Diplomacy, Genocide, and Regime Change: Lessons from Bangladesh’s Troubled History

It was only after Sheikh Hasina was elected Prime Minister in 1996 that the process of justice started moving. Some of the killers could be punished. Even then the entire truth could not be uncovered, or at least stated officially. So it is unlikely that the complete truth of the killing of Banglabandhu will ever be known for certainty. The reason is that the complete story has important international aspects which were difficult even for the government led for several years by the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman to state openly.

In his widely discussed book ‘Trial of Henry Kissinger’ Christopher Hitchens has stated clearly regarding those times of Bangladesh, “ (USA) Ambassador ( in Bangladesh) Boster became convinced that his CIA station was operating a back channel without his knowledge. Such an operation would have been meaningless, and pointlessly risky, if it did not extend homeward to Washington where, as is now notorious, the threads of the Forty Committee and National Security Council, were very closely held in one fist.” This fist, as this book explains, was that of Henry Kissinger.

Due to the investigative writings of Lawrence Lifschultz, Kai Bird, Christopher Hitchens and others published in reputed newspapers and journals of Bangladesh , India and several other countries as well, some basic aspects of this heinous crime are now fairly well known.

1. It is fairly well-recognized that some influential persons of Bangladesh establishment, particularly in the army, had outwardly aligned themselves to liberation forces of Mujibur Rehman but had kept their links to Pakistan and religious fundamentalist forces intact, waiting for an opportunity to oust Mujibur Rehman. Ziaur Rehman, a senior army officer, was the most manipulative among these persons and could go to any length to advance his interests.
2. Kissinger who was all powerful in the USA had seen the liberation of Bangladesh as a humiliation for his diplomacy that had to be avenged by ousting Mujib. Therefore he had instructed the CIA Station Chief in Dacca regarding a plan to oust Mujib. As per his mandate the CIA station chief in Dacca, who of course kept his actual assignment hidden under the officially stated designation of being a political officer, had started exploring who can be useful in ousting Mujib and contacts had been established with various persons including Ziaur.
3. Around 1974-75 these attempts had started taking a more definite turn. The role of Ziaur Rehman was to be the important behind-the-scene role of managing the army at higher levels so that the actual killers could be reassured that no action will be taken against them after the killings and actually they will be rewarded with better opportunities. Talk of such planning was in the air.
4. The USA Ambassador in Dacca Davis Eugene Boster was a man of principles. Hearing these rumours he had given strict instructions that embassy staff is not to be involved in any coup or killing effort and should keep away from any such plotters and plot that may come to their notice. However he had very uneasy feeling that his instructions were not being followed and some sinister work was being done by the CIA station head bypassing him, on the basis of direct contacts at a very high level in the USA. Due to this duality there was a lot of tension in the USA embassy at that time.
5. Hence just a few days before the assassination when the CIA head in Dacca wanted to have a detailed secretive talk with Ziaur Rehman, he avoided a direct meeting and instead shrewdly arranged to meet at a dinner to be hosted by a prominent businessman who was also close to the Mujib family. As the dinner had just these two guests they could find enough time to talk separately in the garden. The businessman did not know the real identity of his American guest of course and later, after the assassination, when he could add two and two together, he deeply regretted the hosting of the dinner (at the prompting of the American guest), but by then it was too late to make any amends.

To this we may add the well-known history of post assassination days—the speedy rise of Ziaur to become the President of Bangladesh, the strong steps taken by Ziaur to move close to the USA and its western allies while distancing Bangladesh from India and the Soviet Union, the strengthening of fundamentalist forces within Bangladesh who had collaborated with Pakistan to kill so many people, the definite moving away from secularism.

The Sheikh Hasina government was fully committed to punishing those persons who were involved in the actual killing, but what is ultimately more important is to know who all were involved in planning the killings and in giving the go-ahead to the killers, for they would not have moved for such a shocking crime without some reassurance of their own safety and reward from higher levels. But as a complete exposure of this has strong international ramifications concerning very powerful forces, it was not possible even for the Bangladesh government led by the daughter of Banglabandhu to acknowledge all the known aspects officially.

Sheikh Mujibur Rehman was not just the first President of Bangladesh. Called Banglabandhu and Father of the Nation, he had played a very courageous role in resisting domination and repression of his people, leading the Awami League to victory in 167 out of 169 seats parliamentary seats contested n 1970-71, then being imprisoned, and returning to his beloved people only after the new nation of Bangladesh had been born and Pakistan had been defeated, with 90000 prisoners taken.

On return he announced that the new nation will be built on a foundation of democracy, socialism and secularism. If this vision had succeeded it would have had much wider impact, contributing much not just to immediate welfare but also to the longer-term progress of the troubled South Asian region. However he was killed in August 1971. Four prominent persons associated most closely with the creation of Bangladesh, including a former Prime Minister, were imprisoned and killed in the first week of November.

When Sheiekh Hasina won elections in 1996 and became the Prime Minister the indemnity law could be repealed. 12 persons were convicted for the assassination and given the death sentence by a Dhaka court. By then most had escaped, using foreign connections.

The journalist who is credited with the most detailed investigation and writing on this issue is Lawrence Lifschultz, former South Asia Correspondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review whose writings on this issue also appeared in the Economic and Political Weekly. In his book ‘Bangladesh—the Unfinished Revolution’ as well as in other writings, he has pointed out that the CIA station staff was involved in the killing of Banglabandhu. They had been meeting some of the conspirators before the killing.

This allegation was widely made first by some left parties in India, but it is the careful research of Lifschultz which provided the important details. Later in 2020 Lifschultz again emphasized the need for exploring this aspect further.

He also pointed to the important role of Ziaur Rehman. As is well-known, Ziaur, a senior army officer at the time of the killings, extracted the most gains from these by first becoming the army general and then the President of the country in 1977, till he himself was killed by other army men in 1981. Lifschultz also described Ziaur Rehman as a psychopath in his persistence with violence and in his betrayal of various persons after using them to his advantage.

Although Ziaur highlighted his own role in liberation of Bangladesh when success appeared near, later evidence indicated that he had maintained his relationship with Pakistan all along. He had also been meeting some CIA staff before the killing of Banglabandhu. The crucial role of Ziaur was to ensure that the Army did not act against the killers after the killing. His peculiar behaviour soon after the killings also betrayed his leanings. As Lifschultz said later, the killers would not have moved without the backing of Ziaur and Ziaur would not moved without the backing of the Americans. However it should be stated in all fairness to the US Ambassador in Dhaka ( at that time ) Eugene Boster that he did not approve at all of the coup and the killings . However the CIA staff moved ahead despite his protest and refusal.

Soon after he became President, Ziaur Rehman made haste to undo the legacy of Mujibur, clamped down on secularism, socialism and democracy, and promoted the revival of the same fundamentalist forces which had collaborated with Pakistan in the most cruel atrocities and torture on their own people. He was equally quick in improving relations with the USA, its western allies and China, while cooling off towards India and the Soviet Union.

The USA under the guard of Nixon and Kissinger had all along supported Yahya Khan when he unleashed genocide in Bangladesh. Nixon also used the most offensive language against the Indian Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi which cannot be printed.

China throughout extended full support to Yahya Khan, who had emerged as a link in the coming closer of the US and China at that time. Once Ziaur became President, the Chinese leadership rushed to cosy up to Bangladesh in many ways.

When the USA could not check the liberation of Bangladesh, it appears that the CIA embarked on two simultaneous projects. One of these was to oust Mujibur Rehman at all costs as soon as possible, the second was to make things as difficult as possible for Mrs. Gandhi and her leadership of India (with help from Pakistan). Faced with this new challenge, unfortunately the two leaders could not repeat the name greatness as they had both shown in very recent times.

Much later some of the shocking injustice could be remedied after the daughter of Mujib Sheikh Hasina became the Prime Minister of Bangladesh after a very tough struggle which included several threats to her life. Unfortunately she has faced very severe but unjustified criticism in sections of the media, and events relating to her have been highly misrepresented. A question that needs to be raised is–when a top national-level woman leader succeeds in increasing human development indicators to a remarkable extent in the middle of the most difficult conditions, should sections of big media treat her most unfairly just because she dared to openly say that some very powerful forces in the west were trying to harm or topple her government? This is an important question that needs to be raised particularly when she has been forced into exile, her political party has been banned recently and her supporters and colleagues have been widely victimized and attacked.

It is increasingly agreed that women’s leadership should be encouraged. In some countries, including the USA, the top political post has never been held by a woman. On the other hand Bangladesh provides an inspirational example where for the greater part of the 53 years of the nation’s history, the top post has been held by women leaders. While some military dictators have also ruled this country, they were all men. On the other hand all the women who occupied the top job of the Prime Minister were elected to their top post.

By far the woman leader who held the top job for the longest years is Sheikh Hasina (now living in exile). She also holds the world record as the woman leader who has been the top national woman leader for the longest time. She held the top spot for 20 years, followed by Indira Gandhi (India), Angela Merkel (Germany) and V.Finnbogadottir (Iceland), each of whom held the top job for about 16 years.

Instead of expressing special appreciation for the contributions of Sheikh Hasina, whose years in the top job were marked by remarkable improvements in several important human development indicators, dominant sections of media have increasingly focused only on the negative sides of her years in power, and that too in highly exaggerated and sometimes outright false ways. In this highly distorted discourse secular and relatively well governing forces have been turned into villains while fundamentalist, extremist and corrupt forces (including those who carry out imperialism’s bidding) have been turned into heroes. Why are sections of dominant world media indulging in such serious distortions? The answer is clear. Once the forces of imperialism decide to go after a leader then dominant sections of media also start seeing only evil in that particular leader, ignoring all the good work she may have done over the years or decades. This becomes even more pronounced if the leader has dared to say clearly that certain powerful forces are behind the attempts to harm and oust her.

It is therefore very important to set the record straight. In the middle of all the allegations thrown indiscriminately against Sheikh Hasina in recent times, how many people remember that she had won worldwide praise for reaching the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord and then for providing shelter and relief to nearly a million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, that in 1998 she had received the M.K. Gandhi Award from the M.K. Gandhi Foundation in Oslo and also the UNESCO Award for Women’s Empowerment and Girls’ Education, apart from numerous other honours from prestigious institutions in many parts of the world.

What is even more important is the significant progress in human development indicators during her years as Prime Minister. Her most powerful opposition consisted mostly of extremist fundamentalist forces and forces allied to military dictators, including those who were collaborators in the 1971 genocide and ethnic cleansing which killed about 2 million million people and externally displaced about ten million. Hence the credit for progress in human development indicators on the government side mainly goes to the work done when Sheikh Hasina was heading the government.

To get an idea of the extent of this achievement, a comparison with Pakistan may be made. As is well-known, when Bangladesh, then called East Pakistan, was a part of Pakistan for about 24 years, it faced regional discrimination. On top of this, there was the extreme harm done in the genocidal conditions of 1971 and later in the highly disturbed conditions following the assassination of the first Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rehman (father of Sheikh Hasina) along with other family members in 1975. Despite this, in recent times Bangladesh has surged ahead of Pakistan in important human development indicators, particularly those relating to women. According to estimates of around 2022-23, female adult literacy in Bangladesh is 74% compared to 53% for Pakistan. Even more tellingly, the infant mortality rate in Bangladesh is 25 compared to about 50 for Pakistan. Such improvement was achieved despite the population density in Bangladesh being over double that of Pakistan as well as several other adverse conditions faced by Bangladesh.

Also the adversities in the middle of which Sheikh Hasina could retain her leadership for so long and contribute to the progress of her country were of an extreme kind. One can understand the extreme shock and distress she must have undergone when her father, mother, brothers and other family members were all assassinated in a most cruel way in 1975. According to the research of several senior persons, the forces behind this assassination were more or less the same whom she identified in 2023-24 to be plotting for her ouster.

After most of her family members were murdered, she sought asylum in India in 1975. Meanwhile in Bangladesh highly corrupt police officers linked to forces of genocide carried out earlier had taken over and the extent of their ethical bankruptcy is evident from the fact that they enacted an indemnity law providing immunity from prosecution to those who were involved in the most cruel anti-national crime of assassination of the country’s first prime minister, also called the father of the nation by many people, and his family members including children.

Despite knowing that the country had fallen into such hands for the time being, this brave lady Sheikh Hasina took the highly courageous step of returning to Bangladesh and assuming the leadership of her father’s party, the country’s oldest political party Awami League, around the year 1981.

In the course of her numerous struggles here, several assassination attempts targeting her were made. It has been estimated that 19 such attempts were made. Several of her close associates were actually killed. She was sent to jail several times where her ailments remained unattended.

It was in the middle of such circumstances that she braved on, also taking strong actions against the perpetrators of previous assassinations , murders and other such crimes who had been living in comfort before she took over.

She won many elections but her critics have stated that these were boycotted by some other political parties. However there has been quite a history of some parties boycotting elections. Even if they had fought, the likelihood of the Awami League still winning was high.

Of course it is quite possible that, particularly in its later days, the government led by Sheikh Hasina actually made some serious mistakes as long years of power often bring in some corrupt persons. Another factor is that when you are facing many threats from dangerous forces and you have already faced assassination attempts and very tragic loss of family members in assassinations, you tend to take some harsh steps while in milder circumstances you may not have taken these.

Threatened by extremist and fundamentalist forces most of the time, Sheikh Hasina felt additional danger from powerful western forces around 2023-24 when she stated that these forces wanted to create an air base and perhaps even a smaller separate country and she was opposing all this.

After this the protests against her became much more intense, frequent and persistent.

When there are spontaneous internal protests by people to find solutions for their problems, almost always these end in some sort of settlement as both the people and the government want and need a settlement.

However when the protests are instigated by the most powerful foreign (western) forces, then these forces who are pulling the strings from behind do not desire a settlement. They want regime change and ouster of the most prominent leader (and other related objectives) and this is what they achieved in the form of the ouster of Sheikh Hasina.

After Sheikh Hasina started living in exile in India, one after another cases of serious crimes were registered against her in Bangladesh so that now there may be perhaps a hundred cases of murder or such serious crimes against the 78 year old grandmother with several ailments. Her associates and members of the Awami League are being targeted and victimized in Bangladesh. Religious minorities are facing increasing attacks and violence. The Awami League has been banned from contesting elections.

Should the media keep on adding to this injustice by continuing to be highly unjust in its depiction and understanding of the work of Sheikh Hasina? The way forward is to bring out the truthful state of affairs and thereby contribute to the progress of Bangladesh on the path of genuine democracy, peace and justice.

Jeffrey D. Sachs, University Professor and Director of the Centre for Sustainable Development at Columbia University has written, “Covert regime change operations are blatantly illegal under international law (notably the Doctrine of Non-Intervention, as expressed for example in the UN General Assembly Resolution 2025, 1970), and constitute perhaps the greatest threat to world peace, as they profoundly destabilize nations, and often lead to wars and other civil disorders.”

Professor Sachs wrote this in an article published in Common Dreams (and elsewhere) in mid- August 2024, titled ‘Accusations of US regime-change operations in Pakistan and Bangladesh warrant UN attention’. In this article he wrote that there is very strong evidence of US role in toppling of the government of Imran Khan in Pakistan in 2022 and the likelihood of something very similar in the overthrow of the government of Bangladesh led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina more recently in 2024. The two main leaders have themselves alleged such involvement of US role. Prof. Sachs writes, “Their grave accusations against the US, as reported in the world media, should be investigated by the UN, since if true, the US actions would constitute a fundamental threat to world peace ad regional stability in South Asia.” Keeping in view all these happenings in the region, it would be advisable for other countries also to be more cautious in the coming days. Also, learning from those US diplomats who had tried bravely if vainly to prevent bloodshed, one hopes that their example would inspire similar ethical and principled conduct on the part of diplomats so that the power they undoubtedly wield is used for the greater good of humanity.