[Reader-list] 30 years later, Waiting For Mujib

[Naeem]

Helo to Sarai
I met the Sarai team in Stuttgart where we were both
presenting our work and I was blown away by their
depth of analysis and art.  I've been a lurker on
Sarai since then.

I have a few projects:
Shobak.org: Outsider Muslim Voices
DisappearedInAmerica.org: on post 9/11 civil liberties
crisis
MuslimsOrHeretics.org: on persecution of Ahmadiya
Muslims in Bangladesh & Pakistan (I'm Sunni myself,
and see this as part of a larger civil war within
Islam)

Also, a mailing list for political news: SHOBAK--
details on shobak.org

=====

This essay of mine was published today on the 30th
anniversary of the
assassination of Bangladesh's first Prime Minister.
-Naeem, Shobak.org
===========================
On August 15 1975, a group of army officers burst into
the residence
of independent Bangladesh's first Prime Minister
Sheikh Mujib. After
killing Mujib, the army officers proceeded to massacre
his entire
family, including his 4 year old grandson Sheikh
Russell.

The 1975 coup ushered in an era of instability in
Bangladesh--
repeated coups and counter-coups, two military
dicatorships, and a
fragile democracy today has left Bangladesh in a
vulnerable state.
Although Bangladesh was formed in rejection of the
Islamic state of
Pakistan, "secularism" was removed from the
constitution and Islam was
named the "state religion" during the military juntas
of,
respectively, Zia and Ershad.

30 years on, the debate over Mujib's legacy is bitter
and partisan.
On the ocassion of the 30th anniversary, THE DAILY
STAR asked members
of the "new generation" to talk about what Mujib means
to them. Below
are my essay, an essay by my colleague Asif Saleh and
a piece by
Tasneem Khalil. Tasneem's piece also contains a
partial response to
my essay (his penultimate paragraph talks about my
statement that
Mujib "won the war but lost the peace."). This is
followed by Part 1
of Lawrence Lifschultz's report, containing the
explosive allegation
that the US knew and may have supported the 1975 coup.
-Naeem, Shobak.org

1.Naeem Mohaiemen: Waiting for Mujib
2.Asif Saleh: Connecting with the Founder
3.Tasneem Khalil: Mujib was our Allende & Mosaddegh
4.Laurence Lifschultz: US hand behind 1975 coup?
5.Nation mourns Bangabandhu today

DAILY STAR SPECIAL
Banga Bandhu Sheikh Mujib & the New Generation
August 15, 2005

Waiting for Mujib
By Naeem Mohaiemen

Although born in 1969, I am technically part of the
"post-71
generation." The struggles, debates and emotions that
animated and
divided our parents are an abstraction and learned
memory for us. At
the same time, we are the first generation that has
benefited from
those struggles without having to go through
sacrifices. At the same
time, because of our distance and lack of personal
involvement in the
watershed years, we are perhaps best placed to start
engaging in an
open debate and analysis of our founding myths.

The fissures and divisions that are core to our
history are most
apparent in the controversy over the meaning of Sheikh
Mujib. To
some, he is Bongo Bandhu, Father of the Nation, the
great national
leader, an unassailable demi-god without flaws. To
critics, he is a
signifier for everything that went wrong at the
outset-- an autocrat
who ruthlessly crushed political dissent, and an inept
administrator
who failed to rebuild a war-ravaged nation. To the
more academic or
"neutral" observers, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is a
textbook case of the
failure of Third World Charisma. Developing nations
seem particularly
prone to throwing up leaders who are brilliant at
raising emotions and
bringing the masses together in moments of crisis, but
are inept at
the arduous task of running a country's day-to-day
operations. About
Mujib, the simplest summation can be that he won the
war, but lost the
peace. Of course Mujib's failure as a leader can never
be used to
justify the grisly murders of August 15. Those rogue
military
officers who carried out the coups were murderers and
destroyers of
democracy. No matter how much revisionist historians
may deconstruct
Mujib's flaws, this can never be used to exonerate the
coup plotters.

In 1971, when the Pakistani army crackdown began, my
father, an army
doctor, had the bad luck of being posted in West
Pakistan. As war
raged on, Bengalis in West Pakistan were herded off to
prison camp.
My earliest memories are actually in Mondi Bahauddin
camp. It wasn't
until 1973 that the hundreds of Bengali families were
repatriated to
Bangladesh, as part of a prisoner exchange with the
Pakistani POWs
held inside India. We drove in my father's Volkswagen
Beetle to the
transition point, where we boarded German Fokker
Friendships. I was
very excited-- it was my first time on a plane. My
mother, always
prone to carsickness, was overcome by tension and
threw up repeatedly
along the side of the car. It was some kind of
homecoming.

In many ways, we missed all the emotional ups and
downs of
Bangladesh's early years. We spent the war trapped in
Pakistan.
Subsequently, we missed Mujib's joyful homecoming,
when the country
was united in support behind him. By the time we
returned to
Bangladesh, the rot had set and Mujib's stature was in
freefall.
Corruption and mismanagement was everywhere, flood and
famine gripped
the country. Whether Mujib was personally honest or
not, he certainly
tolerated the rampant corruption of his entourage. In
this, he showed
a quintessentially Bangla trait, a tolerance for
"chatukars" or
sycophants.

In the mid 1970s, the Middle East started importing
Bangla skilled
labor, and my father was one of the first batches of
doctors to be
sent to Libya. It was while we were living in that
hostile, desert
nation that we received news of Mujib's assassination.
My grandfather
also passed away in that same period, and in my
fractured memories,
somehow the milad for my grandfather metamorphosed
into a milad for
Mujib.
Salman Rushdie later satirized Mujib's gruesome end in
"Shame":
"Sheikh Bismillah, the architect of division, became
chief of the
junglees. Later, inevitably, they swarmed into his
palace and shot
him and his family full of holes. Sort of behavior one
expects from
types like that."
Rushdie of course was very thoroughly on the Bengali
side (he later
gave Benazir a tongue-lashing for her attempt to
criticize Mujib in
"Daughter of The East"), but the "Shame" of the title
could very well
have been directed at the Bangali nation. Mujib made
many mistakes,
but he never deserved this dog's death on the steps of
"Number 32"--
machine-gunned down by his own soldiers, who proceeded
to slaughter
the entire family, trying to wipe out any successors.

Three decades have passed since summer 1975, but it is
still difficult
to have a rational discussion about Sheikh Mujib's
legacy. Like all
things in Bangladesh, opinions about him are trapped
between two
warring extremes. One side acknowledges no flaws, the
other gives
Mujib no credit. Some have gone as far as to erase the
portion from
Zia's independence speech where he says "on behalf of
our great
national leader Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman"--
as if that would
obscure the fact of who won the 1970 election, and
whose call first
brought the Bengali masses to the streets.

Personally, I am the first to criticize Mujib's
faults. Beyond BKSAL,
there are three events I count as his greatest
political failures.
The first is the massacre of JSD leaders who dared to
assemble at
Dhaka University TSC for the first public revolt
against the new Mujib
government. The second is his infamous challenge,
"Where today is
Shiraj Shikdar?" (after the Sharbahara Party leader
had been killed
while in police custody). And finally, there was his
paternalistic
advice to the Pahari tribals of Chittagong Hill
Tracts, "From today
you are all Bengalis"-- setting the stage for the
ethnic cleansing of
CHT and the 30-year guerilla war in that region. But
while I can
critique Mujib, I also acknowledge that without his
leadership at a
crucial time, there would be no Bangladesh, no
Bangladeshi
nationalism, no green Bangladesh passport, and while
we are at it, no
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

Elsewhere in the world, leaders have been re-evaluated
without
diminishing their achievements. Jinnah's legacy is now
up for debate
in India, with some Indians belatedly acknowledging
his inaugural
speech's promise of equal rights for minorities.
Gandhi too is often
debated-- some call him "Mahatma" and some don't, and
that is
permissible in that society's more open environment.
In Western
academia, starting from Jefferson and Washington's
treatment of
slaves, up to Churchill's divided legacy as a great
wartime Prime
Minister who was also a poisonous racist and beyond,
anything is up
for discussion. Most recently, new archives have
revealed some of
Lyndon B Johnson's private prejudices, but those same
researchers have
credited him for finally pushing through Civil Rights
legislation to
give African Americans dignity and rights (something
the far more
popular JFK failed to do). By looking at all aspects
of history,
these leaders' achievements are not diminished--
rather we get a more
nuanced view of complex people and events.

In my generation, there seems to be a total exhaustion
with the whole
Mujib vs. Zia, Awami League vs. BNP debates and the
controversies over
"who gave the announcement first?" But it would be a
mistake to turn
away from history because of this. History writing is
not a
nation-building project that papers over unsightly
cracks, but rather
a search for the fullest truth about ourselves. The
past is always
prologue to our future. We are still waiting for a
historian who can
construct a truly critical history of Bangladesh's
founding years,
which has to include a proper accounting of Sheikh
Mujib. Instead of
trapping him between the polarities of hosannas and
hate, we need a
new history that looks at his flaws in historical
context, but also
acknowledges his gift to the nation.

====
Naeem Mohaiemen is Editor of Shobak.Org and Director
of
MuslimsOrHeretics.org, a documentary about persecution
of Ahmadiya
Muslims.
===
Bangabandhu And The New Generation
Connecting with the founder
Asif Saleh

A few days ago, in order to catch a live glimpse of
Bangladesh vs
Australia cricket match on the Internet, I logged on
to a Bangladesh
based website called bangladeshlive.net. While we were
waiting for the
game to start, the website showed a documentary on our
liberation war.
At one point of the documentary, I saw the March 7
speech of
Bangabandhu -- the speech which is known as a big
inspiration behind
our liberation war. Suddenly I realised that I am 31
years old now and
I had never before seen the actual video footage of
this great part of
our history. Unfortunately, such is the relationship
between the Mujib
and post-Mujib generation -- a relationship of
disconnect. Most of the
post-liberation generation grew up either not knowing
anything about
him or knowing wrong and fabricated information fed by
the two
political parties.

After I grew up, the first time I ever saw Bangabandhu
on television
was when I was 16 -- after the fall of Ershad. Yes, it
is hard to
believe that in my formative years, I have never read
about the
founding father of my own country. Whenever, I heard
his name
mentioned, inevitably it would be in the context of
some foolish
comparison of him with Ziaur Rahman. As if to admire
one of them, you
have to hate the other.

I grew up admiring Zia for his personal honesty and
leadership. When I
was seven, I watched from the roof of our house the
grief of hundreds
and thousands of people who came for his funeral on
Manik Mia avenue.
I shed tears like others as well. That created a
lasting impression.

I grew up watching the anti-autocratic movement
against Ershad and
admired the principled stand of BNP leader Khaleda
Zia. Yes, I was
termed as a BNP sympathiser because of that. Without
really thinking
about any ideology, I thought as a "Young Turk," Zia's
party was
always something I could relate to while Mujib's party
always refer to
this man who I have never seen or can connect to.
Bangabandhu Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman, to me, was a passing thought. He was a
leader whose
picture I have seen but whose story I have never read.
I only heard
about him from my parents and when the forty-something
Awami League
leaders mentioned him in their speeches in a vague
language.

Why am I saying all this? Because that is how me, my
friends, and most
of the younger generation formed opinion about
Bangabandhu in the
post-liberation Bangladesh. Lack of information
compounded with fierce
and bitter fight over the comparative greatness of
Mujib and Zia
created a permanent block on knowing the truth about
him. The more
each party tried to portray their version of the
history, the more
historical facts became the casualty. And the more the
young ones like
us became distant, bitter, and eventually indifferent
about it. In
fact, the progressive forces had a lot to lose here
because they did
not have the state machinery working for them.

However, instead of being empathetic with them, the
young generation
grew more distant from them. Why? Firstly Awami League
brought
Bangabandhu down to the level of a petty partisan
leader instead of
keeping his status as the undisputed father of the
nation. Secondly,
instead of a progressive and intellectual fight back,
they resorted to
mindless unquestionable worshiping of Bangabandhu. It
became a mantra
where if you believed in our liberation war, you had
to accept
Bangabandhu's greatness -- unquestionably.

Any question that the young, curious, and uninformed
mind may have,
they will be termed as a neo-razakar. A few years ago,
in a related
Internet newsgroup, I proposed that AL, instead of
blaming others,
needed to do serious soul-searching on why they lost
in so many
elections after the restoration of democracy in 1991.
Immediately, I
was kicked out of the group moderated by a fierce fan
of AL. To him,
any criticism of AL was tantamount to blasphemy and
therefore it could
not be allowed. It goes without mentioning that such
arrogance and
idol-worshiping of a party and its leader is the last
thing you want
to do when you are in the business of winning new
minds.

The biggest harm this brain-dead fundamentalism had
caused was that it
made Bangabandhu a distant and untouchable figure from
the perspective
of the young generation. For example, we often hear
that AL has to
realise the dream of the Shonar Bangla that
Bangabandhu dreamt, but as
someone who was brought up during the Mujib black out
chapter of our
history, how am I supposed to know what his ideas
truly meant? No one
talks about the very four core principles of the
constitution that
founded Bangladesh.

Maybe they talk about it in political slogans and
vague speeches. But
no one talks about it in a language we can understand
-- in the
context of Bangladesh of today. Ask these unpopular
questions, you
will be in the black book of Mujib worshipers just
like I was.

Such fundamentalist supporters, unfortunately, are the
biggest
liability for the legacy of Mujib. I have an
organisation that is
built of young Bangladeshis worldwide. Originally
people from all
sections were part of it but now I have changed focus
and am building
the organisation entirely of the young. Partly because
it is a lot
easier to get an objective and fresh approach from a
young mind and
partly because their unclouded minds are more focused
on implementing
an idea rather than just talking about it. Recently,
we did a project
on creating website on the bomb blasts in Bangladesh
-- the
backgrounds, the investigations or lack of it, etc.

The principle motivation for this was not letting the
facts
surrounding these blasts become a causality before it
is too late in
the midst of blame and counter blames -- like so many
other matters of
importance in our history. We focused on just
documenting the facts
and let people make up their minds about it.

Can we find a similar study on Bangabandhu? In any
historical matter
of importance, finding a objective resource for
historical study is a
rarity in Bangladesh -- an objective study of
Bangabandhu's career is
no exception. As we are targeting to start an
internship program, I am
looking to compile a reading material for on the
history of Bangladesh
for the 2nd generation Bangladeshis. I know it will be
a long struggle
to come up with something authentic and objective on
Bangabandhu.

Speaking of objectivity, I refer back to the footage
of the leader of
the nation on March 7 that I started watching on
bangladeshlive.net. I
admire his speech. Thanks to those twenty-something
organisers of the
website, I see him unfiltered and unadulterated. As I
have grown up
now, I have access to more information about him. I
gathered a fond
interest towards the history of our nation. Now that I
think about
him, I think of him as a great leader who led a
political struggle
effectively, but who was a failure as an administrator
and a
visionary. Now as I have read up a little more on him,
I can connect
with him a little bit more. I connect with the four
principles of the
constitution that he led to create. Such a progressive
constitution
still makes me proud to be a Bangladeshi.

It is time for our younger generation to connect with
Bangabandhu like
this and be similarly proud of him. It is high time
that we rescue him
from all the mudslingings of the politics. It is time
Awami League
brings him down to earth from the unreachable pedestal
they have
placed him on. It is time BNP stops manufacturing
histories about him.
Our politicians will do this man a favour by not
abusing his name in
speeches and on agendas.

They need to realise that only by bringing out the
real Bangabandhu
will they be appreciated by the public and most
importantly by the
younger generation. We need to evaluate him and his
position in
history objectively -- not for personality worshiping
but for
understanding what we should expect from our political
leaders. We
need to create the seeds for the next Bangabandhu from
this new
generation who will learn from his mistakes and be
inspired from his
accomplishments. We owe it to our nation and to our
future generations.

Asif Saleh is the Founder and Executive Director of
diaspora human
rights organisation Drishtipat.org.
===
Mullahism, military and Mujib
Tasneem Khalil

Since its birth, Pakistan has been said to be ruled by
mullahism, the
military, and the might of the US. Even today, years
after the
independence of "East Pakistan," endless sectarian
riots in Karachi
confirm the murky influence of religion in Pakistani
politics. And
when Condoleezza Rice -- the American Secretary of
State -- flies in
from Washington to Islamabad to meet the President,
she is greeted by
a man in khaki.

Policies that govern the modern day Pakistan are, one
way or the
other, observers argue, set by the adherents of
mullahism or
imperialism, and accordingly enforced by the military
junta. That is
Pakistan in 2005 and that was Pakistan in 1971. Little
has changed,
that too in a negative direction.

But, in 1971, one finger that rose in admonishment of
these entrenched
powers was of the Sheikh. Throughout February-March,
East Pakistan was
virtually ruled by a leader with seven million people
rallied behind
him. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman emerged as a dot of
difference on the world
map.

In March, 1971, (sceptics please reread your history
books) no bank
transaction was cleared and not a single wheel moved
without Sheikh
Mujib's nod, while politicians in Jinnah caps, the
army and diplomats
were driven out of the scene, at least for the month
of rebellion.
Nine months of struggle for liberation, somewhat
symbolically led by
the Sheikh, gave birth to Bangladesh -- a secular,
democratic, and
non-aligned state.

It took about four more years for the combined powers
that had been
defeated in the liberation war to cook a plot, and hit
back. On a
bleak August morning thirty years ago, Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman was
brutally assassinated. And in the following years,
religion, military,
and imperialism took the driving seat of Bangladeshi
politics once
again. Bangladesh, post-Mujib, took a bumpy flight
away from its
secular, socialist, democratic promises.

A country that earned its freedom fighting a
fallacious notion of
religious nationhood, soon became a country with a
constitution
proclaiming its faith in the Almighty. The Military
dictators who
succeeded Mujib have made sure that religion plays a
key role in
Bangladeshi politics. Islam was to become the state
religion and
houses of worship became the Friday offices of a
President. In the
recent past, we have even witnessed how headscarves
can be used as
election tools. As I am writing this, religious
extremism and
sectarian persecution are building to new heights with
Jihadist
outfits mushrooming around the country.

Bangladesh, post-Mujib, became a helpless population
ruled for decades
by the generals in khaki. Military rules that
succeeded the Sheik's
assassination forced the country backwards and turned
Bangladesh into
a replica of Pakistan under Ayub or Yahiya. They were
to lay the
foundations for the nation to be perceived as "the
most corrupted
country" in the world. And they were to curtail
freedom of press in
its totality. Our days spent with the military rule
can be labeled as
our days of disgust and despair.

And then, there are ambassadors and high-commissioners
who somehow
manage to act like modern day viceroys in Bangladesh.
Post-Mujib,
Bangladesh was to become hostage at the hands of
imperialist designs.
Diplomats from Gulshan are now puppet-masters, while
the Secretariat
and Minto Road dances to their tune.

Sheikh was Allende (Chile), Mossadegh (Iran), and at
the same time, as
many of us keep on arguing, he was "a failed
statesman" and "a leader
who won the war but lost the peace." As if post-Sheikh
Bangladesh has
been blessed with a parade of successful statesmen.
Post-Sheikh, name
one leader who outsized or outgrew or out-performed
him. Anyone? None.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is the icon of Bangladesh's
fight against
mullahism, military dictatorship, and imperialism.

On that fateful August morning this convergence of
powerful interests
struck back and brutally assassinated Mujib. They
successfully took
their revenge but one thing that is for sure -- Mujib
will outlive his
assassins.

Tasneem Khalil is a freelance writer and documentary
film-maker.
===
The past is never dead
The long shadow of the August 1975 coup
Lawrence Lifschultz

Was the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman and his
family members on August 15, 1975 merely the result of
personal malice
and an act out of sudden fury of some army officers?

Long investigation by veteran US journalist Lawrence
Lifschultz has
made it clear that there was a deep-rooted conspiracy
behind the dark
episode of August 15.

Lifschultz in a number of investigative reports
published in
newspapers made it clear that Khandaker Moshtaque and
a quarter of US
embassy officials in Dhaka were closely involved with
the small
section of army officers in the August 15 coup.

At long last, Lifschultz disclosed the name of his
"very reliable
source", the then US ambassador in Dhaka Eugene
Booster with whom he
has maintained close communication for the 30 years.

Booster repeatedly objected to the conspiracy leading
to the August 15
assassination, even issued written instruction in this
regard, but
failed to prevent the then station chief Philip Cherry
of US Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Dhaka office from doing
the conspiracy.

Lifschultz's plan to publish an interview of Eugene
Booster in this
regard remained unfulfilled as Booster passed away on
July 7 last.

The new-born Bangladesh could not save herself from
the wrath of then
foreign secretary Henry Kissinger who could never
forget that
Bangladesh was born in opposition to his suggestion.

Along with Salvador Allende of Chile and Taiyoo of
Vietnam,
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was in Kissinger's
political vendetta.

What USA started during the Liberation War in 1971
with attempt to
split the Awami League using Khandaker Moshtaque and
his accomplices
continued after the independence following a direct US
instigation,
resulting in the carnage on August 15, 1975.

On basis of his 30 years' investigation that included
interviews with
the US sources, Moshtaque and others concerned,
Lifschultz has written
a series of that tale.

The first part of his four reports is published today.

The 30th anniversary of the August 15th military coup
in Bangladesh
powerfully illustrates the dictum of William Faulkner
that the past is
never dead, it is not even past. For those of us who
lived through the
years of Bangladesh's 'War of Independence' and the
decade of the
1970s, we remember these dates as milestones of an
era. They are
markers on a road we traveled to a destination many
did not reach.

After thirty years Bangladesh still lives with the
legacy of the
violent night of August 15th. Just over four years
from that dark
March night in 1971 when Pakistani Army troops rolled
their tanks and
armoured vehicles through the streets of Dhaka
slaughtering their
fellow countrymen instead of accepting the outcome of
national
elections they had agreed to accept, a small unit of
the new
Bangladesh Army invoking the sordid tradition of
Pakistan Army staged
a traditional military putsch.

Within hours, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, symbol for many
of an ideal of
liberation, was dead in a military coup d'etat that
had run amok in a
frenzy of killing. Mujib and almost his entire family
were slaughtered
including his wife and sons, the youngest only twelve.
On that deadly
night groups of soldiers broke into squads and
traveled around the
city killing relatives of Mujib's family.

The pregnant wife of one relation who attempted to
intercede to save
her husband's life was herself killed for her efforts.
Mujib's two
daughters were abroad and they survived with Sheikh
Hasina years later
becoming Prime Minister. Yet, only a year ago, she too
was nearly
assassinated in broad daylight by a hit squad that
still "eludes"
capture, demonstrating yet again Faulkner's insightthe
past is not
even past. It is very much present.

The political configuration that exists today is a
direct descendant
of August 15, 1975. The current Prime Minister,
Khaleda Zia, was the
wife of the late General Ziaur Rahman, the Deputy
Chief of Army Staff
in 1975, who played a crucial behind scenes role in
the plotting that
preceded the coup and in the events which followed.

At the American Embassy that night political and
intelligence officers
tried to monitor the unfolding events. But, there was
one figure at
the Embassy in the days that followed the coup who was
particularly
unsettled. A small knot had settled in his stomach.
The events were an
echo of what he had feared might happen months earlier
and which he
had made strenuous efforts to prevent.

I would meet this man in Washington three years later.
He became a
critical source for me and clearly hoped the
information that he
provided would one day lead to uncomfortable truths
being revealed and
those responsible being held accountable. For the
first time in nearly
thirty years I can identify this individual. I have
been freed from a
restraint of confidentiality that I have adhered to
for almost three
decades. But, be patient, with me a bit longer while I
explain how and
why I came to meet this individual.

I was one among many foreign correspondents covering
the coup. Yet, I
was the only journalist reporting these events for a
major publication
who had actually lived in Bangladesh as a journalist.
I was the Dhaka
correspondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review (Hong
Kong) in 1974.
The following year I moved to New Delhi and took up a
new position as
South Asia Correspondent for the Review. The violent
death of Mujib
would draw me into an inquiry that I could never have
anticipated
would, again and again, hold me in its sway at
different stages of my
life.

My unusual source who worked at the American Embassy
that night would
encourage me forward by his own honesty and quality of
integrity. He
was one of those unusual individuals one occasionally
finds inhabiting
an official bureaucracy. He was deeply distressed
about the coup and
the subsequent killings. He was a man with a
conscience. Unlike the
rest of us he knew something others did not and that
knowledge tore at
his conscience. It was this sense of ethical
responsibility that
brought us face-to-face in one of the more memorable
encounters I had
as young reporter.

After the coup against Mujib the official story put
about by the
successor regime and its minions in the Bangladesh
press disturbed me.
It didn't hold together. Moreover, the cracks began to
reveal rather
curious links and antecedents.

The version of events which emerged at the time was
that six junior
officers, with three hundred men under their command,
had acted
exclusively on their own in overthrowing Mujib. The
motives for the
coup were attributed to a combination of personal
grudges held by
certain of the officers against Mujib and his
associates, together
with a general mood of frustration at the widespread
corruption that
had come to characterize certain elements of Mujib's
regime. In short,
according to this view of events the coup was an ad
hoc affair not a
thought out plan a year or more in the making.

The morning Mujib and his family were killed, the
figure installed by
the young majors as President was Khandakar Mustaque
Ahmed, generally
considered to be the representative of a rightist
faction within
Mujib's own party, the Awami League. After the putsch,
Mustaque
remained impeccably reticent about any part he
personally might have
played in Mujib's downfall. He neither confirmed nor
denied his prior
involvement. He simply avoided any public discussion
of the question
and desperately attempted to stabilize his regime.

A year following the coup, after he had himself been
toppled from
power and before his own arrest on corruption charges,
Mustaque denied
to me in an interview at his home in the "Old City" of
Dhaka that he
had any prior knowledge of the coup plan or piror
meetings with the
army majors, who carried out the action. However, the
majors who
staged the military part of the coup and were forced
into exile within
four months by upheavals within the Bangladesh Army
began to tell a
different tale.

In interviews with journalists in Bangkok and
elsewhere, bitter at
their abandonment by their erstwhile sponsors and
allies, the majors
began to talk out of school. They confirmed prior
meetings with
Mustaque and his associates. A story began to emerge
that Mustaque and
his political friends had been involved for more than
a year in a web
of secret planning that would lead to the overthrow
and death of Mujib.

A few months after the coup, a mid-level official at
the U.S. Embassy
told me that he was aware of serious tensions within
the U.S. Embassy
over what had happened in August. He said that there
were stories
circulating inside the Embassy that the CIA's Station
Chief, Philip
Cherry, had somehow been involved in the coup and that
there was
specific tension between Cherry and Eugene Boster, the
American
Ambassador. He had no specific details about the
nature of this
"tension" only that there were problems. "I
understand," he said,
"something happened that should not have happened." He
urged me to dig
further.

American involvement in the coup didn't make sense to
me. In the
United States, two Congressional Committees were
gearing up to
investigate illegal covert actions of the Central
Intelligence Agency.
The so-called Church and Pike Committee hearings in
Washington on CIA
assassinations of foreign leaders had begun. The
committee hearings
were having their own impact within the American
diplomatic and
intelligence bureaucracies creating great nervousness
and anxiety. The
American press was openly speculating that senior
American
intelligence officials might face imprisonment for
illegal clandestine
action in Chile and elsewhere.

It was the summer when citizens of the United States
first heard
acronyms like MONGOOSE, COINTELPRO, AM/LASH and
elaborate details of
assassination plots against Lumumba in the Congo,
Castro in Cuba and
Allende in Chile. The covert hand of American power
had touched far
and wide. Now the tip of the iceberg was publicly
emerging so that for
the first time Americans could take a clear look. Yet,
all that was
happening far away in Washington, in a muggy heat as
sultry as any
South Asian monsoon.

In India, Indira Gandhi, speaking of the tragedy of
Mujib's death,
spoke of the sure hand of foreign involvement. As
usual, Mrs. Gandhi
was graphically lacking in details or specifics.
However, her avid
supporters during those first nuptial days of India's
Emergency, the
pro-Moscow Communist Party of India (C.P.I.) were more
explicit: the
CIA said the CPI was behind the coup. I dismissed this
as propaganda
based on no specific evidence.

Yet, how had the coup happened? There were still huge
gaps in my
knowledge of how specific actors had traveled through
the various
mazes they had constructed to disguise their movements
yet which
ultimately led to August 15th. I was living in England
nearly three
years after the coup when I decided to make a trip to
Washington to
visit a colleague of mine, Kai Bird, who was then an
editor with The
Nation magazine, published from New York. Today he is
a prominent
American author.

Lawrence Lifschultz was South Asia Correspondent of
the Far Eastern
Economic Review (Hong Kong). He has written
extensively on European
and Asian affairs for The Guardian (London), Le Monde
Diplomatique,
The Nation (New York), and the BBC among numerous
other journals and
publications. Lifschultz is editor and author of
several books
including Why Bosnia? (with Rabia Ali) and Hiroshima's
Shadow:
Writings on the Denial of History & The Smithsonian
Controversy (with
Kai Bird). He is currently at work on a book
concerning Kashmir.
===
Nation mourns Bangabandhu today
Staff Correspondent

The nation today pays tribute to Bangabandhu Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman,
the founding father of the nation, amid a lingering
uncertainty over
the trial of his killers.

At the crack of dawn on August 15, 1975, Bangabandhu
and his family
members, excepting two daughters -- Sheikh Hasina and
Sheikh Rehana
--who were fortunately abroad at the time, were
massacred by a group
splintered off the country's armed forces.

The August 1975 assassinations were followed by the
killings in prison
of four national leaders three months later.

In November 1998, the trial court sentenced to death
15 people for the
August 15 killings, but the High Court later spared
three of them.

Since then, the case is pending with the Appellate
Division of the
Supreme Court, which is two judges shy of a
three-member division
bench required to hear the leave to appeal petition.

The government can correct the situation by appointing
two judges to
the Appellate Division on ad hoc basis. But, according
to informed
quarters, such a move is highly improbable. The case
is unlikely to
resume before March 2007, when the present chief
justice will retire
making way for a new judge to be appointed in the
Appellate Division.

A taskforce to bring the convicted killers back from
abroad was set up
during the previous AL regime. But it was dissolved
after the BNP-led
coalition came to office in 2001. Even councillors of
the case have
been terminated, starting from December 19, 2002.

For 21 long years, the trial of Bangabandhu's killers
had been barred
by Indemnity Ordinance, which was later legalised
through parliament.
The infamous ordinance was finally repealed in 1996,
allowing holding
trial of the case. The murder case was filed on
October 2, 1996.

Sheikh Mujib, the architect of independent Bangladesh,
was born on
March 17, 1920 in Tungipara of Gopalganj district. His
highly emotive
final call on March 7, 1971 -- 'Ebarer songram -
amader muktir
songram; ebarer songram - swadhinotar songram' (The
struggle this time
is for emancipation! The struggle this time is for
independence!) --
inspired and united the entire nation for the
Liberation War.

The way he turned a non-violent non-co-operation
movement of unarmed
masses into an armed struggle, liberating the nation
from Pakistani
occupation and oppression, and creating a new state in
barely nine
months, will remain a wonder of history.

He was born in a middle class Bangalee family and his
political ideals
arose out of the aims and aspirations of the
commoners. He was
inseparably linked with the hopes and aspirations, the
joys and
sorrows, the travails and triumphs of these ordinary
people. He spoke
their language. He gave voice to their hopes and
aspirations. Year
after year he spent the best days of his youth behind
bars.

THE VICTIMS
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the following
members of his
family were assassinated in three separate attacks:
his wife Begum
Fazilatunnessa, sons Sheikh Kamal, Sheikh Jamal and
nine-year-old
Sheikh Russel, daughters-in-law Sultana Kamal, Parveen
Jamal,
Bangabandhu's brother Sheikh Naser, brother-in-law
Abdur Rab
Serniabat, 13-year-old Baby Serniabat, Serniabat's son
Arif,
four-year-old grand son Babu, a visiting nephew, three
guests, four
servants, Sheikh Fazlul Huq Moni, a nephew of
Bangabandhu, his wife
Begum Arju Moni, and Bangabandhu's security chief
Colonel Jamil Uddin
Ahmed.

PROGRAMMES
Today the national and the party flags will be flown
at half-mast at
all offices of the AL and its front organisations. The
party will also
hoist black flags everywhere in observance of the day,
which used to
be a national mourning day during the AL's stay in
power from 1996 to
2001. But the BNP-led coalition government, after
coming to power in
October 2001, scrapped the day's official status.

AL President Sheikh Hasina, also the leader of the
opposition in
parliament, along with her party colleagues will place
wreaths at
Bangabandhu's portrait at the Bangabandhu Memorial
Museum in Dhanmondi
at 12:15pm. From there, they will go to Banani
graveyard and offer Fatiha.

Similar programmes will be held at Bangabandhu's grave
in Tungipara.

The AL, its front organisations and various
socio-cultural
organisations will hold milad mahfil, destitute
feeding, blood
donation and mourning processions.

Hasina will go to Tungipara tomorrow to attend a
programme there.

Besides AL, different political parties excepting the
components of
ruling four-party alliance have taken up different
programmes to mark
the death anniversary of Bangabandhu.

THE GRUESOME KILLING
The deafening sound of gunshots broke the stillness of
dawn on August
15, 1971 on road No 32 of Dhanmondi residential area.
In less than an
hour, the darkest chapter in the political history of
Bangladesh was
written on that fateful morning.

A group of disgruntled army officers in conjunction
with some fiercely
ambitious political elements led the attack to usurp
power by killing
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Without provocation, they opened fire on the private
household of the
late president. With army jeeps, tanks, and heavy
trucks they ensured
that the sudden attack and the element of surprise
smother all resistance.

Another group of killers went to the residence of
Mujib's nephew
Sheikh Fazlul Haque Moni. They attacked from all
directions the
sleeping household situated about two hundred meters
off Dhanmondi
Road No 32. They killed Sheikh Moni and did not spare
even Begum Arju
Moni, who was in the advanced stage of pregnancy.

A third group of the assassins rushed to the residence
of Bangabandhu
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's brother-in-law Abdur Rab
Serniabat. Armed with
automatic weapons, they broke into the house, dragged
the frightened
inmates to the drawing room, and shot dead nine
people.


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