People seemed to be hopeful when they first came to know that the government in Bangladesh in 2011 was setting up a war crimes tribunal to try the so called war criminals who happened to be collaborators of Pakistan army’s atrocious acts during the nine-month Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971. A number of political parties and groups of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) had their position for the integration of Pakistan that eventually went against the demand for liberation of Bangladesh and directly certified the aggression of Pakistan army over the innocent Bengalis while war of independence was in place. Among the parties, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (henceforth BJI) was the largest one and naturally the leaders of this party are held responsible for aiding Pakistan army which is considered to be war crimes. Notably, after independence in 1971, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the leader of Bangladesh Awami League (BAL) who also happens to be the father of Sheikh Hasina, the current Prime Minister of Bangladesh, took the charge of the country and pursued encouraging initiatives to settle the war crimes issue. To this end, his government carried out the first amendment to the constitution of Bangladesh that prevented the accused war criminals from enjoying some fundamental and constitutional rights. A tribunal was set up that implicated 195 Pakistan army officers as war criminals and hundreds of thousands of local people as collaborators under a collaboration act for aiding Pakistan army. However, as a result of a tripartite pact signed by the then Foreign Ministers of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan- Dr. Kamal Hossain, Sarder Sharon Singh and Aziz Ahmed respectively- the 195 accused officers were set free which is marked as an important dynamic for later Bangladesh-Pakistan relationship in South Asian and more importantly in the Muslim world context. Also under the collaboration act, hundreds of people accused of being rajakers, al-bodors and al-shams (groups formed to aid Pakistan army on paid under the then government auspices) were tried and awarded imprisonment in varied terms and later at a point they were also offered general amnesty which reflects the pursuit of politics of reconciliation by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Interestingly enough, the Islamist leaders who are now accused of war crimes, none of whom was in the list of war criminals and collaborators.

Against this backdrop, many particularly the millions of supporters of BJI from the very beginning expressed their solid doubt about the government’s move as politically motivated and a manifestation of political enmity rather than any sort of holy approach albeit the government continues to reinforce the effort as a decent move to descandalize the nation. More interesting is that people witnessed, throughout Bangladesh’s political history, the extreme camaraderie between Awami League, the party that led the war of independence, and BJI which is now branded as war criminal. Even in the recent past, while in opposition in 1990s, both BAL and BJI worked together and waged political movements shoulder to shoulder against the then ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government. The war crimes issue did affect in no way their relationships and even none of BAL leaders and activists raised this question at that time. As a result of collective movement with BJI, Awami League came to power in 1996 and ruled the country until 2001. No such move to try war criminals was witnessed, nor did they do any substantial critique to BJI during this term. However, the scenario started changing in the middle of their reign as soon as BJI made an alliance with BNP, the main opposition to accelerate the pace of anti-government movement that eventually turned to an electoral alliance before the general elections in 2001. Awami League, since then, is seen to be extremely vocal on war crimes issue and accuse the leaders of BJI as war criminals. It also vehemently started criticizing BNP for making alliance with BJI. In 2001 elections, BNP-led four-party alliance- BJI being the second largest party- won a landslide victory and formed the government in which two ministerial portfolios were held by BJI leaders. Political observers are in belief that BJI has become a considerable political factor for both BAL and BNP as far as electoral politics is concerned in Bangladesh. BAL, similarly, forged an alliance with the left-leaning political groups (14-party alliance) to oppose and counter the strength of BNP-led four-party alliance that resulted in their triumph up of 2008 elections and subsequently the installment of 14-party alliance government that still is in power.

This political scenario of Bangladesh drives many people to conclude that the move for trial of the accused war criminals by the BAL government has been guided by exclusively its political interests and political vengeance. Many people including civil society groups are voicing to try also the accused war criminals who are directly attached to the ruling party and even some of them are holding ministerial portfolios of the current government. However, this demand has always been unheeded which has also convinced many people to form such ideas.
People were happy with the move, because, they wanted trial of any crime to any extent. They also wanted an absolute elimination of pro-liberation and anti-liberation forces rhetoric always enforced by BAL that constantly divides the nation and eventually poses threat to national integration. If the trial would have been honestly done, whoever gets punished or acquitted is immaterial, it would fundamentally benefit Bangladesh as a nation (the divide as mentioned earlier may be paired) and also BJI, as a political party may get rid of the 1971 controversy. However, People appeared to be disillusioned soon with the political motive of the government behind the war crimes trial in Bangladesh. Many legal experts have said that it is an international tribunal; nevertheless, only the word “international” is visible here. The paradox is that it is neither national nor international. Further, the dictational comments from even the incumbent senior ministers and the recent “skype scandal” first divulged by The Economist, a London based Weekly have seriously questioned the credibility of the process. The Weekly published that the chief judge of the tribunal Justice Nizamul Haque Nasim, through skype conversation, was having dictation unofficially about the judgment of the trial from a Brussels based Bangladeshi law professor Ahmed Ziauddin by name, who is personally and ideologically connected to a pressure group in Bangladesh [Ghatok Dalal Nirmul Committee (Committee for the Elimination of the Killers and Collaborators)] that continues to mobilize people for the elimination of the 1971 war criminals in their language. Beyond this, the Newspaper also exposed several personal e-mails of the chief justice of the tribunal that contained the elements to unlawfully intervene the judicial process from outside, and in the wake of this tragedy, never happened in the history of the Bangladesh’s judiciary, perhaps, nor did it happen even in the history of the world, Justice Nasim resigned.

The terrible facet of the whole episode appears when a group of handful young and emotional masses took to the street and brought about demonstrations what is called “Shahbag movement” against/ rejected a court verdict that awarded life imprisonment to an accused. And these people, most of whom are students, have visibly been organized and backed by the government and its alliance left-leaning groups, continue to press demand for nothing other than execution of the accused JIB leaders. The ruling party student-wing Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) has taken the lead right from the beginning of the demonstration. A number of senior ministers and party leaders of the ruling party attended to and expressed solidarity with the demonstrations. Still the demonstrators continue to demand for death sentence to the accused persons and the government is letting them to continue so. Surprisingly enough, political power mingled with muscle power and at the behest of the state apparatus is now tangibly challenging the judicial authority in Bangladesh. Some fundamental questions arise: Does trial mean only execution? Why does the government continue to back these young chaps? Can it influence the rest of the judgments? Don’t the accused persons have the right to defend? Isn’t a contradiction of the government that on the one hand, it supports the demand for “only execution” approach and on the other hand, initiates a judicial process? Is Bangladesh committed to democracy and rule of law or proceeding towards fascism? Is it a good trend to realize demands by putting pressure on judiciary? Is Bangladesh judiciary in a challenge to uphold its image of delivering justice at any circumstances?
We are, indeed, worried about the future of Bangladesh. Right from the beginning the way the government and its policy makers have dealt with the war crimes trial may further put the country into a state of severe crisis. The attitudes and the behavior of the government with the trial have made both parties suspicious of the judicial decisions. If the judgment goes to the favor or disfavor of any party, it might be a source of further instability in Bangladesh that we don’t expect. The only way to avert such situation is to bring back people’s confidence towards the whole trial process along with a sincere apolitical motivation and political will for the politics of reconciliation. Since any verdict from the current tribunal will remain controversial, a truly international trial with active involvement of credible international bodies such as the United Nations is of crying need at this critical juncture.

(The writer is a university teacher in Bangladesh).