On March 11, the Jatiya Sangsad (parliament) unanimously adopted a resolution to observe March 25 as the "Gonohotya Dibos" (Day of Genocide. Subsequently the cabinet division in a meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair, unanimously endorsed the decision on March 20.
Later, a gazette notification was also published in this regard on March 21.
President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina issued messages on the eve of the "Genocide Day".
In his message, the President said the genocide carried out by Pakistani occupational forces on March 25 is a brutal and grievous incident in the history of Bengali nation.
their local collaborators including Rajakar, Al Badr and Al Shams carried out atrocities. The atrocities that started on the black night on March 25 continued for nine months, she said. She said as many as 30 lakh people were killed and two lakh women were raped.
Bangladesh government has drawn various programmes to mark the day with due respect.
The gendercide against Bengali
It all started with Operation Searchlight, a planned military pacification carried out by the Pakistan Army started on 25 March, 1971 to curb the Bengali nationalist movement by taking control of the major cities on March 26, and then eliminating all opposition, political or military, within one month. Before the beginning of the operation, all foreign journalists were systematically deported from Bangladesh. The main phase of Operation Searchlight ended with the fall of the last major town in Bengali hands in mid May.
According to New York Times (3/28/71) 10,000 people were killed; New York Times (3/29/71) 5,000-7,000 people were killed in Dhaka; The Sydney Morning Herald (3/29/71) 10,000 – 100,000 were killed; New York Times (4/1/71) 35,000 were killed in Dhaka during operation searchlight.
The operation also began the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities. These systematic killings served only to enrage the Bengalis, which ultimately resulted in the secession of East Pakistan later in December, 1971. The international media and reference books in English have published casualty figures which vary greatly; 200,000–3,000,000 for Bangladesh as a whole.
There is only one word for this: Genocide.
GENOCIDE IN BANGLADESH, 1971
SUMMARY
The mass killings in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) in 1971 vie with the annihilation of the Soviet POWs, the holocaust against the Jews, and the genocide in Rwanda as the most concentrated act of genocide in the twentieth century. In an attempt to crush forces seeking independence for East Pakistan, the West Pakistani military regime unleashed a systematic campaign of mass murder which aimed at killing millions of Bengalis, and likely succeeded in doing so.
THE BACKGROUND
East and West Pakistan were forged in the cauldron of independence for the Indian sub-continent, ruled for two hundred years by the British. Despite the attempts of Mahatma Gandhi and others to prevent division along religious and ethnic lines, the departing British and various Indian politicians pressed for the creation of two states, one Hindu-dominated (India), the other Muslim-dominated (Pakistan). The partition of India in 1947 was one of the great tragedies of the century. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in sectarian violence and military clashes, as Hindus fled to India and Muslims to Pakistan -- though large minorities remained in each country.
THE ARRANGEMENT
On February 22, 1971 the generals in West Pakistan took a decision to crush the Awami League and its supporters. It was recognized from the first that a campaign of genocide would be necessary to eradicate the threat: "Kill three million of them," said President Yahya Khan at the February conference, "and the rest will eat out of our hands." (Robert Payne, Massacre [1972], p. 50.) On March 25 the genocide was launched. The university in Dacca was attacked and students exterminated in their hundreds. Death squads roamed the streets of Dacca, killing some 7,000 people in a single night. It was only the beginning. "Within a week, half the population of Dacca had fled, and at least 30,000 people had been killed. Chittagong, too, had lost half its population. All over East Pakistan people were taking flight, and it was estimated that in April some thirty million people [!] were wandering helplessly across East Pakistan to escape the grasp of the military." (Payne, Massacre, p. 48.) Ten million refugees fled to India, overwhelming that country's resources and spurring the eventual Indian military intervention. (The population of Bangladesh/East Pakistan at the outbreak of the genocide was about 75 million.)
7 MARCH SPEECH OF BANGABANDHU
Event Name : The Speech of The Declaration
Date :7th March 1971, Monday
Place:Ramna Racecourse, Dhaka
In Front Of More Than 2 Million People
Bangabandhu and the six point audacity of hope
The 1965 Indo-Pak War came as an eye-opener for the Bangalees. During the War, East Bengal became completely isolated from the rest of the world.
East Pakistanis were left to their fate, without military defence and security, while the Pakistani rulers kept themselves busy in defending the West Pakistani frontiers. In this backdrop, soon after the end of the War, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman raised the historic 6-point demand, a charter for the economic emancipation from the exploitative Pakistani colonial state-system. The six points were as follows:
Point 1: Pakistan shall be a Federal State. There shall be a parliamentary government formed by a legislature elected on the basis of universal adult franchise.
Point 2: The federating units or the provinces shall deal with all affairs except foreign relations and defence.
Point 3: There shall be two separate but easily convertible currencies for the two wings of Pakistan. Or alternatively, there may by a single currency with the provision that the Federal Bank shall take adequate measures to stop the siphoning off from East Pakistan to West Pakistan.
Point 4: The federating units or provinces shall reserve the rights to levy taxes. The central government, of course, shall have some share of the tax proceeds.
Point 5: Separate accounts shall be maintained for the foreign exchange earnings of the two wings. The foreign exchange earned from foreign trade shall be under the control of the respective wings. The federating units shall be independent in conducting trades with foreign countries.
Point 6: The federating provinces shall be able to raise para-militia or para-military forces for their own defences.
No sooner had the 6-point programme been published than Ayub Khan declared it ‘secessionist’ and styled its author Bangabandhu as the enemy number one of Pakistan. Ayub also threatened to use brute force to suppress this charter of demands. But Awami League and its leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman remained undaunted by such threats. Bangabandhu started a 3-month long mass-contact programme which took him to every nook and corner of Bangladesh. Mujib was arrested eight times in the first three months of the 6-point movement. By then, Bangabandhu had become the President of Awami League. He was finally thrown into jail on May 8, 1966, a general strike was observed all over East Pakistan in support of the 6-point programme and for the release of Mujib. Police fired in Tejgaon, Tongi and Narayanganj killing 13 people. This was followed by large-scale arrests of the leaders and followers of Awami League throughout the country. All these measures taken by the Ayub regime proved counter-productive. 6-point programme became the heartfelt demand of the common masses. Students put forward their 11-point programme which complemented the 6-point charter of demands. Thus the political situation in East Pakistan became extremely volatile: the stage was set for a great explosion of popular anger through an all-out mass-movement against the Ayub rule.
On April 10, the surviving leadership of the Awami League declared Bangladesh independent. The Mukhta Bahini (liberation forces) were mobilized to confront the West Pakistani army. They did so with increasing skill and effectiveness, utilizing their knowledge of the terrain and ability to blend with the civilian population in classic guerrilla fashion. By the end of the war, the tide had turned, and vast areas of Bangladesh had been liberated by the popular resistance.
THE GENDERCIDE AGAINST BENGALI MEN
ATROCITIES AGAINST BENGALI WOMEN
HOW MANY DIED?
WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE?
"For month after month in all the regions of East Pakistan the massacres went on," writes Robert Payne. "They were not the small casual killings of young officers who wanted to demonstrate their efficiency, but organized massacres conducted by sophisticated staff officers, who knew exactly what they were doing. Muslim soldiers, sent out to kill Muslim peasants, went about their work mechanically and efficiently, until killing defenseless people became a habit like smoking cigarettes or drinking wine. ... Not since Hitler invaded Russia had there been so vast a massacre." (Payne, Massacre, p. 29.)
There is no doubt that the mass killing in Bangladesh was among the most carefully and centrally planned of modern genocides. A cabal of five Pakistani generals orchestrated the events: President Yahya Khan, General Tikka Khan, chief of staff General Pirzada, security chief General Umar Khan, and intelligence chief General Akbar Khan. The U.S. government, long supportive of military rule in Pakistan, supplied some \\$3.8 million in military equipment to the dictatorship after the onset of the genocide, "and after a government spokesman told Congress that all shipments to Yahya Khan's regime had ceased." (Payne, Massacre, p. 102.)
The genocide and gendercidal atrocities were also perpetrated by lower-ranking officers and ordinary soldiers. These "willing executioners" were fuelled by an abiding anti-Bengali racism, especially against the Hindu minority. "Bengalis were often compared with monkeys and chickens. Said Pakistan General Niazi, 'It was a low lying land of low lying people.' The Hindus among the Bengalis were as Jews to the Nazis: scum and vermin that [should] best be exterminated. As to the Moslem Bengalis, they were to live only on the sufferance of the soldiers: any infraction, any suspicion cast on them, any need for reprisal, could mean their death. And the soldiers were free to kill at will. The journalist Dan Coggin quoted one Punjabi captain as telling him, 'We can kill anyone for anything. We are accountable to no one.' This is the arrogance of Power." (Rummel, Death By Government, p. 335.)
The 16th of December, 1971 is a red letter day in our national history. It was on this day we were to snatch our independence after a life and death liberation war for long nine months. This victory was a victory of right against wrong. It was a war of self-emancipation. Every year we observe this day in a colorful manner. This day reminds us of the supreme in a colorful manner. This day reminds us of the supreme sacrifice of our freedom fighters who will ever shine in our hearts like the luminous stars in the sky. But at the same time we must remember the sprit of the liberation war. We wanted a country where justice will prevail over injustice and wrong. Instead, we are now having a night-marish experience of lawlessness, violence and misrule. The lords of the mischief mongers are getting upper hand in the society, whereas the meek and mild become the worst sufferers. Disorder in everything has become the order of the day.
THE AFTERMATH
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