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Bangla group publishes list of alleged war criminals
A group of Bangladeshi war veterans and intellectuals has published a list of alleged war criminals from the countrys 1971 independence struggle with Pakistan, an official said on Friday. The publication of the list of nearly 1,600 names comes amid growing calls for prosecutions, or at the least the setting up of a South African-style truth commission. Pak Army: Out of the 1,597 people on the list, 369 were Pakistani army personnel; the rest were Bangladeshi collaborators, said MA Hasan of the War Crimes Fact Finding Committee, which has spent nearly two decades documenting wartime incidents, including rape, arson, and mass murder. Hasan said that around half of those listed were still alive. We have been investigating for 17 years to compile the information; the list is on the basis of field level investigation, mass graves, and eyewitness statements, he added. Earlier this year, Amnesty International asked Bangladeshs military-backed government to establish a truth commission to investigate war crimes. The bloody nine-month conflict ended with Bangladesh, formerly known as East Pakistan, emerging as an independent nation in 1971. A court in the capital Dhaka has also ordered police to submit a report on allegations against Matiur Rahman Nizami, the leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and industries minister in Bangladeshs then coalition government until October 2006. In a case filed by a former Bangladesh freedom fighter, Niazami along with 12 others is accused of helping the Pakistan Army plan a mass killing in which thousands of villagers died. The JI has dismissed the charge as an attempt to defame the party. Since the countrys emergency government came to power in January 2007, war veterans have led calls for prosecutions. We will give this list to the government and the Election Commission, said Hasan. Our demand to the government is that those perpetrators should be punished and disqualified from the next election, he added. The government has pledged to reinstate democracy by late 2008 after completing a clean-up of Bangladeshs notoriously corrupt politics. Some Bangladeshis supported Islamabad during the war in order to prevent the break-up of Pakistan. Posted by: Fred 2008-04-05 |
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