Is BNP a place for freedom fighters?

On December 3, 2007, Muktijoddha Gono Parishad (MGP), an organisation of freedom fighters, arranged a gathering of war veterans attended by hundreds of freedom fighters. The attendees of the congregation in a united voice urged the then government to form a special tribunal to try the war criminals. Presided over by MGP President Ishtiaq Aziz Ulfat, the meeting was addressed among others by language movement veteran Abdul Matin, Lt Col (Retd) Kazi Nuruzzaman, Sector Commander and Maj Gen (Retd) Syed Muhammad Ibrahim Bir Pratik, Mili Rahman, wife of Matiur Rahman Bir Shreshtha, and Prof. Saad Uddin.
Mili Rahman said that it was high time to bring the war criminals to justice. Prof. Saad Uddin said that the then newspapers were enough to prove the heinous activities of the war criminals. Kazi Nuruzzaman said that in order to try the war criminals, all pro-liberation forces would have to be united and come to power in the next elections. Incidentally, Kazi Nuruzzaman's wish came true, and the political party which led us to independence, along with a few other allies who fought side by side in 1971, came to power only a year later. In accordance with their election pledge, and as expected, special tribunals were constituted in March 10, 2010. At present, trials of eight alleged perpetrators of war crimes are either at the end or middle of their trials in open tribunals, in presence of their duly appointed lawyers and media, both local and international.
Aside from Jamaat-e-Islami's predictable movement to derail the trial process, the main criticisms and denigrations of the process are coming from none other than the BNP. To clarify the objective of this piece, I refer to a few speeches and statements of the BNP chief vis-à-vis the ongoing war criminal trials.
On April 2, 2010, after the meeting of its standing committee, BNP's secretary general said: "The government has stepped away from the trials of war criminals and now they are holding trials for crimes against humanity, deviating from the election manifesto." The BNP even opposed the formation of a special tribunal to carry out the trial since, in its opinion, it could be done under the existing criminal law.
On October 17, 2010, the BNP chairperson called the trial "a conspiracy to throw the nation into chaos in the name of war crimes trial four decades after the general amnesty to the collaborators." She further asserted that plots were also being hatched to use the independence war as a tool to divide the nation.
On October 2011, in a public meeting in Chapainawabganj, BNP chief demanded release of all opposition leaders including those arrested for crimes against humanity. In her words: "Awami League is the real anti-liberation force and that is why actions should be taken against them."
Mentioning the names of arrested Jamaat leaders including Nizami and Mujaheed, she said the government arrested them in false cases. "Government branded Jamaat leaders as anti-liberation force but the real anti-liberation force was Awami League," she said.
On December 4, 2011, at a press conference, a BNP standing committee member made no bones about BNP's position vis-à-vis the ongoing trial process and the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) Act, and demanded that the government immediately stop the proceedings of the war crimes tribunal. The party also called on the international community "to put pressure on the government to fulfill the commitments Bangladesh had made through signing international covenants on crimes against humanity." It concluded: "The BNP has no confidence in this tribunal. It believes that in the existing legal structure, the tribunal is nothing but a servile, rubber-stamp organisation."
Several years ago, an alleged war criminal, who used to preach against the freedom fighters in all his public speeches and whose trial has ended, visited Toronto. Hundreds of Bangladeshi Canadians spontaneously brought out a shoe procession near the venue to protest his visit. No, it was not organised by any political party.
No one should be at all surprised by BNP's above-mentioned stands because it is in absolute tune with the main agenda of BNP since its formation by late Ziaur Rahman. BNP and the values and virtues of our liberation war are mutually exclusive.
The reason of my writing this piece is not to play the broken record but to express my perplexity about the news items on December 12, 2012, that ninety or so freedom fighters of MGP under the leadership of Ishtiaq Aziz Ulfat have joined BNP. Welcoming the new entrants, BNP chief claimed that the BNP was a party of freedom fighters who fought in the front and the Awami League was not a pro-independence force. She alleged that the incumbent government has "destroyed" the "true" history of the nation.
Is the public stance of the BNP chief in resonance with the demand of Ishtiaq Aziz Ulfat and his comrades of 1971, which was to form a special tribunal to try the war criminals? Syed Muhammad Ibrahim Bir Pratik, who said in that gathering that in 2007 "there is no compromise with the war criminals," has found strange bed fellows.
In 1971, ours was a people's war. Aside from the men in uniform, the freedom fighters could be divided into two broad categoriesstudent (political) activists and the ordinary youths, who were guided by sheer love for their motherland. After our victory, many nonpolitical activists joined politics. I believe Ishtiaq Aziz Ulfat and his comrades belonged to the second category, and were able to refrain themselves from joining any political party for the last 41 years.
It is beyond comprehension why, at this defining moment of the nation, these valiant patriots whose principal objective over the years was to bring the war criminals to book have joined a political party whose chief's unhidden stance to overturn the trial process is obvious. The BNP chief also promised to revive the "true history" which, in her words, has been "destroyed" by the current government. Does it mean that Ishtiaq Aziz Ulfat and his freedom fighter comrades would be happy to see the revived history that was presented to the nation for 21 long years, where Hamlet was played without King Claudius of Denmark, where razakar and "Pakistani occupation forces" were forbidden words?

The writer is Convenor, Canadian Committee for Human Rights and Democracy in Bangladesh.