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Sunday, October 12, 2008

[vinnomot] Dr Fakhruddin fails to represent Bangladesh at UN session

FARAKKA ISSUE IGNORED

Dr Fakhruddin fails to represent Bangladesh at UN session

Moinuddin Naser in New York

Despite UNISDR's call for global action to prevent flood in view of the recent flood in Bangladesh, India and Nepal in particular and flood problem in general, Dr.Fakhruddin Ahmed, Chief Adviser to the Caretaker Government, failed to mention about Bangladesh's situation in his speech at the General Assembly. He also did not say anything about Bangladesh's drought problem either. But neighbouring Nepal's Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda urged upon the international community to intervene in this regard and protect the Himalayan glacier in order to mitigate flood problems.
   The call came from the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR), a United Nations agency.
   On the other hand, Indian Prime Minister Dr Monmohan Singh only spoke about the issue of drought, but did not say a word about regional cooperation. Singh detailed about investment in new technologies and new production regimes for rain-fed and dry land agriculture and explore cost-effective desalination technologies, to use saline water of the sea for agricultural purpose.
   Coincidently, the statement of the UN agency, and the speeches by the Chief Adviser of Bangladesh, Prime Ministers of Nepal and India were delivered on the same day, September 26, 2008.
   The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) in a statement, issued from Geneva, pointed out that 200 million people worldwide living in coastal flood zones and urged all states to take measures to prevent flooding from turning into a disaster.
   The ISDR Secretariat in Geneva in its statement said, the devastation caused by floods was evident recently in Bangladesh, Nepal and India, where thousands of villages were submerged as rivers burst their banks.
   In the statement the ISDR chief Salvano Briceno said, "Flooding is already on the rise due to increasing populations living in flood plains, and climate change will make floods more frequent and severe, with a particular impact on deltas. The recent floods... are glimpses of a future that we need to start adapting to now."
   The statement also mentioned that successful flood control systems have been implemented across several countries such as Viet Nam, which has used mangrove reforestation to considerably reduce the impact of flooding on coastal populations.
   Meanwhile, China has spent around $3 billion in flood control efforts between 1960 and 2000, helping to avert an estimated $12 billion in losses.
   Cost-effective methods to prevent flooding from turning into disaster include risk assessments, evacuation plans, education and not building in flood-prone areas, all of which would require community participation.

   Total ignorance
   The UN agency has categorically denounced the building of structure in the flood-prone area. But surprisingly Chief Adviser Fakhruddin seemed totally ignorant about the important issue and did not mention anything about the adverse impact of Farakka Barrage both in drought and flood. Now the question is whether there was no need of regional cooperation to mitigate the effect of flood in the region while Bangladesh as the delta and lowest riparian is the worst affected area.
   The officials in the United Nations, who are from Bangladesh, often said that the mission and Bangladesh government's officers are engaged in lobbying for job in the United States, rather than serving the interest of the country as the Indians do in the United Nation and has in the process been able to create a very strong lobby for themselves. So the Bangladesh diplomats don't try to make India hostile, and remain silent on issues involving India, which never favoured regional cooperation to mitigate the water-related problems in Bangladesh, India and Nepal.
   However Nepal's new Prime Minister Puspa Dahal Prachanda when stating about the flood problem in this region stated that for Nepal, the melting of glaciers and shifting weather patterns are threatening the life and ecosystem undermining the sustainability of agriculture and extreme climate-induced disasters such as frequent floods and landslides. He said: "The Himalayan range provides life supporting water downstream for more than a billion people. The Mt Everest is the roof of the world, and the Himalayan range need to be protected and utilised to contribute to the humanity as a whole. So I strongly appeal to the international community to extend all necessary support and cooperation to protect and promote its pristine environment. We need to create a regime of common but differentiated responsibilities, in which the developed countries will lift the burden of adaptation in the vulnerable countries, such as the least developed countries and small islands."

   Regional cooperation negated
   About drought Indian Prime Minister Monmohan Singh mentioned in his speech in a different way, which has totally negated the issue of regional cooperation, including the sharing of waters of common basins. He recognised that water might be the cause of many conflicts during the current century but said, "We must reflect how to use this scarce resource efficiently. We need to invest in new technologies and new production regimes for rain-fed and dry-land agriculture and explore cost-effective desalination technologies."
   But for Bangladesh it is important to realise the due and traditional share of water of common basins for which we need regional and international cooperation. But Dr Fakhruddin has totally omitted that subject. Rather he only referred to the issue of climate change as the means of flooding of Bangladesh.
   He said, "Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to climate change given that we are a low lying delta in one of the highest rainfall areas of the world. There is growing concern that an irreversible climatic shift will displace tens of millions of our people. By some estimates, a one meter sea-level rise would submerge about one-third of the total area in Bangladesh. Given our population and its vulnerabilities, this would result in the greatest humanitarian crisis in history." Though the issue is controversial and the article which was reported in the daily Independent of London, it was challenged by the source of the article in NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed is still continuing that kind pf propaganda, which is a very palatable issue for the anti-Bangladesh campaign in the international arena.
   Bangladesh mission's failure
   Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal in his statement thanked the Secretary General of the United Nations for smooth transfer of UN Regional Centre for Peace Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific from New York to Kathmondhu. The centre was established in 1987 and Nepal's permanent mission to the United Nations signed the agreement and a related Memorandum of Understandings (MOU) on July 21, 2007.
   Regrettably the Permanent Representative of Bangladesh mission in UN had no initiative to seek the relocation of that important centre to Bangladesh, whereas for many reasons Bangladesh could be the most suitable location for such a centre.

   Singh ignores Dhaka
   Last but not least, though the government of Dr Fakhruddin is totally sensitive to say anything about India, Indian Prime Minister Dr. Monmohan Singh in his speech though welcomed return of democracy in Pakistan and expressed commitment to resolve all outstanding issues between the two countries including Jammu and Kashmir through peaceful dialogue, and also welcomed the coming to power of democratically elected governments in Nepal and in Bhutan, he did not mention a single word praising the Bangladesh Government's initiative of ongoing political reforms and arrangement of election, as if India did not quite like the arrangement.

http://www.weeklyholiday.net/front.html#08

অদক্ষতা, অযোগ্যতা আর তাবেদারীর মাধ্যমে দেশের হাজার হাজার কোটি টাকা ক্ষতি করার জন্য ওদের আর হেলপারদের বিরুদ্ধে মামলা ,আর ওরা গ্রেফতার হবে কবে?

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[vinnomot] Robert Dunn Memorial Tribute_Nov 16

Dear Friends,

You are cordially invited to join us in honoring, Robert Dunn,
the late founder of Poet to Poet and the Asbestos Arts Group.

THE ROBERT DUNN MEMORIAL TRIBUTE
Sunday, November 16, 2008, 4:30 pm
ATN Bangla TV Studio
37-17 57th Street
Woodside, NY 11377

Phone: (718) 505 1100

(Direction: By Train: No. 7 train to 61st Street & V and R train to 65th Street Station.

By Car: BQE exit Broadway, Stay on Broadway down to 56th Street,

make a left on 56th Street, Left on 35th Ave, Left on 57th Street.)

We will read from his poetry,
discuss the valuable memory we have of him,
and offer music in remembrance of his legacy.

Special refreshments will be served at the end.

This program is organized by
Shabdaguchha, Cross-Cultural Communications,
and Leigh Harrison.

Please come to remember a real rarity:
"a poet who was more for others than he was for himself"

Sincerely,

Hassanal Abdullah

Stanley H. Barkan

Leigh Harrison

New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News more. Try it out!

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[vinnomot] The trial of Colonel Abu Taher - by Lawrence Lifschultz

The trial of Colonel Abu Taher

Just over thirty years ago I stood outside Dhaka Central Jail. I had arrived early for a day that would become a "day to remember." It was June 28, 1976.

A week earlier, "Special Military Tribunal No. 1" had begun its work in secret. It convened for a single day and then immediately recessed for a week to permit defence lawyers seven days to prepare for a case which the prosecution had been working on for six months. The trial of Colonel Abu Taher and more than twenty others had begun. The accused, despite repeated requests throughout the period of their detention, had been denied access to legal counsel and communication with relatives.

Following the opening session, this correspondent filed dispatches to the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong, the BBC and the Guardian in London. At the time, I was South Asia correspondent of the Review. Transmission of these reports did not go through. However, copies flown to Bangkok by a passenger on an outgoing international flight meant that in the end the news of the trial was transmitted from Thailand. As a result, the first reports residents Dhaka had of the case came from the BBC Bengali Service.

On June 28, when the trial reopened, this correspondent, who had reported from Bangladesh for a full year in 1974, stood outside the gates of Dhaka Central Jail taking photographs of the Chief Prosecutor, ATM Afzal, the Chairman of the Tribunal, Colonel Yusuf Haider and others as they entered the prison gates. I was told by police officers present that the trial was top secret and I was not allowed to photograph anyone or anything. I said I had been reporting on Bangladesh for several years. I was a relatively well informed person and I was unaware of any such official guidelines or orders. If they wished me to stop photographing or reporting the case, I suggested they should show me a written order from the Information Ministry to that effect. Otherwise, I would continue my work as a journalist without interruption. I then raised my camera and photographed the police officer who was questioning me. He threw up his hands to cover his face and ran away.

There were many ironies that morning when the heavy iron gates at Dhaka Central Jail swung open and snapped closed again, admitting 30 black-coated barristers into the opening session. The trial and the charge of armed rebellion against established authority occurred at a time when there had been four governments in the past year, each succeeding the other by force of arms. Moreover, those officers who were part of Khaled Musharraf's November 3 coup d'etat and who were slandered by the official press as "Indian agents," had all been released from detention. Most notable among these was Brigadier Shafat Jamil who had placed Ziaur Rahman under house arrest. So it was that those officers who were behind the November 3 anti-Zia coup were freed and those men who staged the general uprising of November 7 which freed Zia now went on trial for their lives.

As I waited that June 21, watching the entrance, the trial opened in earnest behind the tall yellow-stained walls of Dhaka's Central Jail. Never before in the history of either Bangladesh or "East Pakistan" had a trial been held within the confines of a jail. Lawyers defending the accused had to take an oath of secrecy regarding the proceedings. Inside the country a total news blackout on the case was imposed. Security at the prison was exceptional: sand-bagged machine gun nests surrounded every entrance. There was no doubt the authorities were convening the tribunal inside the jail to avoid the possibility that trouble might erupt en route to the courthouse if there was an open trial.

I was left alone for more than two hours, as I waited outside the prison gates for the day's recess. I had wanted to interview the Tribunal Chairman so as to have an official statement of why the case was being held in such secrecy. But, at 11 am, I was arrested and detained at the jail. I was asked to surrender the film of photographs I had taken of those men who had entered the gates.

I informed the police officials and the army lieutenant who had taken me into custody that I would not voluntarily give up the film. Calls were made to the National Security Intelligence Agency, the NSI and Martial Law Headquarters. Within the hour, ten officials arrived to sort out the case. It was rather a large number of security personnel for only a single journalist.

I was asked by an NSI man calling himself Shamim Ahmed why I was interested in the Taher case. I explained that secret trials tended to rub me the wrong way whether done by Stalin, Franco or Zia. I said that I was a reporter and that if the six majors who killed Mujib had been put on trial by Khaled Musharraf inside Dhaka Central Jail, I would have reported it. And, if Khaled had lived and Zia had put him on trial, I would have been at the jail, as I was now, trying to report. And if Zia was now putting Taher on trial, inside a prison with frightened lawyers sworn to secrecy, I would report it. What was wrong with people knowing what was happening, I asked Ahmed. He picked up my camera and handed it to a young telecommunications officer, who some years earlier had trained in New York under the American office of Public Safety Program. The young fellow ripped out the film.

I was detained at the jail for a few hours while a decision was taken on what to do next. An army major said Headquarters thought the detention of a foreign correspondent might be embarrassing. That evening I cabled another despatch concern the trial. The cable office accepted the story, but did not transmit.

The next evening, as I returned to my residence, I was met by five Special Branch officers who informed me I was again under arrest. They were under orders to take me directly to the airport and put me on the first available flight out of the country. The next flight was out to India, from where I had expelled six months earlier for reporting Indira Gandhi's Emergency. Censorship was tough during those days in Delhi and no foreign correspondent paid any attention to it. Thus, I had not been the only journalist to be so honored with deportation from India -- merely the last.

I explained patiently to the Special Branch officers that they could not deport me to India since I had already been deported from there. In the end, I was kept for three days under house arrest until the next flight to Bangkok. On July 21 I was deported to Thailand and the last foreign and for that matter domestic news report on the Taher trial ended. The authorities now had their secrecy buttoned up.

The case went on for seventeen more days. Taher initially refused to attend the tribunal calling it "an instrument of the government to commit crimes in the name of justice." He also said, that if he were to be judged the panel must be made up of Mukti Bahini officers from the army, who had fought for the independence of the country and not by men like Yusuf Haider who had taken no part in the Liberation War. But, when the tribunal was formed no Mukti Bahini officers would sit on it.

Taher's lawyers were finally able to persuade him to participate in the trial. They believed at first the Tribunal would be able to function without intimidation. It was advice many of them regretted later when it became known that Taher's sentence had been determined well before the tribunal opened. On July 17, the Chairman of the Tribunal, Yusuf Haider, announced the sentence. On behalf of the army's High Command, Haider sentenced Taher to death.

Throughout the entire month of the trial not a single item regarding the case or my deportation for attempting to report on the trial had appeared in the Bangladesh press even though every editor and many journalists knew precisely what was going on inside the wall of the Central Jail. In May, a month before the trial began, in a mild violation of an undeclared, but well understood news blackout, Ittefaq, published a one-inch back page news item entitled "Conspiracy Case To Begin?" Ittefaq's editor, Anwar Hossain was immediately called to army headquarters and told if he tried it again, he would be arrested.

With the press muzzled and the trial over on July 18, the government ordered newspapers to publish an official statement on the case and nothing more. Front page banner headlines in the Bangladesh Observer and other papers announced Taher's death sentence. It was the first news through the Bengali media that the country had of the case and it came at the end of the trial as a fait accompli. Of course, no mention of Taher's moving address to the court or any of its proceedings were allowed to be printed.

Although Taher insisted he wanted no appeals to be made in his name and that he wanted nothing from the regime, his lawyers nonetheless approached President A M Sayem calling upon him to essentially negate the sentence. These lawyers, Ataur Rahman Khan and Zulmat Ali, understood the law and they understood how Taher's trial had violated the most fundamental tenets of the law.

Yet, at that moment Taher's lawyers did not realize that part of the hidden agenda of this trial was a "fast track" to an execution. Sayem soon revealed himself as an integral element of this agenda.

It is sometimes said that the veneer of our civilization is very thin. The actions of A M Sayem in this period showed just how thin it could be. Sayem was a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Five years earlier, he had written perhaps the most significant legal decision on capital punishment and the rights of an accused ever to be handed down by the Supreme Court.

In the case against Purna Chandra Mondal, Sayem threw out a death sentence passed on the accused. The judgement established a legal precedent as significant as the famous Miranda decision in the United States guaranteeing legal protections to an accused facing trial. Sayem argued that "the last moment appointment of a defence lawyer for an accused virtually negated the right of an accused to be properly defended in the case."

In the Mondal case Sayem had written:

'The Code of Criminal Procedure confers a right on every accused person brought before a Criminal Court to be defended by a lawyer. That right extends to access to the lawyer for private consultations and also affording the latter an adequate opportunity of preparing the case for defence. A last moment appointment of an advocate for defending a prisoner accused of a capital offence not only results in a breach of the provision of Chapter 12 of the Legal Remembrance Manual ... and frustrates the object behind the elaborate provisions of that Chapter. Such an appointment results also in a denial to the prisoner of the right conferred on him by Section 340 of the Code ... the denial of this right must be held to have rendered the trial as one not according to law, necessitating a fresh trial."

Taher was not allowed access to a lawyer until the day the case against him opened. Thus, Sayem's own words such a trial was "one not according to law." Nevertheless, Sayem, who as a judge had written that no man under law could be sentenced to death were he not given the right of an adequate defence, now in the position of President, reaffirmed the death sentence on Taher. And, he made his decision within twenty-four hours of the sentencing.

Here for all to see was the phenomenon of a judge acting as a criminal. It was more than a simply example of human hypocrisy. What else can one say of Sayem who is authorizing Taher's execution directly violated the law that he himself had enumerated in the Mondal case.

The Chief Prosecutor, ATM Afzal, after the trial was to be rewarded with an appointment to the position of Judge of the Dhaka High Court and would later become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but a worried man in 1976, he anxiously claimed to his colleagues that he was more stunned than anyone at the sentence of death. As a prosecutor, he claimed, he had never asked for a death sentence. He said such a judgment was impossible. There was no law in existence under which Taher could be executed for the crime with which he had been charged.

But, did Afzal publicly protest the verdict or express regret for the role he played in this tragic charade? Did he ever consider walking out and say he would not be a party to a secret trial held within the confines of the Central Jail? If we are looking for evidence of a "profile in courage" or a sense of principle in the character of Bangladesh's future Chief Justice, who in the summer of 1976 stood on the doorstep of a long and promising career, we will find no such evidence.

Thirty years have now passed. We are all aware of what happened. The 30th anniversary of Taher's execution. It is time in my view for a public act by the state and judicial authorities to publicly declare that Abu Taher was wrongfully tried and wrongfully executed. The verdict of July 17, 1976 should be vacated and a public acknowledgement should be made that Taher's civil and legal rights were grossly violated by the government which put him on trial.

Today I am reminded of two men -- Bartholomew Sacco and Giuseppi Vanzetti, two Italian immigrants who came to my country, the United States, for a better life and instead ended up framed for a crime they did not commit. Their politics were not to the liking of the American authorities who in the 1920s were seized by a hysteria against socialists, anarchists and communists. Sacco and Vanzetti were sentenced to death after a trial that systematically violated all legal norms. Unlike Taher's case the trial was not in secret. There were worldwide protests in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the United States to stop the death sentence. Despite this both men were executed.

In 1979, after decades of revelations concerning illegal acts on the part of the prosecution and the judiciary, Michael Dukakis, the Governor of the State of Massachusetts where both men were executed, declared fifty years after their execution that in the view of the State, Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent and had been wrongly executed. Governor Dukakis declared that each year on the anniversary of their execution, the State of Massachusetts would observe "Sacco and Vanzetti Memorial Day."

The time has come in Bangladesh to act in a similar fashion. Appropriate mechanisms to accomplish this task need to be found.

Justice requires that the verdict be formally overturned and that there be an official acknowledgement that the entire so-called trial of Abu Taher was a violation of proper legal procedure and represented a violation of the fundamental rights of the accused to due process.

It is very difficult to truly correct a crime that has happened in the past. Whatever is done will always be insufficient. A life can never be brought back. There is no way "to set right" the experience of three small children growing up without the daily presence of their father or a young woman losing her husband in the prime of life. In matters of the heart like this there can be no repair adequate to the event. What can be done is a very minimal thing: an acknowledgement by the authorities that a tragic and wrongful act was committed. This is the very minimum that justice requires.

Of course, there exist thousands of tragic cases which get little attention throughout the world. In Bangladesh also there have been many cases of deaths and summary executions in the jails that occurred during 1975, 1977 and 1981 which should be carefully addressed. Our focus today on the Taher case should not minimize the work that needs to be done in other instances where human rights violations have occurred. Perhaps, success here will assist in a full assessment and public accounting of the many deaths in custody that have occurred since the 1970s.

Hopefully, one day a national commission like the ones that were formed in Argentina and South Africa will be organized in Bangladesh to look systematically into the many cases of deaths in prison where summary trials led to summary executions. The Argentine Commission produced a remarkable report entitled "Nunca Mas" or "Never Again." The shock of the report helped to revive the rule of law within a society that had been ravaged by thousands of disappearances and deaths in custody.

Bangladesh needs such an accounting of its past. To mention only a few cases, among many, which ought to be addressed is the death of Tajuddin Ahmed and his colleagues in 1975, the secret executions of scores of soldiers in prisons around the country in 1977, the death of General Manzur in custody in 1981, and the secret trial and execution of the group of thirteen military officers in 1981.

This call for justice in the Taher case is not specific to any party or any specific government. Whatever government is in power it should be pressed to overturn the verdict in the Taher case.

Today, I call upon Khaleda Zia to search her conscience because even those who have traveled the dark road to power might still be able to find that flickering light we know as "conscience." I believe that Mahatma Gandhi and Henry David Thoreau, the American writer, who inspired Gandhi, were especially right about one particular point. They believed that it is important to confront individuals with moral choices. People may lack the moral strength to make difficult choices. Nevertheless, they ought to be presented with a choice, whether or not they ultimately chose to act in an ethical fashion.

What is remarkable about this situation is that Khaleda Zia once regarded Abu Taher as a family friend. He was a visitor to her home and on the morning of November 7, 1975, as Zia feared for his life, it was Taher he called. Zia knew exactly who Taher would bring to the rescue. Khaleda witnessed Taher and his associates free General Zia. It was then that Zia in front of many soldiers thanked Taher for saving his life.

July 21 was the 30th anniversary of Taher's execution. I doubt the prime minister could ever bring herself to publicly defend the manner in which Taher's trial was conducted. It was an abomination of all norms of human decency. It is within the prime minister's power as an individual to acknowledge that the trial and the way it was conducted was simply wrong, even illegal. If she decided to do so, she could say that justice required that the verdict be overturned and that past mistakes must be acknowledged. More need not be said.

I am not optimistic and I am under no illusions this will happen. Yet, as a writer it is my prerogative to raise the issue and pose the choice. Thoreau believed that people are never too old to give up their prejudices or to rediscover the conscience they may have lost. Yet, it is very rare for them to do so. However, it is their choice.

My own view is that some future government will act in a moral and ethical way on this issue. We must not rest until the verdict in the Taher case has been overturned. It is, my friends, a matter of justice.

Lawrence Lifschultz, a world-renowned journalist and writer, is the author of "Bangladesh: The Unfinished Revolution."

The trial of Colonel Abu Taher

The Daily Star Web Edition Vol. 5 Num 767

The trial of Colonel Abu Taher and more than twenty others had begun. ... this correspondent filed dispatches to the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong ...
www.thedailystar.net/2006/07/24/d607240901105.htm - 22k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

JSTOR: The State in Bangladesh under Zia (1975-81)

... Democracy and the Future," Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), ..... Colonel Abu Taher, who had led the "sepoy revolt" of November 7, 1975, ...
links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0004-4687(198405)24:5%3C556:TSIBUZ%3E2.0.CO;2-9 - Similar pages - Note this
by SS Islam - 1984 - All 2 versions

Chapter Three - Events in the Neighborhood

But while Zia hanged such liberation war heroes like Col Abu Taher, ..... The Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) was banned in Bangladesh and Bertil Lintner ...
www.acdis.uiuc.edu/Research/OPs/Saikia/contents/chap_three.html - 117k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

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[vinnomot] Reflections on Colonel Taher’s death [Guess, Who is running the Care Taker Government in Bangladesh !]

Oh, yeah !

That was the revenge of the "Officers" ..... Colonel

Taher was found "guilty as charged" in a sham-

trial ..... not only that ... another 253 ordinary soilders

were hanged in the Dhaka Central Jail to "supress

the rebellion" and an officerdom was created in

Bangladesh, which is continuing till to day.[Just

guess, Who is running the Care Taker Government

in Bangladesh ]

Read the glimpse of the sham-trial below:

Reflections on Colonel Taher's death

AMM Shawkat Ali
Every year Colonel Taher is remembered on the date he was hanged by the neck until he was dead. The hanging took place in Dhaka Central Jail on July 21, 1976. The verdict on his death by hanging was said to have been passed by a Special Military Tribunal at a time when the country had its first bout of experience with martial law. It may well be called the third bout if the infamous martial laws of 1958 and 1969 of pre-1971 period are taken into account

Remembrance with a difference
   Reflections on Colonel Taher's death this year is significantly different from all previous years. The primary reason is the number of meetings and columns in the media that unfolded some untold stories relating to the circumstances that led to the infamous verdict on his death by hanging. The major contribution in this regard has been made by Lawrence Lifschultz who worked for the Far Eastern Economic Review. Lifschultz appears to have made the point, not unknown to many in Bangladesh, that it was simply a mockery of trial. Indeed, any trial by a specially constituted military tribunal by its very nature is a denial of justice as it is known and understood in a civilised sense. What has been left unsaid is the fact that on August 14, 1975, a duly elected government was overthrown through a military coup organised by a small number of retired and serving army officers of relatively junior rank. They remained above law for a long time and were protected probably to justify the dictum that a successful revolution is its own justification. However, the substantive point made by Lifschultz is that (a) even the trial by the special military tribunal was vitiated by legal flaws, (b) the trial was not held in pubic but in closely guarded high security area within the precincts of the Dhaka Central Jail, (c) the lawyers for the prosecution and defence had to utter oaths of secrecy relating to the trial and (d) the trial was completed with undue haste. In sum, Taher was denied the due process of law which led Lifschultz to conclude that it was utterly wrong and the time has come for the government to admit it to be so. He has cited the cases in other countries and advocated the constitution of a commission more or less on the lines of the Truth Commission of South Africa. The primary objective is to bring out the truth and not force the citizens of today and tomorrow to continue to believe what essentially may well be a pack of lies.

   Is that possible?
   The impassioned appeal made by Lifschultz may well fall on deaf ears if the powers that are or will be in future. For the present government, it is all the more so because of historical connections of the BNP with its founding father, late general Ziaur Rahman. It was during his initial rise to power, after a series of coups and counter-coups, that the ill-framed verdict was announced. In 1976, he was not the chief marital law administrator (CMLA) but was nevertheless the chief of the army. It is a sad and tragic commentary on the role played by a former chief justice who thought it fit to adorn the offices of CMLA as well as the president. Even more saddening is the fact that Lifschultz has cited the commitment of the very same chief justice quoting his own verdict in the case relating to Purnachandra Mandal. In that case, the chief justice asserted that the inalienable right of a citizen as an accused person to have access to the due process of law cannot be interfered with. This commitment of a judge, if Lifschultz is to be believed, vanished when the judge adorned the two most powerful offices of CMLA and president. However, without further material evidence supportive of this conclusion, it is perhaps not fair to arrive at a definite and incontrovertible conclusion.

   Freedom of the press denied
   As with will martial law situations, freedom of the press not only in terms of access to information but also the right to publish information on the infamous trial was denied. Lifschultz was first detained and later deported. He, however, could smuggle out his story on the process of trial.

   Why special military tribunal?
   The constitution of a Special Military Tribunal cannot perhaps be questioned. That is the standard procedure when a country is under martial law. The precedence in this regard was set first in 1958 and then in 1969 when Bangladesh formed the eastern part of Pakistan. Generally, two types of military courts are set up to quell any resistance to martial law government. A court of inferior jurisdiction called the Summary Martial Law Court and one of higher jurisdiction called the Special Military Court. The debate opened by Lifschultz merits further probe. Did the tribunal which passed the verdict conform to the latter type? During 1958 and in 1969, Special Military Courts held the proceedings of trial in the open public view, of course within the precincts of the court room. The trial of Taher was an exception to the general precedent set by the Pakistani military rulers. This remains the major point of contention of Lifschultz. Again, during 1958 martial law, district or additional sessions judges were made members of the Special Military Court. The Summary Military Courts in some cases included magistrates. The idea probably was to put up an appearance of credibility in public. It is not known or is not otherwise clear from the account given by Lifschultz whether the Special Military Tribunal followed the same lines. This is well worth further investigation.

   Why oaths of secrecy for the lawyers?
   Another important area of further probe relates to the oaths of secrecy for the lawyers on either side of the aisle. Is this permitted under the relevant military act and army rules and instructions? Leaving aside this issue, was it permitted by the terms of reference under which the Special Military Tribunal which was constituted by a martial law order (MLO)? Did the then CMLA and President assent to such a horrendous course of action? Above all, why did the celebrated lawyers accept such demeaning arrangement?

   Will truth ever be known?
   It is idle to speculate if the mystery surrounding the infamous verdict will ever be known. Lifschultz has suggested one way-out in the form of a Truth Commission. The Truth Commission in South Africa, as far as is known, required voluntary disclosure. Obviously the lawyers participating in the trial, now dead, cannot testify voluntarily. Those who are living are relevant. Will they testify, if not before a Truth Commission which will probably never be formed, at least to the public.

   More threads to the untold story
   It is indeed relevant to add to the account given by Lifschultz. If a former chief justice who united in himself the two most powerful sources of authority for governance could not, for reasons as yet unknown, assert his authority in respect of the undue process of trial of Taher, the then Deputy Commissioner (DC) Dhaka did. Immediately after the date of hanging of Taher was fixed, there was an official direction over telephone from the Home Ministry that the DC must be present at hanging site inside Dhaka Central Jail. The DC was neither a trained lawyer nor ever, except as a sub-divisional magistrate, tried any criminal case. He was of only ten years of experience in civil service. Yet, by his sense of judgment and limited experience, he sensed something was wrong.

   The jail code
   In DC's office, there is a specific branch that deals with criminal cases and complaints relating to jail including police administration. The branch is called Judicial Munshikhana (JM) headed by a magistrate. The DC asked the magistrate-in-charge of JM to see him with the jail code. The magistrate, Khundkar Fazlur Rahman, now a retired secretary to the government, came with the Jail Code. The relevant parts of the Jail Code were carefully examined by the DC. It was found out that (a) the requirement was to send a magistrate and (b) the hanging verdict must come from a duly constituted court of law. The DC asked the magistrate to send a letter to the home ministry correctly reflecting the requirements as stated above. A question was also raised by the DC whether a civil jail should be the appropriate site for hanging since the verdict was passed by a military tribunal. The then home secretary, immediately on receipt of this reference from JM signed by the magistrate in charge, called up the DC. He accepted the point but at the same time stated that the relevant parts of the Jail Code would be amended. A copy of the formal amendment was sent which validated the hanging of Taher in the Dhaka Central Jail. However, the home ministry left untouched the provision of presence of a magistrate of competent jurisdiction at the hanging site. Magistrate Fazlur Rahman attended.

   Account of Fazlur Rahman
   Fazlur Rahman told the DC then and also after his retirement from service, the courageous way that Taher faced the 'journey into the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns'. The DC retired from service in 2001 and Fazlur Rahman, as already stated, did so few years thereafter. They still fondly remember Taher for his undaunted courage of conviction and refusal to be on the receiving side. If only other sections of celebrated citizens in high office could emulate the example set by Taher, the country could be a better place of the citizens. Specially for the DC, it was very shocking. In 1974, the DC happened to issue an appointment to Taher as director of the Dredger Organisation of Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB). The DC then was member-administration of BWDB. The order was issued pursuant to a decision given by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The decision was communicated over telephone by the then minister in charge of flood control and water development, the late lamented Abdur Rab Serniabat.
   Taher met the member administration in his office and received the order of appointment. He was to be based in Narayanganj. Taher, on receipt of the order, requested the member administration to visit his office. The member administration never knew that two years later as DC he would be asked by the government to attend the hanging of Taher.

[Source:http://www.newagebd.com/2006/jul/27/edit.html ]

Aslo read:

Front Page

... as the South Asia correspondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review, on Friday said it was time to overturn the judgement in the trial of Colonel Taher, ...
www.newagebd.com/2006/jul/22/front.html - 71k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
More results from www.newagebd.com »

Putting Factions 'Back in' the Civil-Military Relations Equation ...

33 The Far Eastern Economic Review, 16th January, 1976. ...... Colonel Taher's 11th sector brigade has been popularly considered as the '4th mukti bahini'. ...
samaj.revues.org/document230.html - 191k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
by J Codron - 2007 - Related articles

The Daily Star Web Edition Vol. 5 Num 766

... South Asia correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review which meant I ... July 21 was the 30th anniversary of the execution of Colonel Abu Taher. ...
www.thedailystar.net/2006/07/23/d607231501118.htm - 14k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

[PDF]

TAHER'S LAST TESTAMENT:

File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
Bengali sould have the audacity to pass a sentence on Colonel Taher. ...... the Pakistani crackdown in East Bengal the country's revolutionary Left was far ...
www.col-taher.com/UnfinishedRevol.pdf - Similar pages - Note this

Sent by:

Syed Aslam

On 10/12/08, Md. Mostafa Kamal <mmk3k@yahoo.com> wrote:

SIPAHI SIPAHI BHAI BHAI,
OFFICERER ROKTO CHAI!

This was the suicidal reason that Colonel Taher had to face his own fate.

Md. Mostafa Kamal.

--- On Sat, 10/11/08, Salahuddin Ayubi <s_ayubi786@yahoo.com> wrote:

I guess Taher had to die because he was over ambitious and he had already built a base in the Army and in the civilaian political arena. Zia felt threatened from him and he felt that if Taher is not eleiminated he is going to be eliminated by Taher. The reason Taher helped in Zia's rescue was to ewlimingfate Khalid Mosharraf. Zia did not want the fate of Mosharraf. So he had to kill him. It was not a mistake. It was a well calculted murder.

                       Ayubi

--- On Sat, 10/11/08, mohiuddin@netzero. net <mohiuddin@netzero. net> wrote:

Mr. Aslam,

I never justified the killing of Col.Taher( who helped Zia by revolting against pro-Awami coup led by Awami M.P. Rashed Mosharraf's brother Brig. Khaled Mosharraf)as a result Zia was freed by Sipahi/Jonota from house arrest by revolting Mosharraf follwers.. Without active help from Taher's Gonobahini ,mobilization of military forces could have been difficult at that time. But why Taher was punished we still donot know. Personally I think killing the savior was unforgivable mistake by Zia.

   Promoter of Bangladesh's "Scientific Socialism" theory 'Mehnoti Jonotar Konthoshor' ASM Abdur Rob still alive who once served as Minister under Netri Hasina can inform you about how many JSD workers were killed by Rakkhibahi and other Petoa Bahini .Of course Gonobahini also killed some followers of Mujib at that time.I don't keep record of those numbers.

   Killing Chatro Union workers Motiul Kader and killing JSD workers had different objective. Motiul and Kader was B-team members ,unfortunately killed by Mujib's Police force and there was no commission was formed to find out how those two B-team members were killed. Even B-team leaders had to apologize to Mujib for this demonstration against the A-Team government. B-Team leaders never comemorated those unfortunate workers.

M.Anwar_

____________ _________ _________ _________ ____-

Mr. Mohiuddin Anwar

Therefore, you are justifying the hanging of Colonel Taher in 1976 because some violation was done by

"Mujibi Police force". How can one one wrong validates other wrong doings? How about your Boiganic Samajtantra? Can you provide us

with a list of Jassod workers killed by Rakkhi Bahini?

www.col-taher. com/

Sent by: Syed Aslam

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[vinnomot] Trouble in Paradise

Dear All,

Even it looks like that the financial crises problem origins at USA but its effect will felt every corner in the world. Lets see if I can explain how this problem has accumulated for more than 20 years.

Most of the countries in the world have invested, lend money to USA to use it. In return of this cheap money inflow, they have got great access to their products in USA. USA customers were happy to use this cheap money and spend it like free fall. This has created a bubble in home prices (Cost of a house price shoot up to 4 times some areas). People in USA have become addicted to cheap money and easy credit access where they should not have in the first place where they can not afford it.

Second problem is that USA is no longer in leader for new technologies and in competition like before. Their manufacturing industries have evaporated last 8 years. Few of US policies made worst for not letting new students to study in USA if they were not from Europe and India. So revenue of USA has dropped in every areas you can think about it.

Third problem is that USA consumes more product than they manufacture, like importing more than they can export. In this case China & India have beaten them badly.

By looking at this financial crises, I predict that this financial slump will stay between 6-8 years unless some miracles happen. USA is not in good condition like 1930's or 1980's where USA has greater advantage in new technologies and were very few competitors compare to China and India.

Iraq war cost USA more than $700 Billion and more than $2 Trillion dollar benefit for injured soldiers. This will be a great burden for USA form the years to come.

Forth problem is that foreign countries won't lend cheap money to USA like before which can bring down the standards of living in USA.

Our children future in USA might be in trouble by looking at all the indication that I can see. So the bottom line is that it does not matter which prism you use to see USA future, it looks bleak and scary.

I like to urge everybody to have plan B in their financial solvency. We may have to adopt lower standards of life in future. This is the compromise we have to take either we like it or not.

God Bless America and her people.

Regards,

M. M. Chowdhury (Mithu), USA

www.amreteckpharma.com

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Sunday, October 12, 2008

[vinnomot] Dr Fakhruddin fails to represent Bangladesh at UN session

[vinnomot] Robert Dunn Memorial Tribute_Nov 16

[vinnomot] The trial of Colonel Abu Taher - by Lawrence Lifschultz

Lawrence Lifschultz, a world-renowned journalist and writer, is the author of "Bangladesh: The Unfinished Revolution."

Chapter Three - Events in the Neighborhood

[vinnomot] Reflections on Colonel Taher’s death [Guess, Who is running the Care Taker Government in Bangladesh !]

Front Page

Putting Factions 'Back in' the Civil-Military Relations Equation ...

The Daily Star Web Edition Vol. 5 Num 766

TAHER'S LAST TESTAMENT:

[vinnomot] Trouble in Paradise

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