Chintito

On Muktijuddho and related
matters - IV

Chintito

We will never understand why the anti-liberation forces in this country went against their own language, their own people, their own land... bestowed on them by the Lord Himself. Was the logic behind the birth of Bangladesh not simple enough for them to side with their own folks? Was it not their religion-bound duty to take up arms against the Pakistanis, oppressors since 1947? Were they not in love with the words with which their mother soothed their pain when in the cradle?

We however understand why they including their dosors are anti-liberation even today. They believe that the correct basis for morality is self-interest.

That this column since it began in 1995 had stood firm on the demand for punishing the 1971 war criminals and those responsible for the excesses against humanity before and during our War of Liberation is in the extracts below:

30 September 2006
Musharraf (Pakistan president) wrote in his book 'In the Line of Fire': "I broke down and cried. All my brave soldiers cried with me. It remains most sad and most painful day of my life".

You say you cried Musharraf! Do you know what crying really is? Have you seen my mother weeping, thirty-five years after you bayoneted her life to a vacuum, her cheeks all dried up? Do you know when people really cry they do not break down, as you bizarrely claim you did on 16 December? They weep from so deep within their spirit that the heavens moan in empathy.

5 Nov 2007
One of the broken records that anti-liberation forces play is that people of Bangladesh have not been demanding their punishment, that these are sporadic calls by a section of the media, a feeble whimper of politicians, and a drama by international conspirators...

The fact is that the demand for their punishment has sustained the test of time.

This week please allow me to reprint hu-bu-hu a Chintito published in this column on 16 August 1996; that's eleven years back. And one could go all the way back to 1971. I rest my case.

9 November 2007
HELSINGIN SAROMAT, Helsinki: 23 November 1971
“The cruelty of the 'razakars' has turned the majority of the villagers into supporters of Bangla Desh. When people are asked whether they wish to remain citizens of Pakistan or form a state of their own, almost all reply that they are for Bangla Desh. Although the green flag of Pakistan can be seen flying even on top of the most wretched hut, people work for Bangla Desh in secrecy. Like Americans in South Vietnam, the leaders of the Pakistani army seem to be totally unaware of the true feelings and loyalty of the local population.”

21 December 2007
Independence from what? Independence from West Pakistan, who looted its Eastern part of its wealth for 24 years, deprived Bangalee from health, education, jobs, business…

Victory against whom? Victory against the most brutal army in history, who with the direct collaboration from a handful of local goons (some of who unfortunately also spoke in Bangla) killed three million Bangalee, raped two lakh Bangalee women, tortured millions of Bangalee and imprisoned an entire Bangalee nation of 75million people, whose only fault was that being majority of Muslims they wanted to speak in Bangla. Contrary to the crudely lame belief of the murderers with political ambition and suction mentality that Islam and Bangla were opposing numbers, thirty-six years up the time chart they both not only exist in Bangladesh but have flourished.

26-31 December 2007
To know one incidence of Rizu razakar's mindless brutality we must be introduced to Lutfunnahar Helena, a one-time Chaatra Union leader. In 1971, she was a school teacher in Magura. She had a two-year old son. One day, Rizu with his gang picked up Helena from her house, on the charge that she had contact with freedom fighters. Not a sin in any country, except in the eyes of those who do not belong to that land. Rizu handed over Helena to the local Pakistani commander, our enemy at the time, who we were trying to repulse in a declared war. A mother, our sister, a patriot was disgraced and stained in the army camp. But that is the beginning of the viciousness of the animals. She was later tied to the back of a jeep and pulled through town. Male chauvinistic pigs, you could say. When dead, Shaheed Helena was thrown into a canal. She was not even given a burial by people who called themselves Muslims and had supposedly launched a war on civilians, by a vast majority Muslims, to save Islam. Thirty-six years in December 2007 the Muslims of Magura paid back Rizu, they have not forgotten the ruthlessness of a razakar.

Magura Muktijoddha Sangsad, the locals know best, has prepared a list of 1365 persons that Rizu razakar and his gang slaughtered in 1971.

In all this turmoil we have all forgotten what ever happened to Helena's two-year old Babu? It is better that way. It is less painful. Weep not Bangladesh! Weep no more! It is time to gather our anger and strike hard. Let the weapons of ekattur roar once more.

<[email protected]>

opyright (R) thedailystar.net 2010