Straight Talk Relentless Conspiracy against Bangladesh Abdul Mannan - See more at: daily-sun/details_Relentless-Conspiracy-against-Bangladesh_934_2_5_1_0.html#sthash.Fg45nlLF.dpuf - See more at: daily-sun/details_Relentless-Conspiracy-against-Bangladesh_934_2_5_1_0.html#sthash.Fg45nlLF.dpuf ================================================== Human Rights Watch, and Asian Human Rights Watch, are organizations which are known in Bangladesh. They continuously harp on the issues of actual and imaginary human rights abuses in Bangladesh but decide to remain silent when the fascist Zionist forces ruthlessly tramples the humanity and dignity of people in the Gaza strip of Palestine or the ISIS in the Middle East. Now a new outfit called Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) has emerged to malign, dishonour, disregard, disgrace and disrespect the sovereignty of Bangladesh in the name upholding human rights. Founded by one Suhas Chakma and housed in a cozy corner of West Delhi, India, the ACHR and Suhas Chakma claims they are human rights defender in Asia. As per his personal brief available in the organization’s website Suhas claims that he is connected with many international organizations and works for Asian indigenous and tribal people’s network. As the Chakma community mainly hails from Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), it can be safely said that Suhas Chakma has his roots in CHT, or for a change he may even be from India. ACHR works closely with the extra-right wing activist Adilur Rahman Khan’s Odhikar who shot into limelight when Odhikar published a completely fabricated and vicious report on the mayhem created by the Hefazat-e-Islam on May 5 of 2013 claiming that sixty-one of Hefazat goons were killed by the law enforcing agencies on that night when they went to reclaim Mothijheel, the central business district of the Capital Dhaka that was being systematically ravaged by these goons. Though later investigation found that not a single person was killed on that night. Odhikar published the report just to malign the country and the government to the international community. Rahman was subsequently arrested on August 11 for publishing the false and fabricated report. He was later released on bail and later indicted by the Dhaka Cyber Crimes Tribunal and if found guilty may find him behind bars for up to fourteen years. Besides Odhikar many self-styled civil society members of the country maintains a close relationship with ACHR of whom few also regularly features in the night-time TV talk shows. In last June ACHR published a 74 page report from New Delhi titled `Bangladesh: Sending Death Squads to Keep UNs Peace.’ The report was signed by Suhas Chakma and the main theme of the report was that Bangladesh Army is dominating every sphere of life in Bangladesh and emphasized how it has dominated the RAB and transformed itself (RAB) into a death squad and called the government of Bangladesh to disband the elite law enforcing agency along with demanding the UN not to recruit Peace Keepers from this so called `death squad’ and Bangladesh Army. ACHR claimed that the report was `first ever comprehensive study’ on RAB and its extrajudicial killing and claimed that the troops being sent for UN peacekeeping missions abroad include the Bangladesh Army personnel posted in the CHTs and the RAB. Needless to say CHT is an integral part of Bangladesh and it is Bangladesh which decides where it deploys its armed forces and not ACHR or some other outside organization. It must also be mentioned that after the signing of the CHT Peace Treaty in 1997 the activities of the Bangladesh Armed Forces in the CHT is reduced to minimum and confined to regular duties while the matters relating to law enforcement is left to the police or the BGB. To demean the authority of the Government and the Bangladesh Army; Suhas Chakma in his opening remark says `further, the RAB has been described as death squads for committing numerous extrajudicial executions. According to a leading Bangladeshi human rights organization, Odhikar, a total of 776 persons…, of which majority were extrajudicial executions…in fact continuing gross violations of human rights by the RAB led to the unusual public statement in September 2011 by former Prime Minister and leader of the opposition Ms. Khaleda Zia, who indeed established the RAB, calling for all RAB personnel to be banned from UN Peacekeeping duties. Given the lack of political capacity to control the Army, a compliant and corrupt justice system and effective legal immunity provided to the Army and other law enforcement personnel, the members of death squad of Bangladesh have essentially been enjoying impunity. The United Nations must not ignore the call made by Ms Khaleda Zia. It is unacceptable that the Government of Bangladesh should forward members of its death squad for UN peacekeeping. It is equally unacceptable that the UN should accept the RAB personnel into UN peacekeeping missions.’ ACHR conveniently forgot to mention that the government has taken a strong attitude against all extrajudicial killings though with all fairness it must be said it still has a long way to go. ACHR also forgot to mention that during the government of Begum Zia and her four party alliance (2001-2006) no such effective measures were taken though within six month of the forming of RAB in 2004 sixty-four extrajudicial killing took place in the hands of RAB. ACHR also overlooked the fact during the rule of the four-party alliance when the government formed a combined operational force comprising of members of all branches of the armed forces on October 16, 2002 to combat a reign of terror unleashed by the hard core criminals under the patronage of the alliance partners and launched the now infamous `Operation Clean Heart,’ it lead to the death of approximately sixty people, the maiming of around three thousand individuals, and the arrest of more than forty-five thousand. On the day that Operation Clean Heart was announced by the government as having ended on January 9, 2003, an ordinance was ratified in the parliament which prohibited law-suits or prosecutions for human rights violations during that period, giving the armed forces and police impunity from being prosecuted for their actions. Ironically ACHR did not feel it necessary to mention all these facts in its report as its only intention was to malign the armed forces and the RAB and ask UN to exclude members of the Bangladesh Army as part of UNPKO (United Nations Peace Keeping Operations). Such a call can very well be termed as a statement against the national interest of sovereign country under the prevailing law of any country, thought quite a few ‘civil society’ members of Bangladesh echoes the same voice of AHCR. To further snipe at the Bangladesh army the report says 93% of the peace keepers deployed from Bangladesh are from the Army while the remaining 7% are from Bangladesh Police, Navy and Air Force personnel. However facts gathered from reliable sources mentions that of the total members of Bangladesh contingent in the UNPKO 44% are drawn from military, navy and air force, 44% from police and the rest 12% from BGB, Coast Guard, Ansar and VDP. Suhas Chakma writes ‘serving in a UN peacekeeping operation is a significant financial opportunity and indeed a life changing opportunity for those selected. At the UN standard rate, Bangladesh Army personnel earn upwards of US $2,200 a month for an officer and US $1,100 for a soldier, in addition to other allowances and perks. In comparison the average monthly pay for a soldier is Taka 7,717 (about US $100) and Taka 15,000 (about US $200) for an officer. Not surprisingly, the Bangladesh Army has monopolized deployment in UNPKOs’. However on the fact is according to the military pay role, the salaries and perks of armed forces are much higher that ACHR claims. The ulterior motive of ACHR was exposed when it released a press release of its report only on July 24, just before the visit of United Nations Under Secretary General for Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPRKO) HerveLadsous to Bangladesh from 22 July 2014, although it is customary to release such a press release as soon as the report is published, in this case in June, 2014. The entire exercise of ACHR was a concerted, coordinated and choreographed effort with the help of some local willing partners to undermine the role of Bangladesh’s contribution to the United Nations Peace Keeping Operations along with discrediting the authority of the Bangladesh Government’s over one of its most organized institutions, notwithstanding the fact that Bangladesh is the largest single country contributor in the UNPKO. It has so far served with courage, honour, pride, dignity and self respect in more than 30 countries. In its line of duty it has lost 88 of its members. Its role in the Balkan wars, especially in the Bihac enclave in 1992 earned laurels across the world. It has become the most loving entity in the civil war torn countries of Africa. The United Nations have termed Bangladeshi forces in UN as the heart and spirit of UNPKO. The matter of asking the government of Bangladesh to disband the RAB and demanding UN not to recruit Peace Keepers did not end with the call from AHCR. In an audacious and unwarranted letter sent on July 18, 2014 to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh the Human Rights Watch also came forward with same demand; disband the Rapid Action Battalion. If AHCR and HRW have the guts let them demand to disband the Israeli Armed forces which have been engaged in systematic ethnic cleansing operations in Gaza or disband the US army that has been accused of gross violation of human rights in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Egypt or Syria. Let them raise their voice against the excesses committed by the ISIS in the name of religion in the entire Middle Eastern Region. How about interfering in the matters relating to democracy in Thailand or in Myanmar where the Muslims in the province of Arakan has been subject to inhuman torture, intimidation, rape and killing by locals and the army? Indian cities are being rocked by regular rapes but nothing has been heard from any of the so called human rights watchdogs. In US the prisoners condemned to death by the court struggle to survive even more two hours, before they die after administering the lethal injections. Nothing has been heard of from these human rights pundits on this. Unfortunately not only some of these self styled human rights organizations mistake Bangladesh as tin-can dictatorship of the sixties even after forty-three years of our independence, they are willingly and profusely assisted by some social parasites of the country. Needless to say that every violation of human rights by anyone that takes place in the country must be recognized and brought before the court of law and perpetrators punished, leaving no room for any outside interference by any outsiders. Civilization thrives on civility and rule of law and not on lies, half truths and fabrications. The writer is former Vice-chancellor, University of Chittagong. Currently he teaches at ULAB. - See more at: daily-sun/details_Relentless-Conspiracy-against-Bangladesh_934_2_5_1_0.html#sthash.Fg45nlLF.dpuf
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 19:45:28 +0000