Annex 2
August 29, 2004
The Honorable Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr.
420 Canon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Representative:
On behalf of Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist and Christian
Unity Council, USA and every member of Bangladesh, minority living
in and outside of Bangladesh, we would like to express our profound
gratitude to you for the speech you very kindly made before your
colleagues in the Congress on 17 May 2004 apprising them of the
plight of the fast dwindling religious and ethnic minorities of
Bangladesh. We urge you to go the extra mile, ie, by writing a
"Dear Colleague" note and holding a hearing before the
Congress, like the USCIRF did one on 30 April 2004, impress upon
them the fact that unless America intervenes to protect them this
community of 15-20 million people will be completely eliminated
in the next three decades or less now that Bangladesh has become
a stronghold of militant Islam and an exporter of Islamic terrorists.
It may be noted that the ruling Islamic hardliners
of Bangladesh are not only wiping out the minorities of the country
but also the truly secular Muslims, and are also poised to destabilise
democracies all over the globe. Bangladeshi jihadis or Islamic
terrorists are engaged in such activitiesthey have recently
been arrested in Egypt (AP 9 March 2003 and AlAhram 11-17
September 2003) Viru Viru airport, Bolivia (BBC-News, December
5, L3) Japan and Albany, New York (The New York Times,
6 August 2004).
As Alex Perry, the South Asian bureau chief
of the Time Magazine (14 October 2002) warns us in his
seminal article "Deadly Cargo," "The arrival of
a large al-Qaeda group in the capital Dhaka that night raises
pressing concerns that Bangladesh may have become a dangerous
new front in America's war on terror." Citing a Harkat-Ui-Jihad-l-Bangladesh
or HUJI-B source, he also informs us that "The dream (of
the Islamic extremists) is to create a larger Islamic land than
the territorial limits of Bangladesh to include Muslim areas of
Assam [an Indian state] North Bengal [in lndia] and Burma's Arakan
province". Mr Perry further cautions the world that, "That
dream, if Islamic terrorists are allowed to continue their operations
in Bangladesh, could be a nightmare for the rest of the region
[India, Myanmar, etc]."
The campaign of state-sponsored religious/ethnic
minority persecution had actually begun in the geographical area
called Bangladesh as of December 1971 in 1946. The Islamic nationalists
(In today's Bangladesh they are represented by the Bangladesh
Nationalist Party or BNP, led by Prime Minister Begum Khaleda
Zia, and the Jatiya Party "nationalist party" or JP,
the former being the majority of the ruling coalition of Islamic
hardliners and the latter another partner) who split India to
create a homeland (Pakistan of which Bangladesh was a part up
until 1971) only for the Muslims by inventing a religion-based
nationalism have driven tens of millions of minorities of Bangladesh
into India since 1946 by subjecting them to blatant discrimination
(naked denial of access to job and business opportunities), brutal
persecution and barbarous atrocities which include eviction, seizing
of their farmland and businesses, incarceration by implicating
them in fictitious cases, destruction of places of worship, razing
of dwelling houses, arson, torture, murder and gang rape.
This campaign turned into a campaign of religious/ethnic
minority "cleansing" or silent genocide when the ruling
"Islamic hardliners," (The Guardian, 2 October
2001) led by Prime Minister Khaleda Zia assumed power with absolute
majority.
While the armed cadres of the ruling parties
themselves are conducting this vicious campaign the ruling government
is covering it up by consistently denying that any atrocities
are taking place, dismissing all the international media and human
rights organisations' reports about it as conspiratorial. Similarly
it has also denied all the reports and facts about the astronomical
rise of militant Islam in the country under its patronage.
In what follows, we will briefly delineate the
scope and magnitude of the state sponsored campaign of religious
and ethnic cleansing in Bangladesh, for ready reference. We will
also discuss (i) why what was once (up until July 2001) a state-sponsored
campaign of "minority persecution" turned into a full
scale campaign of religious/ethnic cleansing, (ii) what motivates
this campaign, and (iii) how the remaining 15-20 million Hindus,
Buddhists, Christians and indigenous people will be completely
eliminated within the next three decades or less unless America
acts now to protect them like it did for the Kurds, Bosnian Muslims,
East Timorese or the Sudanese Christians.
An astronomical rise of militant Islam in Bangladesh
is the reason why what was a state-sponsored campaign of "minority
persecution" for half century turned into a campaign of religious
minority/ethnic cleansing in July, 2001. The Islamic extremists
are not only partners in the ruling government of "Islamic
hardliners," led by the Islamic nationalists (BNP of Prime
Minister Khaleda Zia) it is the Islamic extremists who dictate
policies today.
ASTRONOMICAL RISE
OF MILITANT
ISLAM
The following media captions/reports/facts should
enable you to comprehend the degree of strength the Islamists
have gained and the extent of sway they have on the ruling government
of islamic hardliners" (The Guardian, 2 October 2001):
(i) The chief of the Jihad Movement of Bangladesh
(of which HUJI-B is a part), Mr Fazlur Rahman, was one of the
signatories (together with Osama Bin Laden and his second-in-command,
Ayman Al Zawahiri as well as the chiefs of jihad movement in Pakistan,
Egypt and the Sudan), on the Declaration of War on America, in
1998.
(ii) A Bangladeshi Islamic terrorist brigade
of Ansar-Al -Islam served in Afghanistan for Mullah Omar (American
Taliban John Walker Lindh's interview with CNN-News on 20 December
2001).
(iii) A shipload of Afghan war veteran Al-Qaeda
and Taliban soldiers arrived/settled in Chittagong after the fall
of Kandahar (Time Magazine,14 October 2002); The Herald
(23 October 2002) and Time's Discovery Channel).
(iv) "Bangladesh: A Cocoon of Terror"
(The Far Eastern Economic Review, 4 April 2002)
(v) "In Bangladesh, as in Pakistan,
a Worrisome Rise in Islamic Extremists" (The Wall Street
Journal, 2 April 2002).
(vi) Bangladeshi Islamic militant group of
Jamat-Ul-Mujahedeen have imported at least a 225 gram ball of
uranium to make "dirty bombs" (Time Asia Magazine,
16 June 2003).
(vii) The US Department of State has declared
Harkat-Ul-Jihad-l-lslami (HUJI-B) (Movement of Islamic Holy War)Bangladesh
to be a terrorist organisation on 21 May 2002.
(viii) Bangladesh is a "stronghold of
militant Islam" (New York Post, 22 October 2002).
(ix) Two nationally known notorious Islamic
extremists are holding Cabinet Ministership in the ruling government
led by BNP.
(x) The ruling "Islamic hardliners"
has banned all the religious publications of the minority Ahmaadiay
group of Muslims.
(xi) The Islamic extremists attacked the
British ambassador with a bomb (that killed three) when he was
visiting a centuries old shrine of the minority Muslim Ahmaadiya
community who practice the Sufi/mystic brand of Islam.
(xii) US Department of State issued a public
announcement on 9 December 2003 alerting US citizens to potential
threats against US interests in Bangladesh (Office of the Spokesman,
US Department of State).
(xiii) "Bangladesh may be an emerging
terrorist nexus" (Canadian Security Intelligence Service,
Yahoo news, 9 December 2003.)
(xiv) 28 Bangladeshi jihadis, were about
to hijack an airplane and crash it into American interest in Argentina,
have been arrested in Viru Viru airport, Bolivia (BBC-News, 5
December 2003). [investigation in progress]
(xv) 3 Bangladeshi Islamic terrorists were
among the 23 (who sympathize with Al-Qaeda) were arrested in Egypt.
"they planned to take part in "jihad spots abroad: in
Afghanistan, to back Taliban and al-Qaeda; in Iran, in case of
an American invasion; in Bangladesh, Burma, Dagestan . . ."
(AP 31 September 2003 and Al-Ahram 11-17 September 2003).
(xvi) 5 Bangladeshi jihadists were arrested
in Japan (Japan Times, 28 May 2004).
(xvii) A Bangladeshi mosque owner in Albany,
New York, who is connected with the Islamic terrorists recently
purchased an RPG missile from an FBI undercover (New York Times,
6 August 2004).
(xviii) 400 of the country's 64,000 madrassahs
are directly funded by Bin Laden where the jihadists like those
arrested in Egypt are being manufactured. (The Assam Tribune,
18 September 2003).
(xix) Bangladesh served as an "underground
station" for international Al-Qaeda recruits for Mullah Omar's
Afghanistan (The New York Times, 5 October 2002).
(xx) The BNP-led Government has facilitated
money laundering operations of the Islamic terrorists by allowing
the Saudi funded agency Al-Harmine Islamic Institute, which is
known for funding jihad worldwide, to operate in Bangladesh, since
1992 (see, The New York Times, 3 June 2003).
(xxi) 18 Islamic Extremists of the Jamia
Islamia Nurul Ulum Kawmi Madrassah, who confessed to the police
to have been trained in Pakistan, and to have fought in Afghanistan
for four years, was recently arrested in a BNP leader's House
in Boalmari (The Daily Star, 21 September 21, 2003).
(xxii) The Government is supporting the 65,000
madrassahs with public money and foreign aid.
(xxiii) The government has purchased militant
Islamic books for use in the class room, and it has been done
with public money.
(xxiv) The Islamic militants have bombed
secular events like New Years' Day celebration and institutions
like movie theatres with the government looking the other way
(The New York Times, 8 December 2002).
(xxv) The Islamic extremists have attempted
to assassinate the present Minority leader and former Prime Minster,
Sheikh Hasina by planting a huge bomb under the platform from
which she was supposed to address an audience.
(xxvi) The Islamic extremists bombed a Catholic
Church in Baniarchar during a Sunday mass killing 10 and injuring
20, on 3 June 2001.
(xxvii) Former President Bill Clinton had
to cancel his trip to the national monument just a few miles off
the capital city for fear of being shot down by the Bangladeshi
Talibans.
(xxviii) Following the assassination attempt
on the British Ambassador to Bangladesh British intelligence agents
seeking the suspect entered a madrassah (of which Mullah Habibur
Rahman, who was trained in Pakistan and fought in Afghanistan,
is the Chief Administrator) dorm room and found its walls covered
with Bin Laden posters.
As can be gauged based on the above, the once
secular Bangladesh has become a breeding ground of jihadis and
a "stronghold" of the Islamists, who are working steadily
and decisively toward their declared goal: transform Bangladesh
into a monolithic Islamic sate, where non-Muslims, whom they refer
to as "infidels," will have no room.
If Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's BNP were truly
"Moderate Muslim" and the government were a genuinely
"moderate Islamic democracy" she would have cracked
down on the Islamists and weeded them out thus ensuring that democracy
prevail in the country. She hasn't; instead she has appointed
Islamic extremists as her cabinet ministers, and follow policies
dictated by them. Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has not only provided
them with moral and logistical support but also with police protection.
In fact, examples of direct involvement of the ruling party parliamentarians
in both promoting militant Islam and religious and ethnic minority
cleansing abound. For example, in the recent months, an Afghan
war veteran Islamic terrorist called Ban glabhai (who prefers
to be called Kandu-bhai because he fought in Kandahar, Afghanistan),
has set up a parallel government in parts of the country. This
man uses mosques to detain and torture truly moderate Muslims
who oppose Talibanisation of Bangladesh, and, of course, the minorities,
to brutalise and rape them. Yet the government has not only failed
to arrest him but has facilitated his activities. On 21 August
2004 with the support of her police the Islamist waged yet another
bomb attack on the secularist leader of the opposition (who represents
the moderate Muslims) killing 18 people maiming and injuring dozens
of her party leaders.
Recently, it was widely reported in national
dailies that the Islamists have set up hundreds of business ventures
throughout the country whose combined net profit per year exceeds
$100 million US Dollars. This means that Bangladeshi Islamists
are no longer dependent on outside funding to sustain their ominous
activities.
The Islamists, of course, did not gain so much
strength overnight, it happened gradually under the patronage
of the so called "nationalists" over the past three
decades.
STAGES OF
THE ALARMING
RISE OF
MILLTANT ISLAM
The late husband of the ruling Prime Minister
and founder of the Islamic nationalist party of BNP, Major. General
Ziaur Rahman rehabilitated the Islamic extremists in national
politics (Religious politics was banned in the first constitution
because of the Islamists' direct complicity in the killing of
three million people and driving of 10 million people out of the
country in 1971). He even made one of the collaborators of the
killers of three million people of the country, and rewarded self-declared
assassins of the first president of the country in 1975 by providing
them with a constitutional guarantee that they could not be tried.
Furthermore, he desecrated the secular constitution of the county
by having his rubber stamp parliament imprint Bismillah-Hir-Rahmanir
Rahim on its preamble, through the 5th Amendment. By so doing
he paved the way for his successor President Lt General Ershad
to declare Islam as state religion on 9 June 1988.
Upon becoming the country's Prime Minister,
his widow, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia followed in the footsteps
of her predecessors; she even appointed one of the collaborators
of the killers of 3 million people in1971 president of the country.
She has appointed two openly pro-Taliban Islamic extremists in
her cabinet (She wanted to have more but could not do so due to
international pressure).
Thus under the patronage of the Islamic nationalists,
the Islamists thrived and gained tremendous power. Once banned
but now free to operate with complete impunity these Islamic extremist
parties have spread their militias and spread their student front,
the Islamic Chatra Shibeer, which conducts most of the barbaric
atrocities, spread in every nook and cranny of the country.
A BRIGADE OF
ANSAR AL
-ISLAM FOUGHT
FOR MULLAH OMAR
IN AFGHANISTAN
The Islamists conducted huge rallies in the
streets of Dhaka condemning America during the Gulf War, sent
a brigade of Ansar Al-Islam to fight for MuIlah Omar in Afghanistan
alongside the Pakistani Ansar-Al-Islam and Al-Qaeda, led by Osama
Bin Laden (see, American Taliban John Walker Lindh's interview
with CNN-News, 20 December 2001). Supported by the police, they
often brought out rallies chanting such slogans as "Mora
Sobai Taliban, Bangle Hobe Afghan (istan) meaning "We are
all Talibans and Bangladesh will be transformed to Afghanistan,"
and "Ekta Duita Hindu dhoro, Shoakal Bikal Nasta Koro"
meaning "Catch a couple of Hindus and have them for breakfast".
Successive Islamic hardliner governments encouraged
and financed the Islamists to build hundreds of Wahabi madrassahs
(It may be noted that unlike the madrassahs of Turkey, which is
co-ed and where all the subjects taught in a secular school are
taught in addition to Koranic studies, Bangladesh's 65,000 madrassahs
teach only Koran and jihad.). They also allowed the notorious
Saudi Charitable organization Al Haramine, known for funding Islamic
terrorism worldwide, to set up its branch in Dhaka and fund the
Islamists (New York Times, 3 June 2004). Furthermore, the
BNP and JP-led coalition governments allowed the country to be
used as an "underground station" for Al Qaeda recruits
(see, New York Times, 5 October 2002). It has been recently
widely published in Bangladeshi media that 16 different Islamic
terrorist organisations are freely operating in the country with
ruling government looking the other way.
BANGLADESHI JIHADISTS
ARE OPERATING
ABROAD
As they have admitted, today Bangladeshi jihadists
are not only destroying democracy in Bangladesh but also all over
the world. They have been arrested in Egypt, Bolivia, and most
recently, Japan (see, eg, AP 9/3/'03 and Al-Abram 11-17 September
2003, and Times, 28 May 2004 and Albany, New York (The
New York Times, 6 August 2004).
BANGLADESHI ISLAMIST
SIGNED THE
DECLARATION OF
"HOLY WAR"
AGAINST THE
UNITED STATES
One must always bear in mind that the leader
of the Jihad Movement of Bangladesh, Mr Fazlur Rahman, was one
of the signatories on the Declaration of "Holy War"
against the United States drawn up on 23 February 1998 (Other
signatories included Bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, Second-in-Command
of Al-Qaeda, Rifa'i Ahmed Taha aka Abonu Yasir of the Egyptian
Islamic Group, and Sheikh Mir Hamzah, secretary of the Jamiat-Ul-Ulema-E-Pakistan)(see
Lintner, 2002). After the fall of Kandahar, Afghanistan, a shipload
of non-Bengali Al-Qaeda and Taliban soldiers arrived in Chittagong
via Karachi (Time Magazine, 14 October 2002), who are currently
training Bangladeshi jihadis in many of the country's 65,000 madrassabs.
We must also remain constantly aware of the fact that President
Bill Clinton, not only had to cancel his trip to the national
monument just a few miles off the capital city but also had to
cut his trip short due to credible threat from the Islamic extremists
(he suggested in one of speeches that Ayman Al Zawhiri lived for
an extended period of time Bangladesh).
To present themselves (BNP and JP) as not to
be complicit in the crime of virtually having transformed secular
democratic Bangladesh into a semi-Taliban state, they are desperately
tying to impress upon the world that Bangladesh is a "Moderate
Muslim Democracy" (They would be right if they admitted that
it is still a fanatic Islamic democracy because they have disenfranchised
the minorities and even progressive Muslims in the last election
in 2001). Bangladesh is certainly no longer a "Moderate Muslim
Democracy"[1]
it is a semi-Taliban state.
Along with this fearsome rise of Islamic extremism,
there has also been an exponential escalation in the state-sponsored
campaign of religious and ethnic cleansing.
RELIGIOUS AND
ETHNIC MINORITY
CLEANSING
Blatant Discrimination
There is next to no representation of minorities
in positions of powers and prestige, army officers, civil administrators,
university chancellors, bank CEOs, ambassadors, secretaries, cabinet
ministers, etc. There is severe disparity in minorities' access
to professional schools, business opportunities, housing, and
government employment. Pilgrimage is subsidised only for the Muslims.
National TV and Radio programs open and close with only Islamic
prayers.
Brutal Torture and Murder
The Islamists including the cadres of the ruling
parties, have routinely dispossessed Hindus, Buddhists, Christians
and indigenous people practicing other less well-known religions,
of their ancestral homes and properties, desecrated their temples,
destroyed their deities, torched their dwelling houses after looting
them, brutally tortured them, gang-raped the women (as young as
eight and as old as 70, even mother and daughter together and
in one incident nearly 200 in one night at one spot) (The Daily
Star, 16 November 2001), burned them alive and brutally murdered
them. Typically, after looting their property, razing/burning
down their homes and gang-raping their girls and women, they impose/extort
"Infidel tax" from them, and leave them such ultimatum
as "Unless you all convert to Islam by You will be driven
out of the country." (Please refer, for example, to the incident
of Daspara in Mireshwarai in Chittagong. The Daily Janakantha,
8 November 2001). These atrocities continue to this day.
As can be seen from the documentation, the Islamists
are selectively murdering minority educators, monks, priests,
social workers or any one who have tried to protect women from
being raped, so that the minorities can be turned into a group
of intellectual eunuchs. These highly selective murders have served
their purpose of ridding the country of whom they call "the
infidels".
Arson and Looting, desecration and destruction
of places of worship and deities
Arson and looting has been fairly common. As
on 10 April 1992 in Logang, so on 28 August 2003 in Mahalchari,
Chittagong, they burned down 400 houses of the indigenous people
after looting them, raping nine women, razing two Buddhist temples
and murdering two indigenous persons.
Christian Persecution
Christians, who had previously been spared,
have come under increasing attacks in recent years. On 28 April
1998, for example, thousands of Islamic extremists incited by
the Imam or prayer leader of a mosque rampaged St Francis Xaviers'
High School, Holy Cross Church, and a Baptist Church, all in the
capital city of Dhaka. They looted the properties, set some of
them ablaze, and even damaged the statues of Holy Mother, and
the Cross. On 3 June 2001, they bombed the Catholic Church in
Baniar Char during a Sunday mass, killing 10 and injuring 20 (IRFIUS
Department of State's Country Report 2001/2000 USA).
Persecution of the indigenous people
As can be seen from the IRF report 2001 and
2003, successive governments have driven tens of thousands of
the indigenous people of Chittagong Hill Tracts out of the country
thus reducing their percentage of population from 97,000 in 1947
down to 50% by 1997. This region has been turned into a virtual
cantonment. The ruling government has completely disrespected
the Chittaong Hill Tracts Treaty signed by the previous government.
Rape: the tool of choice
Rape has been chosen as a tool of choice in
this campaign because of the following reasons. The Islamists
have even told the Christians to either "Give us your money
or your girls." If one's relative is killed, s/he still might
not leave the country; but, once ones' daughter/wife is raped
s/he immediately does in order to escape social stigma. The police
refuse to accept cases, and in the rare cases that they do, they
do so after giving the victim run around for four to five days
so that all the evidence disappear. Thus, unlike other instruments
of brutalising the minorities this leaves no visible scar for
the journalists or outside observers to see, yet helps achieve
the desired goal of the campaign, which is to rid the country
of its minorities. If that were not their goal, why would they
rape a 70-year-old Buddhist!
The Exodus
Faced with blatant discrimination in employment,
daily humiliationeg, called "kafir" "malaun"
or "dandaya" (these are slurs suggesting that non-Muslims
are infidels) and publicly making the wish Fi Naar-e-jahannam-E
Khaledun-a (Let his/her soul burn in the fire of hell eternally)
when a non-Muslim passes away and unable to bear the brunt of
the barbaric atrocities imaginable only in the medieval times,
the minorities have had to leave en masse for the neighboring
state of India, Myanmar and North America, in a continuous exodus.
Consequently, as can be seen from the table
below, whereas the minorities represented 30% of the population
in the 1940s and 20% in 1970, they account for only 10% or less
of the total of 145 million people, today:
POPULATION CHART
(1941-2001)
% (Percentage) of Total Population
Year | Muslim
| Hindu | Buddhist
| Christian | Others
| Total |
1941 | 70.3 | 28.3
| | 0.1 | 1.3
| 100 |
1951 | 75.7 | 22.0
| 0.7 | 0.3 | 1.3
| 100 |
1961 | 80.4 | 18.5
| 0.7 | 0.3 | 0.1
| 100 |
1974 | 85.4 | 13.5
| 0.6 | 0.3 | 0.2
| 100 |
1981 | 86.7 | 12.1
| 0.6 | 0.3 | 0.3
| 100 |
1991 | 87.4 | 11.5
| | 1.1 | 0.3
| 100 |
2001 | 90.0 | 08.0
| 0.6 | 1.1 | 0.3
| 100 |
| | |
| | | |
Sources: Bangladesh: A Country Study, J Heitzman and
RL Worden eds 2nd Edition, Federal Research Division, Library
of Congress, Publisher US Army, 1989, and Ranjit Dey, et al
(Ends) 2002.
It may be noted that since the average family size of the
Muslims and non-Muslims happen to be the same, without the exodus
the minorities would have been 62 million, but in fact only 15
million remain. A population loss of 47 million people amounts
to the disappearance of a dozen countries like Albania, Bahrain,
Iceland, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Namibia, Oman, Panama, Costa
Rica or Malta from the face of the earth Lebanon, Panama, Kuwait,
Malta, etc. What is scarier though is that, if Pakistan (of which
Bangladesh was a part) is taken as an example of how the Islamists
of the subcontinent treat their fellow non-Muslims, then Bangladesh's
minorities will be completely eliminated through violence in the
next two and a half decades.
The Campaign is state sponsored
The campaign of religious and ethnic cleansing in Bangladesh
has always been state-sponsored, no matter which government has
been in power. This fact is amply substantiated by the few facts
below:
(i) The government has seized 2.5 million acres of
land of the Hindus by using a racist law called the Enemy Property
Act (renamed Vested Property Act (US Department of State's report
on Human Rights Practices2001). Although finally this racist
law was repealed, Khaleda Zia's government has blocked its implementation
and is seizing more of their property.
(ii) The government has dispossessed the indigenous
people of their ancestral land and dwelling houses in their traditionally
autonomous region, Chittagong Hill tracts, by sending Muslim settlers
accompanied by armed forces. Consequently, whereas the Bengali/Muslims
represented only 3% of the population in 1947 but today they represent
more than 50% (US Department of State's Country Report on Human
Rights Practices2001).
(iii) Islam has been declared state religion (the
infamous 8th Amendment of 1988) thus rendering the minorities
as second class citizens.
(iv) The ruling government has banned all the publications
of the minority Ahmaadiya sect of Islam.
(v) There exists a circular in the banks not to grant
large loans to the minorities and even to withdraw their own savings
in large sums.
(vi) Pilgrimage is subsidised only for the Muslims.
(vii) Not a single minority is hired by any government
in a position of power or prestige. For example, there is not
a single minority Cabinet Minister in the current government,
nor was any in the previous government, whereas there is a number
of ministers who are pro-Taliban.
(viii) On national exams questions such as write
a paragraph about "How you spent Eid-Ul-Fitr" is asked
as obligatory question, which only a Muslim can answer.
(ix) On the national Civil Service Examination, such
question is asked as to discuss the "Importance of the 8th
Amendment," which no minority can answer truthfully and pass.
(x) The Government has incarcerated any journalists
who have attempted to report atrocities against the minorities,
and that also include BBC journalists.
(xi) The government doesn't admit that minorities are
being brutalised, refuse to compensate and rehabilitate even the
rape victims.
It is a clear case of religious/ethnic cleansing
The ruling government of Islamic hardliners has, of course,
claimed that religion has nothing to do with the sustained campaign
of atrocities against the minorities of the country, suggesting
that this is happening just because the law and order situation
in the country is poor. In the hearing that the US Commission
on Religious Freedom (USCIRF) held in New York on the issue on
30 April 2004 the question of how to disentangle "religious
persecution" from persecution motivated by the greed for
grabbing the land and property of the relatively less powerful
people, ie the minorities was raised.
It may seem difficult to separate one from the other particularly
because there exists a law (the EnemyAlesteci Property Law) by
using which 2.5 million acres of land has been seized from the
Hindus (who have to leave for India after being brutally persecuted
or blatantly discriminated) by the government. However, if one
considers the following it would become clear beyond the speck
of a doubt that it is indeed a case of religious/ethnic cleansing:
(i) There exists a law to seize the property of the minorities
who leave for India after being persecuted but no such law exists
for the Muslims who goes abroad and settles permanently.
(ii) None of the hundreds of thousands of settlers who
have been sent to Chittagong Hill Tracts to evict the indigenous
(they are Buddhists, Christians and animists) and occupy their
land are all Muslims. The government argues that this program
is not a program of Islamisation of the traditionally autonomous
habitat of the indigenous people at all, but rather is being conducted
due to scarcity of land. Well, there are thousands of landless
minorities in the country, too. How come the government hasn't
sent any of the minorities there!
(iii) The religious publications of the more mystical/tolerant
brand of Islam, ie the Ahmaadiyas have been banned.
(iv) Only the places of worship of the Hindus, Buddhists,
and Christians are being desecrated and destroyed daily, but mosques
are not. If indeed the campaign were directed against the less
powerful or the weaker sections of the community then mosques
located in the areas where the tolerant Muslims (the supporters
of Awami League) live would have been destroyed so upon being
panicked they would have left the country.
(v) When the minorities hold their religious festivals,
eg Durga Puja (can be viewed as the equivalent of Christmas for
Christendom) they are routinely disrupted, desecrated and often
destroyed. But no Eid-uI-Fitr festival held in the secular Muslim
areas is attacked. Sadly, when the Hindus play their daily evening
music stones are thrown on the tin roofs of their homes so they
do not perform their daily religious ritual, but the same is not
done when the irnam of mosque in the secular Muslim areas performs
azan using the loudspeaker.
(vi) The minorities (including the Ahmaadiya Muslims who
have been declared non-Muslims in Pakistan and might soon be declared
so in Bangladesh, too) have to hold their religious festival under
police/military guard, which they provide in order to please the
donor nations, but the same is not true for the secular Muslims.
That the campaign is only against the religious/ethnic minorities
become even more obvious from the pattern of hiring in the government,
and that is true regardless of which government is in power, the
secularists or the Islamic nationalists/extremists.
Government's refusal to help the victims: Denial and deception
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, American legislators,
MPs of the EU urged Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to stop this carnage.
But rather than address the problem she has waged a counter campaign
of denial and deception by using her ambassadors and lobbyists.
Through her agents, she has repeatedly claimed that the "highest
degree of communal harmony" prevails in the "Muslim
Democracy of Bangladesh." Prime Minister Zia has flouted
all those appeals/recommendations as exaggerated and baseless,
like she had in 1992 (As can also be seen from Honorable Congressman
Frank Pallone's 17 May 2004 speech in the House about our plight.)
As a part of the cover-up, it incarcerated NGO personnel
and noted journalists like Shahriar Kabir and BBC journalists
who have attempted to report atrocities against the minorities
(see, BBC News 15 March 2002; 9 December 2002).
Renowned lawyer Dr Kamal Hossain brought a lawsuit in the
High Court on behalf of Ain-OSha/ish-Kendra (Law and Mediation
Center) against the Begum Zia regime (Writ Petition # 6556/2001,
under Article 102 of the Constitution of Bangladesh), charging
that minority women and children were raped by the agents of the
ruling parties (see The New York Times, 27 November 2001).
The case was dismissed on the basis of the government's submission
that the "few sporadic incidents" that have occurred
are due to "family feuds" (The Statesmen, 17
October 2002).
Under pressure from the European Union, and the US lawmakers,
Prime Minister Begum Zia finally instituted a commission to investigate
the incidents of atrocities against minorities, but ironically,
with her personal secretary as its chair (it is yet to produce
its preliminary report, though).
The ruling "Islamic hardliners" have not only consistently
denied all the charges of barbaric atrocities conducted against
the minorities but quite loudly claimed that a "wonderful
communal harmony exists in the country." But that the contrary
is true can easily be understood from the following news captions
and excerpts from articles written on the issue:
(i) "Bangladesh's religious minorities: Safe only
in the departure lounge." (The Economist, 29 November
2003).
(ii) Rape and torture empties the villages (The Guardian,
21 July 2003).
(iii) The government has seized 2.5 million acres of land
of the Hindus by using a racist law called the Enemy Property
Act (renamed Vested Property Act by the secularists) (US Department
of State's report on Human Rights Practices2001). Although
finally this racist law was repealed, Khaleda Zia's government
has blocked its implementation and continued seizing more of their
property.
(iv) The government has dispossessed the indigenous people
of their ancestral land and dwelling houses in their traditionally
autonomous region, Chittagong Hill tracts, by sending Muslim settlers
accompanied by armed forces. Consequently, whereas the Bengali/Muslims
represented only 3% of the population in 1947 but today they represent
more than 50% (US Department of State's Country Report on Human
Rights Practices2001).
(v) ". . . Attacks against Hindus in Bangladesh escalated
dramatically following the October 2001 general election that
brought the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to power in coalition
with hard-line Islamic parties. Christians, Buddhists, and dissenting
Muslims were targeted as well . . . Hindu homes were looted, vandalised,
and burned and Hindu temples and sacred sites were destroyed.
Scores of Hindu women and girls were raped. In some cases, they
were gang raped in front of their male relatives. Hindus were
also assaulted on the streets, in their homes, and at their workplaces.
Systematic attacks resulted in a mass migration of Hindus to India,
and in particular to the bordering state of Tripura. The government
did little to prosecute or investigate the violence." Human
Rights Watch World Report 2003.
(vi) Honorable Congressman Joseph Crowley's observation
that "Intolerance has taken hold in Bangladesh" (He
said this in a meeting with the journalists and minority Hindu
community at the Dhakeswari Temple in Bangladesh. The Daily
Star, 13 January 2004).
(vii) "Reminiscent of the Jewish Holocaust, Hindu
homes were marked by a yellow H, which in fact guided the pillagers
to their homes. Over the following 30 years, thousands of Hindu
temples were destroyed, Hindus were systematically disenfranchised
from holding political power, and prejudicial legislation ensured
an unstable existence for Hindus. In fact, Islamic extremists
have routinely dispossessed Hindus and, for that matter, Christians
and Buddhists, of their ancestral properties and land, burned
down their homes, and desecrated and razed temples, which has
resulted in forcing many to flee as refugees . . . This campaign
of minority cleansing in progress in Bangladesh has to be stopped
. . ." (Honorable Congressman Frank Pallone Jr.'s speech
in the House on 17 May 2004).
(viii) An overwhelming 98.68% of the rape victims are
minority, and rapists happen to be the cadres of the ruling parties,
particularly of BNP. (See The Daily Jankantha, 17 February
2002).
(ix) Nearly "200 Hindu women were gang raped by Muslim
men" in Char Fashion, Bhola, in one night at a single spot.
(The Daily Star, 16 November 2001).
(x) An estimated 60,000 Chakma and other Jumma peoples
(ethnic groups of which the Chakma are a subgroup) were internally
displaced in Bangladesh. An unknown number of Hindus and other
religious minoritiesperhaps as many as 200,000were
displaced at year's end as a result of post-election violence
that began in October.
An estimated 5,000 to 20,000 Hindus from Bangladesh were
asylum seekers in India at the end of 2001. In the mid-1980s,
Muslim settlers' appropriation of land belonging to ethnic minorities
in Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region caused some
64,000 members of those groups, the vast majority Chakma, to flee
to India and more than 60,000 others to become internally displaced.
(US Committee for Refugees, Country Report: Bangladesh, 2002.).
(xi) Particularly, Khaleda Zia's government has used the
armed forces and Muslims settlers to conduct massacres of indigenous
people and annihilated entire villages in Chittagong Hill Tracts.
During her first tenure as the Prime Minister, her armed forces
and Muslim settlers cordoned off the tribal village of Logang,
and "systematically murdered" 130 (according to another
account 600) residents of the village, and then burned it down
to the ground.
(xii) Similarly on August 28, 2003, in Mahalchari, the
Muslim settlers aided by the armed forces raped nine tribal women,
murdered one, and burned down 400 dwelling houses and Buddhist
temple.
(xiii) Ultimatums are regularly being served order the
minorities to leave the country (see, eg, The Daily San gbad,
13 November 2003)
(xiv) On 13 November 1992, specifically referring to the
Logang massacre, 17 US congressmen wrote to Khaleda Zia urging
that she "rectify the mistreatment of the minorities"
in the country. By flouting that request, she encouraged the Islamists
to conduct a countrywide pogrom against the minorities in which
15 people were murdered, several hundred injured, 2,600 women
raped, 3,600 temples razed, and 200,000 people internally displaced.
When this carnage was underway she went on TV to denounce minority
persecution in India, but never once mentioned what was going
on in Bangladesh. She even praised the Islamists for "maintaining
communal harmony".
(xv) On 19 November 2003, 11 Hindus including a four-day-old
infant and a seventy-year old man were burned alive in Banskhali
(The Bangladesh Observer, 20 Novembr 2003).
Pogroms and massacres of minorities have been conducted routinely
in the region called Bangladesh as of 1971, (eg, the Noakhali
massacre of Hindus in 1946 to stop which Gandhi had to personally
go there and begin fasting, the express train massacre on the
Bhairab bridge in 1964, or the massacre of the indigenous people
of Logang in 1992 (conducted jointly by Prime Minister Begum Khaleda
Zia's armed forces and Muslim settlers); however, ever since the
coalition of Islamic hardliners took over power in October, 2001
it has been a campaign of ethnic and religious cleansing. It is
no longer a case of what has been euphemistically referred to
as "minority persecution."
The Chair of Bangladesh Caucus in the Congress Honorable
Joseph Crowley's following observation succinctly sums up the
plight of the country's 15 million minorities: "Intolerance
has taken hold in Bangladesh. 2004)." (The Daily Star,
13 January 2004. The Congressman said this in meeting at Dhakeswari
Temple in Dhaka). Honorable Congressman Frank Pallone Jr's speech
describes the terrible plight of Bangladesh's minorities in some
detail, as do Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reports.
As it will have been clear from the above, the minorities
of Bangladesh live there today as caged animals having to pay
infidel tax regularly and making their girls available on demand.
Rise of militant Islam is the cause of escalation in the campaign
This dangerous turn in the campaign is of course a direct
outcome of the astronomical surge of militant Islam in the country.
Today, the Islamists dictate government policies, and not the
so called "Moderate Muslims" in power, a glaring example
of which is the recent banning of the religious publications of
the minority Ahmaadiya sect of Islam, who practice the more Sufi/mystical
brand of Islam and believe in democracy and co-existence with
the people of other faiths.
Clearly then the ruling government can/will neither stop
the minority genocide nor stem the surge of militant Islam.
Will the so called secularists solve (be able to) the problem?
The so called secularists, if they returned to power again
someday, also will not stop the campaign of religious and ethnic
cleansing. Here is why we have come to this conclusion. Even though
by rejecting the two nation theory or the concept of Islam-based
nationhood, Bengali progressive Muslims supported by the minorities
seceded from Islamic Pakistan to create secular Bangladesh in
1971, and although the country's founding fathers constitutionally
(1972) guaranteed that no religion would be accorded preference
over the others by the state, the so called secularist government
forgot all their pre-election promises to end the misery of the
minorities.
Having undergone extremely disproportionate suffering during
the war of independence in 1971 (80% of the 10 million driven
out of the country were minorities.), the minorities had naturally
expected that if the secularists ever made it to power their misery
would end for ever. But that did not happen; rather they took
the following pro-Islamic and anti-minority steps:
(i) Created an Islamic Foundation, but no such foundations
for the minority groups.
(ii) Continued subsidising pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia
for the Muslim, but not so for people belonging to other faiths.
(iii) Joined the OIC and attended the OIC Foreign Minister's
summit meeting.
(iv) Refused to return the site of the holy shrine of
Ramna Kali Temple and Mother Anandamayee's Ashram-dorm complex
to the Hindus (this shrine is symbolic of Hinduism in Bangladesh).
(v) Refused to repeal the Enemy Property Act of 1965 (enemy
= the Hindus who have had to leave for India after being persecuted/for
safety of life), by using which successive governments have sized
2.5 million acres of land from the Hindus in a country smaller
than the state of Wisconsin, by 2001 (See IRF/US Department's
Country Report 2001/2003).
(vi) The pursued the Pakistani practice of Islamic colonisation
of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, , ie, kept sending Muslim settlersbut
not from other faithsbacked by the armed forces.
(vii) They did not hire any member from the minority communities
in a position of power and/or prestige either in the government
or in their party, Awami League.
During their second tenure (1996-mid-2001) they finally repealed
the Enemy/Vested Property Act but with no provision for seeking
compensation. Similarly, they signed a treaty with the indigenous
people of Chittagong Hill tracts, but did not restore the autonomy.
The first President of the country, Late Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
asked the non-Bengali indigenous people to "become Bengali,"
totally disrespecting their distinct ethnic identities.
And they refused to return the site of the Ramna Kali temple
to the Hindus, but finally returned it only after facing vigorous
protests and condemnation everywhere. Worst of all, they did not
even attempt to repeal the 5th and 8th Amendments (Declaration
of Islam as the State Religion) although repealing those two Amendments
would be the very first step toward according equal status to
the country's minorities.
Evidently, then the so called secularists' return to power
would not automatically restore equal status of the minorities.
What then is the solution?
Bangladesh was born as a secular state, and the country's
sacrificed more than anybody else to achieve it. Therefore they
have a right to live in a secular Bangladesh, and not in a "Moderate
Muslim Democracy" (actually a semi-Taliban state). Bangladesh's
minorities should not have to live permanently in an apartheid-like
situation in their ancestral homeland.
In the past few years, we have urged Prime Minister Khaleda
Zia several times to take the following steps to alleviate the
minorities' pain:
(i) Shut down all Islamic terrorist organisations in the
country;
(ii) Order the foot soldiers of this vicious campaign
to stop the atrocities against the minorities immediately;
(iii) Repeal the 5th and 8th Amendments of the constitution
through which secular Bangladesh was virtually transformed into
an Islamic
(iv) Repeal the anti-minority or racist law of Enemy Property
Act/Vested Property Act with provision for the rightful heirs
(according to Hindu Law of inheritance) of the Hindus from whom
2.5 million acres of land was seized by the government to reclaim/donate/sell
the property;
(v) Fully implement the Chittaqong Hill Tracts Treaty
of 1997, ie stop sending Muslim settlers to evict the indigenous
people, and withdraw the army, etc.
(vi) End the Naziesque discrimination against the minorities
in employment, by adopting and implementing an Affirmative Action
Law as found in lndia or America, thus ensuring proportionate
minority representation in all government sectors;
(vii) Compensate and rehabilitate the victims of religious/ethnic
cleansing;
(viii) Form an independent inquiry commission to investigate
the incidents and bring the perpetrators to justice;
(ix) Insure representation of the minorities in every
sphere of the government and the parliament; and
(x) Open a dialogue with the leaders of the minority religious
and ethnic groups for finding a permanent solution to the problem.
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia never bothered to respond to our
memoranda. In a letter to the ruling Prime Minister, you and your
colleague Anthony Weiner made similar recommendations, but she
did not even show the courtesy of acknowledging receipt of their
letter, either, let alone respect your request. Retd. Congressman
Benjamin Gilman also wrote to the Prime Minister expressing concern
about the situation, but she has denied everything. So it would
be foolish to expect that anything could be achieved by writing
more letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who is in fact an
accomplice in this crime against humanity.
Having incurred a population loss of 47 million people, and
lost 2.5 million acres of land in a country smaller than the size
of Wisconsin, and having lived in such indignity and fear as described
above, the minorities of Bangladesh undoubtedly deserve a true
permanent solution to their problem. Since neither the Islamic
nationalists/extremist nor the secularists have taken any steps
toward devising a permanent solution to this problem at all a
permanent solution to the problem must be devised by the community
of civilized nations, and certainly such an initiative has to
be taken by America.
America has extensive experience in resolving such problems,
the case of the Southern Sudanese Christians being the latest,
What exactly would be a viable and rightful solution for Bangladesh's
minorities will no doubt be figured out by the nations that will
be involved in the process under America's leadership.
However, we have a humble suggestion,
A Possible Permanent Solution
A couple of autonomous minority regions (one of them being
Chittagong Hill Tracts, where the indigenous people have lived
for centuries, but where the Islamic nationalist/extremist governments
have reduced their population from 97% in 1947 down to 50% in
1997 by sending Muslim settlers backed by the armed forces) plus
a few autonomous minority enclaves may be created where the administration,
trade, local security, will be handled completely by the minorities.
For example, a precinct may be created in the capital city of
Dhaka including the Luxmibazar, Shankharibazar and Sutrapur, etc
where the administration and security will be completely controlled
by the minorities. No Muslim shall be allowed to buy land in those
areas. In addition to this, of coarse, minorities must be represented
according to their share of the population in every sphere of
the government including the cabinet, and the parliament which
have to be achieved through an affirmative action program supervised
by the international community.
Finally, we would like to recall Alex Perry's warning that
"Bangladesh may have become a dangerous new front in America's
war on terror." As insiders, we can assure you that today's
Bangladesh is the Afghanistan of the late 1990s. Thus we as Bangladeshi-Americans
feel that America should intervene not only for the sake of saving
the minorities of Bangladesh but also in its own interest. We
believe countries like India and Myanmar will fully support any
initiative taken by America to devise a permanent solution to
the problem of the fast dwindling minorities of Bangladesh.
We fervently hope that you will act in order to thwart the
sure prospect of Bangladesh's turning into a Taliban state, and
enable the minorities of Bangladesh to live in their ancestral
homeland with equal rights and human dignity.
Thank you for your anticipated assistance.
Rup Kumar Bhowmick
President
17 November 2004
1
We would like to express a serious concern while on the issue
of lslamic extremism in Bangladesh. With a great deal of dismay
we have noticed for several years that often American ambassiradors
in Dhaka or US legislators (who rely on information provided by
the US embassy in Dhaka) eulogise Bangladesh as a "Moderate
Muslim Democracy." Presumably, this tactic, commonly employed
by teachers to encourage underachievers to shoot for higher grades,
is being employed to encourage the BNP/JP leadership (claimants
of being moderate Muslims) to shun relationship with the extremists.
In fact, exactly the opposite happens. Whenever such a comment
is made, the Government loudly publicizes it thus suggesting that
all the national/international media reports are baseless. Also,
emboldened by such wonderful US certificate they engage in brutalising
the minorities even more vigorously. This seems to be happening
due to cultural misunderstanding. Back
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