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Robert Venezia
Dr. Nunes
Integrative Seminar: Contemporary Genocides
Summer I 2010
Assignment I
The term genocide was created by Raphael Lemkin in 1944 to describe what was
happening to the Jews of Europe.1
He combined the words geno which in Greek means race and
cide which means killing. So the literal definition of genocide is race killing.2
The first sentence
Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, chapter nine, defined Genocide as, ³The destruction of a nation
or of an ethnic group.´3
Lemkin¶s definition for the atrocities to fit genocide, has to be,
³A coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundationsof the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The
objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national
groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even thelives of individuals belonging to such groups.´
4
Lemkin stated that genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, not against
individuals, but always as members of a group.5
For Lemkin¶s definition of genocide to fit, the
objective of the atrocities has to be wiping out traces of a certain group. During the Holocaust
there were orders that the Jews were to be completely destroyed as a people; therefore it fit
Lemkin¶s definition of what genocide was.6
1Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. (Concord: Rumford Press, 1944), 79.
2Ibid.
3Ibid.
4Ibid.
5Ibid.
6Ibid, 81.
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The United Nations in 1946 passed a resolution on genocide, their first attempt to define
and affirm that genocide is an internationally recognized crime.
³Genocide is a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the
denial of the right to live of individual human beings; such denial of the right of existenceshocks the conscience of mankind, results in great losses to humanity in the form of cultural and other contributions represented by these human groups, and is contrary to
moral law and to the spirit and aims of the United Nations.´7
The resolution is saying how murder is the denial of life of a single person; genocide is
the denial of an entire group of people to existence. When genocide is attempted there must be
coordinated actions to destroy in whole or in part an entire group of people. The resolution
affirmed that genocide was a crime under international law and that all people can be held
responsible for genocide.8
This resolution is very broad under who is protected.
Israel Charny changed the definition to the wanton murder of human beings on the basis
of any characteristic that they share. The protected groups in his definition included national,
ethnic, racial, religious, political, geographical and ideological groups.9
He justified its broad
view ³I reject out of hand that there can be ever be any identity process that in itself will justify
the murder of men, women, and children µbecause¶ they are ³anti´ some ³ism´ or because their
physical characteristics are high.´10
Charny changed the definition because the United Nations
definition of genocide would not include the victims of Stalin¶s purges in the Soviet Union as
well as Pol Pot¶s destruction of the Cambodian people.11
Charny argued that if thousands of
people were murdered because of their political affiliations, they are still being murdered for
who they are. Charny is expanding who he feels should be protected under the Convention
7 United Nations General Assembly, The Crime of Genocide, December 11, 1946 (New York: GAOR, 1946), 188-189.
8Ibid.
9Israel W. Charny, The Definition of Genocide, in the Genocide Studies Reader ed. Samuel Totten and Paul R.
Bartop (New York, Routledge: 2009), 37.10
Ibid.11
Ibid, 36.
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Against Genocide. His definition is that any identity whether it is religious, ideological or
geographical.
Helen Fine defined genocide as,
³The sustained purposeful action by a perpetrator to physical destroy a collectivitydirectly or indirectly, through interdiction of the biological and social reproduction of group
members, sustained regardless of the surrender or lack of threat offered by the victim.´12
Helen Fine defined genocide as the direct or indirect action taken by a government
against people of any kind. Forced sterilization under Fine¶s definition would be considered
genocide.13
There does not have to be a large scale extermination plan for Fine¶s definition of
genocide to fit. It is therefore is very broad under who is a protected group and that is the
problem with the definition. She also argued that certain other groups should be protected as
well. She said that, ³being an Italian working-class member of communist party may just be as
heritable a characteristic as being an Italian church-going Roman Catholic.´14 She argued that
being a certain member of a political group can be as important a part of the person¶s conscience
and upbringing as is their religion. She also claims that someone¶s class as well as their political
beliefs is part of a person¶s identity.15
In 1948 after the horrors of the Holocaust the United Nations created the Genocide
Convention which defined genocide as the following:
³In the present convention genocide means any of the following acts committed with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a)Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the
group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
12Helen Fine, The Definition of Genocide, in the Genocide Studies Reader ed. Samuel Totten and Paul R. Bartop
(New York, Routledge: 2009), 54.13
Ibid.14
Ibid.15
Ibid.
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physical destruction in whole or in part;(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births withinthe group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.´
16
The Convention of 1948 defined who is protected from the crime of genocide. This
definition protects religious, ethnic, national and racial groups. It does not include political
parties as well as membership in clubs. The definition would not include killing members of the
Communist party, the Ku Klux Klan, and Freemasons. This definition is the most complete
working definition of genocide that there is. It not only protects most groups, it also includes
forced sterilization and the abduction of children as being genocidal acts. This definition is not
just saying that attempted annihilation of a group, but other actions which would endanger a
group of people from surviving intact as a people, such as the kidnapping of their children,
would also amount to the crime.
The legal definition of genocide is the Genocide Convention of 1948.17
This is the
authoritative definition on genocide. It is used by the process of international justice exemplified
by the tribunals of Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia. The convention¶s definition has not
changed in the past sixty years. This definition of genocide emphasizes intent in the actions of
the perpetrators. For genocidal acts to be considered genocide, the side perpetrating the acts
needs to show intent to annihilate a certain group. This is the only problem with the Genocide
Convention of 1948 definition because it becomes very hard to prove intent in genocide in many
cases. All genocides are committed by individuals acting mostly on orders from a state or
officials. The differences between the five definitions of genocide can be seen below.
16United Nations General Assembly, United Nations Convention on Genocide, December 9, 1948 (New York: GAOR,
1948), 30-31.17
Ibid.
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Lemkin 1944 UN Resolution 1946 Charny Fine Convention of 1948
Political,
Social Institutions
Racial National, Racial Biological National
Cultural Institutions,
Language
Religious Religious Social
Reproduction18
Racial
National Feelings,
Religion
Political19 Geographical Identity20 Ethnic, Religious
Personal Security
(Human Rights)
Intent 21
Intent
Other Groups
Ideological
Intent 22
Intent
Assignment II
Raphael Lemkin defined genocide as ³The destruction of a nation or ethnic group.´23
Now to Lemkin there is a new development: the state using its resources and manpower to
annihilate groups of people. During the Holocaust, the German state used its resources to make
murder occur on an industrial scale. What the Nazis were attempting to do to the Jews of Europe
was their annihilation as a people.24
The problem for defining genocide is that the definition of genocide is not understood by
many people. Many people will see an act of mass murder and call it genocide. Legally the only
definition of genocide that is accepted is the one created by the Convention on Genocide. For
the definition of genocide there must be mass murder. However, that does not mean every act of
18Fine, supra note 13 at 54.
19United Nations General Assembly, United Nations Convention on Genocide, December 9, 1948 (New York: GAOR,
1948), 30-31.20
Fine, supra note 13 at 54.21
Lemkin, supra note 1 at 79.22
Charny, supra note 10 at 3723
Lemkin, supra note 1 at 79.24
Ibid, 91.
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mass murder is a genocidal act. The brutal massacre of Sharon Tate and five others at her house
in Hollywood in 1969 was a horrific crime, but it was not a crime against humanity or genocide.
Murder is the culpable depriving of life by an individual, but genocide is the deprival of
existence of an entire group of people. According to the UN 1948 definition for genocide to
occur there must hundreds of acts of mass murder, but the intended goal of the mass murder has
to be the annihilation of the group.25
To Lemkin genocide is the mass murder of innocent, men
woman and children solely on their race, religion and nationality,26
so the mass murder of Tate
and her friends is not genocide by any definition.
The heinous crimes committed during Mao¶s reign in China were not genocide. Mao¶s
followers slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent Chinese people, but there was a method
to the slaughter. They were not slaughtering protected groups under the UN Convention on
Genocide. Their victims were ³enemies of the party and the state.27
All the evidence from China
states that the victims were not targeted because of the group that they belonged to all. The
people who were targeted were perceived as a threat to the regime and thus were eliminated.
Even the lowest estimates of Mao¶s number of victims in China because of his policies are in the
tens of millions.28
Lemkin himself said ³It is only when committed with intent to destroy, that
the crime reaches the definition of genocide.´29
If one murder had been committed with intent to
wipe out in whole or in part it could be considered genocide, but Mao never intended to destroy
any protected groups through his policies.
25 United Nations General Assembly, United Nations Convention on Genocide, December 9, 1948 (New York: GAOR,
1948), 30-31.26
June 30, 1949, Draft of Brief for the Ratification of the Genocide Convention. American Jewish Historical
Society . Box 2/Folder 12.27
Ben Kiernan, Blood and Soil A world history of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur , (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2007), 536.28
Ibid, 538.29
June 30, 1949, Draft of Brief for the Ratification of the Genocide Convention. American Jewish Historical
Society , Box 2/Folder 12.
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Genocide is the targeting of a group of people for slaughter. During the Holocaust the
Nazis shipped Jews of all backgrounds and countries to camps that were designed to slaughter
them.30
There was no distinction made by the Nazis between converted Jews, secular Jews, and
Orthodox Jews. They all were murdered because of their Jewish ancestry. They were all targeted
for death. The Nazis were not rounding up and killing suspected saboteurs. Innocent Jews as a
people were destined for extermination.31
Systemic violence is not in the definition of genocide. There is a large difference between
systemic violence against the women in Iraq and a campaign to destroy a group of people. The
systemic violence that is directed against women especially in the Shia areas of southern Iraq, to
keep them down, it is not genocide. The stated goal of those attacking the women is not to
eliminate all women, but the goal is to keep them as second class citizens. Lemkin did not put
women as a protected group in any of his definitions of genocide. ³Mass sterilization and forced
abortions were practiced by the Nazis.´32
They used these tactics against groups they thought
were inferior, as a way of population control.33 What is being done to women in Iraq is a crime,
but does not fall under Lemkin¶s definition of genocide.
The actions in Zimbabwe are not genocide. The government is accused of torturing and
denying food to those people who are their political opponents. The objective of this policy is for
the ruling party in Zimbabwe to survive any attempt to overthrow it by their political opponents.
What the government¶s militia is doing could be considered illegal and immoral, but not
genocide. The people targeted are being targeted because of their political beliefs, something that
they can control and there is no larger attempt to exterminate them. Lemkin¶s definition of
30Donald L. Niewyk, The Holocaust of the Jews in Century of Genocide, ed. Samuel Totten and William S. Parsons
(New York: Routledge,2009), 131.31
Lemkin, supra note 1 at 81.32
February 2, 1951, Manuscript on Genocide, American Jewish Historical Society, Box 7/Folder 3.33
Ibid,
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genocide always is qualified by intent. The major intent of Zimbabwe¶s government is to hold
onto power and not to kill the opposition, deaths may occur, but their major concern and
objective is to hold onto power, the same goal that both Stalin and Mao had. But the strategies
employed by the government of Zimbabwe could not be considered genocidal acts of
depravation of food.34
So according to Lemkin the policies of the government of Zimbabwe
would not be genocide.35
Most people equate genocide and evil together. Is evil synonymous with genocide? Evil
is a subjective term, because the Nazis did not believe what they were doing was evil, they
thought it was morally right. Most human beings were appalled by the crimes of the Nazis and
would call them evil. Lemkin was disgusted by genocide and it can be seen by a quote of his, ³If
the killing of one Jew or one Pole is a crime, the killing of all the Jews and all the Poles is not a
lesser crime.´36
Lemkin is saying that if one Pole or one Jew is killed then that is a crime, then
why is the killing of all the Jews and Poles not as serious crime? Lemkin may be inferring that
these actions are evil, just as wrong as the taking of an individual¶s life.
Assignment III ± The Atrocities Committed by Pakistan 1971 in Bangladesh
I. The People
Yayub Khan was Pakistani¶s military dictator in the 1960¶s. His regime was corrupt and so
badly run that in 1969 he resigned office and gave power to the commander-in-chief of
Pakistan¶s military Yahya Khan.37
Yahya Khan, The president of Pakistan was born in 1907, and served in the British Indian
Army during World War II. Khan was able to rise through the ranks of the elite of West
34Revised Outline for Genocide Cases American Jewish Historical Society, Box 8/Folder 10.
35Ibid.
36Raphael Lemkin, Genocide. American Scholar, Volume 15, no. 2 (April 1946), 227-230
37Ibid.
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Pakistan. With the connections that he had with the leading elite of the country Khan became
commander-in-chief of the Pakistani Armed Forces in 1965.38
Yahya Kahn took over power in
1969 with many problems. First he had to turn a former military dictatorship to a democracy and
end the ethnic rivalry between East and West Pakistan. Khan hoped to do both of these things by
holding elections on the principle of one person one vote.39
Zulikar Ali Bhutto came from a wealthy family in West Pakistan and it was joked that he was
born with a silver spoon in his mouth.40
Bhutto studied at schools in the United States and was
fluent in many languages. Bhutto during the final years of the Yayub dictatorship called for
democracy in Pakistan. He formed the Pakistan People¶s Party, which sought to get the poor of
Pakistan a voice in the country. Bhutto was a skilled speaker. However, unlike many in
Pakistan concerned about the Muslim state¶s continued survival, Bhutto was only concerned
about one thing; his own political survival.41
Sheikh Mujibar Rahman, who would become the first leader of Bangladesh and the
inspirational leader of East Pakistan, was born in 1920. From the very start he was a Bengali
nationalist who was concerned about his people. He took part in the protests against Urdu being
made the only official language of the country without Bengali.42
Rahman in the 1950¶s and 60¶s
was calling for more autonomy for East Pakistan and his ³trouble-making´ got him thrown in jail
on more than a few occasions.43
Sheikh Rahman was the leader of East Pakistan in all but name,
and was respected and revered by both the Hindus and Muslims of the country. When the
Awami League won the most seats in the election of 1970, Sheikh Rahman should have been
38Archer Blood, The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh Memoirs of an American Diplomat (Dhaka: The University Press
Limited, 2002), 43.39
Ibid, 33.40
Ibid, 44.41
Lt. Gen. A.A.K Naizi, The Betrayal of East Pakistan (USA: Oxford University Press, 1998), 40.42
Blood, 48.43
Ibid, 50.
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made prime minister of Pakistan. Rahman did not change his policies even after the election; he
felt that East Pakistan needed the most possible autonomy.
General Tikka Khan was born in 1915, and like Khan served in World War II in the British
Army. Indian officers, who knew him before partition, said he was a regular solider who showed
no great skills.44
Nevertheless, he was able to rise rapidly through the ranks of the Pakistani
Army and became a trusted officer of the military dictatorship. In 1965 the province of
Baluchistan was in a revolt against Pakistan and General Tikka Khan was sent in. He crushed
the uprising with the utmost force and brutality.45
Khan was nicknamed ³The Butcher of
Baluchistan´ for his crushing of the uprising.
46
General Khan was the militant hawk in the West
Pakistani military elite.47
General A.A.K. Niazi was the commander of Pakistani forces in East Pakistan toward the
end of the war. Niazi when he surrendered his army became a scapegoat for the failure of the
war and was blamed by his country for the disaster. In 1998 he wrote an autobiography in which
he tried to salvage his reputation and put blame for the disasters of the war on General Khan as
well as Bhutto.48
Indira Gandhi came from a political family in India. Her father Nehru was the first prime
minister of India and great things were expected of her. Gandhi was elected Prime Minister of
India in 1966 and she sought closer relations with the Soviet Union, since America supported
Pakistan. Gandhi as well as India was secretly pleased with Sheik Rahman¶s victory.49 Gandhi
44Robert Payne, Massacre the Tragedy of Bangla Desh and the phenomenon of mass slaughter throughout history
(New York: The Macmillian Company, 1973), 45.45
Blood, supra note 36 at 161.46
Ibid.47
Ibid, 161.48
Niazi, supra note 40 at 233.49
Richard Sission and Leo E. Rose, War and Secession Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh (Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1990), 134.
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tried to balance out the demands of her people to help the Bengali people and keep her country
out of war.
Archer Blood was the American Consul-General in Dhaka at the time of the elections of
1970 and the brutal crackdown by West Pakistan. His records and diaries give an account of the
many atrocities that were committed during the war.50
During the conflict Blood sent many
telegrams to America urging that his government do something to stop the slaughter.51
Archer
Blood was appalled by his government¶s lack of action against Pakistan and demanded that they
do something. Archer Blood was removed from his post in June 1971 and was not given another
assignment; the Nixon White House did not want to be reminded of their moral failure.
52
Faruque Chowdhury was a fifteen year old Bengali supporter of the Awami League who
lived in the city of Sylhet.53
He was forced to flee his village in the spring of 1971 in either April
or May as he did not remember the exact date. If he was discovered he would have put his entire
family in jeopardy.54
The Pakistani soldiers were targeting all members of the Awami League
and if they could not find them they would target their families. Mr. Chowdhury said he left for
the border with India to undergo training and begin to fight back against the Pakistani army that
was committing massive crimes against his people.55
³Our people were being killed for no
reason; the military was using oppression and rape as weapons.´56
The Awami League, was the main Bengali political party in Pakistan. The party¶s
platform called for autonomy for East Pakistan. Rahman, as leader of the party, introduced what
50Blood, Supra note 36 at 1.
51Blood, supra note 36 at 209.
52Ibid, 222.
53Dr. Faruque Chowdhury, Personal Interview with author at Kean University, June 9, 2010.
54Ibid.
55Ibid.
56Ibid.
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were called ³The Six Points of the Awami League.´57
The Six Points was designed as a way to
stop the domination of East Pakistan by the West. The Awami League during the election
claimed that they wanted to remain part of Pakistan, but just with maximum autonomy. This
sounded both to the Bengalis and West Pakistanis as talk of independence.
The Bihari were a group of Urdu-speakers in East Pakistan. They were a small group but
a group that heavily supported West Pakistan controlling East Pakistan. The Bihari were not
Bengalis and felt that if the Bengalis got independence they would suffer persecution. They
were mostly members of the political party Jamat-i-Islami.
Jamat-i-Islami was the Islamic party in East Pakistan.
58
The main supporters of the party
were the Bihari people, the Urdu-speakers of East Pakistan. The party was a small, but very
important, Pakistan used their supporters during the conflict for intelligence gathering.
Razakars were groups of Bihari and other Bengalis who supported the Pakistanis.
Groups of them would join the Pakistani military in units who found suspected members of the
Awami League and would murder them. The Razakars were hated by the larger Bengali
population and if any were taken prisoner, they would be faced with the threat of execution.
The military elite of West Pakistan were a small group of officers who had served in the
British Army during World War II. These officers had a disdainful look on their former
comrades in the army who ran India¶s military and on their own people. They spoke English and
Urdu, and did not respect the Bengalis, because the Bengalis as a whole did not serve in the
British Army.
57Payne, supra note 43 at 12.
58A.S.M. Shamsul Arefin, Associates of Pakistan Army 197 1, (Dhaka, Bangladesh:) 23.
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The students in Dhaka University were radicals according to the West Pakistan
government.59
Pakistan felt that these students and the Hindus of East Pakistan were the main
instigators of the conspiracy against Pakistan.60
Bengali Intellectuals were the main focus on the West Pakistani¶s rage during the war.
The intellectuals were accused by West Pakistan of forming the back of the insurgency.61
They
were even killed to the last minute of the war, when the Pakistani army was on the verge on
surrendering to the Indian Army.
India was a close ally of the Soviet Union, and had just recently beaten Pakistan in a war
in 1965. The only thing that had prevented India from winning total victory was America and
China.
United States of America was very concerned about the stability of Pakistan and the
entire sub-continent falling under Indian and Communist influence.
Refugees were the main reason that India got involved in the war between East and West
Pakistan. The refugees were Awami League supporters and Hindu Bengalis. Both of these
groups were targeted by the Pakistani military. The refugees numbered ten million at one point in
India.
Perspectives
The economic perspective was that East Pakistan wanted West Pakistan to stop treating
them like a colony. There was massive economic disparity between the two regions. In the
years before 1971 the per capita income in the West was much higher than in the East. For the
fiscal years of 1969-1970 the per capita income in West Pakistan was sixty-one percent higher
59Dr. Faruque Chowdhury, Personal Interview with author at Kean University, June 9, 2010.
60Ibid.
61Ibid.
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than in East Pakistan.62
All of the aid money that came in Pakistan stayed in the west and it
helped build its infrastructure. East Pakistan¶s economy depended on industry and if the industry
was being built in the West, then their economy would remain much lower than West Pakistan.
East Pakistan demanded that aid money be sent to them as well as a way to balance out the
economic differences.
Pakistan wanted outright loyalty from the Bengalis and they felt that the Awami League
was not loyal. The Awami League was believed to be separatists and that is why even after they
won, President Khan and Prime Minister Bhutto refused them admittance to the National
Assembly. The Awami League wanted to break apart Pakistan and declare independence was a
wide-held belief in West Pakistan. West Pakistan felt that the six points were treasonous and they
called them the first step to the disintegration of Pakistan. The six points of the Awami League
were designed as a way for East Pakistan to gain more sovereignty.63
Culturally East and West Pakistan were very different. Islam was all they had in
common, their languages were different, and even the food they ate was different.64 West
Pakistani society was run by landlords and the military elite. Bengali society was a very rural
and the peasants were under more sway of the middle-class, who were composed of mostly
Hindus, was the belief in West Pakistan.65
When the government in West Pakistan banned the
songs and poems of Nobel Prize winning Hindu Bengali Rabindra Nath Tagore in East Pakistan,
the Bengalis protested. His music was beloved by both Hindus and Muslim Bengalis alike.66
62Archer Blood, Conflict in East Pakistan: Background and Prospects, in Bangladesh Genocide and World Press,
ed. Fazlul Quader Quaderi (Dacca, Bangladesh: ABCO Press, 1972), 28.63
Blood, supra note 36 at 50.64
Ibid.65
Ibid.66
Rounaq Jahan, Genocide in Bangladesh in Century of Genocide, ed. Samuel Totten and William S. Parsons (New
York: Routledge,2009),298.
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Those citizens who lived in East Pakistan were more secular and in West Pakistan there was an
emphasis on military service and Islam.67
Sheikh Rahman expected that West Pakistan would live up to the results of the election.
He felt that the elections had been fair and that therefore the Awami League should be seated in
the National Assembly. Rahman wanted his people to be treated fairly and expected democracy
to be championed by someone like Bhutto who had spent time in jail for demanding democracy
in West Pakistan.68
There many contending issues on continuing public order between East and West
Pakistan. West Pakistan contained the capital and most of the territory. The ruling elite of West
Pakistan were mostly Punjabis and Pathan people. The Punjabis and Pathan people looked down
upon the Bengali people, whom they felt were inferior to them. The population of East Pakistan
was more numerous numbering fifty-four percent, but they were Bengali.69
This was a major
problem instead of having Islam unite the two parts of Pakistan, ethnic and language barriers
divided East and West.70
General Niazi claimed in his autobiography that the Hindus were in economic control of
East Pakistan.71
The Hindus were the educated elite and the professors and teachers of East
Pakistan. The Hindu educators were able to mold and change the Bengalis into being more
Hindu, was a widely held belief in West Pakistan.72
There was also belief in West Pakistan that
the Bengalis¶ version of Islam was not Muslim enough. It was too closely tied to Hinduism,
67Ibid.
68Blood, supra note 36 at 134.
69Ben Kiernan, Blood and Soil A world history of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur , (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2007), 572.70
Jahan, supra note 62 at 298.71
Naizi, supra note 40 at 33.72
Ibid.
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because Hindus composed thirteen percent of East Pakistan¶s population.73
The Hindus had
mostly been driven out of West Pakistan, by the population of West Pakistan during partition.74
The leaders in West Pakistan claimed that because Hindus represented a large minority of the
population they controlled the society. However, a glaring mistake was to create a Pakistan
divided into two parts separated by hundreds of miles.
The election was held on December 7th
1970. The Awami League captured one hundred sixty
seven out of a possible one hundred sixty- nine seats that they ran for, all in East Pakistan.75
They won zero seats from West Pakistan. In West Pakistan Bhutto¶s party won eighty-one seats
out of one hundred thirty-eight.
76
To the military elite of Pakistan the idea of that ³Bengali´
Rahman becoming prime minister was sickening.77
Rahman had only won in the East, not in the
West. In the West the Awami League had been thrashed, they did not win a single seat from the
vote in West Pakistan. They had seen that during his campaign Rahman had been campaigning
for maximum autonomy for just East Pakistan, but nothing about what he was going to do for a
united Pakistan.78
Arena
On the night of March 25th
1971 at 11:25 P.M. the West Pakistani Army launched their
attack; four American built M-24 tanks were followed by a platoon of soldiers to Dhaka
University.79
The university was not in session, but it was being used by student supporters of
the Awami League. The two dormitories in front of the platoon of soldiers were Iqbal Hall
73Kiernan, supra note 65 at 572.
74Niazi, supra note 40 at 33.
75Ibid, 128-129.
76Ibid.
77Payne, supra note 43 at 13.
78Blood, supra note 36 at 120.
79Payne, supra note 43 at 16.
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which housed the Muslim students and Jagannath Hall which housed the Hindu students.80
Officers had given their soldiers orders to kill every human being in the two buildings.81
The
soldiers ran into the two buildings firing their weapons as they came in. The students inside
either dropped dead or came out with their hands up. The students who surrendered to the army
expected to be treated as civilians, but were mowed down by the soldiers on the wall outside of
their dorms. The girls¶ dormitory was set on fire and those who tried running out of the building
were machine-gunned as they tried to escape.82
Within fifteen minutes over one hundred students
had been murdered.
After the dorms were stormed, the apartment buildings of the professors were attacked by
the Pakistani soldiers, who slaughtered any professors they found. These were mostly professors
who taught Bengali culture and thus they were singled out for death.83
Professor Chandra Dev
was a professor and Hindu who was taken to a nearby field and executed.84
The bodies were
thrown into mass graves and the graves were visible. American Consul General Archer Blood
recorded, ³We saw traces of two mass graves on the campus...The rain on the night of March 29
exposed some of the bodies and the stench was terrible.´85
The next target of the operation was the East Pakistani Rifles. These were a group of
constabulary Bengali soldiers who would not turn against their people. They were armed and
could be a threat to the Pakistani military. These East Pakistani soldiers in their barracks saw the
university on fire and prepared to defend themselves.86 The Pakistani soldiers using tanks,
bazookas and overwhelming firepower stormed the barracks. One hundred of the defenders were
80Ibid.
81Payne, supra note 43 at 18.
82Blood, supra note 36 at 207.
83Payne, supra note 43 at 19.
84Blood, supra note 36 at 207.
85Ibid.
86Payne, supra note 43 at 20.
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killed; the others surrendered and were promised ³good treatment.´ They were all bayoneted to
death and dumped in mass graves.87
Two hours after the first attack, three trucks of soldiers came to the house of Sheikh
Rahman. They knocked down the door and told him to surrender, which he did. When he was led
onto the street and saw the devastation around him, he turned to the arresting captain and told
him, ³Kill me if you like, but stop shooting at my people.´88
Rahman was led away, but unlike
most of their other targets, the Pakistanis did not know what to do with him yet. The Pakistani
soldiers were killing any Bengali they could get their hands on. A total of 4,000 to 6,000 people
died that first night in Dhaka.
89
In Dhaka Operation Searchlight went exactly as it was supposed to. The university was
secure, Sheik Rahman was arrested and the East Pakistani Rifles had been neutralized. To add to
their success almost of the reporters were staying in one hotel and were forced to stay inside and
therefore they could not report on the killings going in the city.90
The initial attacks on Dhaka
were precise and the oppression was well organized. There was a pattern on who was targeted:
students, professors and members of the opposition. Operation Searchlight was very centralized
and successful in Dhaka.
A few hours after the first massacres in Dhaka, Pakistani soldiers descended on the Hindu
shopping area of the town and destroyed it. Hindu temples around the capital city were sacked
and set ablaze as well.91 The soldiers set up machine guns on the buildings near the shopping
area and mowed down whoever they saw. The victims were innocent Hindu men, women and
87Ibid, 20-21.
88Ibid, 26.
89Blood, supra note 36 at 209.
90Payne, supra note 43 at 28.
91Ibid, 47.
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children.92
Hindus and other Bengalis began to flee into the countryside. A Pakistani general
ordered his soldiers at the river crossings to stop the refugees and execute any they came
across.93
At a village about ten miles from Dhaka named Demra, the Pakistani army found some
refugees who had fled from the capital city and killed all the men between twelve and forty
years. The women of the same age were all raped.94
Archer Blood the American Consul General on March 28th
telexed a message to
Washington entitled ³Selective Genocide.´95
He wrote to Washington,
³Moreover, with support of Pak military, non-Bengali Muslims are systemically attacking poor people¶s quarters and murdering Bengalis and Hindus. Streets of Dhaka are flooded
with Hindus and others seeking to get out of Dacca.´
96
A West Pakistani helicopter pilot admitted to Archer Blood that the military was killing
Hindu men, but justified it because he said the Hindus were the enemies of Islam and that he was
engaged in a holy war.97 Blood found out from other Pakistani soldiers that it was common
practice for the army to enter a village and inquire as to where the Hindus were and then kill the
Hindu men.98
Pakistani soldiers bragged to the diplomats in Dhaka including Blood that ³they
came to East Pakistan to kill Hindus.´99
Blood calculated that the total Hindu dead from the
initial incursion in Dhaka was in the thousands.100
The Pakistani military was targeting for death
the Hindus of East Pakistan, and their soldiers felt this was justified, since the Hindus were the
enemies of God.
92 S.K. Bhattacharyya, Genocide in East Pakistan/Bangladesh (A Horror Story), (Houston, Texas: A Ghosh, 1987), 31.93
Payne, supra note 43 at 48.94
Ibid.95
Blood, supra note 36 at 214.96
Ibid.97
Ibid, 219.98
Ibid, 217.99
Ibid, 218.100
Ibid.
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After the first month, the Pakistani army having captured many of the larger cities did not
have momentum to conquer the rest of the country. They could not figure out who was a rebel
and who was a civilian so they turned to the local population. The West Pakistani Army used the
Razakars, who gathered intelligence and found out who was in the resistance. The Pakistani
army did not know how to combat the insurgency, so they unleashed reprisals on the local
population.101
The violence was similar to that inflicted on Soviet villages during World War II;
anytime a soldier was killed the closest village was chosen and people were killed in that village.
The vast majority of those who were killed in the reprisals for continued resistance were ordinary
Bengalis.
102
This turned the population against the Pakistani Army. Mr. Chowdhury and people
like him who had fled to India began infiltrating and attacking the Razakars and the Pakistani
military.103
Many people fled to India. An estimated ten million refugees, the majority of them
Hindus fled to India.104
The Indian government could claim the moral high ground however; they
could not afford to have these refugees stay forever and wanted the world¶s help to combat the
problem of massacres. America, however, felt that if Bangladesh got their independence that
Communism would engulf the sub-continent. There was a misplaced belief that all nationalist
groups were Communist. Nobody, in the Nixon White House wanted to hear what Archer Blood
was trying to say about a great ally, Pakistan.
Pakistan felt that India was aiding the rebels in East Pakistan and demanded that they
cease and stay out of Pakistan¶s problems. India felt that it was their problem because they could
not afford for the refugees to stay in their country for an extended period of time. Prime Minister
101Dr. Faruque Chowdhury, Personal Interview with author, June 9, 2010.
102Jahan, supra note 62 at 304.
103Dr. Faruque Chowdhury, Personal Interview with author, June 9, 2010
104Jahan, supra note 62 at 304.
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Indira Gandhi told President Khan to release Sheikh Rahman and to stop the massacres. If those
two things were done, then India would stop supporting the freedom fighters. However, Pakistan
was prepared to go to war against India to save their position in East Pakistan.105
By the end of
November 1971 it was obvious that a war was going to happen between India and Pakistan. On
December 3rd
Pakistan¶s air force launched an attack on the Indian Air force. It was a miserable
failure.106
India immediately launched a massive attack in East Pakistan with the help of Bengali
freedom fighters. General Niazi¶s army conducted a fighting retreat towards Dhaka. The
government in Pakistan had originally informed Niazi that he needed to hold his position, but
two weeks later ordered him to surrender his army to the Indian Army. On December 16
th
Niazi
surrendered his army of 93,000 to the Indian army and finally the bloodbath of civilians that
began nine months before was over.
III. Base Values
During the conflict in Bangladesh, West Pakistan employed the value of power. They wanted
to economically and politically control East Pakistan. They were controlling the East as if it was
a colony of theirs.107 West Pakistan used military force as well as political power to keep the
Bengalis down and subservient to the ruling elite of the West. For the Bengalis the conflict was
about power as well. They wanted the power that they felt they deserved as human beings and of
citizens of Pakistan. The Bengalis felt powerless in the government that was ruling Pakistan.
They wanted a government that they felt would see to their interests and not just the interests of
the ruling elite of West Pakistan and in 1970 they elected the party they felt would represent
105Payne, supra note 43 at 104.
106Blood, supra note 36 at 113-114.
107Arifur Rahman, Personal Interview with author at Kean University, June 1, 2010.
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them.108
When West Pakistan refused to honor the election and used military power on the
Bengalis, they fought back.
The Bengalis wanted to be respected as a people and as citizens. The Bengalis wanted to be
good citizens of the nation of Pakistan, but wanted to do so, as Bengali speaking Muslims and
Hindus. East Pakistan had willingly joined Pakistan in 1947.109
The people of East Pakistan felt,
therefore, that they should be treated the same as those citizens in West Pakistan and that was
never done in the history of East Pakistan. All of the human base values were wanted by both
sides during the conflict. The Bengalis wanted the wealth they felt was theirs, they wanted to
affection from their Muslim countrymen in West Pakistan. None of these were respected by
West Pakistan. To West Pakistan they wanted affection, which they felt they were not receiving
from the ungrateful East Pakistani population, whom they had protected from India. All the
people of East Pakistan wanted were their six points to be accepted by West Pakistan.
1. The constitution should provide for a Federation of Pakistan in its true sense based on the
Lahore Resolution and the parliamentary form of government with supremacy of aLegislature directly elected on the basis of universal adult franchise.
2. The federal government should deal with only two subjects: Defence and Foreign Affairs,and all other residual subjects should be vested in the federating states.
3. Two separate, but freely convertible currencies for two wings should be introduced; or if this is not feasible, there should be one currency for the whole country, but effective
constitutional provisions should be introduced to stop the flight of capital from East toWest Pakistan. Furthermore, a separate Banking Reserve should be established and
separate fiscal and monetary policy be adopted for East Pakistan.4. The power of taxation and revenue collection should be vested in the federating units and
the federal centre would have no such power. The federation would be entitled to a sharein the state taxes to meet its expenditures.
5. There should be two separate accounts for the foreign exchange earnings of the twowings; the foreign exchange requirements of the federal government should be met by the
two wings equally or in a ratio to be fixed; indigenous products should move free of duty between the two wings, and the constitution should empower the units to establish trade
links with foreign countries.
108Kiernan, supra note 65 at 573.
109Jahan, supra note 62 at 298.
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6. East Pakistan should have a separate militia or paramilitary force.110
None of these points could be considered treason against West Pakistan; they were demands
for full autonomy for East Pakistan. They were t ired of being abused and treated like second
class citizens; they felt that these points would stop the abuses of West Pakistan.
IV. Strategies
The first strategy employed by West Pakistan was political negotiation. The West Pakistani
elite wanted a leader such as Bhutto who had campaigned for land reform for all, not just
autonomy for East Pakistan. West Pakistan had overwhelmingly elected Bhutto¶s PPP, while
East Pakistan had elected the Amawi League.
111
Against the advice of the military elite,
President Khan told Bhutto in a meeting that Rahman would be the next prime minister of
Pakistan.112
So, Khan met with Rahman to work on an agreement when he would become Prime
Minster of a united Pakistan. During their meetings together Khan and Rahman were unable to
come any agreements. Both felt that the other one was being intransigent. Khan thought that the
six points needed to be changed because Rahman would Prime Minster of a united Pakistan not
just East Pakistan, but Rahman refused to.113 Rahman expected Khan to live up to his promise of
having the National Assembly meet on March 3rd
1971, which was two weeks after their
meeting.
Even after these meetings, Khan felt that democracy had spoken and that Rahman should be
made Prime Minister. He even was willing to have the National Assembly sit for its first meeting
on March 4th. Bhutto stated that East Pakistan must be given independence or that Sheik
110Payne, supra note 43 at 12.
111Blood, supra note 36 at 134.
112Ibid.
113Ibid, 140.
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Rahman should be arrested.114
Bhutto threatened if the National Assembly met on March 3rd
,
then he would ignite ³violent protest´ all over West Pakistan.115
Bhutto forced Khan¶s hand. If
President Khan allowed the assembly to meet, then Bhutto would ignite a revolution. If he did
not allow it to meet then Rahman would be forced to respond.116
Khan the old soldier folded to Bhutto¶s demands and the National Assembly was not
allowed to meet.117
President Khan began to airlift reinforcements to the country by land and air
from West Pakistan. Archer Blood wrote that,
³We could« vouch for a sudden influx of troops by air through the Dacca airport.´118
It was obvious that something was going to happen. West Pakistan was airlifting
reinforcements into Dhaka. On March 4th
Sheikh Rahman called for civil disobedience in East
Pakistan.
When political compromise failed in his eyes, President Khan decided to do what was
done in Baluchistan; the Awami League would be crushed with brutal force. General Tikka
Khan had led the brutal crushing of Baluchistan and he would employ a similar strategy in East
Pakistan. President Yahya Khan was a military man, and when negotiation did not work, he
turned to force.119
However, under the guise of continuing negotiations with Sheik Rahman and
the Awami League, the Pakistani Army prepared to launch a brutal first strike across East
Pakistan to crush the Bengalis. However, the soldiers going into battle needed to be mentally
prepared. The West Pakistani soldiers were sent to the country only after having completed a
short ³training course´ on the Bengali people. In the course the Bengalis were depicted as traitors
114Niazi, supra note 40 at 40.
115Blood, supra note 36 at 152.
116Ibid.
117Ibid, 163.
118Ibid, 179.
119Ibid, 189.
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who loved India and as untrue Muslims who had been tainted by Hinduism.120
Their soldiers
now believed that this was a holy war, jihad, for the future of Pakistan.121
The government said
that an uprising was planned against Pakistan and these soldiers were the only people who could
prevent Pakistan from being broken apart by Hindu provocateurs.
The Pakistani army¶s mission was codenamed ³Operation Searchlight.´ The Operation¶s
objectives would be to crush the Awami League, disarm and neutralize the Bengali soldiers
under their command, and neutralize ³the radical elements´ at Dhaka University.122
Operation
Searchlight would be launched simultaneously across East Pakistan. From the military
headquarters of the Pakistani Army in Dhaka, where he had been talking with Sheikh Rahman,
President Khan was whisked out of East Pakistan.123
Right before he left President Khan turned
to General Khan and said ³Now sort them out.´124
East Pakistan or Bangladesh wanted nothing more than to be respected as part of
Pakistan. Over the years the abuse suffered by the Bengali people, from the government of West
Pakistan, eroded the desire for acceptance to self-determination. When Urdu was made the
official language and not Bengali, non-violent protests were held. It took nine years for Bengali
to be made an official language as well.125
The Bengali people endured their economic
deprivation and not being allowed to vote. However, when finally their voice was heard and
Sheikh Rahman was to be made Prime Minister of Pakistan, the ruling elite of West Pakistan
stopped them. That was the final straw for many who only saw independence as the strategy best
situated for the Bengali people.
120Payne, supra note 43 at 13.
121Ibid.
122Sission and Rose, supra note 43 at 157.
123Niazi, supra note 40 at 46.
124Ibid, 46.
125Kiernan, supra note 65 at 572.
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V. Outcomes
The immediate outcome was that during the nine months of terror anywhere between
300,000 to three million Bengalis were killed most of them were civilians.126
There was a
disproportionate number of Hindu Bengalis killed, but the vast majority of victims were Bengali
villagers killed by the Pakistani Army and their Razakar collaborators.127
Nobody has been able
to calculate the number of dead; the Pakistanis were not good at record keeping. The Pakistani
military, who had committed the massive atrocities, spent the next seventeen months in Indian
prisoner of war camps.128
When they returned home after the peace treaty between India and
Pakistan, they were treated as cowards and blamed for the disaster in the war.
In the nearly forty years since the war, neither country has recovered. In 1972, a year after
their fight for independence, Bangladesh received international recognition and Sheikh Mujibar
Rahman was released from Pakistan. Rahman was a very good spiritual leader, but did not have
the skills to lead a poor and recovering country like Bangladesh as its prime minister.129
The
freedom fighters who returned home had skills with weapons and refused to give them up.
Political scores were settled by the end of gun. Wanting to have a stable country, Bangladesh did
not even put those Bengalis who had collaborated with Pakistan on trial. Many former freedom
fighters felt betrayed by this action by Rahman.130
Rahman was assassinated in 1975 in a
military coup.
In the next six years, coups and counter-coups wiped out most of the Bengali leaders
from the war against Pakistan.131
The Hindus of Bangladesh never returned in the numbers that
126Kiernan, supra note 65 at 576.
127Ibid.
128Niazi, supra note 40 at 273.
129Arifur Rahman, Personal Interview with author at Kean University, June 1, 2010.
130Ibid.
131Jahan, supra note 62 at 308.
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had existed before the conflict, many of the refugees chose to stay in India. Those Hindus who
remained in Bangladesh never would have the same influence as they did before the conflict.132
It was not until 1991 when Rahman¶s widow, Khaleda Zia, became prime minister that
Bangladesh became a full democracy.133 The Awami League which took power in 1996 decided
to form a committee to try the war criminals, but four years later a coalition beat the Awami
League.134
In that coalition was the political party Jamat-i-Islami, the same party of the Razakars
during the war. The trials were put off. In 2009 the Awami League swept back into power
promising to look into the 1971 war and try those Bengalis who committed crimes during it.
Pakistan after its defeat against India was forced to change governments. President Khan
stepped down and Bhutto took over as prime minister.135
Bhutto was killed in a military coup in
the late 1970¶s and Pakistan has had trouble politically with military rule being replaced with a
democracy every about ten years in a process that has repeated itself since the 1970¶s. The
current leader of Pakistan is Asif Ali Zardari, the son-in-law of Ali Bhutto. His daughter Benazir,
a former prime minister, was assassinated in 2008 trying to lead her country back toward
democracy. Pakistan and Bangladesh have diplomatic relations with one another which were
improved during the military governments of the 1980¶s.
The main issues that still reside because of the genocide are unanswered questions. When
does self-determination mean that a people should get their independence or should territorial
integrity be respected? This is the case today with Southern Sudan, which will hold elections
next year. Before Bangladesh there were no countries formed from colonies that was granted
their independence. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights it says that all people are
132Ibid.
133Blood, supra note 36 at 341.
134Ibid 310.
135Sisson and Rose supra note 43 at 235.
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entitled to self-determination.136
However, places such as South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Kosovo,
Nagorno-Karabakh, Somaliland and the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic have expressed a
desire to be independent countries. These countries are similar to Biafra in the 1960¶s, but when
they broke away they were able to maintain their independence. Kosovo two and half years ago
declared independence, and since then only about sixty countries have recognized it. The reason
for this is politics. Many times countries for the sake of their alliances will not recognize break
away regions. If self-determination was respected, all of these places would be accepted as
independent countries by the rest of the world. All of these places are claimed by sovereign
countries and that is the reason why other countries in the world does not recognize them. There
is apparently no one size fits all strategy for dealing with self-determination. The problem of
self-determination is one that will be with the world for a long time. It should be qualitative,
countries should be able to exist on their own and be able to support themselves.
Another issue is the lingering pain of Bangladesh. For years they wanted an apology from
Pakistan for the actions committed during the war. However, it was not until 2002 when
President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf expressed regret for the excess committed by the
Pakistani Army in 1971. He said, ³"I wish to express to the Bangladeshi people sincere regrets
for the tragic events, which have left deep wounds on both our nations.´137
He did not use the
words; crimes against humanity, war crimes or genocide to describe the killings.138
Pakistan and
Bangladesh will not be to escape the horror of its Bangladesh¶s birth, but both sides have
handled in the same way. Pakistan has never admitted that genocide or crimes against humanity
were committed, and Bangladesh has many more pressing problems to face than the crimes that
136Lung-Chu Chen Self-Determination as a Human Right in Toward World Order and Human Dignity , ed. W.
Michael Reismen and Burns H. Weston (New York: The Free Press, 1976), 215.137
BBC. Musharraf boosts Bangladesh ties. July, 30, 2002, sec. South Asia.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2157891.stm.138
Ibid.
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were committed against them in 1971. The Awami League in 2009 campaigned on a promise to
hold trials for the citizens of Bangladesh who committed crimes against humanity during the
war. The former Razakars who still reside in Bangladesh would be put on trial. It is hoped that
with the Awami League election of 2009 that the trials will finally take place and the people of
Bangladesh can have a sense of justice and those who committed crimes would finally be
brought to justice.
Assignment IV. Lemkin¶s Definition of Genocide and Bangladesh 1971
The Pakistani operation in Bangladesh has striking similarities to the Nazi occupation of
Poland during World War II. During both occupations there were crimes against humanity
committed on the dominant ethnic group living in the country. However, both times there was a
campaign of genocide directed against the main religious minority who resided in the occupied
country. The Nazi occupation of Poland lasted five years and over two million ethnic Poles were
murdered in that same time.139
The Pakistani operation in Bangladesh lasted only nine months
and the army killed at least 300,000 Bengalis, and that is a low estimate.140 However, in both of
these cases the religious minority experienced genocide. During the Holocaust 3.1 million Polish
Jews were murdered by the Nazis, a total of ninety percent of their population.141
The Hindus of
Bangladesh numbered eleven million and by the end of the war more than eighty percent had
been killed or had fled to India.142
Raphael Lemkin defined genocide in 1944 in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe as
coordinated actions at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups with
139Tadeusz Piotrowski, Polands Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the
Second Republic 1918-1947 , (USA: Jefferson McFarland and Company INC: 1997), 305.140
Kiernan, supra note 65 at 572.141
Piotrowski, supra note 139 at 305.142
Kiernan, supra note 65 at 572
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the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.143
Many people including Archer Blood felt that
the actions against the Hindus were genocide. In his famous telegraph to Washington he called
the actions of Pakistan in Bangladesh selective genocide.144
Blood also said that the Hindus of
Bangladesh were singled out for ³special treatment.´145 ³Accordingly we began to focus our
µgenocidal¶ reporting on the Hindus.´146
The Hindus according to Blood were targeted for
destruction by the Pakistani Army. ³In that fateful spring of 1971 I thought the Pakistan Army¶s
action against the Hindus was criminally insane.´147
They were targeted for destruction, and it
was evident to Blood and his staff that there was a systematic effort to murder them because they
were Hindus.
148
According to Lemkin¶s own writings the actions taken against the Hindus in Bangladesh
would be genocide. Genocide is committed with the ³intent to destroy.´149
Individuals must be
targeted because of the fact that they belong to the protected group to fit Lemkin¶s definition of
genocide. The Hindus of Bangladesh were targeted because they were Hindus. The Pakistani
soldiers wanted to cleanse the Hindu influence from Bangladesh and that meant killing as many
as possible. The assault on the Hindus was gradual; it was as Lemkin would say,
³A coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundationsof the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.´
150
The goal of West Pakistan was to eliminate the Hindus of East Pakistan as a people, but
they committed actions such as destroying their temples and killing them in a gradual process. It
143 Lemkin supra note 1 at 79.144
Blood, supra note 36 at 207.145
Ibid, 216.146
Ibid.147
Ibid, 222.148
Ibid.149
June 30, 1949, Draft of Brief for the Ratification of the Genocide Convention. American Jewish Historical
Society . Box 2/Folder 12.150
Lemkin, supra note 1 at 79.
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did not match the planning of the Holocaust or the killings in Rwanda, but the actions were
genocide according to the first sentence of Lemkin¶s own definition.151
Pakistani soldiers in Dhaka demanded that citizens passing them pull down their pants.
This was done because Muslims were circumcised and Hindus were not. When the soldiers
found uncircumcised men they normally shot them on the spot.152
In Poland when searching for
hidden Jews the SS soldiers would force men to pull down their pants as well. The Jews were
circumcised and the Poles were not. When someone who was circumcised was found they were
executed on the spot or were shipped to the death camps, because they were Jewish. In both
cases this action was is proof that the Jews of Poland and the Hindus of Bangladesh were both
targeted groups.
Faruque Chowdhury said, ³It was genocide, they tried to destroy the whole nation! They
killed people for no reason.´153
Some academics agree with Dr. Chowdhury that genocide was
committed against the Bengali people. However, no international lawyer of note has called the
Pakistani actions taken against the Bengali Muslim people genocide. It becomes difficult to
prove intent for genocide in the case of the Bengali people. There was no Pakistani action
directed just against the Muslim Bengalis as a people in whole or in part. Hundreds of thousands
of innocent Muslim Bengalis were murdered by the Pakistani military and their collaborators, but
according to the legal definition it was not genocide. Genocide implies the targeting of the
protected group and Bengalis as a group were not targeted.154 Members who were suspected of
being in the resistance were targeted.
151Ibid.
152Arifur Rahman. Personal Interview with author at Kean University, June 1, 2010
153Dr. Faruque Chowdhury, Personal Interview with author at Kean University, June 9, 2010.
154Lemkin, supra note 1 at 79.
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As in the case of Poland during World War II, the crimes committed by the occupying
power in Bangladesh were appalling and would be considered crimes against humanity and war
crimes, but not genocide. The International Criminal Court in the Rome Statue defined crimes
against humanity as:
³Any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
(a) Murder;(b) Extermination;
(c) Enslavement;(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;
(f) Torture;(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced
sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial,
national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other groundsthat are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection
with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;
(j) The crime of apartheid;(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or
serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.155
War crimes are defined by the ICC in the Rome Statute:
Article 8: War crimes2. For the purpose of this Statute, "war crimes" means:
(a) Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely, any of thefollowing acts against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva
Convention:(i) Willful killing;
(ii) Torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments;(iii) Willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health;
(iv) Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by militarynecessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly;
(v) Compelling a prisoner of war or other protected person to serve in the forcesof a hostile Power;
(vi) Willfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial;
155Prevent Genocide International, Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court, Article 7 Crimes Against
Humanity, http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/icc/statute/part-a.htm#2.
8/8/2019 Bangladesh Genocide of 1971
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/bangladesh-genocide-of-1971 33/33
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(vii) Unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement;(viii) Taking of hostages.
156
The many attacks against the Bengali Muslims were widespread and there were
thousands of acts of murder committed. The Pakistani Army stands accused of committing war
crimes and crimes against humanity against the Bengali people and of committing genocide
against the Hindus of East Pakistan.
156Prevent Genocide International, Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court, Article 8 War Crimes
http://www preventgenocide org/law/icc/statute/part a htm#2
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