Bangladesh’s political violence this year rivals Egypt’s

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Incredibly, much of the violence stems from events that occurred more than four decades ago, back when the country was mired in a bloody battle for independence from Pakistan.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: GlobalPost – International News
By Maher Sattar | July 28, 2013

Riots, executions and war crimes: Bangladesh’s political violence this year rivals Egypt’s. And it’s bound to get worse.

DHAKA, Bangladesh — This nation of 150 million is mired in turmoil.

Some 322 people have perished this year from political violence. That’s the highest death toll outside a conflict zone, and probably still worse than in Egypt.

Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets in riots that have seen buses burned, cars torched, and policemen targeted by Islamist mobs. Protests are expected to intensify.

Courts this month sentenced a leading Islamist to 90 years in prison, and a second to death by hanging.

Incredibly, much of the violence stems from events that occurred more than four decades ago, back when the country was mired in a bloody battle for independence from Pakistan.

An estimated 300,000 to 500,000 Bangladeshis were killed in the nine-month conflict, the legacy of tragic decisions made by Britain as it unwound its colonial presence.

Forty years earlier, television journalist Saidur Rahman still feels guilty about surviving those years.

Back then, Saidur’s pro-independence father had taught him and his brothers how to shoot homemade bows and arrows. Fazlur Rahman had instructed his wife to always keep water boiling with chili powder mixed in, to throw at any anti-liberation attackers.

But when pro-Pakistan forces did raid their house on April 15, Saidur found himself hiding under the bed with his mother and siblings. They watched soldiers stab their father to death as he tried to block the assailants from entering the door.

One of Saidur’s brothers yelled “Dad!” and jumped out, giving away their hiding spot. The attackers knifed his siblings, and dragged his mother away.

According to neighbors, she was buried alive.

“The whole floor was flooded with blood,” recalls Saidur, who survived by playing dead.

“I feel so selfish,” he says. “When they killed my father in front of my eyes, my brother jumped out. Why didn’t I cry out too? Why did I lie there pretending to be dead?”

Bangladesh is finally addressing crimes committed during the conflict. The government, and most historians and journalists, accuse the Pakistani army’s Bangladeshi collaborators, who were mostly Islamists, of large-scale atrocities, including ethnic cleansing of the country’s Hindu population.

Opponents of the tribunal have called it a kangaroo court. They say the government, elected in 2009, is looking to wipe out the leadership of Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest Islamist political party and a key ally of the opposition coalition.

The drama is far from over.

In addition to this month’s harsh sentences, the court has filed crimes against humanity charges against Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, a British citizen, and Ashrafuzzaman Khan, a US citizen and the New York president of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). It is looking into having them extradited to stand trial.

Islamists outraged by the trials have flooded Bangladesh’s streets, lobbing Molotov cocktails and fighting police on the streets armed with rocks and machetes.

The trial and the protests have brought into sharp focus Islam’s role in the politics of Bangladesh, a country once forged in the name of religion that later rebelled against it.

 ... Read more at Global Post...


Follow journalist Maher Sattar on Twitter @mahersattar.


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