1971 and the expatriate war criminals

I have been following the war crimes trials since they started and I was wondering what would happen if Bangladeshis who are now foreign nationals are found guilty of murder and crimes against humanity. Now that the British national Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin and American Ashrafuzzaman Khan have both been sentenced to death, I have seen the reaction both in the Bangladesh media and in some of the foreign media, particularly the British press.

I coordinated Oxfam's refugee relief programme in 1971 which assisted about 600,000 refugees who had fled to India and lived in some of the over 900 refugee camps which housed nearly 10 million Bangladesh refugees in the border areas of India and Bangladesh. At different border crossings, I heard many harrowing tales of brutality and genocide from the refugees at that time as well as I saw many tortured bodies of women, men and children.

After the Liberation of Bangladesh, I was one of the first Oxfam officials who, in January 1972, came to Dhaka. I was taken to two places where, I was told, intellectuals had been murdered in the last few days of December 1971 before the surrender of the Pakistan armed forces. The places I visited were Rayer Bazar and a location in Mirpur. People at that time were very clear which Bengali people had collaborated with the Pakistan army and civilian officials to identify which intellectuals should be rounded up, tortured and killed. There was enough documentary evidence with photos, including the local newspapers, to identify clearly who had been involved.

Although Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin's British lawyer is of the opinion that the war crimes trials in Dhaka are flawed, it is quite obvious to most observers that there is overwhelming evidence – documentary and eye witness – against Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin and also Ashrafuzzaman Khan that they both were involved in these unspeakable and brutal crimes in 1971.

As I currently live and work in Bangladesh, over the last few years the local media have often asked me my opinion about the war crimes trials. My answer has always been the same; that it is never too late for justice to be done and I have often pointed out that even 60 years after the Second World War, war criminals were being brought to justice. It is now up to the Government of Bangladesh to negotiate with the Governments of UK and USA for the extradition of these war criminals. It is known that the British Government will not send Mueen-Uddin back to Bangladesh unless there were water-tight assurances that he would not be put to death, but instead be given a sentence of life imprisonment. The relatives of those who were brutally murdered in December 1971 may, I am sure, feel that only an execution will bring justice for them, but they need to accept that life imprisonment, possibly in solitary confinement, will be a very severe punishment for someone who has lived comfortably in the UK for the last 40 years or so. These relatives need to be reminded that one of the main reasons that the British Government abolished the death penalty in 1965 was that there had in earlier years been miscarriages of justice and that after some people had been executed, it had been found that they were not guilty of the crime for which they had been put to death. Therefore the death penalty was abolished in Great Britain and from 2004 all members of the European Union are bound to follow a ban on capital punishment.

It follows, therefore, that the Government of Bangladesh has some serious and urgent diplomatic work to do to enable the extradition of both these war criminals from UK and USA. As far as the British Government is concerned, perhaps they should also keep in mind that in 2011 a public opinion poll by Angus Reid found that 65% were in favour of the death penalty for cases of murder, 28% against and the rest undecided. The case of Ashrafuzzaman Khan in the USA is concerned is somewhat different as Mr Khan may be residing in a state where the death penalty still exists. If this is the case, the American authorities may be agreeable to an extradition deal.

From the British media, I have learnt that Mueen-Uddin has held a number of important positions in the UK. However, that is irrelevant when focusing in on the horrendous crimes committed in 1971. It is significant to note from Muslim Aid's website that in May 2013 he has 'retired' from the Board of Trustees of Muslim Aid, presumably so that the charity may not be tainted by the link to the war crimes trials. This reminds me that a few years ago, while on a visit to London, I was invited to visit and talk about Bangladesh to a number of classes of teenagers at Swanlea School, Whitechapel, which is very close to the famous East London Mosque of which Mueen-Uddin was, in the past, vice-chairman of the management committee. In Swanlea School, there was a significant percentage of children of parents from Bangladesh. I was surprised how little they knew about the formation of and the history of Bangladesh. I wonder why.

———————————————
Julian Francis, who was Oxfam's 'Special Representative' in Kolkata in 1971, was awarded the 'Friends of Liberation War Honour' in March 2012 by the Government of Bangladesh.