So it seems the current Awami League government is hellbent on bringing war criminals to justice by hook or crook. I personally am not too sure whether the whole of the Jamaat leadership consists of war criminals but what is apparent is that the trials are a farce - akin to a kangaroo court.
This is a country where you can buy the High Court / Supreme court judges. This is a country where a war crimes tribunal judge is caught out having an online conversation about the trial he is presiding over. Who then subsequently resigns followed by another appointment and then a verdict: guilty and punishment is death.
I believe war criminals from any war in the world should be sentenced to death. However if we are to take the scenario in Bangladesh it is hard to swallow the verdict as just. In December 2012 The Economist published a series of intercepted communications between the senior judge and an external adviser, suggesting close and prohibited collaboration between the judge, prosecutors, and the government
The Geneva based International Commission of Jurists says the following:
"The ICJ says that the International Crimes Tribunal does not adhere to international standards of a fair trial and due process.
According to the ICJ, there are serious procedure flaws at all stages: pre-trial release has been routinely and arbitrarily denied; witnesses have been abducted and intimidated; there have been credible allegations of collusion between the Government, prosecutors and judges.
On 14 February 2013, a draft amendment was tabled in Parliament, retroactively changing the International Criminal (Tribunals) Act 1973 to enable prosecutors to appeal a life sentence and seek the death penalty."
With the above it is hard to justify the verdicts. Seeing the violence on the ground it appears to me it could cause a much more sinister civil unrest.
Why now?
My thinking on the current fast-track process is that AL are going to face an election next year. So by killing off the Jamaat leadership they will potentially kill BNP's main coalition partner.
Another angle is that it could also be a ploy to delay the election as they know the violence that will ensue the verdicts.
In my opinion it would have been better to put to the gallows Tareq and Koko Rahman (Kukur??) for the amount of crimes they committed by depriving the people of Bangladesh. At least there is national (again some suspect) evidence - but more importantly documented international evidence of their money laundering.
As a statesman/ woman - you have to ultimately see what such a tribunal will do - if it splits the people in two then is it worth pursuing in its current form? Sadly we don't have a stateswoman but a woman who thinks her father gave her the land and another woman who thinks her husband gave her the land. Both of which are thieving scums.
Military option
The last election brought about military intervention in the wise belief that the minus-2 solution would be taken on board by the people. The public were too shortsighted compared to the advance thinking the solution required. Ultimately they went back to calling the two respective women as their leaders by the two groups of people that divide Bangladesh. This time round there won't be such an intervention as AL (poss BNP involved??) have killed off at least 20% of the senior military leaders that Bangladesh has ever produced (it's first batch due to its infancy) in the Peelkhana (Pilkhana) massacre.
Bangladesh .. still an unfinished revolution.
