MOHAMMAD ZAFAR IQBAL Vs. BANGLADESH, REPRESENTED BY THE SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF LIBERATION WAR AFFAIRS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Months of the historic struggle for national liberation, the Pakistani Occupation Army along with their collaborators such as the Rajakars, Al-sams, Shanti Committee, Biharis created a reign of terror in this country by killing en masse intellectuals, professionals, litterateur, journalists, students, members of the minority community, women and freedom fighters and dumped their dead bodies at different mass graveyards all over the country. Gary J. Bass wrote, Lt. General A.A.K. Niazi, who soon became the millitary commander in East Pakistan, would later frankly write of 'killing of civilians and a scorched-earth policy' condemning 'a display of stark cruelty, more merciless than the massacres .... by Changes (Genghis) Khan .... or at Jallianwala Bagh by the Bitish General Dyer'. (The Blood Telegram, page 70). General Niazi admitted the 'indiscriminate use of force' that 'earned for the military leaders names such as, 'Changez Khan' and 'Butcher of East Pakistan (Ibid). 'Although Pakistani forces had concentrated on Awami League activists, "Hindus Seem (to) bear brunt to general reign of terror". (Ibid P.72). Desaix Myers, a brash young development official, says, 'I was running around Chittagong in my white car, going up to millitary guys, saying, 'I've heard rumors about young guys violating women, and I know that you as a disciplined officer would not want that to get out to the international press'. We felt we had displomatic immunity. It just didn't seem that risky at the time' (Ibid). Myers wrote a desolate letter home to his friends lamenting what he had seen in a small, improvished Hindu village in the country side. The Army had 'lined up people from their houses, shot down the lines, killing close to six hundred'. (Ibid). "AT THE WHITE HOUSE, KISSINGER'S AIDES WERE SHAKEN BY BLOOD'S reporting. 'It was a brutal crackdown', says Winston Lord, Kissinger's special assistant, who says he read some of the cables. 'In retrospect, he did a pretty good reporting job, says Samuel Hoskinson, about Blood. 'He was telling power in Washington what power in Washington didn't want to hear." (Ibid, P.73).