1971 War Crimes 1971 war crimes: Pakistan should apologize to Bangladeshis
A reference to the Hamood ur Rehman Commission Report on 1971 genocide establishes the fact that Pakistan should immediately apologise to Bangladeshi people for the war crimes.
In her opinion piece published in Naya Daur, Marvi Sirmed said: " Judiciary in Pakistan has never been accused of having a spine when it comes to speaking truth to power and making the powerful accountable before law. This remains the same to this day. Any individual who dares to break this spell, is dealt with like Qazi Faez Isa is being currently treated."
"Despite its serious shortcomings and huge economization on truth, the Hamood ur Rehman Commission Report on Pakistan army’s shameful surrender in East Pakistan in 1971 relinquishing sovereignty over more than half of country’s people and territory, does give useful insights to those eager to learn from the past blunders and bloodshed. But perhaps we are seriously short of people and institutions having a slightest readiness to introspect and learn," the journalist said.
The report shamefully exonerates military officials from committing sexual violence against women in East Pakistan, calling the number of raped women ‘exaggerated’, Sirmed said.
"After writing pages and pages condemning the lewd, the sex habits and morally degenerate behavior of military officials towards local women, the report offers a ridiculous cover-up by quoting the number of terminations of pregnancies by the 'abortion team' that Sheikh Mujeeb ur Rehman had commissioned from Britain," the journalist said.
“Its workload involved the termination of only a hundred or more pregnancies”, the report thus concludes that this must reflect the total number of rapes.
Sirmed said: "All the current empirical evidence, however, points to the fact that neither the people nor their representatives or military establishment are ready to face the facts."
"The first step towards learning from past blunders is to admit those mistakes and tender a sincere apology to Bengali brothers especially sisters for the shameful conduct of our state institutions in 1971," the journalist wrote.
"If we are still adamant to keep these skeletons safe in our closet, we certainly don’t want to correct course," she said.
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