During the 1971 Bangladesh War for independence, members of the Pakistani military and Islamist militia supporters from Jamaat e Islami raped between 200,000 and 400,000 Bangladeshi women and girls in a systematic campaign of genocide rape. During the war, a fatwa in Pakistan declared that Bengali freedom fighters were "Hindu" and that their women could be considered "spoils of war". Imams and religious leaders of Islam openly state that Bengali women are gonimoter maal (spoils of war) and thus they openly support the rape of Bengali women by the Pakistani Army.
The activists and leaders of Islamic parties are also involved in the rape and abduction of women. Scholars have stated that rape is used to terrorize both Bengali-speaking Muslim majority and Hindu minority in Bangladesh. The rape caused thousands of pregnancies, the births of war babies, abortion, infanticide, suicide, and the exclusion of the victims. Recognized as one of the main incidents of war crimes everywhere, the atrocities ended after the surrender of the Pakistani military and supported the Razaker militia. Initially, India claimed its support for Mukti Bahini and subsequent intervention was on humanitarian grounds, but after the UN rejected this argument, India declared that intervention was necessary to protect its own security, and is now widely seen as a humanitarian movement. Regardless of the Pakistani government's efforts to censor news during the conflict, reports of atrocities filtered, attracted the attention of the international media and public attention, and attracted widespread anger and criticism.
During the war, Bengali nationalists also committed mass rape on ethnic Bihari Muslim women, as the Muslim community of Bihari supports Pakistan. Indian soldiers and Bengali militia were also identified as perpetrators of rape by cleric Yasmin Saikia.
In 2009, nearly 40 years after the 1971 incident, a report published by Bangladesh's Committee on Crime War Crimes has accused 1,597 people of war crimes, including rape. Since 2010, the International Criminal Tribunal (TKI) has indicted, tried, and sentenced several people to life imprisonment or death for their actions during the conflict. Stories of rape victims have been told in film and literature, and are portrayed in art.
Video Rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War
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Following the separation of India and the formation of Pakistan, the East and West wings are not only geographically but culturally separate. Western authorities view Bengali Muslims in the East as "too Bengali" and their Islamic application as "inferior and impure", and this makes them unreliable. So far the West has embarked on a strategy to forcibly assimilate the Bengalis culturally. Bengali-speaking people in East Pakistan are mainly Muslim, but their numbers are interspersed with significant Hindu minorities. Very few speak Urdu, which in 1948 has been declared a national language of Pakistan. To express their opposition, activists in East Pakistan established the Bengali language movement in February 1952. Earlier, in 1949, other activists had established the Awami League as an alternative to the ruling Muslim League in West Pakistan. Over the next decades and half of the decade, the Bengali people gradually upset the balance of power in Pakistan, which was under military rule for most of this time; eventually some began to call for secession. In the late 1960s, there was a perception that the people of East Pakistan were second class citizens. It does not help that General A. A. K. Niazi, head of Pakistani Forces in East Pakistan, called East Pakistan "the lowland of the lowly, lying".
There is opposition to military rule in West Pakistan as well. Eventually the military relented, and in December 1970 the first election was held. To the surprise of many, the Awami League of East Pakistan, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, won a clear majority. The establishment of West Pakistan was not happy with the results. At Dacca after the general election, one said "Do not worry, we will not let these black bastards rule over us". Soon President Yahya Khan banned the Awami League and declared a state of martial law in East Pakistan.
With the goal of laying down Bengali nationalism, the Pakistani Army launched Operation Searchlight on 25 March 1971. According to Eric Heinze Pakistani troops target Bengali-speaking Hindus and Muslims. In the 1971 Bangladesh genocide of 1971, the army caused the deaths of up to 3 million people, creating up to 10 million refugees fleeing to India, and replacing another 30 million in East Pakistan.
Rounaq Jahan accuses elements of racism in the Pakistani army, which he thinks is considered a Bengali "low self-race - non-military and physically weak" race, and accuses soldiers of using organized rape as a weapon of war. According to political scientist R. J. Rummel, the Pakistani army views the Bengalis as "humane" and that the Hindus "as Jews for the Nazis, are the best wastes and pests destroyed." This racism then declared that the Bengalis, the inferior, must have their gene pool "fixed" through forced impregnation. BelÃÆ'Â © n MartÃÆ'n Lucas describes rape as "ethnically motivated".
Maps Rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War
Army action Pakistan
The attack was led by General Tikka Khan, who is the architect of Operation Searchlight and was given the Bengali Bengal "butcher" for his actions. Khan said - when reminded on 27 March 1971 that he was responsible for a majority province - "I will reduce this majority to a minority". Bina D'Costa believes that the anecdotes used by Khan are significant, therefore providing evidence that mass rape is a deliberate strategy. In Jessore, while talking to a group of journalists Khan is reported to have said, "Pehle inko Mussalman karo" (First, make them Muslim). D'Costa argues that this shows that in the highest ranks of the Bengali armed forces are regarded as disloyal Muslims and unpatriotic Pakistanis.
The perpetrators raided at night, attacking women in their village, often in front of their families, as part of a terror campaign. Victims aged 8 to 75 are also kidnapped and detained in special camps where they are repeatedly attacked. Many of those held in camps were killed or committed suicide, with some people taking their own lives by using their hair to hang themselves; the soldiers responded to this suicide by cutting a woman's hair. Time Magazine reported to 563 girls who were kidnapped and held by the military; they were all pregnant between three and five months when the military began to free them. Some women are forcibly used as prostitutes. While the Pakistani government estimates the number of rape in the hundreds, other estimates range between 200,000 and 400,000. The Pakistani government has tried to censor reports coming out of the region, but media reports of the atrocities reached the public worldwide, and spawned widespread international public support for the liberation movement.
In what has been described by Jenneke Arens as a deliberate attempt to destroy ethnic groups, many of those who were attacked were raped, killed and then in bayonets in genitals. Adam Jones, a political scientist, says that one of the reasons for mass rape is to undermine Bengali people through "humiliation" against Bengali women and that some women are raped until they die or are killed after repeated attacks. The Pakistani army also raped the Bengali stud. Men, passing through checkpoints, will be ordered to prove that they are circumcised, and this is where rape usually occurs. The International Commission of Jurists concluded that the atrocities committed by Pakistani armed forces "are part of a deliberate policy by the power of discipline". Writer Mulk Raj Anand said of the actions of the Pakistani army, "The rape was so systematic and pervasive that they must be aware of Army policy," which West Pakistan planned in a deliberate attempt to create a new race "or to undermine Bengali nationalism. Amita Malik, reporting from Bangladesh after the surrender of the Pakistani army, wrote that a West Pakistani soldier said: "We will leave, but we will leave our Seed behind".
Not all Pakistani military personnel support the violence: General Sahabzada Yaqub Khan, who advised the president against military action, and Major Ikram Sehgal resigned in protest, as Air Marshal Asghar Khan did. Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, Balochi politician, and Khan Abdul Wali Khan, leader of the Awami National Party, protested the actions of the armed forces. Those imprisoned for their different views on violence include Sabihuddin Ghausi and IA Rahman, both journalists, Sindhi leader GM Syed, poet Ahmad Salim, Anwar Pirzado, who is a member of the air force, Professor MR Hassan, Tahera Mazhar and Imtiaz Ahmed. Malik Ghulam Jilani, who was also arrested, openly opposed to armed action in the East; the letter he wrote for Yahya Khan was widely publicized. Altaf Hussain Gauhar, editor of the Dawn newspaper, was also imprisoned. In 2013 Jilani and Faiz Ahmad Faiz, a poet, were respected by the Bangladeshi government for their actions.
Militia
According to Peter Tomsen, a political scientist, Pakistan's secret service, the Directorate of Interpersonal Intelligence, together with the Jamaat-e-Islami political party, formed militias such as Al-Badr ("moon") and Al-Shams. ("sun") to conduct operations against the nationalist movement. The militia is targeting non-combatants and rape committed as well as other crimes. Local collaborators known as Razakars also took part in atrocities. This term has since become degradingly similar to the western term "Jude".
Members of the Muslim League, such as Nizam-e-Islam, Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema of Pakistan, who lost the election, collaborated with the military and acted as an intelligence organization for them. Members of Jamaat-e-Islami and some of its leaders collaborated with Pakistani forces in rape and targeted killings. The atrocities by Al-Badr and Al-Sham garnered worldly attention from news agencies; massacres and rape are widely reported.
International reaction
There is an academic consensus that the nine-month conflict events are genocide. Cruelty in East Pakistan is the first example of war rape to attract the attention of the international media, and Sally J. Scholz has written that this is the first genocide to capture the interest of the mass media. Bangladesh's human rights organization Mahila Parishat took part in the war by publicizing the atrocities committed by the Pakistani army.
Because of the scale of atrocities, US embassy staff have sent telegrams indicating that genocide is taking place. One, known as the Blood Telegram, was sent by Archer Blood, US Consul General in Dhaka, and signed by him and US officials from USAID and USIS who at that time served in Dhaka. In it, the signatories denounced "American involvement in genocide". In an interview in 1972, Indira Gandhi, the Indian prime minister, confirmed the use of military intervention, saying, "Should we sit and watch their women being raped?" These events are widely discussed in the British House of Commons. John Stonehouse proposed a motion backed by 200 lawmakers condemning the atrocities committed by Pakistani armed forces. Although the movement was presented twice before parliament, the government found no time to debate it.
Before the end of the war, the international community began to provide massive aid to refugees living in India. Although humanitarian aid was provided, there was little support for the war crimes tribunal that Bangladesh advanced at the end of the war. Critics of the United Nations have used the 1971 atrocity to argue that military intervention is the only thing that stops mass killings. Writing for The New York Times, a group of women said in response to a woman shunned by the family and husband, "It is undeniable that an innocent wife whose life is almost destroyed by war is now completely destroyed by their husbands own ". International aid will also come because of the issue of war rape.
According to Susan Brownmiller, mass rape during wartime is not a new phenomenon. He argues that what is unique to the Bangladesh Liberation War is that the international community, for the first time, recognizes that systematic rape can be used as a weapon to terrorize the population.
Aftermath
Immediately after the war, one pressing problem was the extremely unwanted number of rape-affected pregnancies. Estimates of the number of pregnancies resulting in births range from 25,000 to the government rate of 70,000, while one publication by the Center for Law and Reproductive Policy gives a total of 250,000. The government-mandated victim assistance program was established with support from the World Health Organization and the International Family Planning Federation, among which aim to organize abortion facilities to help rape survivors terminate unwanted pregnancies. A doctor at a rehabilitation center in Dhaka reported 170,000 pregnancy abortions caused by rape, and the birth of 30,000 baby warfare during the first three months of 1972. Geoffrey Davis, an Australian physician and abortion specialist working for the program, There are an estimated 5,000 self-induced abortion cases. He also said that during his work he heard many infanticide and suicide by the victims. His estimate of the number of rape victims was 400,000, two times higher than the official estimated 200,000 cited by the Bangladesh government. Most victims also contracted sexual infections. Many suffer feelings of shame and humiliation, and some people are excommunicated by their families and communities or commit suicide.
Feminist writer Cynthia Enloe has written that some of the pregnancies were meant by the soldiers and probably also their officers. A report from the International Commission of Jurists said, "Regardless of the exact number, the American and British surgeon teams have widespread abortions and government efforts to persuade people to accept these girls into society, testifying about the scale at which rape happen. ". The commission also said that Pakistani officers not only allowed their men to rape, but enslaved the women themselves.
After the conflict, rape victims are seen as symbols of "social pollution" and shame. Few can return to their family or old home because of this. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman calls the victims of birangona ("heroine"), but this serves as a reminder that these women are now considered socially unacceptable because they are "not respected", and the term becomes related with barangona ("whore"). The official strategy to marry women and encourage them to be seen as war heroes fails as some people progress, and those who expect the country to give a huge dowry. The married women are usually treated badly, and the majority of men, having received the dowry, leave their wives.
On February 18, 1972, the country established the Bangladesh Women's Rehabilitation Board, which was tasked with assisting rape victims and assisting in adoption programs. Some international agencies take part in adoption programs, such as Mother Teresa's Sisters of Charity. The majority of infant warfare was adopted in the Netherlands and Canada because the country wanted to erase Pakistani reminders from the newly formed country. However, not all women want their children to be taken, and some are forced out and sent for adoption, a practice encouraged by Rahman, who says, "I do not want blood polluted in this country". While many women are happy with the abortion program, because they do not have to give birth to a child being raped, others have to undergo a full time, full of hatred for the child they carry. Others, who have their children adopted in order to return to "mainstream life", will not look at their newborns as taken from them. In the 1990s many of these children returned to Bangladesh looking for their mothers. In 2008, D'Costa sought to find those who had been adopted, but very few answered, the person who said "I hate being a kid, and I am angry at Bangladesh for not taking care of me when I need it so much I have no roots and it makes me cry So that's why I'm trying to learn more about where I was born. "
Forty years after the war, two sisters who had been raped were interviewed by Deutsche Welle. Aleya stated he had been taken by Pakistani soldiers when he was thirteen, and he was repeatedly raped for seven months. She claims she was tortured and five months pregnant when she returned home. Her sister, Laily, said she was pregnant when she was taken by armed forces, and lost the child. Then he fought with Mukti Bahini. Both say that the country has failed in birangona, and that all they receive is "humiliation, humiliation, hatred and exile."
Pakistan government reaction
After the conflict, the Pakistani government decided a silent policy on rape. They formed the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, a judicial commission to prepare a report on the circumstances surrounding the 1971 war atrocities and the surrender of Pakistan. The commission was very critical of the army. Army chiefs and the Pakistani Air Force were removed from their positions for attempting to disrupt the commission. The Commission bases its report on interviews with senior politicians, officers and commanders. The final report was submitted in July 1972, but all were subsequently destroyed except for one held by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the president of Pakistan. The findings were never published.
In 1974 the commission reopened and issued an additional report, which remained classified for 25 years until it was published by India Today magazine. The report says that 26,000 people were killed, rape numbered hundreds, and that Mukti Bahini rebels were involved in widespread rape and other human rights abuses. Sumit Ganguly, a political scientist, believes that Pakistan's formation has not reached an agreement with the atrocities committed, saying that, during a 2002 visit to Bangladesh, Pervez Musharraf expressed regret over the atrocities rather than accepting responsibility.
Prosecution of War Crimes
In 2008, after a 17-year investigation, the War Crime Evening Committee released a documentation identifying 1,597 people who had taken part in the atrocities. The list includes members of Jamaat-e-Islami and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, a political group established in 1978. In 2010 the Bangladesh government established the International Criminal Tribunal (ICT) to investigate atrocities of the day. Although Human Rights Watch backed the court, it was also critical of the reported harassment of lawyers representing the defendant. Brad Adams, director of the Asia branch of Human Rights Watch, said those accused of being given full legal protection to avoid trial risks were not taken seriously, and Irene Khan, a human rights activist, has expressed doubts about whether the mass rapes and murders of women will handled. Khan said of his government's reaction:
Conservative Muslim societies prefer to abandon the veil of negligence and rejection of this issue, allowing those who commit or collude with gender violence to flourish, and leave victim women to fight in anonymity and shame and without much state or community support.
The deputy leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, the first person to face charges related to the conflict, was charged by ICT on twenty alleged war crimes, including murder, rape and arson. He denies all charges. On February 28, 2013, Sayeedi was found guilty of genocide, rape and religious persecution, and was sentenced to death by hanging. Four other members of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, including Motiur Rahman Nizami, have also been indicted for war crimes. Abul Kalam Azad, a member of Razakars, was the first to be convicted of crimes during the war. He was found guilty of murder and rape in absentia, and sentenced to death. Muhammad Kamaruzzaman, assistant secretary-general of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, faces seven counts of war crimes, including planning and advising women's rape in Shohaghpur village on July 25, 1971. ICT puts him to death by holding on May 9, 2013. In July 2013 Ghulam Azam were given a ninety-year sentence for rape and mass murder during the conflict. Abdul Quader Molla, a member of the Rajakar militia during the war was accused of conspiring with the Pakistani army and actively participating in Bangladesh atrocities in 1971: rape (including rape of minors) and the massacre of Bangladeshis in the Mirpur area of ​​Dhaka during the Bangladesh Liberation War. After the government changed the war crimes law to allow punishment filed on the basis of leniency, the prosecutor appealed to the Bangladesh Supreme Court and asked him to update Molla's sentence from life imprisonment to death. On September 17, 2013, the Supreme Court received an appeal and sentenced Molla to death. Eventually he was hanged at Dhaka Central Prison on 12 December 2013 at 22:01.
In the literature and media
Photos taken during a woman's conflict that had been attacked were shown in an exhibition in London. Titled Shamed Woman , but also called Brave Woman , the picture was taken by Bangladeshi photographer Naib Uddin Ahmed. This image is considered by John Tulloch as "classic poses like Madonna and Son". One of the more emotive photos at the exhibition, the woman clasped her hands, her face completely covered by her hair. Tulloch describes the image as having "The ability to express or suggest what can not be shown".
Orunodoyer Ognishakhi ( Promise for the New Dawn ), the first film about the war, was screened in 1972 at the first Independence Day celebration of Bangladesh. This refers to the experience of an actor named Altaf. While trying to reach a safe haven in Calcutta, he meets a woman who has been raped. These images are birangona , stripped and emptied of trauma, used as a testimony to the attack. Another victim faced by Altaf is shown committing suicide or losing his mind.
In 1995 Gita Sahgal produced the War Crimes File documentary, which aired on Channel 4. In 2011 the film Meherjaan was featured at the Guwahati International Film Festival. It explores the war from two perspectives: that of a woman who loves a Pakistani soldier and a person born of rape.
In 1996, the book Ami Birangana Bolchi ( The Voices of War Heroines ) written by Nilima Ibrahim was released. This is a collection of eyewitness accounts from seven rape victims, whom he documented while working at a rehabilitation center. The narratives of the survivors in this work are deeply critical of the failure of the pre-war Bangladeshis to support rape victims.
Published in 2012, the book Awakened from the Ashes: The 1971 Women's Narratives includes the oral testimony of women affected by the Liberation War. As well as the account of Taramon Bibi, who fought and was awarded the Protik Beer (Symbol of Valor) for his actions, there were nine interviews with women who were raped. The publication of books in English at the fortieth anniversary of the war was recorded in the New York Times as "an important oral history".
The 2014 movie Children of War is trying to catch this horror. The film by Mrityunjay Devvrat starring Farooq Sheikh, Victor Banerjee, Raima Sen, among others is meant to "send a thrill down the audience." We want to make it so disgusting that no one even entertains the thought of forgiving a rapist, let alone a committed crime.. "
See also
- Birangona
- Rape during the Bosnian War
Footnote
References
Bibliography
External links
- Case Study: Genocide in Bangladesh, 1971
- Report from the International Commission of Experts
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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