Dr. Ali Al-Ghamdi

 

BANGLADESH’S International Crimes Tribunal recently found British investigative journalist David Bergman guilty of contempt of court charges for making derogatory remarks about the tribunal and for questioning the official death toll of three million people in the country’s 1971 War of Liberation. The court also fined Bergman Taka 5,000 (US$65) and said that failure to pay would lead to seven days in prison.



Bergman, who is currently working for Bangladesh’s New Age newspaper, has been in the country for more than one decade. The tribunal itself did not bring the accusation against Bergman. It is quite strange that the proceedings were initiated in the form of a petition by a third party - Abul Kalam Azad, a High Court lawyer. He accused Bergman of showing disrespect to the tribunal by raising a question about the number of casualties that occurred during the War of Liberation.



The lawyer argued that nobody has the right to raise any doubts about the official death toll in the war. It is not clear whether this toll includes all parties involved in the civil war that lasted for nine months. One party in the war was the Pakistan Army and those who stood by it against the secession of East Pakistan while the second party was Mukti Bahini, the militia of the Awami League party, and the Indian supporters of secession.



I don’t want to go into the details of Bergman’s trial, which was an unfortunate event. On the other hand, I want to analyze an article written by another British journalist Lawrence Lifschultz. The main purpose of his article was to defend Bergman in addition to revealing some other facts that were similar to the views expressed by Bergman. He also cited that the tribunal judges were issuing their unusual verdict on an historical dispute. He questioned how this could be considered contempt of court. Lifschultz noted that Bergman had questioned the accuracy and indisputable character of a statistic that had been cited by the tribunal.



Lifschultz said: "The petitioner in this case, Abdul Kalam Azad, is a third party. He is the type of a man who gives nationalism a bad name. Nationalism, as a singular ideology, is a two-edged sword. In the context of an oppressed nationality seeking to overcome colonial rule or foreign occupation, nationalism can play a powerful and progressive role.  But in other circumstances it can become the breeding ground for bigotry and narrow ideological dogmatism. In the case of Bosnia in the early 1990s, for example, Serb nationalism became genocidal and led to the brutal 'ethnic cleansing' of Bosniak—largely Muslim—and Croatian—largely Catholic—populations, of a country with a long historical tradition of multi-ethnic tolerance and peaceful co-existence among its diverse communities."



Then, Lifschultz dealt with the history of Bangladesh’s struggle for liberation, by saying that it represented an example of a “progressive” nationalism. “It is one of the clearest and most courageous examples in modern history of a democratic movement pursuing every non-violent option, including winning a national election, in order to overcome the trap of underdevelopment and regional inequality that were an integral part of the very structure of Pakistan’s military dictatorship. The dictatorship would not yield to the results of a democratic vote. On 25 March 1971, the Pakistan Army opted for mass murder instead and from that moment Bangladesh’s War of Liberation began," he pointed out and then, he asked: "What does this historical background have to do with David Bergman’s trial for contempt?"



I regret that Lifschultz did not mention anything about the tribunal that convicted Bergman as well as whether he considered it to be international or national. How can we call it an international tribunal when it has so far not allowed any foreign lawyers who are specialized in war crimes to attend any of its proceedings? He also did not draw attention to the criticism leveled against the tribunal by international human rights organizations which say that the tribunal fails to meet even basic international criteria.



Lifschultz's article also says nothing about the fate of the collaborators of the Pakistan Army during the four-year rule of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and why Sheikh Mujib did not put them on trial? He also did not mention what happened to the War Crimes Tribunal constituted by the government of Sheikh Mujib to try 195 Pakistani troops. Later, even those soldiers were pardoned following negotiations among Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. He also did not mention the famous saying of Sheikh Mujib while giving amnesty to the Pakistani soldiers: “Let the world know how Bengalis can forgive.” Lifschultz also failed to mention the ordeal of Bihari Muslims who migrated to East Pakistan from the Indian state of Bihar and who were subjected to killing, looting and displacement simply because they stood by the unity of Pakistan. They are still languishing in squalid camps in 60 different locations in Bangladesh.



However, Lifschultz's article does shed light on some facts that show that the tribunal considered the petition of Azad based on the concept of negative nationalism. I will deal with such issues in my next article.  

 

— Dr. Ali Al-Ghamdi is a former Saudi diplomat who specializes in Southeast Asian affairs. He can be reached at algham@hotmail.com