UN asked to declare March 25 carnage as genocide

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DHAKA, March 24, 2019 (BSS) – Experts at a seminar today urged the United Nations (UN) to officially recognise the mass killing of 25 March in 1971 as genocide, since more than three million innocent people were killed by the Pakistani occupation forces during the Liberation War of Bangladesh.

“The issue of the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh was widely discussed among the international community and in media (during the Bangladesh’s Liberation War), but quickly it (the issue of genocide) became a forgotten one,” said Mofidul Haque, Director of Centre for Genocide Studies and Justice and advisory board member of Liberation War Museum.

He said most importantly it has to be looked at what happened in the 1971 Liberation War as well as “we have to deepen why it was happened”.

Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) organised the commemorative seminar titled ‘1971 Genocide in Bangladesh’ at its auditorium here.

UN Special Advisor on Prevention of Genocide Adama Dieng, Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque, jurist barrister M Amir-ul Islam, BIISS chairman Ambassador Munshi Faiz Ahmad and its director general AKM Abdur Rahman, among others, spoke at the seminar.

Ambassador Munshi Faiz said everyone knows Pakistani army in collusion with local collaborators carried out genocide during the country’s Liberation War in 1971 targeting the best sons of the soil.

“The United Nations should recognise all the genocides, including the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh, carried out across the world,” he said.

About the genocide against Rohingyas by the Myanmar army, the BIISS chairman said the UN should take necessary steps to declare the Rohingya killing as genocide.

Barrister Amir-ul said although Pakistani army killed over three million unarmed people of Bangladesh in 1971, the UN is yet to declare their crime against humanity as genocide. “Nothing happened (in this regard) except your (Adama Dieng) presence here,” he added.

The BIISS director general said as more than three million people were killed during the country’s Liberation War, the international community should recognise it as a genocide.

“Surrounding the 1971 event…my presence, of course, is not recognition or legal determination that happened in 1971 is a genocide. It is not my mandate. My mandate is – looking forward to prevent (genocide),” Adama Dieng said.

“That mean, I do not have such authority (to recognise the 1971 event as genocide),” he added.

Reading out the message of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina issued on the Mass Killing Day, Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque said the Pakistani army killed three million people and set afire a large number of houses during the 1971 Liberation War.

Recalling that the then President Ziaur Rahman stopped the trial of war criminals, he said BNP is still doing politics with the anti-liberation forces.

In the world history, the carnages committed by the Pakistani occupation forces on the night of 25 March, 1971, is one of the most brutal and bloodiest events the world has ever witnessed. Throughout the nine-month bloody war, the Pakistani army killed three million people, while two lakh women lost their dignity.