Chapter Three - Events in the Neighborhood
Amra hobo Taliban, Bangla hobe Afghan [we will be the Taliban, Bangladesh will become Afghanistan]
Islamic fundamentalist slogan in present-day Bangladesh
Although it is assumed that with the formation of Bangladesh in 1971, a nation-state based on the principles of “secularism,” “democracy,” “socialism,” and “Bengali nationalism” was established, a little known fact is that the first seed of Islamization was sown by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman himself—the man who was primarily responsible for the severance of the country from Pakistan and the principal architect of the state principles which founded the new nation. This, according to J.N. Dixit, a former Indian Foreign Secretary and pioneering envoy to the newly established state, was due to the Bangabandhu’s [89] apprehension that members of the Mukti Bahini [90] and the Mujibnagar Government [91] were becoming too powerful inside his regime and that he had to take steps to assert Bangladesh’s independent identity by distancing his country and himself from India. Dixit writes:
…a metamorphosis in the social and political scene of Bangladesh had occurred, first because of Mujib’s own lack of conviction about transforming his country into a genuine secular-democracy and, second, because he had consciously allowed re-induction of pro-Pakistani and anti-liberation elements into Bangladesh’s politics, civil services and armed forces. He adopted such a strategy in order to reduce the influence of political leaders and armed forces personnel who were actively involved in the freedom struggle. My assessment is that he hoped to ensure supreme power for himself by counter-balancing and playing of these two groups against each other in the domestic political processes…with the passage of time, Bangladesh became an Islamic republic. It must not be forgotten that the first step in the direction was taken by Mujib himself who attended the OIC [Organization of Islamic Countries] summit conference in Lahore in 1974. Whosoever came to power in Bangladesh had to fulfill two stipulations for surviving in power: first, that he or she should maintain a certain amount of distance from India and second, the person should confirm the Islamic identity of Bangladesh. [92]
Indeed, the Muslim identity of present-day Bangladesh was sought to be established way back in 1901 and 1947 when the British first divided Bengal and then the sub-continent on distinct Hindu-Muslim lines. [93] And although a sizeable Hindu population had continued to reside in East Bengal and consequently East Pakistan, Hindu migration to India was also continuing and had gradually increased as a result of the growing anti-Hindu feelings in the country after the partition. The phobia towards Hindus of the pre-partition days that had metamorphosed into Indophobia in 1947 (certain secular Bengali Muslims had expressed their opposition to the anti-Hindu rhetoric by seeking to proclaim Bengali nationalism, which had briefly gained in ground after the liberation of Bangladesh) continues to mark an average Bangladeshi’s perception of the other. The ruling Bangladeshi class had realized this soon after the formation of Bangladesh and consequently made successive attempts to project not only the anti-India stance of the country, but also its Islamic innards, which came to be the basis of anti-India rhetoric in the subcontinent.
Another theory that has been forwarded for the Islamization of Bangladesh is the failure of successive governments in the country, beginning with that of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Attributing the Islamization of the polity to the failure of Mujibism, a scholar writes:
The abysmal failure of Mujibism to alleviate poverty and restore law and order eventually led to the Islamization of the polity. The failure of the “welfare state” forced a large section of the underdogs to cling to Islam either as a means to escape from the harsh reality or to achieve their cherished Golden Bengal through piety, Islamic justice and egalitarianism. Without having substantial changes in the living condition—around 50 percent of the population still living below the poverty line—the tide of Globalization in the post-Cold War period has not reduced the Islamic fervor of the people. The obsolescence of socialism/communism as an alternative to “illiberal democracy” and autocracy in the Third World since the early 1990s and the sudden rise in the intensity of Islamic resurgence and “Islamic” terror globally in recent years have further intensified Islamism in Bangladesh. [94]
However, to keep to a description of the historical process, the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the military coup of August 1975, the process of Islamization of the fledgling state grew in magnitude and the military rulers of the post-Mujib era systematically purged the founding ideals one by one. And, therefore, even as Gen. Zia-ur-Rahman amended the constitution and replaced “socialism,” “secularism,” and “Bengali nationalism” with “social justice,” “absolute faith in God almighty,” and “Bangladeshi nationalism,” [95] he also had “In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful” inserted in Arabic in the preamble of the Constitution. [96] Lt. Gen. H.M. Ershad, who took over in March 1982, went a step further. Despite the fact that he was known as no puritan (he was notorious for his corruption and promiscuity [97] ), Ershad amended the Constitution in June 1988 and introduced Islam as the state religion. And, almost by default—as Ershad was never sincerely committed to Islam—Bangladesh was on the road to Islamism.
Noted Bangladesh observer and Eastern India British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Correspondent, Subir Bhaumik writes:
Both the country’s military rulers, Gen Zia-ur-Rahman and Hussein Mohammed Ershad, were not only instrumental in rehabilitating the pro-Pakistani fundamentalist parties and personalities in politics but were responsible for eliminating the heroes of the freedom struggle from positions of responsibility and power. Gholam Azam, the hated Naib Emir of the Jamaat-e-Islami, who had publicly opposed the liberation of Pakistan and joined the Pakistan army with his followers in the mass carnages in 1971, was allowed to return to Bangladesh. President Zia restored his citizenship and passport and he was permitted freedom of political activity. Now, President Zia-ur-Rahman was no Pakistani collaborator. He was one of Bangladesh’s great liberation war heroes, a sector commander of the liberation army, Mukti Bahini, and the first to formally appeal to all Bengalis to stand up to the Pakistani atrocities with weapons. But while Zia hanged such liberation war heroes like Col Abu Taher, the man who had helped him to come to power, he provided legitimacy to fundamentalists and pro-Pakistani collaborators like Gholam Azam. [98]
While Zia began to appease the anti-liberationists, Ershad—who had not even been in the liberation war—purged the senior echelons of Bangladesh life of all freedom fighters. Ershad replaced them with people who had served the Pakistan army in 1971 and had subsequently sought repatriation to the new-formed Bangladesh army, exercising the clause to opt-out, which was available to Bengali armed forces personnel after the liberation of East Pakistan. Indeed, almost all the new recruits into the Bangladesh army and the country’s premier intelligence agency, the Directorate General of Field Intelligence (DGFI), were drawn from the families of the rajakars and fundamentalist politicians. According to one report, the son of Gholam Azam too was inducted into the Bangladesh army and has reportedly risen to the rank of a Brigadier. [99]
Ershad, moreover, introduced prohibition [100] and the zakat. [101] He declared Friday as a weekly holiday. And when India constructed the Farakka barrage across the Ganga river, which flows into Bangladesh, Ershad invoked Islam in his anti-India rhetoric by stating “it is being said today that if we do not get water from Farakka the northern and southern regions of Bangladesh will turn into deserts. I want to remind everybody concerned that Islam was born in the desert, but Islam did not die. Islam could not be destroyed.” [102]
Although the intention of invoking Islam by the military rulers was to ensure the sustenance of power, the crescent ensemble was slowly making its way into the innards of Bangladeshi society. This was so despite the fact that Ershad was overthrown in December 1990 by the combined political forces of the Awami League, [103] the Bangladesh National Party, and interestingly, the Jamaat-e-Islami. [104]
The Islamic resurgence in Bangladesh can be said to have
begun with the resurfacing of the Jamaat-e-Islami. Indeed, as Subir Bhaumik
writes, the “revival of the Islamic fundamentalist forces in Bangladesh was
manifested in the re-emergence of the Jamaat-e-Islami as a small but well-knit
political party…the Jamaat and the Islamic Oikyo Jote have strong financial
backing of organizations such as the Rabitat al Islami of Saudi Arabia. With
such assured fund flows, these parties run a wide network of Madrassas (Islamic
schools), Ibnsena hospitals and Islamic banks covering the whole country.”
[105]
Because of its collaborative role in the Bangladesh liberation war, the Jamaat was able to return to legitimate politics only after the assassination of Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman in 1975, and as has been seen even joined hands with the pro-liberation Awami League in the movement against Ershad. Indeed, the anti-Ershad movement gave it legitimacy for the first time, and according to a prominent secular intellectual, the Jamaat’s position was further legitimized when the Awami League went into a tactical parley with the Jamaat to keep it away from the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) for electoral-tactical considerations before the 1996 elections. And, of course, the Jamaat allied with the BNP in the 2001 elections that defeated the Awami League. Therefore, whatever its role and alliances, the Jamaat is today in a position of reckoning and it has emerged as the third largest political party in Bangladesh.
The changing fortunes of the Jamaat-e-Islami in the political space of Bangladesh are interesting when the circumstances of its ostracization in the aftermath of the liberation war are considered. A scholar has vividly documented the anti-liberation agenda of the Jamaat.
The events leading up to the creation of Bangladesh had critical implications for the future of Islamic groups in East Bengali Muslim society. Not the least of these was the active involvement of staunchly pro-Pakistani Islamic groups within East Pakistan in the killing of large numbers of Bengali freedom fighters, particularly the intellectuals who were the guiding force behind the liberation struggle. Most actively involved in these killings was the Jamaat-e-Islami. Led by Gholam Azam, the Jamaat openly collaborated with the Pakistani forces in their attempt to crush the Bengali freedom movement. During the war itself, Gholam Azam shifted his base to West Pakistan, from where he directed his deputy, Abbas Ali Khan, to form the rajakars, the dreaded paramilitary outfit whose task was to identify and kill freedom fighters. A similar group, Al Badr was launched by the Islamic Chatra Shibir, the students’ wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami… [106]
Indeed, the return of the Jamaat to the land where they were once hated as anti-liberationists has had far reaching ramifications. It has signaled the revival of old linkages between Bangladesh and Pakistan and its bid to promote an anti-India stance has brought to the fore a fundamentalist agenda which is both anti-Hindu and anti-India.
The anti-Hindu movement was well in evidence since the partition of India and the formation of East Pakistan. A series of laws were enacted in Pakistan (and later on in Bangladesh) by which the Hindu community has been marginalized. An enumeration of the highpoints by which the marginalization took place will be appropriate at this juncture.
· The East Bengal Evacuees (Administration of Immovable Property) Act of 1951: Under the aegis of this act, the Hindus were allowed to take with them—on their movement to India—a negligible portion of their movable assets. Land and other immovable assets were administered under the act, which meant that the land that was left behind was taken over by the state. [107]
· During the 1965 Indo-Pak war, a law called the “The Defense of Pakistan Ordinance” was promulgated to “ensure the security, the public safety, interest and the defense of the state.” This was succeeded by a regulation, which was called “The Enemy (Custody and Registration) Order II of 1965.” Under the regulation, India was declared an enemy, and the regulation allowed “enemy” lands (which for all practical purposes were those of the Hindus) to be appropriated by the state. [108]
·
During the 1971 liberation war, the Hindus were considered to be the enemy,
a “fifth column” for India and were consequently mercilessly targeted. Indeed,
in a statement on 1 November 1971, US Senator Edward Kennedy wrote:
Field reports to the US Government, countless eye-witnesses, journalistic accounts, reports of international agencies such as the World Bank and additional information available to the subcommittee document the reign of terror which grips East Bengal (East Pakistan). Hardest hit have been members of the Hindu community who have been robbed of their lands and shops, systematically slaughtered, and in some cases, painted with yellow patches marked “H.” All of this has been officially sanctioned, ordered and implemented under the martial law from Islamabad. [109]
·
After the liberation of Bangladesh, a new law—the “Vested and Non-resident
Property Act” of 1974—was enacted whereby the properties left behind by the
Pakistanis and the erstwhile “enemy properties” were amalgamated, and although
the principal aim was to appropriate the Pakistani-owned properties as well
as properties which had belonged to the Hindus who had fled the country during
the liberation war, in practice the act was liberally used against the Hindu
community.
[110]
According to the US State Department Country Report on
Human Rights Practice, 4 March 2002, “approximately 2.5 million acres of
land were seized from Hindus and almost all of the 10 million Hindus in the
country were affected.”
However, the atrocities that were committed during the 1 Oct 2001 elections outdid all earlier manifestations. Indeed, a pogrom was engineered against the Hindu community in Bangladesh, primarily for three reasons. The most important reason was the elections of 2001 that brought the BNP-led four-party alliance into power. The Hindus have been traditionally thought of as supporters of the Awami League; in this instance supporters of the BNP, the Jamaat, and the Islamic Chatra Shibir wanted to express their ire for the support that the Hindus had shown for the League. Another reason for the pogrom is that it was deemed that attacks on Hindus would not only “counter” the “attacks on Muslims in India,” but would clearly state the new government’s anti-India stance. Indeed, in the aftermath of the attacks several protests were made in India. The third reason was that by attacking Hindus (considered to be the traditional rival of Muslims in the Indian sub-continent) the perpetrators were publicly exhibiting their Islamic color.
The pogrom was spread over fifty-seven of Bangladesh’s sixty-eight districts, and according to a report 613 cases of violence were witnessed against the Hindus. [111] Indeed, even a case of state complicity seems to be gaining ground, with the government denying any knowledge of such incidents in the beginning. Later, under pressure from the media and sundry other sections, it admitted the occurrence of some violence but only one police inspector was temporarily suspended for negligence of duty towards the minorities. As for the judiciary in the country—responding to a petition filed by the Ain O Salish Kendra (a human rights organization)—the Supreme Court of Bangladesh issued a rule nisi on the government to show cause as to why action should not be taken to protect the minorities. Writing about the atrocities on Hindus in 2001, scholars are of the opinion that although the traditional mode of grabbing land, house properties, shops and establishments and, in a word, wealth of any kind has remained the same, there has been some difference in the ways and means of committing it. Writing about the method, some scholars have opined:
The sole reason is not, however, political or economic. But a clear fomentation by the religious fundamentalists, according to a well chalked out blueprint. It is evident from the pattern of atrocities that religious cleansing of the Hindus is the primary goal. The underlying policy is jane maaris na ijjat maar (don’t kill them, rape their women) so that they are compelled to leave Bangladesh gradually and slowly out of mental agony. There will be adverse reaction and India may not view it lightly if they are driven out in one go and the progressive elements in Bangladesh, [112] though small in number might try to resist it. [113]
In its December 2001 report on the atrocities committed against Hindus in Bangladesh, Amnesty International provided the following information:
The current wave of attacks against the Hindu community in Bangladesh began before the general elections of 1 October 2001 when Hindus were reportedly threatened by members of the BNP-led alliance not to vote, since their vote would be cast for the Awami League. The backlash after the elections was systematic and severe…
Human rights organizations in Bangladesh believe over 100 women may have been subjected to rape. Reports persistently allege that the perpetrators have been mainly members of the BNP or its coalition partner Jamaat-e-Islami…
A college student was reportedly raped in front of her mother at her home in Azimnagar, Bhanga, Faridpur. The attackers reportedly entered her home on 6 October at about 9 PM, ransacked the house, looted valuables and raped the student before leaving the house…A schoolgirl was reportedly gang-raped in Delua, Ullapara, Sirajganj on 8 October. Attackers entered her home, ill-treated members of her family, took her outside and raped her…
Two Hindu women were reportedly raped in front of their husbands on 11 October in Khanzapur Upazila in Gournadi, Barisal. The attackers reportedly came at night, knocked on the door and told the family that they should leave the area because they had voted for the Awami League. Then they reportedly tied up the husbands and raped the women…
The killing of prominent members of the Hindu community appears to be connected to the current wave of attacks on Hindus. On 16 November, Gopal Krishna Muhuri, Principal of Nazirhat College in Chittagong, was shot dead at his home…police reportedly arrested at least two teachers and colleagues of Gopal Krishna Muhuri on 17 November in connection with his murder. They were allegedly linked to Jamaat-e-Islami, a party in the coalition government… [114]
The secular space of Bangladesh was compromised in other ways as well. The arrests of progressive elements, such as the moderate journalist Shahriyar Kabir and teacher-activist Professor Muntassir Mamoons, for documenting and speaking out against the atrocities committed on the Hindus were preceded by a fatwa (Islamic edict) against Taslima Nasreen, a Bangladeshi physician, columnist and author. [115] A price of five thousand dollars was put on her head by Bangladesh’s “holy men” after she wrote a novel Lajja [Shame] which was based on the plight of Hindus in Bangladesh. Under pressure from the fundamentalists, even the government brought criminal charges against her for defaming the Muslim faith. Thousands of people demonstrated daily demanding her death. Nasreen fled Bangladesh and sought refuge in Sweden. Today she lives a life of exile in France.
Her syndicated newspaper column had sought to draw the public’s attention to the atrocities that are committed against women in Bangladesh. One such column spoke of the execution of a twenty-one-year-old woman in 1993 at the behest of the local mullah who had declared her second marriage a violation of the Islamic laws. As punishment, the mullah gathered the villagers and—burying the young woman waist deep in a pit—exhorted the gathering to stone her to death. Nasreen’s interview to the New Yorker of 12 September 1994 makes poignant reading:
Why shouldn’t I write about what I’ve seen? I’m a doctor, remember! Do you know what’s it like to see a woman crying out in the delivery room when she gives birth to a girl, terrified that her husband will divorce her? To see the ruptured vaginas of women who’ve been raped? The six-and-seven year olds who have been violated by their fathers, brothers and uncles—by their own families? No, I will not keep quiet. I will continue to speak out about these women’s wretched lives. [116]
Awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1994, Nasreen says in the interview that “if the progressive forces in our country don’t unite, if they don’t stand up to the fundamentalists, then there’s no question the fundamentalists will have won.”
Indeed, fundamentalism seems to have won the first round in Bangladesh. And, the Sipahis (soldiers) of Allah—the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami of Bangladesh (HUJI-B)—are arraying themselves to foist Nizam-e-Mustafa—or Islamic rule—in the erstwhile East Pakistan.
The HUJI-B was formed in 1992 with the active aid of Osama Bin Laden and is headed by Shawkat Osman, alias Maulana Farid, of Chittagong. According to the US State Department, the HUJI-B has “at least six camps in Bangladesh.” [117] Quite like the Jamaat-e-Islami and its militant students’ wing, the Islamic Chatra Shibir, the HUJI-B’s primary base is the southeastern part of Bangladesh and includes the border with Myanmar. The outfit also calls themselves the “Bangladeshi Taliban.” [118] Writing about the genesis of the HUJI-B, Subir Bhaumik states:
This writer has always argued that without a favorable overground support base, no underground organization can survive for long. The Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami was founded by some of the Bangladeshi volunteers or Mujahideen just after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Initially it functioned as a wing of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami-al-Alami, which was formed in 1980 to drive out the Soviets from Afghanistan. The Bangladeshi Mujahideens functioned under the parent body until the Soviets left Afghanistan. Thirty-four Bangladeshi Mujahideens died in the war against the Soviets—one of them, Abdur Rehman Farooqui, who is widely believed by Indian and Bangladeshi intelligence as the founder of the Bangladesh wing of the HUJI as a separate entity from the Pakistani HUJI created by Qari Saifullah. Presently, the HUJI in Bangladesh is headed by Maulana Farid…This writer had the unique opportunity to know one of the Maulanas who run the HUJI. In the interest of protecting his identity as a prized one, it will not be possible to disclose his name and location or even his position within the organization. The overbearing attitude of the Afghans and the Arab Mujahideen and their “racist attitude” towards their Bangladeshi co-religionists fighting shoulder to shoulder had upset this Maulana and that had made him open to me. I have known his family for years. As the Soviets were withdrawing from Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden is said to have called Farid and Farooqui and advised them to go back and create a Dar-ul-Islam in Bangladesh. My friend (and source) was present at this meeting. Osama is said to have told the Bangladeshi Maulanas that though largely a Muslim country, “your Muslims are not practicing Islam in the true spirit and need to change…” [119]
Indeed, the Osama links were cemented in 23 February 1998 when Fazlul Rahman, leader of the “Jihad Movement in Bangladesh” of which HUJI-B is a party, signed the official declaration of jihad against the United States. The other signatories to the declaration included Ayman-al-Zawahiri, the leader of the Jihad group in Egypt; Abu Yasir of the Egyptian Islamic Group; Sheikh Mir Hamzah, Secretary of the Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Pakistan; and bin Laden himself. [120]
The HUJI-B of the early nineties had not, however, bared its fangs. Unfettered by the first Khaleda Zia government, it sought to work quietly, expanding its recruitment base and armory. Indeed, it was only in 1996—and with the coming to power of the Awami League and Sheikh Hasina—that the HUJI-B came into its own. The author had earlier documented the anti-Sheikh Hasina operations of the HUJI-B in his book Contours and a paper in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. [121] Relevant portions are reproduced here:
But to be fair to the Bangabandhu’s (Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman) daughter, it must be said that she can do pithy little in the face of the Islamic resurgence, which is threatening her re-election in 2001. And she did say so—although in not so many words—during the course of a BBC interview on July 28, 2000. Sounding a grim warning to her countrymen over the perils they faced from right-wing Islamic fundamentalists, Sheikh Hasina’s statement also pertained to the discovery of 76 kilograms of explosives at the site of her public address at Gopalganj districts’ kotalipara on July 24, 2000…who was responsible for engineering the attempt? According to the Superintendent of Police, Gopalganj, Md Jashimuddin, a Mufti Abdul Hannan masterminded the July plot. Hannan had allegedly received training in Peshawar and had reportedly even fought in the Afghan war. He is a member of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami’s Central Committee and is the group’s Amir of the Gopalganj unit. He belongs to a family of rajakars or Pakistani collaborators and his uncle Munshi Sher Ali was killed by the freedom fighters after the liberation of Bangladesh. Hannan returned to Bangladesh after two years in Afghanistan and was thereafter engaging students in myriad Madrassas in the use of fire arms and in the manufacturing of explosives devices… [122]
The HUJI-B was bent on assassinating Sheikh Hasina because she was considered to be not only a person of secular credentials but also one who was soft on India. Indeed, the Awami League government had taken a series of steps to bring about normalcy between Bangladesh and India. Long festering disputes like water sharing and the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) problem were sought to be resolved. [123] The Awami League government was also making serious attempts to address India’s concerns about North East Indian militants using Bangladesh. Moreover, railway links that were disrupted since the Indo-Pak War of 1965 were restored, and a new direct bus between Dhaka and Calcutta was also started.
But the HUJI-B’s subterfuges (with the active aid of the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, and fundamentalists in the DGFI, the Bangladesh intelligence agency) continued to dog Sheikh Hasina’s rule, and it was becoming quite clear that the HUJI-B, the ISI and other fundamentalists were bent on seeing her defeat.
Subir Bhaumik has written about the conspiracy to assassinate Sheikh Hasina in a revealing manner:
Western and Indian intelligence claim to have unearthed a plot by former Bangla military officers—involved in the coup of 1975—to assassinate Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed…On 7 March this year, retired Colonel Khondakar Abdur Rashid, seven of his comrades-in-arms in the 1975 coup as well as a Pakistani intelligence officer, reportedly met at Breda, 60 miles from Amsterdam. The venue was a restaurant owned by A.K. Mohiuddin, an absconding accused in the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman assassination case. The would-be assassins have apparently been quite dogged in the pursuit of their objective, as the following list of their efforts testify. Two years ago, they tried to hijack a Bangladesh Biman aircraft from Kolkata. When that attempt foiled, they tried to hire a LTTE [124] suicide squad to assassinate Sheikh Hasina, Mujib’s surviving daughter. Sources in Bangladesh National Security and Intelligence (NSI) reveal that the deal with the LTTE fell through when Rashid failed to transfer the promised 10 million US $ to a LTTE front in time. Thereafter, a bombing attempt against Sheikh Hasina at Kotalipara in her Gopalganj constituency was planned, but failed when police discovered 76 kg of explosives barely 300 yards from the podium where the prime minister was to address a rally…It is believed that the Breda meeting was intended to revive the plot. A Colonel of the Pakistan’s ISI, Shoiab Nasir, who attended the meeting reported back to his boss, Brigadier Riaz, Deputy Director General (Operations) and their telephone conversation was intercepted by Dutch intelligence. The Israeli Mossad and the Indian R&AW have major operations in Holland to monitor the activities of West Asian and Kashmiri as well as North East rebel groups, which come to attend the meetings of Unrepresented Nations and People’s Organization (UNPO) based there. [125]
According to one source, it was the Freedom Party of Bangladesh (headed by the coup leaders of 1975 who assassinated Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman) that had initially sought to utilize the services of the LTTE suicide squad. [126] Sheikh Hasina’s determined pursuance of the trial of her father’s assassins had brought about the urgency in the Freedom Party and it had joined hands with the HUJI-B in their resolve. Indeed, it was the Freedom Party that had first raised the slogan Amra hobo Taliban, Bangla Hobe Afghan (we will be the Taliban, Bangladesh will become Afghanistan) and had also sought to hijack the Bangladesh Biman aircraft (that Bhaumik refers to above) in order to secure the release of their comrades, Col. Farooq Rahman and Maj. Bazlul Huda.
The events of 11 September 2001 and the US “war on terror” redefined the role of the fundamentalists in Bangladesh. Whereas ethnic militant organizations in South Asia such as the LTTE, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, and to some extent the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) were showing caution in the aftermath of the events of 11 September, the Islamic militants were getting more active. Recruits from the Madrassas were plenty and the US-led coalition against Afghanistan was uniting the Islamic hordes. And even as another Islamic militant organization, the Lashkar-e-Toiba, stormed the Indian Parliament on 13 December 2001, the HUJI-B was planning their attack on the United States Information Service in Calcutta. Indeed, on 22 January suspected militants of the HUJI-B shot policemen on duty in front of the US facility in Calcutta.
In the aftermath of the events of 11 September 2001 and the US-led attack on Afghanistan, Islamic militant groups in Bangladesh took out protest marches against the United States and publicly burnt the US flag. Writing about the events, Bertil Lintner of the Far Eastern Economic Review states:
For example, Maulana Ubaidul Haq, preaching to hundreds of thousands of people, including cabinet ministers, at the national mosque in Dhaka, condemned the US war on terrorism and called for a jihad against the Americans. “President Bush and America is the most heinous terrorist in the world. Both Americans and Bush must be destroyed. The Americans will be washed away if Bangladesh’s 120 million Muslims spit on them,” the cleric snarled in an address marking the Eid-ul-Fitr Muslim festival in December (2001). [127]
The Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) was banned in Bangladesh and Bertil Lintner was pilloried for his writing. It seemed as if the legacy that had begun with the banning of Taslima Nasreen’s book Lajja was continuing. Truth—or at least free speech—was being trampled upon in Bangladesh of the day.
Nevertheless, facts have a way of getting out, and another bombshell came by way of a Time magazine article six months after the Far Eastern Economic Review story had surfaced. The story “Deadly Cargo,” with a Chittagong dateline, was written by Alex Perry and contained information about the presence of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Bangladesh. [128] Written in a laid back narrative style, Perry’s article began by stating that “signs abound that Bangladesh has become a safe haven for Islamic jihadis—including Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters fresh off the boat from Afghanistan.” [129] Excerpts of the article are provided below:
The Mecca had the usual rusted rigging and smoke-blackened stern. And the crew too was like most others working off Chittagong: pure Rohingyas—stocky Muslim refugees from western Burma. Only the thick salt marks on the Mecca’s bow hinted that it was ending a voyage longer than most fishing trips. But this was Chittagong, South Asia’s premier hub for pirates, gunrunners and smugglers…For nine months the exact nature of the Mecca’s cargo or the shipments’ eventual destination remained unknown. But there were clues. Port workers that night said they saw five motor launches ferry in large groups of men from the boat wearing black turbans, long beards and traditional Islamic salwar kameez. Their towering height suggested these travelers were foreigners, and the boxes of ammunition and the AK-47s slung across their shoulders helped sketch a sinister picture. Then in July, a senior member of Bangladesh’s largest terrorist group, the 2000-strong al-Qaeda-allied Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), told Time the 150 men who entered Bangladesh that night were Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters from Afghanistan. Three senior Bangladeshi military sources also confirmed this was the case…Indeed, one Bangladeshi newspaper last month even quoted an unnamed foreign embassy in Dhaka as saying Osama bin Laden’s No. 2, Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, had been hiding out in the country for months after arriving in Chittagong (last week, in an audio message that authorities have tentatively authenticated, al-Zawahiri warned of further attacks against the US vowing that it will not go “unpunished for its crimes”)…The HUJI source and the portworkers who saw the Mecca arrive claim that the man who greeted the new arrivals was a major in the DGFI. The major checked the visitors in by name and led them to a fleet of SUVs lined up on the docks, add the portworkers. A spokesman for the DGFI denied knowing that members of al-Qaeda had ever set foot in Bangladesh. He even denied that the major existed, although diplomatic registration records show the officer is a long-standing member of the service and was stationed in Calcutta in the mid-1990s… [130]
Alex Perry’s article also spoke of the arrest of four Yemenis, an Algerian, a Libyan and a Sudanese in Bangladesh’s Uttara district on 24 September 2002. The men, Abu Nujaid of Libya, Sadek Al Nassami, Abu Sallam, Abu Umaiya and Abul Abbas of Yemen, Abul Ashem of Algeria; and Hassan Adam of Sudan were reportedly involved in arms training at a Madrassa in Dhaka which was being run by Al Haramain, a Saudi Charitable organization. According to Perry, Indonesia’s al-Qaeda “super snitch” Omar-al-Faruq told the US Central Intelligence Agency that Al Haramain was the foundation that was being used by bin Laden to funnel money to him from the Middle East.
The Bangladeshi presence in the al-Qaeda network has been corroborated by other sources as well. In a televised interview to CNN in December 2001, “American Taliban” fighter John Walker Lindh spoke about the linguistic divisions of the al-Qaeda directed ansar (Helpers of the Prophet Muhammad) brigades, which were Bengali, Urdu, and Arabic—a revelation that is suggestive of the fact that the Bangladeshi contingent in al-Qaeda was considerable.
Holding forth on the safe haven that Bangladesh was becoming to Muslim militants from the continent, Perry writes thus:
Today, southern Bangladesh has become a haven for hundreds of jihadis on the lam. They find natural allies in Muslim guerrillas from India hiding out across the border, and in Muslim Rohingyas, tens of thousands of whom fled the ethnic and religious suppression of the Burmese junta in the late 1970s and 1980s. Many Rohingyas are long-term refugees, but some are trained to cause trouble back home in camps tolerated by a succession of Bangladeshi governments. The original facilities date back to 1975, making them Asia’s oldest jihadi camps. And one former Burmese guerilla who visits the camps regularly describes three near Ukhia, south of the town of Cox’s Bazar, as able to accommodate a force of 2,500 between them. The biggest, he claims, has 26 interconnected bunkers complete with kitchens, lecture halls, telephones and televisions concealed beneath a three-meter high false forest floor that stretches between two hills. Weapons available for training there include AK-47s, heavy machine guns, rifles, pistols, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. Mantraps and mines, which can be triggered by spotters hiding in tree houses, protect approaches to the camps… [131]
Indeed, the controversy that surrounded the reports published by Lintner and Perry has been disquieting, with even unbiased observers terming the write-ups as “hatchet jobs.” Even US diplomats stationed in Bangladesh have reportedly stated that the reports were not true, and one senior US diplomat stationed in India told this author that the similarity of reports by Lintner and Perry can be attributed to a circularity of reporting—one writer simply borrowed another’s sources.
This author—during the course of his research—wrote to Bertil Lintner and sought an exclusive interview for the Occasional Paper with the writer on the matter. [132] The interview is reproduced below:
Q. How are you reacting to the criticism that your assessment of the “Islamic resurgence” is not correct and that it may even be motivated by vested interests including a reported close proximity to Indian intelligence agencies?
A. When critics say “vested interests” they usually mean the opposition Awami League. We even got a letter to FEER from someone in Bangladesh claiming that I had been “driven around in Dhaka in Sheikh Hasina’s private car.” This is absolute nonsense. I went around Dhaka in what’s called “baby taxis,” or, in India, auto rickshaws. Or, I walked. I have never met Sheikh Hasina, or any other leader of the Awami League. But when I came back to Thailand, I faxed a list of identical questions to the Awami League and the BNP because I wanted to have some kind of official response to my findings. Neither party replied to my faxes. And no Indian, or other, intelligence agency ever helped me obtain any information about the situation in Bangladesh. These unfounded allegations are libelous and I would not hesitate to sue anyone—and that includes the Bangladesh government and papers such as Holiday claiming that I have been “motivated by vested interests.” I am a professional journalist and I am proud of it.
Q. What are your sources of information in Bangladesh and outside the country on which you base your reports/papers?
A. I first visited Bangladesh in 1978, and I have been back to the country many times since then. My main point of interest has always been the Burmese border, or the area south of Chittagong, and I have observed the changes that have taken place there since my first visit to Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar and Teknaf in 1984. I have sources in that area, and I have more trust in them than in western diplomats in Dhaka who live isolated lives in Gulshan, Banani and other “diplomatic enclaves” in the capital. “Capsules” would be a better way to describe those enclaves.
[Bertil Lintner sent the author another email on the matter of his sources after he sent his first interview]