TUI RAZAKAR: তুই রাজাকার

compiled By : Habib

Nuremberg and Tokyo are models we can build on

WE welcome the step taken by Foreign Affairs Adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury. He has informed UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon of a growing sentiment in favour of a trial of war criminals in Bangladesh. That is a positive reflection of the thinking that appears to have come into government circles and surely will resonate with the people of the country. Additionally, the adviser’s belief that Bangladesh’s people will welcome the involvement of the world body in the trial only demonstrates the government’s acknowledgement of the public demand for such a trial. It also reinforces our growing faith in the machinery of international law to bring to justice those who perpetrated the war crimes of 1971.

We believe that the time has now arrived for the wheels of justice to get moving. For justice to be properly and truly done, however, it is extremely important that clear lines be drawn between those who actively assisted or participated in such crimes as murder, rape, arson, abduction and the like and those who only voiced their political support for the state of Pakistan. The objective behind the demand for a war crimes trial is to make a convincing argument against those who deliberately took part in the genocide launched by the Pakistan army and convince our people and the rest of the world that the law, even if it is belated, has a way of bringing offenders into the net. In such a search for justice, it must be ensured that there is no witch-hunt and that no one takes advantage of the trial to settle personal or group scores.

A fundamental objective of a war crimes trial is to make the strong, legitimate case that in 1971 a genocide did take place in Bangladesh and that a class of pro-regime Bengalis did indulge in the crimes they have been accused of in the last thirty seven years. The models we can build on as we prepare for the war crimes trial are the Nuremberg trials, before which leading Nazis and their collaborators were brought, and the Tokyo trials, where the war criminals of imperial Japan were prosecuted and punished.