& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

GROUND REALITIES

So, the Awami League killed Bangabandhu?

Syed Badbul Ahsan
THE acting secretary general of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party has of late been giving us much food for thought. A few days ago,
when he and his party should have come forth with a clear, outright condemnation of the recent attempt to remove the Awami League-led government through one more murderous coup d' etat, he remained charmingly vague about what position the BNP had on the issue. Now, that would be all right for a lot of people. But then, do not forget that there are all those cynics spread all over the place. And they will not soon forget the demand made by the BNP some weeks ago for a disbanding of the International Crimes Tribunal now busy trying to bring the war criminals of 1971 to justice. That was a wrong, almost suicidal move for the party. Here you have a party which says nothing about the three million who died in the War of Liberation, of the intellectuals led away to a gory end by the death squads of the Jamaat-e-Islami on the eve of victory, but which comes out strongly in defence of the very men who were part of that murder machine along with the Pakistan army forty years ago.
It is not a decent position to adopt, by a party which forever reminds us of the patriotic zeal with which it has been doing politics in the country. Never mind that in the five years before a state of emergency was imposed on the country in January 2007, it was a full-fledged kleptocracy the BNP presided over. Never mind that it was a story of a prime ministerial son setting up his own version of a parallel government. The leading lights of the BNP have never said sorry, even though you have waited for three long years for some expressions of contrition to come from them.
You can be pretty sure that the party will not say sorry, considering its bizarre belief that the Awami League was placed in power at the 2008 elections by the army. That is not good politics, for it ignores the clear rejection the party suffered at the hands of the electorate. But, again, never mind. Only recall how, days before this latest attempt at a
bloodbath along the lines of the massacre of August 1975 was made known, Begum Khaleda Zia took up a false refrain, even before conducting any inquiry or before she had been properly briefed by her party colleagues, of army officers being abducted in what she tried to give out as a conspiracy by the government against its own armed forces.
A couple of days later, we woke up to the news that a bunch of retired and serving army officers had indeed been planning a seizure of power. Predictably and very properly, an entire nation has rallied in defence of democracy. Much as we take the Awami League government to task over the mistakes it has made since
assuming office three years ago, the bigger truth is that no Bengali will accept an overthrow of an elected government, indeed is not ready to push aside a political dispensation which, for all its flaws, remains our only symbol of secular, liberal politics. But that is not how Mirza Alamgir and his friends see it. The BNP leader has just informed us that it was the Awami League which was involved in the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. That is quite a revelation. We didn't know -- did we? -- that Farook Rahman, Shariful Haq Dalim,
Abdur Rashid and company were part of the Awami League. We were not aware -- were we? -- that the Awami League had a cell in the cantonment and through that cell sent out all those tanks out on the streets to murder the country's founding father.
And here's another thought: Mirza Alamgir believes the Awami League killed Mujib. He surely remembers that Bangabandhu was the supreme leader of the Awami League. Could it then be that the Father of the Nation committed suicide or asked his party men to take his life? And that is not all. This sheer intellectual dishonesty on the part of a prominent BNP politician opens up newer questions.
Might it not have been some Awami League goons who simply walked into Dhaka central jail in November 1975 and put their four prominent leaders to a swift, brutal death?
The BNP acting secretary general points the finger at the Awami League for the murder of General Ziaur Rahman in May 1981. That is news. It raises the interesting possibility of General M.A. Manzur and everyone else involved in that abortive coup being secretly involved with the Awami League and causing all that mayhem. And if you go by Mirza Alamgir's revelations, even General H.M. Ershad, in his position as army chief of staff, might have been part of a radical Awami League cell engaged in a heinous conspiracy to overthrow the government of President Sattar in March 1982.
The BNP leader goes a step further. The "unconstitutional" government which emerged in January 2007, says he, was again a result of Awami League conspiracy. He might as well have informed us about the role of the Awami League in President lajuddin Ahmed's taking over the caretaker government in October 2006 through a clear violation of the constitutional provisions relating to the appointment of a chief advisor.
A new attempt at rewriting history is what you now get from a party which has never felt happy losing elections, has never been sorry about its founder's mutilation of the constitution between 1975 and 1979, has never felt embarrassed about turning its back on the spirit of 1971. You do not feel sorry about men and women who undermine the truth in such cavalier fashion. Pity is what wells up in you.
The writer is Executive Editor, The Daily Star. E-mail: bahsantareq@yahoo.co.uk