27 March 2017 World supplement
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DT<br />
VOL1, ISSUE 9 | Monday, <strong>March</strong> <strong>27</strong>, <strong>2017</strong><br />
<strong>World</strong> Tribune<br />
government archive<br />
2<br />
Int’l media, politics<br />
behind the 1971 war<br />
3<br />
Atrocious genocides in<br />
history<br />
7<br />
Bangladesh seeks to<br />
remember what Pakistan<br />
wants to forget
DT<br />
VOL1, ISSUE 9 | Monday, <strong>March</strong> <strong>27</strong>, <strong>2017</strong><br />
<strong>World</strong> Tribune<br />
government archive<br />
2<br />
Int’l media, politics<br />
behind the 1971 war<br />
3<br />
Atrocious genocides in<br />
history<br />
7<br />
Bangladesh seeks to<br />
remember what Pakistan<br />
wants to forget
DT<br />
VOL1, ISSUE 9 | Monday, <strong>March</strong> <strong>27</strong>, <strong>2017</strong><br />
<strong>World</strong> Tribune<br />
government archive<br />
2<br />
Int’l media, politics<br />
behind the 1971 war<br />
3<br />
Atrocious genocides in<br />
history<br />
7<br />
Bangladesh seeks to<br />
remember what Pakistan<br />
wants to forget
2<br />
Monday, <strong>March</strong> <strong>27</strong>, <strong>2017</strong><br />
DT<br />
Insight<br />
Int’l media, politics behind the 1971 war<br />
• Anando Mostofa<br />
The 1971 Liberation War was the<br />
result of struggle for independence<br />
of the Bangalis of East Pakistan<br />
for over 20 years which finally established<br />
the People’s Republic of<br />
Bangladesh. The war witnessed<br />
large-scale atrocities, genocide<br />
that claimed over 3m lives, exodus<br />
of 10m refugees, displacement of<br />
30m people and massive destruction<br />
of properties, in only nine<br />
months. The war broke out just before<br />
the midnight of <strong>March</strong> 25, 1971,<br />
when the Pakistani Army launched<br />
a crackdown called “Operation<br />
Searchlight” against the Bengali<br />
civilians, students, intellectuals<br />
and armed personnel, who were<br />
demanding that the military junta<br />
accept the results of the first democratic<br />
elections in Pakistan in 1970<br />
won by the Awami League. Awami<br />
League President Bangabandhu<br />
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had declared<br />
the independence of Bangladesh<br />
just before the operation was<br />
launched and got arrested.<br />
The international mass media<br />
played a vital role in Bangladesh’s<br />
War of Independence. The London<br />
Times, the Sunday Times, the<br />
Guardian, the Sunday Observer,<br />
the Daily Mirror and the Daily Telegraph<br />
were helping in spreading the<br />
news of genocide and expedite cooperation<br />
among the international<br />
community to support Bangladesh.<br />
The concert for Bangladesh which<br />
had raised much international<br />
awareness was organised by Pandit<br />
Ravi Shankar and George Harrison<br />
in New York in August 1971.<br />
International Politics<br />
The two super powers, the Union of<br />
Social Soviet Russia (USSR) and the<br />
US, which dominated a largely bipolar<br />
world until the middle of 1980s<br />
played a significant role in the 1971<br />
Liberation War. On the other hand,<br />
the UN had not taken any action to<br />
stop genocide in Bangladesh. The<br />
people of Bangladesh fought for<br />
their liberation at the height of the<br />
cold war. Among the five permanent<br />
members of the Security Council, the<br />
US and China had directly supported<br />
Pakistan, Soviet Union stood for<br />
Bangladesh, while UK and France,<br />
despite showing sympathy for Bangladesh,<br />
could not openly challenge<br />
the US, and hence, abstained from<br />
voting. This deep division among<br />
the permanent members had completely<br />
paralysed the Security Council.<br />
The neighbouring country, India,<br />
has played a significant role in favour<br />
of Bangladesh.<br />
The role of Soviet Russia<br />
The response of Soviet Union to the<br />
1971 crisis in East Pakistan was conditioned<br />
by the general Soviet policy<br />
with regard to Asia in the 1960s. It<br />
was a policy of growing involvement,<br />
initially undertaken to contain US<br />
influence in Asia, but increasingly<br />
directed at stemming the diplomatic<br />
and military as well as ideological advance<br />
of China which at that time was<br />
emerging as the Soviet Union’s principal<br />
rival in the Third <strong>World</strong>.<br />
The Soviet Union’s close tie with<br />
India was vital in shaping the Soviet<br />
response towards the East Pakistan<br />
crisis in 1971. The relatively high priority<br />
given by the Soviet policy makers<br />
was the consequence of their perception<br />
of the contemporary world<br />
and Asia, and the proper Soviet role<br />
in both the world and Asian dimensions<br />
as a great power. Thus behind<br />
all that happened in the sub-continent<br />
over the 1971 Bangladesh struggle<br />
“was a power struggle between<br />
China and the Soviet Union and a<br />
strategic conflict between Moscow<br />
and Washington.” In South Asia during<br />
December 1971 the Soviet Union<br />
seemed to have gained most from<br />
this three-cornered fight.<br />
The role of US<br />
The US played a more complex and<br />
somewhat negative role in the 1971<br />
war. Nevertheless, it should be noted<br />
that the US society’s response was<br />
one of positive support contradicting<br />
the state’s negative role. In the<br />
pluralist and open society of the US,<br />
influential and articulate segments<br />
stood solidly behind the cause of<br />
Bangladesh. As the crisis developed,<br />
the American response went through<br />
several discernible phases.<br />
The first phase of quiet non-involvement<br />
began on <strong>March</strong> 25 and<br />
lasted roughly until July 8, 1971.<br />
During this phase, the US posture<br />
was “neutral” and it described the<br />
problem in East Bengal as Pakistan’s<br />
“internal matter.”<br />
The second phase started with<br />
the secret trip by President Nixon’s<br />
National Security Adviser Henry<br />
Kissinger to China during July 9-10,<br />
1971. This marked the real beginnings<br />
of the Sino-US detente and led indirectly<br />
to the formalisation of Indo-Soviet<br />
alliance by a treaty in August.<br />
During this phase, which lasted until<br />
September, the US pursued diplomacy<br />
of restraint, counselling India to<br />
desist from armed conflict with Pakistan<br />
and privately pressing Pakistan<br />
to thrash out a “political settlement”<br />
of the East Pakistan issue.<br />
During the third phase, lasting<br />
from September until December 3,<br />
when the Indo-Pakistan war over<br />
Bangladesh broke out, the US attempted<br />
to promote a constructive<br />
political dialogue between the Pakistani<br />
military government and the<br />
Bengali nationalist leaders in India,<br />
but in vain.<br />
President Nixon ordered a task<br />
force of eight naval ships, led by the<br />
nuclear aircraft carrier Enterprise,<br />
to sail into the Bay of Bengal in a<br />
“show of force.” In response, On<br />
December 13, Russia dispatched a<br />
nuclear-armed flotilla, the 10th Operative<br />
Battle Group (Pacific Fleet)<br />
from Vladivostok. Russia deployed<br />
two task groups; in total two cruisers,<br />
two destroyers, six submarines,<br />
and support vessels. A group of Il-<br />
38 ASW aircraft from Aden air base<br />
in Yemen provided support.<br />
The Role of International Media<br />
The Liberation War was fought<br />
not only by the brave “Mukti Bahini”<br />
within Bangladesh but also<br />
supported through the coverage it<br />
received in the international media<br />
and artists. Journalists brought<br />
home to the people of the world the<br />
stories of the trials and sacrifices of<br />
the heroic people of Bangladesh,<br />
During liberation war, the international response in the media in turn drew the attention of political leaders all over the world,<br />
motivated public opinion and led to editorial comments in diverse newspapers Janmojuddho 71<br />
and the tribulations they were facing<br />
under the insensitive and brutal<br />
military administration of the occupying<br />
armed forces of Pakistan.<br />
On <strong>March</strong> 25, 1971, the Pakistani<br />
military forcibly confined all<br />
foreign reporters to the Hotel Intercontinental<br />
(currently the Rupashi<br />
Bangla) in Dhaka, the night<br />
the military launched its genocide<br />
campaign. The reporters were able<br />
to see the tank and artillery attacks<br />
on civilians through the windows.<br />
Two days later, as Dhaka burned<br />
the reporters were expelled from the<br />
country – their notes and tapes were<br />
confiscated. One of the expelled reporters<br />
was Sidney Schanberg of the<br />
New York Times. He would return to<br />
Dhaka in June 1971 to report on the<br />
massacres in towns and villages. He<br />
would again be expelled by the Pakistan<br />
military at the end of June.<br />
Two foreign reporters escaped<br />
the roundup on <strong>March</strong> 25. One of<br />
them was Simon Dring of the Daily<br />
Telegraph. He evaded capture<br />
by hiding on the roof of the Hotel<br />
Intercontinental. Dring was able to<br />
extensively tour Dhaka the next day<br />
and witness first-hand the slaughter<br />
that was taking place. Days later<br />
he was able to leave East Pakistan<br />
with his reporter’s notes. On <strong>March</strong><br />
30, 1971, the Daily Telegraph published<br />
Simon Dring’s front page story<br />
of the slaughter in Dhaka that the<br />
army perpetrated in the name of<br />
“God and a united Pakistan.”<br />
In April 1971, the Pakistan Army<br />
flew in eight Pakistani reporters from<br />
West Pakistan for guided tours with<br />
the military. Their mission was to tell<br />
the story of normalcy. The reporters<br />
went back to West Pakistan after<br />
their tour and dutifully filed stories<br />
declaring all was normal in East Pakistan.<br />
However, one of the reporters<br />
had a crisis of conscience. This<br />
reporter was Anthony Mascarenhas,<br />
the assistant editor of West Pakistani<br />
newspaper Morning News.<br />
On May 18, 1971, Mascarenhas<br />
flew to London and walked into the<br />
offices of the Sunday Times offering<br />
to write the true story of what he had<br />
witnessed in East Pakistan. On June<br />
13 the Sunday Times published a front<br />
page and centre page story entitled<br />
“Genocide.” It was the first detailed<br />
eyewitness account of the genocide<br />
published in a western newspaper.<br />
In June 1971, under pressure and<br />
in need of economic assistance, Pakistan<br />
allowed a <strong>World</strong> Bank team<br />
to visit East Pakistan. The <strong>World</strong><br />
Bank team reported back that East<br />
Pakistan lay in ruins. One member<br />
of the team reported that the East<br />
Pakistani town of Kushtia looked<br />
“like a <strong>World</strong> War II German town<br />
having undergone strategic bombing<br />
attacks” as a result of the Pakistani<br />
army’s “punitive action” on<br />
the town. He also reported that the<br />
army “terrorises the population,<br />
particularly aiming at the Hindus<br />
and suspected members of the<br />
Awami League.” The Word Bank<br />
president, Robert McNamara, suppressed<br />
the public release of the<br />
report. The report was leaked to the<br />
New York Times.<br />
Despite the Pakistani military’s<br />
best efforts at hiding the truth about<br />
their genocide campaign against Bangalis,<br />
reports filtered out of East Pakistan<br />
to the outside world – thanks<br />
in part to the efforts of determined<br />
foreign news reporters. Following<br />
are the foreign newspaper reports<br />
from the beginning of the genocide in<br />
<strong>March</strong> 1971 to its end. They chronicle<br />
the bloody birth of Bangladesh. •<br />
The writer had to go through a number of<br />
old newspapers and get different accounts<br />
of researchers for this article. The writer<br />
also expresses his gratitude towards Omi<br />
Rahman Pial (Liberation war researcher).<br />
Date and event references collected<br />
from Genocide archive, Janmojuddho 71,<br />
Kagooj, and a JU Journal.
Facts<br />
3<br />
Monday, <strong>March</strong> <strong>27</strong>, <strong>2017</strong><br />
DT<br />
Atrocious genocides in history<br />
• Md Toufiqul Islam<br />
Mankind is capable of great things.<br />
Love, compassion and empathy<br />
have allowed species to flourish<br />
and to survive. Human are also capable<br />
of horrible things as well genocide,<br />
mass murder and war. While<br />
we may like to talk about all the<br />
great achievements of man, we can<br />
never forget some of the most horrible<br />
moments as well if only so we<br />
never repeat it again. Here are some<br />
of the worst genocide’s committed<br />
by mankind.<br />
Native American genocide (1492-<br />
1900)<br />
It is impossible to determine exactly<br />
how many natives were present<br />
in the Americas before the arrival<br />
of Christopher Columbus; but even<br />
conservative estimates usually put<br />
the number at a minimum of one<br />
million. In the years following 1492,<br />
a deluge of Europeans arrived,<br />
each wave more determined than<br />
The holocaust<br />
the last to seize control of the New<br />
<strong>World</strong>’s vast natural resources. The<br />
only thing standing in their way<br />
were the native populations, who,<br />
as it turned out, weren’t always<br />
willing to share.<br />
Zunghar genocide (1757-1758)<br />
The Dzungar genocide was the<br />
mass extermination of the Dzungar<br />
people, sometimes referred<br />
as “Zunghars”, at the hands of the<br />
Manchu Qing dynasty of China and<br />
the Uyghur Muslims of Xinjiang.<br />
The Dzungars were a confederation<br />
of several Tibetan Buddhist Oirat<br />
tribes that emerged suddenly in<br />
the early 17th century. The Dzungar<br />
Khanate was the last great nomadic<br />
empire in Asia. Some scholars estimate<br />
that about 80% of the Dzungar<br />
population, or around 500,000<br />
to 800,000 people, were killed by a<br />
combination of warfare and disease<br />
during or after the Qing conquest<br />
in 1755–1757. After wiping out the<br />
native population of Dzungaria,<br />
the Qing government then resettled<br />
Han Chinese, Hui, Uyghur, and Xibe<br />
people on state farms in Dzungaria<br />
along with Manchu Bannermen to<br />
repopulate the area.<br />
Moriori genocide (1835)<br />
The Maori are the indigenous Polynesian<br />
people of New Zealand.<br />
They have dwelled in the area for<br />
some eight hundred years. About<br />
five hundred years ago, a group<br />
of Maori migrated to the nearby<br />
Chatham Islands, where they began<br />
their own society that focused on<br />
peaceful living. They called themselves<br />
the Moriori.<br />
The remaining, warlike Maori<br />
tribes soon came into contact with<br />
Americans and Europeans, and<br />
while initial meetings sometimes<br />
ended in cannibalization of the foreigners,<br />
the Maoris highly valued<br />
Western guns—so trade flourished.<br />
Beginning in 1835, the now wellarmed<br />
Maori arrived at the Chatham<br />
Islands, where they proceeded to<br />
murder and devour their defenceless<br />
cousins. Those who survived<br />
were enslaved, and forced to intermarry<br />
with the Maori. In less than<br />
thirty years from the moment of<br />
contact, there were only 101 Moriori<br />
left. The last pure-blooded Moriori<br />
died in 1933.<br />
Moriori genocide<br />
Armenian genocide (1915)<br />
The Ottoman Empire, whose centre<br />
point during its declining years<br />
was modern-day Turkey, was responsible<br />
for a great many human<br />
rights violations—none more horrifying<br />
than the Armenian Genocide.<br />
Beginning in 1915, while the<br />
rest of the world was distracted<br />
by <strong>World</strong> War One, the Ottomans<br />
turned fiercely on the Armenians,<br />
a Christian minority. Between 1915-<br />
1916, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians,<br />
or 75% of Armenians in<br />
their historic homeland which lies<br />
within the present-day Republic of<br />
Turkey, were killed in massacres or<br />
died as a consequence of military<br />
deportations, forced marches and<br />
mass starvation’s carried out by the<br />
Young Turks.<br />
The holocaust (1942-45)<br />
Since ancient times, the Jews have<br />
been highly persecuted by Egyptians,<br />
Romans, and Christians alike.<br />
But few genocides have been as<br />
sweeping or well-documented as<br />
the Nazi Holocaust, Adolf Hitler’s<br />
“final solution to the Jewish question.”<br />
It is important to understand the<br />
socioeconomic state of Germany in<br />
the years following <strong>World</strong> War One;<br />
the country had acquired a massive<br />
Native American genocide<br />
Zunghar genocide<br />
debt, and forced war reparations<br />
utterly destroyed their economy.<br />
Inflation was so bad that normal<br />
families’ entire life savings were depleted<br />
on few loaves of bread.<br />
The Holocaust perpetrated<br />
against the Jewish people by the<br />
Nazis resulted in about 6 million<br />
Jews killed. In other words, 67% of<br />
the entire Jewish population in Europe.<br />
Bangladesh atrocities<br />
Pygmy genocide<br />
Armenian genocide<br />
Bangladesh atrocities (1971)<br />
The genocide in Bangladesh began<br />
on 26 <strong>March</strong> 1971 with the launch of<br />
Operation Searchlight, as West Pakistan<br />
began a military crackdown<br />
on the Eastern wing of the nation to<br />
suppress Bengali calls for self-determination.<br />
During the ninemonth-long<br />
Bangladesh war for<br />
independence, members of the Pakistani<br />
military and supporting Islamist<br />
militias from Jamaat e Islami<br />
killed an estimated up to 3,000,000<br />
people and raped between 200,000<br />
and 400,000 Bangladeshi women<br />
in a systematic campaign of genocidal<br />
rape.<br />
Rwandan genocide (1994)<br />
Like the Maori and Moriori, the Hutus<br />
and the Tutsi likely originated<br />
from common ancestors—offshoots<br />
of the Bantu people. In fact, there<br />
was little delineation between the<br />
two at all before the arrival of Belgian<br />
and German imperialists. The<br />
Europeans divided the two groups<br />
mostly by economic status, with<br />
Tutsis being wealthier (the ownership<br />
of ten cattle being the base requirement).<br />
Indeed, if a Hutu came<br />
into money, he could change his<br />
status to that of a Tutsi.<br />
An estimated 500,000–<br />
1,000,000 Rwandans were killed<br />
during the 100-day period from<br />
April 7 to mid-July 1994, constituting<br />
as many as 70% of the Tutsi and<br />
20% of Rwanda’s total population.<br />
Some 50 perpetrators of the genocide<br />
have been found guilty by the<br />
International Criminal Tribunal for<br />
Rwandan genocide<br />
Rwanda, but most others have not<br />
been charged due to no witness accounts.<br />
Another 120,000 were arrested<br />
by Rwanda; of these, 60,000<br />
were tried and convicted in the gacaca<br />
court system.<br />
Pygmy genocide (1998-2003)<br />
The pygmy tribes are found in central<br />
Africa, and while they comprise<br />
several tribes, the general term<br />
is used to describe people whose<br />
adult males are less than fifty-nine<br />
inches tall. Although there are several<br />
theories as to the reason for<br />
their tiny stature, no one has truly<br />
pinpointed the reason.<br />
The pygmies, who are a largely<br />
primitive, forest dwelling people,<br />
have suffered terribly during Congolese<br />
civil wars fought in the region.<br />
Pygmy representatives have<br />
appealed desperately to the United<br />
Nations, claiming that rebel factions<br />
such as the Movement for the<br />
Liberation of the Congo have been<br />
hunting and cannibalising their<br />
people as though they were wild<br />
animals. There are only an estimated<br />
500,000 pygmies remaining,<br />
and their numbers are sharply declining<br />
in the face of slaughter and<br />
deforestation. •
4<br />
Monday, <strong>March</strong> <strong>27</strong>, <strong>2017</strong><br />
DT<br />
Week in Review<br />
Drought-hit Kenyans burn<br />
<strong>March</strong> 20<br />
Cambodia suspends human<br />
breast milk exports to US<br />
Cambodia has temporarily stopped an American company from exporting locally-pumped<br />
human breast milk, after reports highlighted how some of the country’s<br />
poorest women were <strong>supplement</strong>ing their income through the trade.<br />
Utah-based company Ambrosia Labs claims to be the first of its kind to export<br />
human breast milk sourced overseas into the US for mothers who want to <strong>supplement</strong><br />
their babies’ diets or cannot supply enough of their own milk.<br />
The milk is collected in Cambodia, frozen and shipped to the States where it is<br />
pasteurised and sold by the company for $20 each 5 oz (147 ml) pack.<br />
But on Monday Cambodia’s customs department confirmed it had halted exports.<br />
“We have asked them (the company) to contact the Ministry of Health because<br />
the product comes from a human organ, so it needs permission from the Ministry<br />
of Health but they did not get it yet,” Kun Nhem, General Director of Customs and<br />
Excise, said.<br />
<strong>March</strong> 25<br />
Putin meets France’s Le<br />
Pen in Moscow<br />
President Vladimir Putin met French far-right presidential<br />
candidate Marine Le Pen as she visited<br />
Moscow on Friday, with the Russian leader stressing<br />
that the Kremlin does not meddle in France’s<br />
politics.<br />
Le Pen’s meeting with Putin, their first, according to<br />
Moscow, comes a month before the first round of the<br />
French presidential vote and as she tries to boost her<br />
international status by meeting with world leaders.<br />
“We by no means want to influence the current<br />
events but we reserve the right to communicate with<br />
all representatives of all political forces of the country,”<br />
Putin said, according to a Kremlin-issued transcript.<br />
AFP<br />
AFP<br />
<strong>March</strong> 21<br />
Taiwan launches submarine<br />
project in face of China threat<br />
Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen launched the island’s first ever<br />
home-grown submarine project Tuesday in the face of what the<br />
government says are growing military threats from China.<br />
The move comes after China sent its only aircraft carrier, the<br />
Liaoning, through the Taiwan Strait in January, in one of a number<br />
of military drills held as relations deteriorate.<br />
Taiwan last week warned of an increased invasion risk from<br />
China and has pledged to boost its military in response.<br />
Tsai called the launch of the submarine plan a “historic moment”<br />
at a naval base in southern city of Kaohsiung.<br />
She was presiding over a formal signing ceremony to initiate<br />
the project between the navy, Taiwanese shipbuilder CSBS Corporation<br />
and the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and<br />
Technology, which develops combat system integration.<br />
<strong>March</strong> 22<br />
One shot, several injured<br />
in UK parliament terrorist<br />
incident<br />
A policeman was stabbed, an assailant shot and<br />
several people injured on Wednesday close to<br />
Britain’s Houses of Parliament in what police<br />
said they were treating as a terrorist incident.<br />
Reuters reporters inside the building heard<br />
loud bangs and shortly afterwards a Reuters<br />
photographer said he saw at least a dozen people<br />
injured on Westminster Bridge, next to parliament.<br />
“Officers, including firearms officers, remain<br />
on the scene and we are treating this as a terrorist<br />
incident until we know otherwise,” London’s<br />
Metropolitan Police said in a statement.
animal carcasses<br />
Week in Review 5<br />
DT<br />
Monday, <strong>March</strong> <strong>27</strong>, <strong>2017</strong><br />
Villagers in northern Kenya have begun to burn piles of animal carcases, hoping to head off an<br />
outbreak of disease as their livestock starve to death in the region’s worst drought in five years.<br />
The smell of death hangs heavily over Lake Turkana and dried animal corpses dot the cracked mud<br />
where the lake has receded, leaving boats stranded on the dry land. The Kenyan government said<br />
2.7m people are affected by the drought. It estimates 20% of livestock has died in the arid and<br />
semi-arid counties, an area comprising about 80% of Kenya’s landmass.<br />
reuters<br />
<strong>March</strong> 23<br />
Polish PM warns multi-speed EU would bring ‘chaos’<br />
AFP<br />
AFP<br />
Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo on Thursday said a multi-speed<br />
Europe would bring chaos, as the EU gears up for a<br />
Rome summit declaration that Poland warned it may not endorse.<br />
European Union leaders will plot their post-Brexit future<br />
at the summit this weekend, held on the occasion of the<br />
bloc’s 60th birthday.<br />
The central idea of the proposed multi-speed union is that<br />
some member states may choose to go faster, or slower, on<br />
European integration than others with regard to certain policies<br />
and topics.<br />
“The union needs to change, to correct what doesn’t work<br />
optimally, but we won’t make that happen through multi-speed.<br />
Instead of fixing the (EU) project, we would dismantle<br />
it,” Szydlo said in Warsaw at a conference on European integration.<br />
<strong>March</strong> 24<br />
Trump’s truck driver<br />
moment<br />
Trump at the wheel of a big rig? Yes, it happened, at the White<br />
House.<br />
US President Donald Trump was rallying votes for his<br />
health care reform bill Thursday but made a pit stop in the<br />
afternoon to meet with truck drivers and trucking executives.<br />
During that meeting, he spent a few minutes happily exploring<br />
the cab of a tractor-trailer parked outside the White House.<br />
The 70-year-old Republican, dressed in a suit, enthusiastically<br />
honked the horn before pretending to drive the vehicle<br />
and making some funny faces, and the internet noticed, with<br />
#TrumpTruck getting some traction on Twitter.<br />
“No one knows America like truckers know America.<br />
You see it every day. You see every hill, and you see every<br />
valley and you see every pothole in our roads that have to be<br />
rebuilt,” he told his visitors during their meeting in the Cabinet<br />
Room.<br />
<strong>March</strong> 26<br />
Thousands join antiabortion<br />
rallies in<br />
Romania, Moldova<br />
Several thousands of people took to the streets of Romania and<br />
Moldova in an anti-abortion <strong>March</strong> for Life on Saturday, including<br />
2,000 in Bucharest, police said.<br />
According to the organisers, rallies took place in more than<br />
300 towns across the two countries.<br />
“Women deserve better than abortion,” read one of the<br />
banners, while others said: “Life for the woman and life for the<br />
family.”<br />
In the Romanian capital Bucharest, young people joined with<br />
families and the elderly at a rally also attended by many priests<br />
from the powerful Orthodox church.<br />
“This word ‘abortion’ should not exist, it goes hand-in-hand<br />
with horror and death,” said a demonstrator called Alexandru<br />
Darie.<br />
Abortion was banned in Romania during the communist<br />
regime of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who was killed in 1989<br />
after a popular rebellion pushed him from power.<br />
It was then legalised in 1990. That year, as many as 992,000<br />
abortions were registered, three times the number of births.
6<br />
Monday, <strong>March</strong> <strong>27</strong>, <strong>2017</strong><br />
DT<br />
Facts<br />
Speeches that shaped history<br />
• Tribune Desk<br />
From Abraham Lincoln’s<br />
speech on the struggle for the<br />
Unites States to Bangabandhu<br />
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s<br />
powerful “The struggle this<br />
time is for our freedom; the<br />
struggle this time is for independence,”<br />
here are the top<br />
five speeches that changed<br />
the course of the history:<br />
1. Abraham Lincoln<br />
Washington, DC, <strong>March</strong> 4, 1865<br />
The Union’s victory was but a<br />
month away as Abraham Lincoln<br />
began his second term<br />
as president of a bitterly ruptured<br />
US. Like the Gettysburg<br />
Address, Lincoln kept this<br />
speech only as long as needful.<br />
While there are those<br />
who still debate whether the<br />
Civil War was truly<br />
fought over slavery<br />
4<br />
or not, Lincoln certainly believed<br />
so. And with the war<br />
not quite over, he offered this<br />
pronouncement:<br />
‘’Fondly do we hope—fervently<br />
do we pray—that this<br />
mighty scourge of war may<br />
speedily pass away. Yet, if God<br />
wills that it continue, until all<br />
the wealth piled by the bondmen’s<br />
two hundred and fifty<br />
years of unrequited toil shall<br />
be sunk, and until every drop<br />
of blood drawn with the lash,<br />
shall be paid by another drawn<br />
by the sword, as was said three<br />
thousand years ago, so still it<br />
must be said “the judgements<br />
of the Lord, are true and righteous<br />
altogether.”<br />
He did not relish the<br />
prospect of coming victory;<br />
instead, he appealed to his<br />
countrymen to remember<br />
that the war was truly fought<br />
between brothers. When the<br />
war was over and the Confederacy<br />
forced to return to<br />
the Union, Lincoln was prepared<br />
to treat the South with<br />
relative leniency. He did not<br />
believe secession was truly<br />
possible, and thus the South<br />
had never truly left the Union.<br />
Reconstruction would<br />
not mean vengeance, but the<br />
return home of a terribly errant<br />
son.<br />
2. Mahatma Gandhi<br />
Banaras Hindu University, India,<br />
February 4, 1916<br />
Having spent many years<br />
outside India, Gandhi on<br />
return to his homeland reacquainted<br />
himself with<br />
the land of his fathers, and<br />
swapped his Western-style<br />
dress for the simple robes of<br />
a peasant. Until that time,<br />
the independence campaign<br />
had been largely waged by a<br />
clique of upper-class intellectuals<br />
who aped the British<br />
in manners, but Gandhi saw<br />
this was a road to nowhere.<br />
Invited to speak at the opening<br />
of the Banaras Hindu<br />
University in front of an audience<br />
of princes in elegant<br />
robes, and other worthies,<br />
some of them British, he declared:<br />
“There is no salvation for India<br />
unless you strip yourselves<br />
of this jewellery and hold it in<br />
trust for your countrymen.”<br />
His words outraged<br />
everybody – need to remember<br />
that this took place<br />
during <strong>World</strong> War I, when<br />
India’s princes had rallied<br />
to the imperial cause – but<br />
it was a keynote speech in<br />
the struggle for Indian independence,<br />
and helped<br />
transform the nature of the<br />
debate, and turn Gandhi into<br />
the movement’s spiritual<br />
leader. Tragically, Gandhi<br />
would pay for his dedication<br />
to the cause with his life,<br />
but despite the conflict that<br />
followed the declaration of<br />
Indian independence, his<br />
dream of an India free from<br />
colonial rule was achieved.<br />
3. Winston Churchill<br />
House of Commons, June 4,<br />
1940<br />
It was an absolute classic of<br />
a speech that Churchill made<br />
following the Dunkirk evacuation<br />
just weeks after becoming<br />
prime minister of the<br />
United Kingdom. To quote<br />
the most famous lines:<br />
“We shall fight on the seas<br />
and oceans ... we shall defend<br />
our island, whatever the cost<br />
may be. We shall fight on the<br />
beaches, we shall fight on the<br />
landing grounds, we shall fight<br />
in the fields and in the streets,<br />
we shall fight in the hills; we<br />
shall never surrender ...”<br />
It was, in effect, an exultation<br />
to the nation to pick<br />
itself up and start the struggle<br />
all over again, despite the<br />
setback at Dunkirk – and the<br />
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed’: Martin<br />
Luther King told a crowd in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC in 1963<br />
collected<br />
impending defeat of France.<br />
4. Martin Luther King<br />
Lincoln Memorial, Washington<br />
DC, August 28, 1963<br />
One of the most powerful<br />
speeches of modern times<br />
was that made by the black<br />
civil-rights leader Martin<br />
Luther King in front of the<br />
Lincoln Memorial during the<br />
1963 “<strong>March</strong> on Washington<br />
for Jobs and Freedom.” Using<br />
soaring Christian rhetoric, he<br />
told a huge audience:<br />
‘’I have a dream that one<br />
day this nation will rise up and<br />
live out the true meaning of its<br />
creed … We hold these truths<br />
to be self-evident, that all men<br />
are created equal … I have a<br />
dream today!”<br />
Tragically, the King was<br />
assassinated just a few years<br />
later, but the great thing<br />
about this speech is that his<br />
dream was eventually realised<br />
– even though at the<br />
time he spoke it was just a<br />
dream.<br />
5. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman<br />
Ramna Race Course Maidan,<br />
Dhaka, <strong>March</strong> 7, 1971<br />
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur<br />
Rahman’s historic<br />
<strong>March</strong> 7, 1971 speech that<br />
effectively declared Bangladesh’s<br />
independence has<br />
been selected as one of the<br />
most rousing and inspirational<br />
wartime speeches in<br />
the last 2,500 years.<br />
The speech delivered at<br />
the Race Course Maidan (now<br />
Suhrawardy Udyan) encouraged<br />
the Bangalis to start the<br />
bloody struggle for freedom<br />
that lasted for nine months.<br />
He spoke at a time of increasing<br />
tensions between<br />
East Pakistan and the powerful<br />
political and military<br />
establishment of West Pakistan.<br />
The Bangali people<br />
were inspired to prepare for<br />
a potential war of independence,<br />
amid widespread reports<br />
of armed mobilisation<br />
by West Pakistan.<br />
During the 13-minute<br />
speech, Awami League president<br />
Mujib made the most<br />
famous declaration:<br />
“Since we have shed blood,<br />
we shall shed more blood but we<br />
will free the people of this land,<br />
Insha-Allah [If God is willing].<br />
The struggle this time is for our<br />
freedom; the struggle this time<br />
is for independence. Joy Bangla<br />
[Victory to Bangladesh].”<br />
He also announced the<br />
civil disobedience movement<br />
in the province, calling for<br />
“every house to turn into a<br />
fortress.” The war eventually<br />
began 18 days later, <strong>March</strong><br />
25, when the Pakistan Army<br />
launched “Operation Searchlight”<br />
against Bangali civilians,<br />
intelligentsia, students,<br />
politicians and armed personnel,<br />
shortly after Mujib declared<br />
independence of Bangladesh<br />
through a message. •<br />
1<br />
The second inaugural address of Abraham Lincoln, given on 4 <strong>March</strong><br />
1865 on the east portico of the US Capitol collected<br />
2<br />
Mahatma Gandhi gave a speech in front of an audience of princes<br />
in elegant robes, and other worthies, some British, which outraged<br />
everybody and turned him into a spiritual leader for the Indian<br />
independence campaign<br />
collected<br />
3<br />
We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds’:<br />
Winston Churchill made this classic speech following the Dunkirk<br />
evacuation just weeks before becoming prime minister in 1940 AP<br />
5<br />
Bangabandhu made the most famous declaration on <strong>March</strong> 7, 1971: ‘Since we have shed blood, we shall<br />
shed more blood but we will free the people of this land, Insha-Allah’ <br />
government archive
Analysis<br />
7<br />
Monday, <strong>March</strong> <strong>27</strong>, <strong>2017</strong><br />
DT<br />
Protesters attend a mass candlelight vigil around a portrait of Jahanara Imam, a late political activist pioneer widely known to bring the accused of committing war crimes in the Bangladesh Liberation War to trial,<br />
at Shahbagh intersection in Dhaka February 14, 2013. Thousands of protesters participating in the Shahbagh demonstration demanded capital punishment for Jamaat-e-Islami leaders awaiting a court verdict for<br />
war crimes committed during the 1971 Independence War<br />
REUTERS<br />
By marking Genocide Day, Bangladesh seeks<br />
to remember what Pakistan wants to forget<br />
• Anam Zakaria<br />
Earlier this month, Congress MP<br />
Shashi Tharoor boldly declared<br />
that Britain was suffering from<br />
“historical amnesia”. By censoring<br />
its colonial past, it was ensuring<br />
that younger generations grew up<br />
without an inkling of the atrocities<br />
committed by their ancestors.<br />
Britain’s attempt to shove its colonial<br />
past under the carpet is not<br />
unique.<br />
Belgium has gone through a<br />
similar process, reconstructing<br />
itself as a neutral country, and<br />
thereby becoming the prime candidate<br />
for hosting the European<br />
Union and North Atlantic Treaty<br />
Organisation headquarters, institutions<br />
believed to promote peace<br />
and stability. The country works<br />
hard to avoid exploring its dark<br />
colonial past in Congo and it is not<br />
alone.<br />
But it is not only colonisers that<br />
have ugly histories. Many nations<br />
around the world have violent<br />
pasts that they long to forget. Some<br />
choose to access those histories in<br />
order to heal and move on, while<br />
others diligently work to not only<br />
reconstruct their present self-image<br />
but also manipulate their histories<br />
in the process. Newer, purer<br />
versions are offered, carefully tailored<br />
and packaged to fit the state<br />
narratives. Pakistan’s engagement<br />
– or lack thereof – with its past perfectly<br />
encapsulates this process.<br />
Genocide Day<br />
This <strong>March</strong> 26, Bangladesh celebrated<br />
its 46th Independence Day.<br />
The date commemorates the fateful<br />
proclamation of separation from<br />
West Pakistan in <strong>March</strong> 1971. The<br />
night before, the Pakistan Army<br />
had launched Operation Searchlight<br />
in East Pakistan. As the name<br />
suggests, Operation Searchlight<br />
aimed to hunt down any Bengali<br />
who wanted a separate homeland,<br />
after decades of struggling for basic<br />
human rights under oppressive<br />
governments, dominated by West<br />
Pakistan.<br />
Under Operation Searchlight,<br />
terror spread like wildfire in East<br />
Pakistan. Innocent and unarmed<br />
Bengalis were targeted and eliminated<br />
one by one. The army used<br />
the support of Islamist parties and<br />
their paramilitary wings, the likes<br />
of Al Badr and Al Shams, to launch<br />
an accompanying jihad with the<br />
goal of purifying the Bengalis of<br />
Hindu influences and making them<br />
true Muslims and, hence, true Pakistanis.<br />
Mass killings and rape<br />
marked every street and corner. It<br />
is estimated that 3 million Bengalis<br />
and non-Bengalis were killed from<br />
<strong>March</strong> 1971 onwards. Operation<br />
Searchlight ignited an all-out war<br />
that served a huge blow to the West<br />
Pakistani establishment. By the<br />
end of the year, Pakistan stood utterly<br />
defeated both politically and<br />
militarily. On December 16, 1971,<br />
East Pakistan became Bangladesh.<br />
Those who had fought for their independence<br />
stood victorious but<br />
also deeply wounded by the months<br />
of killings, rape and bloodshed.<br />
On <strong>March</strong> 11, the Bangladeshi<br />
Parliament unanimously passed<br />
a motion declaring <strong>March</strong> 25, the<br />
night Operation Searchlight was<br />
launched, as Bangladesh’s Genocide<br />
Day, to commemorate the brutalities<br />
committed by West Pakistan.<br />
Selective memory<br />
Today, just as Britain resists acknowledging<br />
its exploitative and violent<br />
colonial past, Pakistan too remains<br />
mum on the issue. Perhaps the best<br />
way to ensure that the silence is<br />
maintained is by strategically eliminating<br />
any alternative discourse. This<br />
butchered history taints the pages of<br />
state textbooks. The Class 9 and Class<br />
10 Pakistan Studies textbook of the<br />
Federal Textbook Board of Islamabad<br />
portrays all bloodshed and instability<br />
as propagated by Indian-backed<br />
Bengalis, who have been painted as<br />
unruly, uncontrollable and violent.<br />
An excerpt reads:<br />
“Raging mobs took to streets…<br />
banks were looted and the administration<br />
came to a halt. Public<br />
servants and non-Bengali citizens<br />
were maltreated and murdered.<br />
Pakistan flag and Quaid’s portraits<br />
were set on fire… reign of terror,<br />
loot and arson was let loose. Awami<br />
League workers started killing<br />
those who did not agree with their<br />
Six Points Programme. Members of<br />
Urdu-speaking non-Bengali communities<br />
were ruthlessly slaughtered.<br />
West Pakistani businessmen<br />
operating in East wing were forced<br />
to surrender their belongings or<br />
killed in cold blood, their houses<br />
set on fire. Pro-Pakistan political<br />
leaders were maltreated, humiliated<br />
and many of them even murdered.<br />
Armed forces were insulted;<br />
authority of the state was openly<br />
defied and violated. Awami League<br />
virtually had established a parallel<br />
government and declared independence<br />
of East Pakistan.”<br />
Meanwhile, Pakistani leaders of<br />
that time, such as General Yahya<br />
Khan, are shown as making desperate<br />
attempts to negotiate with<br />
these “out-of-control” Bengalis. At<br />
one place, the book states, “Yahya<br />
flew to Dhaka, in a hurry; he wanted<br />
to make a last effort”, but he<br />
was received by “obviously unacceptable”<br />
demands put forward<br />
by Mujibur Rehman. The leader of<br />
the Awami League is dismissed as<br />
impractical and his requests as unrealistic.<br />
Further, far from acknowledging<br />
the atrocities committed by<br />
the Pakistan Army and paramilitary<br />
groups, the textbook states that on<br />
the night of <strong>March</strong> 25 and <strong>March</strong><br />
26, “the Awami League militants<br />
committed a large scale massacre<br />
of West Pakistani families living in<br />
East Pakistan”. Later, the textbook<br />
complains, “Indians and Bengalis<br />
charged Pakistan Army with wholesale<br />
massacre and desecration of<br />
women. On December 19, 1971,<br />
world media teams were shown<br />
the dead bodies of Bengali professors,<br />
intellectuals and professionals<br />
who were allegedly killed during<br />
the said unrest. Large-scale killings<br />
were publicised in the media to defame<br />
Pakistan Army.”<br />
Ideology, not history<br />
No mention is made of the rape and<br />
murder of thousands of East Pakistani<br />
families. No mention is made<br />
of the brutality of West Pakistanis.<br />
Just as Hindus are portrayed as the<br />
sole instigators of violence in 1947,<br />
East Pakistanis are depicted as the<br />
perpetrators in 1971.<br />
As state policy, Pakistan has always<br />
done an exceptional job at<br />
eradicating, distorting and denying<br />
its history. History as a discipline<br />
is replaced by Pakistan Studies in<br />
schools so that it is ideology – and<br />
that too of the Islamic Republic –<br />
and not history that is taught. The<br />
Partition of 1971 is just another victim<br />
in this process. As Bangladesh<br />
celebrates its Independence Day<br />
and, from this year onwards, also<br />
commemorates Genocide Day, a<br />
deafening silence will engulf the<br />
country. The “historical amnesia” of<br />
its coloniser will be embraced tightly<br />
as one of the most powerful legacies<br />
left behind by the British. •<br />
Anam Zakaria is the author of Footprints<br />
of Partition: Narratives of Four<br />
Generations of Pakistanis and Indians.