House of Commons - Foreign Affairs

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Written Evidence

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 activities—they 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).

Time Magazine

The Herald

The Far Eastern Economic Review

The Wall Street Journal

Time Asia Magazine

(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.

New York Post

(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]

Al-Ahram

Japan Times

New York Times

The Assam Tribune

The New York Times

The Daily Star

(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.

The New York Times

(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 humiliation—eg, 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 Practices—2001). 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 Practices—2001).

(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:

The Economist,

The Guardian

(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 Practices—2001). 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 Practices—2001).

(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.

The Daily Star,

(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).

The Daily Jankantha,

The Daily Star,

(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 minorities—perhaps as many as 200,000—were 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.

The Daily San gbad,

(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".

The Bangladesh Observer,

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 settlers—but not from other faiths—backed 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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