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The term genocide was created by Raphael Lemkin in 1944 to describe what was

happening to the Jews of Europe.1 He combined the words O
 which in Greek means race and

 which means killing. So the literal definition of genocide is race killing.2 The first sentence

Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, chapter nine, defined Genocide as, ³The destruction of a nation

or of an ethnic group.´3 Lemkin¶s definition for the atrocities to fit genocide, has to be,

³A coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations

of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The
objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of political and social institutions, of
culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national
groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the
lives of individuals belonging to such groups.´4

Lemkin stated that genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, not against

individuals, but always as members of a group.5 For Lemkin¶s definition of genocide to fit, the

objective of the atrocities has to be wiping out traces of a certain group. During the Holocaust

there were orders that the Jews were to be completely destroyed as a people; therefore it fit

Lemkin¶s definition of what genocide was.6



 
  
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The United Nations in 1946 passed a resolution on genocide, their first attempt to define

and affirm that genocide is an internationally recognized crime.

³Genocide is a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the
denial of the right to live of individual human beings; such denial of the right of existence
shocks the conscience of mankind, results in great losses to humanity in the form of
cultural and other contributions represented by these human groups, and is contrary to
moral law and to the spirit and aims of the United Nations.´7

The resolution is saying how murder is the denial of life of a single person; genocide is

the denial of an entire group of people to existence. When genocide is attempted there must be

coordinated actions to destroy in whole or in part an entire group of people. The resolution

affirmed that genocide was a crime under international law and that all people can be held

responsible for genocide.8 This resolution is very broad under who is protected.

Israel Charny changed the definition to the J

murder of human beings on the basis

of any characteristic that they share. The protected groups in his definition included national,

ethnic, racial, religious, political, geographical and ideological groups.9 He justified its broad

view ³I reject out of hand that there can be ever be any identity process that in itself will justify

the murder of men, women, and children µbecause¶ they are ³anti´ some ³ism´ or because their

physical characteristics are high.´10 Charny changed the definition because the United Nations

definition of genocide would not include the victims of Stalin¶s purges in the Soviet Union as

well as Pol Pot¶s destruction of the Cambodian people.11 Charny argued that if thousands of

people were murdered because of their political affiliations, they are still being murdered for

who they are. Charny is expanding who he feels should be protected under the Convention

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Against Genocide. His definition is that any identity whether it is religious, ideological or

geographical.

Helen Fine defined genocide as,

³The sustained purposeful action by a perpetrator to physical destroy a collectivity

directly or indirectly, through interdiction of the biological and social reproduction of group
members, sustained regardless of the surrender or lack of threat offered by the victim.´12

Helen Fine defined genocide as the direct or indirect action taken by a government

against people of any kind. Forced sterilization under Fine¶s definition would be considered

genocide.13 There does not have to be a large scale extermination plan for Fine¶s definition of

genocide to fit. It is therefore is very broad under who is a protected group and that is the

problem with the definition. She also argued that certain other groups should be protected as

well. She said that, ³being an Italian working-class member of communist party may just be as

heritable a characteristic as being an Italian church-going Roman Catholic.´14 She argued that

being a certain member of a political group can be as important a part of the person¶s conscience

and upbringing as is their religion. She also claims that someone¶s class as well as their political

beliefs is part of a person¶s identity.15

In 1948 after the horrors of the Holocaust the United Nations created the Genocide

Convention which defined genocide as the following:

³In the present convention genocide means any of the following acts committed with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a)
Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the
group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its



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physical destruction in whole or in part;(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within
the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.´16

The Convention of 1948 defined who is protected from the crime of genocide. This

definition protects religious, ethnic, national and racial groups. It does not include political

parties as well as membership in clubs. The definition would not include killing members of the

Communist party, the Ku Klux Klan, and Freemasons. This definition is the most complete

working definition of genocide that there is. It not only protects most groups, it also includes

forced sterilization and the abduction of children as being genocidal acts. This definition is not

just saying that attempted annihilation of a group, but other actions which would endanger a

group of people from surviving intact as a people, such as the kidnapping of their children,

would also amount to the crime.

The legal definition of genocide is the Genocide Convention of 1948.17 This is the

authoritative definition on genocide. It is used by the process of international justice exemplified

by the tribunals of Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia. The convention¶s definition has not

changed in the past sixty years. This definition of genocide emphasizes intent in the actions of

the perpetrators. For genocidal acts to be considered genocide, the side perpetrating the acts

needs to show intent to annihilate a certain group. This is the only problem with the Genocide

Convention of 1948 definition because it becomes very hard to prove intent in genocide in many

cases. All genocides are committed by individuals acting mostly on orders from a state or

officials. The differences between the five definitions of genocide can be seen below.


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Lemkin 1944 UN Resolution 1946 Charny Fine Convention of 1948

Political, Racial National, Racial Biological National

Social Institutions

Cultural Institutions, Religious Religious Social Racial

Language Reproduction18

National Feelings, Political19 Geographical Identity20 Ethnic, Religious

Religion

Personal Security Intent Ideological Intent

(Human Rights) Other Groups Intent 22

Intent 21

 

Raphael Lemkin defined genocide as ³The destruction of a nation or ethnic group.´23

Now to Lemkin there is a new development: the state using its resources and manpower to

annihilate groups of people. During the Holocaust, the German state used its resources to make

murder occur on an industrial scale. What the Nazis were attempting to do to the Jews of Europe

was their annihilation as a people.24

The problem for defining genocide is that the definition of genocide is not understood by

many people. Many people will see an act of mass murder and call it genocide. Legally the only

definition of genocide that is accepted is the one created by the Convention on Genocide. For

the definition of genocide there must be mass murder. However, that does not mean every act of

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mass murder is a genocidal act. The brutal massacre of Sharon Tate and five others at her house

in Hollywood in 1969 was a horrific crime, but it was not a crime against humanity or genocide.

Murder is the culpable depriving of life by an individual, but genocide is the deprival of

existence of an entire group of people. According to the UN 1948 definition for genocide to

occur there must hundreds of acts of mass murder, but the intended goal of the mass murder has

to be the annihilation of the group.25 To Lemkin genocide is the mass murder of innocent, men

woman and children solely on their race, religion and nationality, 26 so the mass murder of Tate

and her friends is not genocide by any definition.

The heinous crimes committed during Mao¶s reign in China were not genocide. Mao¶s

followers slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent Chinese people, but there was a method

to the slaughter. They were not slaughtering protected groups under the UN Convention on

Genocide. Their victims were ³enemies of the party and the state.27 All the evidence from China

states that the victims were not targeted because of the group that they belonged to all. The

people who were targeted were perceived as a threat to the regime and thus were eliminated.

Even the lowest estimates of Mao¶s number of victims in China because of his policies are in the

tens of millions.28 Lemkin himself said ³It is only when committed with intent to destroy, that

the crime reaches the definition of genocide.´29 If one murder had been committed with intent to

wipe out in whole or in part it could be considered genocide, but Mao never intended to destroy

any protected groups through his policies.


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Genocide is the targeting of a group of people for slaughter. During the Holocaust the

Nazis shipped Jews of all backgrounds and countries to camps that were designed to slaughter

them.30 There was no distinction made by the Nazis between converted Jews, secular Jews, and

Orthodox Jews. They all were murdered because of their Jewish ancestry. They were all targeted

for death. The Nazis were not rounding up and killing suspected saboteurs. Innocent Jews as a

people were destined for extermination.31

Systemic violence is not in the definition of genocide. There is a large difference between

systemic violence against the women in Iraq and a campaign to destroy a group of people. The

systemic violence that is directed against women especially in the Shia areas of southern Iraq, to

keep them down, it is not genocide. The stated goal of those attacking the women is not to

eliminate all women, but the goal is to keep them as second class citizens. Lemkin did not put

women as a protected group in any of his definitions of genocide. ³Mass sterilization and forced

abortions were practiced by the Nazis.´32 They used these tactics against groups they thought

were inferior, as a way of population control.33 What is being done to women in Iraq is a crime,

but does not fall under Lemkin¶s definition of genocide.

The actions in Zimbabwe are not genocide. The government is accused of torturing and

denying food to those people who are their political opponents. The objective of this policy is for

the ruling party in Zimbabwe to survive any attempt to overthrow it by their political opponents.

What the government¶s militia is doing could be considered illegal and immoral, but not

genocide. The people targeted are being targeted because of their political beliefs, something that

they can control and there is no larger attempt to exterminate them. Lemkin¶s definition of

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genocide always is qualified by intent. The major intent of Zimbabwe¶s government is to hold

onto power and not to kill the opposition, deaths may occur, but their major concern and

objective is to hold onto power, the same goal that both Stalin and Mao had. But the strategies

employed by the government of Zimbabwe could not be considered genocidal acts of

depravation of food.34 So according to Lemkin the policies of the government of Zimbabwe

would not be genocide.35

Most people equate genocide and evil together. Is evil synonymous with genocide? Evil

is a subjective term, because the Nazis did not believe what they were doing was evil, they

thought it was morally right. Most human beings were appalled by the crimes of the Nazis and

would call them evil. Lemkin was disgusted by genocide and it can be seen by a quote of his, ³If

the killing of one Jew or one Pole is a crime, the killing of all the Jews and all the Poles is not a

lesser crime.´36 Lemkin is saying that if one Pole or one Jew is killed then that is a crime, then

why is the killing of all the Jews and Poles not as serious crime? Lemkin may be inferring that

these actions are evil, just as wrong as the taking of an individual¶s life.

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Yayub Khan was Pakistani¶s military dictator in the 1960¶s. His regime was corrupt and so

badly run that in 1969 he resigned office and gave power to the commander-in-chief of

Pakistan¶s military Yahya Khan.37

Yahya Khan, The president of Pakistan was born in 1907, and served in the British Indian

Army during World War II. Khan was able to rise through the ranks of the elite of West


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Pakistan. With the connections that he had with the leading elite of the country Khan became

commander-in-chief of the Pakistani Armed Forces in 1965.38 Yahya Kahn took over power in

1969 with many problems. First he had to turn a former military dictatorship to a democracy and

end the ethnic rivalry between East and West Pakistan. Khan hoped to do both of these things by

holding elections on the principle of one person one vote.39

Zulikar Ali Bhutto came from a wealthy family in West Pakistan and it was joked that he was

born with a silver spoon in his mouth.40 Bhutto studied at schools in the United States and was

fluent in many languages. Bhutto during the final years of the Yayub dictatorship called for

democracy in Pakistan. He formed the Pakistan People¶s Party, which sought to get the poor of

Pakistan a voice in the country. Bhutto was a skilled speaker. However, unlike many in

Pakistan concerned about the Muslim state¶s continued survival, Bhutto was only concerned

about one thing; his own political survival.41

Sheikh Mujibar Rahman, who would become the first leader of Bangladesh and the

inspirational leader of East Pakistan, was born in 1920. From the very start he was a Bengali

nationalist who was concerned about his people. He took part in the protests against Urdu being

made the only official language of the country without Bengali.42 Rahman in the 1950¶s and 60¶s

was calling for more autonomy for East Pakistan and his ³trouble-making´ got him thrown in jail

on more than a few occasions.43 Sheikh Rahman was the leader of East Pakistan in all but name,

and was respected and revered by both the Hindus and Muslims of the country. When the

Awami League won the most seats in the election of 1970, Sheikh Rahman should have been


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made prime minister of Pakistan. Rahman did not change his policies even after the election; he

felt that East Pakistan needed the most possible autonomy.

General Tikka Khan was born in 1915, and like Khan served in World War II in the British

Army. Indian officers, who knew him before partition, said he was a regular solider who showed

no great skills.44 Nevertheless, he was able to rise rapidly through the ranks of the Pakistani

Army and became a trusted officer of the military dictatorship. In 1965 the province of

Baluchistan was in a revolt against Pakistan and General Tikka Khan was sent in. He crushed

the uprising with the utmost force and brutality.45 Khan was nicknamed ³The Butcher of

Baluchistan´ for his crushing of the uprising.46 General Khan was the militant hawk in the West

Pakistani military elite.47

General A.A.K. Niazi was the commander of Pakistani forces in East Pakistan toward the

end of the war. Niazi when he surrendered his army became a scapegoat for the failure of the

war and was blamed by his country for the disaster. In 1998 he wrote an autobiography in which

he tried to salvage his reputation and put blame for the disasters of the war on General Khan as

well as Bhutto.48

Indira Gandhi came from a political family in India. Her father Nehru was the first prime

minister of India and great things were expected of her. Gandhi was elected Prime Minister of

India in 1966 and she sought closer relations with the Soviet Union, since America supported

Pakistan. Gandhi as well as India was secretly pleased with Sheik Rahman¶s victory.49 Gandhi



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tried to balance out the demands of her people to help the Bengali people and keep her country

out of war.

Archer Blood was the American Consul-General in Dhaka at the time of the elections of

1970 and the brutal crackdown by West Pakistan. His records and diaries give an account of the

many atrocities that were committed during the war.50 During the conflict Blood sent many

telegrams to America urging that his government do something to stop the slaughter.51 Archer

Blood was appalled by his government¶s lack of action against Pakistan and demanded that they

do something. Archer Blood was removed from his post in June 1971 and was not given another

assignment; the Nixon White House did not want to be reminded of their moral failure.52

Faruque Chowdhury was a fifteen year old Bengali supporter of the Awami League who

lived in the city of Sylhet.53 He was forced to flee his village in the spring of 1971 in either April

or May as he did not remember the exact date. If he was discovered he would have put his entire

family in jeopardy.54 The Pakistani soldiers were targeting all members of the Awami League

and if they could not find them they would target their families. Mr. Chowdhury said he left for

the border with India to undergo training and begin to fight back against the Pakistani army that

was committing massive crimes against his people.55 ³Our people were being killed for no

reason; the military was using oppression and rape as weapons.´56

The Awami League, was the main Bengali political party in Pakistan. The party¶s

platform called for autonomy for East Pakistan. Rahman, as leader of the party, introduced what


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were called ³The Six Points of the Awami League.´57 The Six Points was designed as a way to

stop the domination of East Pakistan by the West. The Awami League during the election

claimed that they wanted to remain part of Pakistan, but just with maximum autonomy. This

sounded both to the Bengalis and West Pakistanis as talk of independence.

The Bihari were a group of Urdu-speakers in East Pakistan. They were a small group but

a group that heavily supported West Pakistan controlling East Pakistan. The Bihari were not

Bengalis and felt that if the Bengalis got independence they would suffer persecution. They

were mostly members of the political party Jamat-i-Islami.

Jamat-i-Islami was the Islamic party in East Pakistan.58 The main supporters of the party

were the Bihari people, the Urdu-speakers of East Pakistan. The party was a small, but very

important, Pakistan used their supporters during the conflict for intelligence gathering.

Razakars were groups of Bihari and other Bengalis who supported the Pakistanis.

Groups of them would join the Pakistani military in units who found suspected members of the

Awami League and would murder them. The Razakars were hated by the larger Bengali

population and if any were taken prisoner, they would be faced with the threat of execution.

The military elite of West Pakistan were a small group of officers who had served in the

British Army during World War II. These officers had a disdainful look on their former

comrades in the army who ran India¶s military and on their own people. They spoke English and

Urdu, and did not respect the Bengalis, because the Bengalis as a whole did not serve in the

British Army.


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The students in Dhaka University were radicals according to the West Pakistan

government.59 Pakistan felt that these students and the Hindus of East Pakistan were the main

instigators of the conspiracy against Pakistan.60

Bengali Intellectuals were the main focus on the West Pakistani¶s rage during the war.

The intellectuals were accused by West Pakistan of forming the back of the insurgency.61 They

were even killed to the last minute of the war, when the Pakistani army was on the verge on

surrendering to the Indian Army.

India was a close ally of the Soviet Union, and had just recently beaten Pakistan in a war

in 1965. The only thing that had prevented India from winning total victory was America and

China.

United States of America was very concerned about the stability of Pakistan and the

entire sub-continent falling under Indian and Communist influence.

Refugees were the main reason that India got involved in the war between East and West

Pakistan. The refugees were Awami League supporters and Hindu Bengalis. Both of these

groups were targeted by the Pakistani military. The refugees numbered ten million at one point in

India.

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The economic perspective was that East Pakistan wanted West Pakistan to stop treating

them like a colony. There was massive economic disparity between the two regions. In the

years before 1971 the per capita income in the West was much higher than in the East. For the

fiscal years of 1969-1970 the per capita income in West Pakistan was sixty-one percent higher


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than in East Pakistan.62 All of the aid money that came in Pakistan stayed in the west and it

helped build its infrastructure. East Pakistan¶s economy depended on industry and if the industry

was being built in the West, then their economy would remain much lower than West Pakistan.

East Pakistan demanded that aid money be sent to them as well as a way to balance out the

economic differences.

Pakistan wanted outright loyalty from the Bengalis and they felt that the Awami League

was not loyal. The Awami League was believed to be separatists and that is why even after they

won, President Khan and Prime Minister Bhutto refused them admittance to the National

Assembly. The Awami League wanted to break apart Pakistan and declare independence was a

wide-held belief in West Pakistan. West Pakistan felt that the six points were treasonous and they

called them the first step to the disintegration of Pakistan. The six points of the Awami League

were designed as a way for East Pakistan to gain more sovereignty.63

Culturally East and West Pakistan were very different. Islam was all they had in

common, their languages were different, and even the food they ate was different.64 West

Pakistani society was run by landlords and the military elite. Bengali society was a very rural

and the peasants were under more sway of the middle-class, who were composed of mostly

Hindus, was the belief in West Pakistan.65 When the government in West Pakistan banned the

songs and poems of Nobel Prize winning Hindu Bengali Rabindra Nath Tagore in East Pakistan,

the Bengalis protested. His music was beloved by both Hindus and Muslim Bengalis alike.66


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Those citizens who lived in East Pakistan were more secular and in West Pakistan there was an

emphasis on military service and Islam.67

Sheikh Rahman expected that West Pakistan would live up to the results of the election.

He felt that the elections had been fair and that therefore the Awami League should be seated in

the National Assembly. Rahman wanted his people to be treated fairly and expected democracy

to be championed by someone like Bhutto who had spent time in jail for demanding democracy

in West Pakistan.68

There many contending issues on continuing public order between East and West

Pakistan. West Pakistan contained the capital and most of the territory. The ruling elite of West

Pakistan were mostly Punjabis and Pathan people. The Punjabis and Pathan people looked down

upon the Bengali people, whom they felt were inferior to them. The population of East Pakistan

was more numerous numbering fifty-four percent, but they were Bengali.69 This was a major

problem instead of having Islam unite the two parts of Pakistan, ethnic and language barriers

divided East and West.70

General Niazi claimed in his autobiography that the Hindus were in economic control of

East Pakistan.71 The Hindus were the educated elite and the professors and teachers of East

Pakistan. The Hindu educators were able to mold and change the Bengalis into being more

Hindu, was a widely held belief in West Pakistan.72 There was also belief in West Pakistan that

the Bengalis¶ version of Islam was not Muslim enough. It was too closely tied to Hinduism,


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because Hindus composed thirteen percent of East Pakistan¶s population.73 The Hindus had

mostly been driven out of West Pakistan, by the population of West Pakistan during partition.74

The leaders in West Pakistan claimed that because Hindus represented a large minority of the

population they controlled the society. However, a glaring mistake was to create a Pakistan

divided into two parts separated by hundreds of miles.

The election was held on December 7th 1970. The Awami League captured one hundred sixty

seven out of a possible one hundred sixty- nine seats that they ran for, all in East Pakistan.75

They won zero seats from West Pakistan. In West Pakistan Bhutto¶s party won eighty-one seats

out of one hundred thirty-eight.76 To the military elite of Pakistan the idea of that ³Bengali´

Rahman becoming prime minister was sickening.77 Rahman had only won in the East, not in the

West. In the West the Awami League had been thrashed, they did not win a single seat from the

vote in West Pakistan. They had seen that during his campaign Rahman had been campaigning

for maximum autonomy for just East Pakistan, but nothing about what he was going to do for a

united Pakistan.78




On the night of March 25th 1971 at 11:25 P.M. the West Pakistani Army launched their

attack; four American built M-24 tanks were followed by a platoon of soldiers to Dhaka

University.79 The university was not in session, but it was being used by student supporters of

the Awami League. The two dormitories in front of the platoon of soldiers were Iqbal Hall


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which housed the Muslim students and Jagannath Hall which housed the Hindu students.80

Officers had given their soldiers orders to kill every human being in the two buildings.81 The

soldiers ran into the two buildings firing their weapons as they came in. The students inside

either dropped dead or came out with their hands up. The students who surrendered to the army

expected to be treated as civilians, but were mowed down by the soldiers on the wall outside of

their dorms. The girls¶ dormitory was set on fire and those who tried running out of the building

were machine-gunned as they tried to escape.82 Within fifteen minutes over one hundred students

had been murdered.

After the dorms were stormed, the apartment buildings of the professors were attacked by

the Pakistani soldiers, who slaughtered any professors they found. These were mostly professors

who taught Bengali culture and thus they were singled out for death.83 Professor Chandra Dev

was a professor and Hindu who was taken to a nearby field and executed.84 The bodies were

thrown into mass graves and the graves were visible. American Consul General Archer Blood

recorded, ³We saw traces of two mass graves on the campus...The rain on the night of March 29

exposed some of the bodies and the stench was terrible.´85

The next target of the operation was the East Pakistani Rifles. These were a group of

constabulary Bengali soldiers who would not turn against their people. They were armed and

could be a threat to the Pakistani military. These East Pakistani soldiers in their barracks saw the

university on fire and prepared to defend themselves.86 The Pakistani soldiers using tanks,

bazookas and overwhelming firepower stormed the barracks. One hundred of the defenders were


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killed; the others surrendered and were promised ³good treatment.´ They were all bayoneted to

death and dumped in mass graves.87

Two hours after the first attack, three trucks of soldiers came to the house of Sheikh

Rahman. They knocked down the door and told him to surrender, which he did. When he was led

onto the street and saw the devastation around him, he turned to the arresting captain and told

him, ³Kill me if you like, but stop shooting at my people.´88 Rahman was led away, but unlike

most of their other targets, the Pakistanis did not know what to do with him yet. The Pakistani

soldiers were killing any Bengali they could get their hands on. A total of 4,000 to 6,000 people

died that first night in Dhaka.89

In Dhaka Operation Searchlight went exactly as it was supposed to. The university was

secure, Sheik Rahman was arrested and the East Pakistani Rifles had been neutralized. To add to

their success almost of the reporters were staying in one hotel and were forced to stay inside and

therefore they could not report on the killings going in the city.90 The initial attacks on Dhaka

were precise and the oppression was well organized. There was a pattern on who was targeted:

students, professors and members of the opposition. Operation Searchlight was very centralized

and successful in Dhaka.

A few hours after the first massacres in Dhaka, Pakistani soldiers descended on the Hindu

shopping area of the town and destroyed it. Hindu temples around the capital city were sacked

and set ablaze as well.91 The soldiers set up machine guns on the buildings near the shopping

area and mowed down whoever they saw. The victims were innocent Hindu men, women and


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children.92 Hindus and other Bengalis began to flee into the countryside. A Pakistani general

ordered his soldiers at the river crossings to stop the refugees and execute any they came

across.93 At a village about ten miles from Dhaka named Demra, the Pakistani army found some

refugees who had fled from the capital city and killed all the men between twelve and forty

years. The women of the same age were all raped.94

Archer Blood the American Consul General on March 28th telexed a message to

Washington entitled ³Selective Genocide.´95 He wrote to Washington,

³Moreover, with support of Pak military, non-Bengali Muslims are systemically attacking
poor people¶s quarters and murdering Bengalis and Hindus. Streets of Dhaka are flooded
with Hindus and others seeking to get out of Dacca.´96

A West Pakistani helicopter pilot admitted to Archer Blood that the military was killing

Hindu men, but justified it because he said the Hindus were the enemies of Islam and that he was

engaged in a holy war.97 Blood found out from other Pakistani soldiers that it was common

practice for the army to enter a village and inquire as to where the Hindus were and then kill the

Hindu men.98 Pakistani soldiers bragged to the diplomats in Dhaka including Blood that ³they

came to East Pakistan to kill Hindus.´99 Blood calculated that the total Hindu dead from the

initial incursion in Dhaka was in the thousands.100 The Pakistani military was targeting for death

the Hindus of East Pakistan, and their soldiers felt this was justified, since the Hindus were the

enemies of God.



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After the first month, the Pakistani army having captured many of the larger cities did not

have momentum to conquer the rest of the country. They could not figure out who was a rebel

and who was a civilian so they turned to the local population. The West Pakistani Army used the

Razakars, who gathered intelligence and found out who was in the resistance. The Pakistani

army did not know how to combat the insurgency, so they unleashed reprisals on the local

population.101 The violence was similar to that inflicted on Soviet villages during World War II;

anytime a soldier was killed the closest village was chosen and people were killed in that village.

The vast majority of those who were killed in the reprisals for continued resistance were ordinary

Bengalis.102 This turned the population against the Pakistani Army. Mr. Chowdhury and people

like him who had fled to India began infiltrating and attacking the Razakars and the Pakistani

military.103

Many people fled to India. An estimated ten million refugees, the majority of them

Hindus fled to India.104 The Indian government could claim the moral high ground however; they

could not afford to have these refugees stay forever and wanted the world¶s help to combat the

problem of massacres. America, however, felt that if Bangladesh got their independence that

Communism would engulf the sub-continent. There was a misplaced belief that all nationalist

groups were Communist. Nobody, in the Nixon White House wanted to hear what Archer Blood

was trying to say about a great ally, Pakistan.

Pakistan felt that India was aiding the rebels in East Pakistan and demanded that they

cease and stay out of Pakistan¶s problems. India felt that it was their problem because they could

not afford for the refugees to stay in their country for an extended period of time. Prime Minister


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Indira Gandhi told President Khan to release Sheikh Rahman and to stop the massacres. If those

two things were done, then India would stop supporting the freedom fighters. However, Pakistan

was prepared to go to war against India to save their position in East Pakistan.105 By the end of

November 1971 it was obvious that a war was going to happen between India and Pakistan. On

December 3rd Pakistan¶s air force launched an attack on the Indian Air force. It was a miserable

failure.106 India immediately launched a massive attack in East Pakistan with the help of Bengali

freedom fighters. General Niazi¶s army conducted a fighting retreat towards Dhaka. The

government in Pakistan had originally informed Niazi that he needed to hold his position, but

two weeks later ordered him to surrender his army to the Indian Army. On December 16th Niazi

surrendered his army of 93,000 to the Indian army and finally the bloodbath of civilians that

began nine months before was over.

'

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During the conflict in Bangladesh, West Pakistan employed the value of power. They wanted

to economically and politically control East Pakistan. They were controlling the East as if it was

a colony of theirs.107 West Pakistan used military force as well as political power to keep the

Bengalis down and subservient to the ruling elite of the West. For the Bengalis the conflict was

about power as well. They wanted the power that they felt they deserved as human beings and of

citizens of Pakistan. The Bengalis felt powerless in the government that was ruling Pakistan.

They wanted a government that they felt would see to their interests and not just the interests of

the ruling elite of West Pakistan and in 1970 they elected the party they felt would represent


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them.108 When West Pakistan refused to honor the election and used military power on the

Bengalis, they fought back.

The Bengalis wanted to be respected as a people and as citizens. The Bengalis wanted to be

good citizens of the nation of Pakistan, but wanted to do so, as Bengali speaking Muslims and

Hindus. East Pakistan had willingly joined Pakistan in 1947.109 The people of East Pakistan felt,

therefore, that they should be treated the same as those citizens in West Pakistan and that was

never done in the history of East Pakistan. All of the human base values were wanted by both

sides during the conflict. The Bengalis wanted the wealth they felt was theirs, they wanted to

affection from their Muslim countrymen in West Pakistan. None of these were respected by

West Pakistan. To West Pakistan they wanted affection, which they felt they were not receiving

from the ungrateful East Pakistani population, whom they had protected from India. All the

people of East Pakistan wanted were their six points to be accepted by West Pakistan.

1.Y The constitution should provide for a Federation of Pakistan in its true sense based on the
Lahore Resolution and the parliamentary form of government with supremacy of a
Legislature directly elected on the basis of universal adult franchise.
2.Y The federal government should deal with only two subjects: Defence and Foreign Affairs,
and all other residual subjects should be vested in the federating states.
3.Y Two separate, but freely convertible currencies for two wings should be introduced; or if
this is not feasible, there should be one currency for the whole country, but effective
constitutional provisions should be introduced to stop the flight of capital from East to
West Pakistan. Furthermore, a separate Banking Reserve should be established and
separate fiscal and monetary policy be adopted for East Pakistan.
4.Y The power of taxation and revenue collection should be vested in the federating units and
the federal centre would have no such power. The federation would be entitled to a share
in the state taxes to meet its expenditures.
5.Y There should be two separate accounts for the foreign exchange earnings of the two
wings; the foreign exchange requirements of the federal government should be met by the
two wings equally or in a ratio to be fixed; indigenous products should move free of duty
between the two wings, and the constitution should empower the units to establish trade
links with foreign countries.


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6.Y East Pakistan should have a separate militia or paramilitary force.110

None of these points could be considered treason against West Pakistan; they were demands

for full autonomy for East Pakistan. They were tired of being abused and treated like second

class citizens; they felt that these points would stop the abuses of West Pakistan.


 

The first strategy employed by West Pakistan was political negotiation. The West Pakistani

elite wanted a leader such as Bhutto who had campaigned for land reform for all, not just

autonomy for East Pakistan. West Pakistan had overwhelmingly elected Bhutto¶s PPP, while

East Pakistan had elected the Amawi League.111 Against the advice of the military elite,

President Khan told Bhutto in a meeting that Rahman would be the next prime minister of

Pakistan.112 So, Khan met with Rahman to work on an agreement when he would become Prime

Minster of a united Pakistan. During their meetings together Khan and Rahman were unable to

come any agreements. Both felt that the other one was being intransigent. Khan thought that the

six points needed to be changed because Rahman would Prime Minster of a united Pakistan not

just East Pakistan, but Rahman refused to.113 Rahman expected Khan to live up to his promise of

having the National Assembly meet on March 3rd 1971, which was two weeks after their

meeting.

Even after these meetings, Khan felt that democracy had spoken and that Rahman should be

made Prime Minister. He even was willing to have the National Assembly sit for its first meeting

on March 4th. Bhutto stated that East Pakistan must be given independence or that Sheik


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Rahman should be arrested.114 Bhutto threatened if the National Assembly met on March 3rd,

then he would ignite ³violent protest´ all over West Pakistan.115 Bhutto forced Khan¶s hand. If

President Khan allowed the assembly to meet, then Bhutto would ignite a revolution. If he did

not allow it to meet then Rahman would be forced to respond.116

Khan the old soldier folded to Bhutto¶s demands and the National Assembly was not

allowed to meet.117 President Khan began to airlift reinforcements to the country by land and air

from West Pakistan. Archer Blood wrote that,

³We could« vouch for a sudden influx of troops by air through the Dacca airport.´118

It was obvious that something was going to happen. West Pakistan was airlifting

reinforcements into Dhaka. On March 4th Sheikh Rahman called for civil disobedience in East

Pakistan.

When political compromise failed in his eyes, President Khan decided to do what was

done in Baluchistan; the Awami League would be crushed with brutal force. General Tikka

Khan had led the brutal crushing of Baluchistan and he would employ a similar strategy in East

Pakistan. President Yahya Khan was a military man, and when negotiation did not work, he

turned to force.119 However, under the guise of continuing negotiations with Sheik Rahman and

the Awami League, the Pakistani Army prepared to launch a brutal first strike across East

Pakistan to crush the Bengalis. However, the soldiers going into battle needed to be mentally

prepared. The West Pakistani soldiers were sent to the country only after having completed a

short ³training course´ on the Bengali people. In the course the Bengalis were depicted as traitors



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who loved India and as untrue Muslims who had been tainted by Hinduism.120 Their soldiers

now believed that this was a holy war, jihad, for the future of Pakistan.121 The government said

that an uprising was planned against Pakistan and these soldiers were the only people who could

prevent Pakistan from being broken apart by Hindu provocateurs.

The Pakistani army¶s mission was codenamed ³Operation Searchlight.´ The Operation¶s

objectives would be to crush the Awami League, disarm and neutralize the Bengali soldiers

under their command, and neutralize ³the radical elements´ at Dhaka University.122 Operation

Searchlight would be launched simultaneously across East Pakistan. From the military

headquarters of the Pakistani Army in Dhaka, where he had been talking with Sheikh Rahman,

President Khan was whisked out of East Pakistan.123 Right before he left President Khan turned

to General Khan and said ³Now sort them out.´124

East Pakistan or Bangladesh wanted nothing more than to be respected as part of

Pakistan. Over the years the abuse suffered by the Bengali people, from the government of West

Pakistan, eroded the desire for acceptance to self-determination. When Urdu was made the

official language and not Bengali, non-violent protests were held. It took nine years for Bengali

to be made an official language as well.125 The Bengali people endured their economic

deprivation and not being allowed to vote. However, when finally their voice was heard and

Sheikh Rahman was to be made Prime Minister of Pakistan, the ruling elite of West Pakistan

stopped them. That was the final straw for many who only saw independence as the strategy best

situated for the Bengali people.


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The immediate outcome was that during the nine months of terror anywhere between

300,000 to three million Bengalis were killed most of them were civilians.126 There was a

disproportionate number of Hindu Bengalis killed, but the vast majority of victims were Bengali

villagers killed by the Pakistani Army and their Razakar collaborators.127 Nobody has been able

to calculate the number of dead; the Pakistanis were not good at record keeping. The Pakistani

military, who had committed the massive atrocities, spent the next seventeen months in Indian

prisoner of war camps.128 When they returned home after the peace treaty between India and

Pakistan, they were treated as cowards and blamed for the disaster in the war.

In the nearly forty years since the war, neither country has recovered. In 1972, a year after

their fight for independence, Bangladesh received international recognition and Sheikh Mujibar

Rahman was released from Pakistan. Rahman was a very good spiritual leader, but did not have

the skills to lead a poor and recovering country like Bangladesh as its prime minister.129 The

freedom fighters who returned home had skills with weapons and refused to give them up.

Political scores were settled by the end of gun. Wanting to have a stable country, Bangladesh did

not even put those Bengalis who had collaborated with Pakistan on trial. Many former freedom

fighters felt betrayed by this action by Rahman.130 Rahman was assassinated in 1975 in a

military coup.

In the next six years, coups and counter-coups wiped out most of the Bengali leaders

from the war against Pakistan.131 The Hindus of Bangladesh never returned in the numbers that


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had existed before the conflict, many of the refugees chose to stay in India. Those Hindus who

remained in Bangladesh never would have the same influence as they did before the conflict.132

It was not until 1991 when Rahman¶s widow, Khaleda Zia, became prime minister that

Bangladesh became a full democracy.133 The Awami League which took power in 1996 decided

to form a committee to try the war criminals, but four years later a coalition beat the Awami

League.134 In that coalition was the political party Jamat-i-Islami, the same party of the Razakars

during the war. The trials were put off. In 2009 the Awami League swept back into power

promising to look into the 1971 war and try those Bengalis who committed crimes during it.

Pakistan after its defeat against India was forced to change governments. President Khan

stepped down and Bhutto took over as prime minister.135 Bhutto was killed in a military coup in

the late 1970¶s and Pakistan has had trouble politically with military rule being replaced with a

democracy every about ten years in a process that has repeated itself since the 1970¶s. The

current leader of Pakistan is Asif Ali Zardari, the son-in-law of Ali Bhutto. His daughter Benazir,

a former prime minister, was assassinated in 2008 trying to lead her country back toward

democracy. Pakistan and Bangladesh have diplomatic relations with one another which were

improved during the military governments of the 1980¶s.

The main issues that still reside because of the genocide are unanswered questions. When

does self-determination mean that a people should get their independence or should territorial

integrity be respected? This is the case today with Southern Sudan, which will hold elections

next year. Before Bangladesh there were no countries formed from colonies that was granted

their independence. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights it says that all people are


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entitled to self-determination.136 However, places such as South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Kosovo,

Nagorno-Karabakh, Somaliland and the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic have expressed a

desire to be independent countries. These countries are similar to Biafra in the 1960¶s, but when

they broke away they were able to maintain their independence. Kosovo two and half years ago

declared independence, and since then only about sixty countries have recognized it. The reason

for this is politics. Many times countries for the sake of their alliances will not recognize break

away regions. If self-determination was respected, all of these places would be accepted as

independent countries by the rest of the world. All of these places are claimed by sovereign

countries and that is the reason why other countries in the world does not recognize them. There

is apparently no one size fits all strategy for dealing with self-determination. The problem of

self-determination is one that will be with the world for a long time. It should be qualitative,

countries should be able to exist on their own and be able to support themselves.

Another issue is the lingering pain of Bangladesh. For years they wanted an apology from

Pakistan for the actions committed during the war. However, it was not until 2002 when

President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf expressed regret for the excess committed by the

Pakistani Army in 1971. He said, ³"I wish to express to the Bangladeshi people sincere regrets

for the tragic events, which have left deep wounds on both our nations.´137 He did not use the

words; crimes against humanity, war crimes or genocide to describe the killings.138 Pakistan and

Bangladesh will not be to escape the horror of its Bangladesh¶s birth, but both sides have

handled in the same way. Pakistan has never admitted that genocide or crimes against humanity

were committed, and Bangladesh has many more pressing problems to face than the crimes that

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were committed against them in 1971. The Awami League in 2009 campaigned on a promise to

hold trials for the citizens of Bangladesh who committed crimes against humanity during the

war. The former Razakars who still reside in Bangladesh would be put on trial. It is hoped that

with the Awami League election of 2009 that the trials will finally take place and the people of

Bangladesh can have a sense of justice and those who committed crimes would finally be

brought to justice.

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The Pakistani operation in Bangladesh has striking similarities to the Nazi occupation of

Poland during World War II. During both occupations there were crimes against humanity

committed on the dominant ethnic group living in the country. However, both times there was a

campaign of genocide directed against the main religious minority who resided in the occupied

country. The Nazi occupation of Poland lasted five years and over two million ethnic Poles were

murdered in that same time.139 The Pakistani operation in Bangladesh lasted only nine months

and the army killed at least 300,000 Bengalis, and that is a low estimate.140 However, in both of

these cases the religious minority experienced genocide. During the Holocaust 3.1 million Polish

Jews were murdered by the Nazis, a total of ninety percent of their population.141 The Hindus of

Bangladesh numbered eleven million and by the end of the war more than eighty percent had

been killed or had fled to India.142

Raphael Lemkin defined genocide in 1944 in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe as

coordinated actions at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups with


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the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.143 Many people including Archer Blood felt that

the actions against the Hindus were genocide. In his famous telegraph to Washington he called

the actions of Pakistan in Bangladesh selective genocide.144 Blood also said that the Hindus of

Bangladesh were singled out for ³special treatment.´145 ³Accordingly we began to focus our

µgenocidal¶ reporting on the Hindus.´146 The Hindus according to Blood were targeted for

destruction by the Pakistani Army. ³In that fateful spring of 1971 I thought the Pakistan Army¶s

action against the Hindus was criminally insane.´147 They were targeted for destruction, and it

was evident to Blood and his staff that there was a systematic effort to murder them because they

were Hindus. 148

According to Lemkin¶s own writings the actions taken against the Hindus in Bangladesh

would be genocide. Genocide is committed with the ³intent to destroy.´149 Individuals must be

targeted because of the fact that they belong to the protected group to fit Lemkin¶s definition of

genocide. The Hindus of Bangladesh were targeted because they were Hindus. The Pakistani

soldiers wanted to cleanse the Hindu influence from Bangladesh and that meant killing as many

as possible. The assault on the Hindus was gradual; it was as Lemkin would say,

³A coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations

of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.´150

The goal of West Pakistan was to eliminate the Hindus of East Pakistan as a people, but

they committed actions such as destroying their temples and killing them in a gradual process. It


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did not match the planning of the Holocaust or the killings in Rwanda, but the actions were

genocide according to the first sentence of Lemkin¶s own definition.151

Pakistani soldiers in Dhaka demanded that citizens passing them pull down their pants.

This was done because Muslims were circumcised and Hindus were not. When the soldiers

found uncircumcised men they normally shot them on the spot.152 In Poland when searching for

hidden Jews the SS soldiers would force men to pull down their pants as well. The Jews were

circumcised and the Poles were not. When someone who was circumcised was found they were

executed on the spot or were shipped to the death camps, because they were Jewish. In both

cases this action was is proof that the Jews of Poland and the Hindus of Bangladesh were both

targeted groups.

Faruque Chowdhury said, ³It was genocide, they tried to destroy the whole nation! They

killed people for no reason.´153 Some academics agree with Dr. Chowdhury that genocide was

committed against the Bengali people. However, no international lawyer of note has called the

Pakistani actions taken against the Bengali Muslim people genocide. It becomes difficult to

prove intent for genocide in the case of the Bengali people. There was no Pakistani action

directed just against the Muslim Bengalis as a people in whole or in part. Hundreds of thousands

of innocent Muslim Bengalis were murdered by the Pakistani military and their collaborators, but

according to the legal definition it was not genocide. Genocide implies the targeting of the

protected group and Bengalis as a group were not targeted.154 Members who were suspected of

being in the resistance were targeted.


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As in the case of Poland during World War II, the crimes committed by the occupying

power in Bangladesh were appalling and would be considered crimes against humanity and war

crimes, but not genocide. The International Criminal Court in the Rome Statue defined crimes

against humanity as:

³Any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack
directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
(a) Murder;
(b) Extermination;
(c) Enslavement;
(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of
fundamental rules of international law;
(f) Torture;
(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced
sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial,
national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds
that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection
with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;
(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;
(j) The crime of apartheid;
(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or
serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.155

War crimes are defined by the ICC in the Rome Statute:

Article 8: War crimes

2. For the purpose of this Statute, "war crimes" means:
(a) Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely, any of the
following acts against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva
Convention:
(i) Willful killing;
(ii) Torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments;
(iii) Willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health;
(iv) Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military
necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly;
(v) Compelling a prisoner of war or other protected person to serve in the forces
of a hostile Power;
(vi) Willfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of
fair and regular trial;

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(vii) Unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement;

(viii) Taking of hostages.156

The many attacks against the Bengali Muslims were widespread and there were

thousands of acts of murder committed. The Pakistani Army stands accused of committing war

crimes and crimes against humanity against the Bengali people and of committing genocide

against the Hindus of East Pakistan.


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