[Genocide/1971] Irfan Husain: "It's Ok To Say Sorry"

It's Ok To Say Sorry

Irfan Husain
Courtesy: Dawn, September 23, 2000
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/mazdak/20000923.htm

AT the Liberation War Museum in Dhaka last week, thirty-year old press cuttings and photographs of slaughter and mayhem brought back a flood of depressing memories.

Ever since the Hamoodur Rahman Commission's supplementary report emerged a few weeks ago, our newspapers have been full of articles and letters about it. Retired generals and their supporters have defended themselves, and respected columnists have written of length about the report. The focus of the debate has so far been largely on the conduct (or misconduct) of the 1971 war, the timing of the appearance of the secret document, the guilt or innocence of those directly involved in the operations, and the political dimension of the conflict.

The controversy was given a new twist by General Musharraf's recent refusal to meet the Bangladesh prime minister in New York. At a press conference, he urged her to "forget the past" and move on. This did not go down very well in Bangladesh where many people at the conference I had gone to read a paper at wanted to know why our Chief Executive was so touchy about Sheikh Hasina's proposal that the UN should oppose and punish those who toppled elected governments. After all, her father and much of her family were murdered by elements of the Bangladesh army, so her vehemence and bitterness are understandable. Far from targeting General Musharraf, she was sending out a signal to her own generals to stay in the barracks. Indeed, she has often condemned military takeovers in public speeches in her country.

But in all this plethora of opinions, arguments and counter-arguments, it is difficult to discern any remorse or regret over the horrors inflicted on hundreds of thousands of men, women and children in the name of Pakistan. Nor have we expressed any sympathy for the families of those who were raped, wounded and killed. We have been far more concerned about the humiliation suffered by the Pakistan army and the dereliction of duty by senior officers identified in the HRC report. The heated controversy in the press is largely over whether the generals blamed by the Commission for misdemeanours ranging from cowardice to smuggling to sexual abuse should be tried or not. Not much has been said or written about those who were the targets of these excesses.

Another irony in this ongoing debate is that many army officers and civilians have put the whole blame for the tragedy on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, arguing that he had persuaded General Yahya to launch his suicidal adventure in March 1971. The second point this lobby makes is that the terms of reference given to the Commission after Bhutto assumed power were limited to only the military causes of the defeat, omitting the political reasons.

These people disingenuously overlook the fact that the generals were then in power and had their own agenda: they took advice from politicians only to the extent that it suited them. If they took bad advice, this surely does not excuse them or lessen their guilt in any way. Also, even if Bhutto somehow worked his magic on Yahya's junta, he was not commanding the troops, nor did he organize the bloodbath that was universally seen as genocide. I hold no brief for the late prime minister, but the fact remains that he paid a price for his real and alleged crimes that no politician or general in Pakistan has paid before or since.

Incidentally, I would like to put at rest a canard that has been doing the rounds in the columns of the national press, and that is that Bhutto had destroyed or doctored the HRC report. The main report is a bulky document in six or seven volumes containing the testimony of the civilian and military officers before the Commission, as well as many documents that were placed before it. I was a young deputy secretary in the prime minister's secretariat in the latter part of Bhutto's tenure, and my late (and much missed) boss Hamid Jalal was one of the handful of people who were given sets of the HRC report to study and advise the PM. Although he kept the document under lock and key and did not let me even peek at it, he did tell me that he was one of those who advised against releasing it as he felt the report would further demoralize our defeated army, apart from affecting our ties with some friendly countries. I disagreed with him then as I do now because I feel the truth may hurt initially, but is beneficial in the long run. Be that as it may, I can confirm that Hamid Jalal's set of the HRC report was recalled several weeks after Zia's coup.

Had Bengali troops carried out a similar carnage in West Pakistan, I wonder how many of us would have been prepared to "forgive and forget" as General Musharraf has advised the Bangladesh prime minister to do? I would like to remind him that crimes against humanity are not subject to any statute of limitation. To this day, octogenarians are tried when they are caught for their part in the Nazi horror. Pol Pot and his murderous Khmer Rouge were held accountable for their part in creating the killing fields of Cambodia. The South Africans established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to probe the crimes against blacks committed under apartheid. The Japanese have apologized (though not very profusely) to the Koreans and the Chinese for their invasion of these nations, and the crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese Army.

I know this is not a very popular view in Pakistan, but ever since stories of the horrors perpetrated against Bengalis began filtering out thirty years ago, I have felt anguish and guilt. Many of us who were old enough in those traumatic days chose to ascribe the reports of mass killings, widespread rape and destruction to Indian and western propaganda. Largely, people clung to this view because they did not want to believe that our army could be capable of such actions. But ex-colleagues returning from what was then East Pakistan confirmed that a bloodbath was indeed going on.

In an attempt to reduce our responsibility in the whole tragic affair, many people admit that our army did commit some excesses, but maintain that it was provoked by the torture and killings carried out by the Mukti Bahini against West Pakistani civilians. The HRC report has also mentioned this, thus partly condoning army action. I have always been of the view that the army is a trained and disciplined force, whereas armed civilian groups like the Mukti Bahini (or indeed the MQM) have neither the discipline and the firepower, nor the moral authority to be equated with the military. Criminal action by armed groups cannot and should not be used as a pretext for over-reaction by the legally constituted armed forces.

On my brief visit to Dhaka last week, I was struck by how fresh the scars of 1971 still are. People were bitter and angry over the refusal of successive governments in Pakistan to even discuss the possibility of trying army officers for the alleged crimes committed against the Bengalis three decades ago. Even the equitable division of assets is not open to negotiations by Pakistan. When we are in this constant state of denial, it is difficult to bring up the subject of national guilt or indeed have a rational debate on this painful subject.

But we can only put the past behind us by bringing out the skeletons from the cupboards where they have been stacked all these years. Simply putting the blame on Bhutto and/or the Bengalis is to refuse to accept and understand what really happened. People like General 'Tiger' Niazi have demanded a court martial to clear their names. These offers should be immediately accepted and an open trial under military law should be started as recommended by the HRC.

Even before this, we can make a new beginning in our relations with Bangladesh by saying we are sorry for what happened.

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