminals is carried out by the victor.

Also, the International Criminal Court which came into force in 2002 can't try cases retrospectively — so it can't hold a trial for war crimes in Bangladesh. But by enacting and implementing a domestic law for trying genocide, Bangladesh has set an example for other countries such as Rwanda and former Yugoslavia which are still awaiting real justice for crimes against humanity.

Finally, given Bangladesh's divided polity, can there be a guarantee that the trial won't be subverted if there's a change in government?

An uninterruptible war crimes trial is what we've been trying to achieve since 1992 when the movement was led by Shaheed Janani Jahanara Imam. The war crimes tribunal was realised through the efforts of secular civil society — Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee and like-minded secular individuals will continue fighting for justice towards victims of the Liberation War, no matter which government is in power.