Attack comes after cross-border raid by Palestinians on heavy equipment used for work on frontier barrier
Hamas outpost on Gaza Strip border behind separation wall built by Israel (AFP/file photo)
Monday 26 March 2018
Israeli jets attacked Hamas positions in Gaza overnight after Palestinians staged a cross-border raid into southern Israel, the military said early Sunday.
"Israel Air Force fighter jets targeted a terror target in a military compound belonging to the Hamas terror organisation in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip," it said in an English-language statement.
A Palestinian security source in the coastal enclave said the planes hit a base of Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, causing damage but no injuries.
The strike on the Strip's Islamist rulers came after four Palestinians "carrying bottles filled with flammable material" breached Gaza's border fence on Saturday evening near the kibbutz of Kissufim, Israeli daily Haaretz reported, citing the army.
Earlier today 4 #Palestinians crossed into #Israel from southern #GazaStrip & tried to set fire to some of machinery used to build #Israel’s underground barrier. All 4 fled back to #Hamas-run enclave after they were engaged by the #IDF
There, they attempted to torch heavy equipment used for work on the frontier barrier, an army spokeswoman told AFP.
The machinery was damaged but did not catch fire, and the attackers fled back into Gaza, she said.
No casualties were reported.
"The incident that took place yesterday is one of many severe incidents that have taken place in the security fence area," the statement said.
Last summer, Israel began construction on a massive security barrier meant to tackle the threat posed by tunnels that Hamas builds from Gaza into Israel, Haaretz said.
The project, estimated to cost $833m, will include a concrete wall fitted with sensors and reaching dozens of metres deep into the ground and standing six meters high from ground level, according to Haaretz.
Israel holds Hamas, which rules Gaza, accountable for all attacks launched from the blockaded coastal territory.
Security barrier
Speaking later Sunday, the head of Israeli military intelligence warned that further such incidents would make things worse for Hamas.
"Hamas is at a low point, suffering severe civilian and infrastructure crises," Major General Herzl Halevi said at a conference.
"Hamas is running into the arms of Iran and exploiting civilians by sending them to the (security fence that divides Gaza and Israel)," he said.
"Hamas must understand such conduct will only make its situation worse."
Last month there was a surge in cross-border violence, seen as among the most serious since Israel and Hamas fought a war in 2014 - their third since 2008.
After a bomb wounded four Israeli soldiers inspecting the border fence on 17 February, Israel responded by striking 18 Hamas facilities in two waves of air attacks.
Israeli ground forces also killed two Palestinian teenagers in cross-border fire.
Beijing is spreading its influence across the region with huge investments – much to the worry of India and the west
Mattala Rakapaksa airport, built with Chinese loans, handles 50,000 passengers a year, a fraction of its capacity of 1 million. Photograph: Michael Safi
Little disturbs the serenity of Guan Yin, the bodhisattva of compassion, as her statue sits in contemplation at the centre of Mattala Rajapaksa international airport.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the neighbors are finding ways to make it work.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto during the G-20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7, 2017. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
BYJOSÉ R. CÁRDENAS-
President Donald Trump has incurred criticism for what many have charged is his systematic undermining of the U.S. relationship with Mexico, one of the most important the United States has with any country. During the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and through his first year in office, Trump repeatedly singled out Mexico for taking unfair advantage of the United States under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and failing to adequately police its side of the U.S.-Mexico border to prevent drugs and criminals from entering the United States and pledged that Mexico will pay for the construction of his proposed border wall.
More recently, tentative plans for Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to make his first trip to Washington to meet with Trump were canceled following what the Washington Postreferred to as a “testy” telephone conversation between the two, in which Trump refused Peña Nieto’s request to recognize that Mexico will not pay for the construction of the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
There is no doubt that bilateral relations have been a roller coaster. The irony, however, is that even as gloom and doom dominates the headlines, the bilateral relationship has not only endured but thrived. Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray best captured that sentiment last month when he said the relationship was “closer than it was with previous administrations.… That’s a fact of life.”
Equally, during his recent trip to California to examine prototypes of the border wall, Trump had kind words for Peña Nieto, saying that they had a “great relationship” and that he was a very good negotiator on behalf of the Mexican people. Trump added, “Cooperation with Mexico is another crucial element of border security.… We must absolutely build on that cooperation.”
Nor is there any denying the unprecedented senior-level interaction between the Trump and Peña Nieto administrations over the past year. Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior advisor and son-in-law, was just in Mexico City, the latest in a long line of top U.S. officials, including cabinet secretaries, who have engaged with their Mexico counterparts. Similarly, Videgaray has made numerous trips to Washington to confer at the highest levels. These meetings have resulted in deepening bilateral cooperation across the board, including:
NAFTA negotiations. By now, many expected Trump would have withdrawn from NAFTA, a perennial target of his ire on the campaign trail. Instead, the United States, Canada, and Mexico just completed the seventh round of negotiations to modernize the 24-year-old treaty. At a recent White House ceremony where Mexico and Canada were exempted from steel tariffs, the president said, “I have a feeling we’re going to make a deal on NAFTA.”
Negotiators will continue informal talks over the next few weeks before an eighth round, likely in April. The road to NAFTA 2.0 remains challenging, as some of the most contentious issues have yet to be addressed, while negotiators have to work around both countries’ electoral calendars (the Mexican presidential elections in July, the U.S. mid-terms in November). The process may not be very sentimental or for the genteel, but the bottom line is negotiations are continuing.
Security cooperation. No other country in the world directly impacts U.S. homeland security more than Mexico, and U.S. officials say security cooperation with their Mexican counterparts has never been better. Following the most recent round of the U.S.-Mexico Strategic Dialogue on Disrupting Transnational Criminal Organizations, John Sullivan, the U.S. deputy secretary of state, said, “Today, our two countries have one of the most extensive bilateral law enforcement relationships in the world.
… We share more information related to migration and border security, enabling us to better identify criminal threats, analyze migration trends, and reduce human smuggling on both sides of the border.”
Videgaray added that U.S.-Mexico security cooperation is not contingent on any other aspect of the bilateral relationship: “Let me be absolutely clear on the matter. Mexico cooperates with the United States when it comes to security because that is in Mexico’s best interest.”
Venezuela and regional cooperation. A key objective of U.S. policy toward Venezuela since President George W. Bush’s administration has been to encourage other Latin American governments to step up in supporting democracy and human rights. Over the past year, Mexico has responded, in doing so jettisoning what is known as the Estrada Doctrine — a pillar of Mexican foreign policy for decades that advocates nonintervention in other country’s affairs. Mexico has not only joined the United States in sanctioning members of the authoritarian government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela but has led the diplomatic charge at the Organization of American States and the Lima Group to hold Maduro accountable for his anti-democratic behavior.
Mexico has also continued its support of broader U.S. efforts on stability in Latin America. In June 2017, Mexico co-hosted with the United States a security conference in Miami promoting prosperity and security in Central America.
Of course, there are important variables still at play that will affect U.S.-Mexico relations into the foreseeable future, such as the fate of NAFTA negotiations and the construction of a border wall. Just as important will be the direction Mexican voters choose for their country in the presidential election in July. The leading contender is a left-wing populist, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has benefited most from widespread popular dissatisfaction in Mexico with jobs, public security, and corruption. Many predict a López Obrador presidency would mean a distancing of Mexico from its close economic and security cooperation relationship with the United States. But that is still in the future and has nothing to do with the U.S. presidency.
All this is to say U.S.-Mexico relations remain strong and have proved durable because of the simple fact that both countries have significant interests in maintaining a productive relationship. Neighbors that share a nearly 2,000-mile border and trade $1.5 billion in goods and services every day will in the end find a way to make things work.
March for Our Lives brought hundreds of thousands of people from across the nation to Washington on March 24. Here's some of what you missed at the event.(Video: Monica Akhtar/Photo: Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered in the nation’s capital and cities across the country Saturday to demand action against gun violence, vividly displaying the strength of the political movement led by survivors of a school massacre in Parkland, Fla.
Organized by students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a gunman killed 17 last month, the March for Our Lives showcased impassioned teens calling on Congress to enact stricter gun-control laws to end the nation’s two-decade stretch of campus shootings.
Hundreds of “sibling protests” took place across the world, from New York City — where demonstrators spread across 20 blocks — to Jonesboro, Ark., a small city marking the 20th anniversary of a middle-school shooting that left four students and a teacher dead. Gun-rights advocates mounted counterprotests in Salt Lake City, Boise and Valparaiso, Ind., where one sign read “All Amendments Matter.”
Although the D.C. march was funded by Oprah Winfrey, George and Amal Clooney, and other celebrities, Stoneman Douglas High students have been its faces. Their unequivocal message to legislators: Ignoring the toll of school shootings and everyday gun violence will no longer be tolerated.
“To the leaders, skeptics and cynics who told us to sit down, stay silent and wait your turn: Welcome to the revolution,” Cameron Kasky, a Stoneman Douglas student, said to a crowd that packed at least 10 blocks of Pennsylvania Avenue. “Either represent the people or get out. Stand for us or beware. The voters are coming.”
The scene at the March for Our Lives rally in Washington
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A huge crowd turns out for what is billed as a youth-led movement spearheaded by student survivors of school shootings. Many D.C.-area families, businesses and organizations are lending their support, and “sibling marches” are planned nationwide.
The main march in Washington was a heady mix of political activism, famous entertainers and the undisguised emotion of teenagers confronting the loss of friends and loved ones in a national spotlight.
Sam Fuentes, a senior shot in the leg at Stoneman Douglas, threw up on stage while delivering her speech to a national television audience. She recovered and led the crowd in a rendition of “Happy Birthday” for her slain classmate, Nicholas Dworet, who would have turned 18 on Saturday.
Emma González, 18, took the stage in a drab olive coat and torn jeans, speaking of the “long, tearful, chaotic hours in scorching afternoon sun” as students waited outside Stoneman Douglas High on the day of the shooting.
With a flinty stare, tears streaming down her face, González stood silent on the rally’s main stage for nearly four minutes — evoking the time it took Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz to carry out his attack. The crowd began chanting, “Never again.”
The moment was widely shared on social media. “Fight for your lives before it’s someone else’s job,” González said before she left the stage.
The march emphasized not just the highly publicized mass shootings in suburban, white schools, but also the far more common shootings that leave one or two young people dead and often affect predominantly black and Hispanic students in poor neighborhoods.
Zion Kelly, a senior at Thurgood Marshall Academy in Southeast Washington, spoke about his twin brother, Zaire, who was shot and killed by a robber in September. Choking back tears before a rapt crowd, Kelly described the close bond they had shared.
“From the time we were born, we shared everything. I spent time with him every day because we went to the same schools, shared the same friends, and we even shared the same room,” he said. “I’m here to represent the hundreds of thousands of students who live every day in constant paranoia and fear on their way to and from school.”
The march drew a huge crowd, though there were no police estimates of its size. One indication: Metro officials reported there had been about 334,000 trips on the system by 4 p.m. Saturday, compared to 368,000 trips by the same time on the day of President Trump’s inauguration. The Women’s March last year generated 597,000 trips by the same time of day.
Because many of the demonstrators were children, authorities in the nation’s capital said they took extra security precautions. By day’s end, police had reported no violent altercations or other problems, despite a small contingent of counterprotesters decrying efforts to toughen gun laws.
“To be honest, I’m scared to march,” Stoneman Douglas senior Carly Novell said in a Saturday morning tweet, citing the risk that a shooter might terrorize those gathered to protest in Washington. “This is a march against gun violence, and I am scared there will be gun violence on the march. This is just my mind-set living in this country now, but this is why we need to march.”
The march offered a window on a generation that has come of age after the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, which left 13 dead and is considered a milestone in the evolution of modern school shootings.
Nearly 200 people have died from gunfire at school since 1999, and more than 187,000 students attending at least 193 primary or secondary schools have experienced a shooting on campus during school hours, according to a Washington Post analysis. The analysis found that Hispanic students are nearly twice as likely as white students to experience gun violence at school, and black students three times as likely.
The most recent shooting took place Tuesday at Great Mills High School in Southern Maryland, where 16-year-old Jaelynn Willey was killed by her 17-year-old former boyfriend, who also died. About 100 Great Mills studentsattended the march, which drew people from around the country.
Callie Stone, 18, traveled to Washington from Raleigh, N.C.
“We’ve grown up knowing this could happen to us,” said Stone, 18, walking down Pennsylvania Avenue before the march wearing a denim jacket emblazoned with “Nasty Woman,” a term President Trump used to insult Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election and that progressive women adopted as a moniker.
With Stone was her mother, whom Stone had told the previous day that she wasn’t sure she wanted to raise children in a world where students fear going to school. “But I said, ‘Look at you, at your generation — you all are bringing us hope,’” said Kelly Stone, 54.
One couple at the rally, Rebekah and Chris Sullivan, described how their 4-year-old son already performs “active shooter” drills with his class, sitting quietly as his teacher rattles a locked door from the outside.
Jordin Torres, a junior at Howard High School in Ellicott City, Md., said she helps her instructors check that the blackout paper they’re supposed to draw over classroom windows if a shooter attacks is untorn.
Torres carried a sign: “I have a dream that one day I won’t be scared to go to school.”
Other signs read, “It happened at my school,” “Enough is enough!” and “I survived. My daughter didn’t.”
In Boston, where a sister rally was underway, a group of about 25 counterprotesters gathered in front of the gold-domed Massachusetts statehouse to decry calls for tougher gun laws.
“After a tragedy like this one, everyone looks past the motives of the shooter and immediately focuses on guns,” said Robert Johnson, 21, of New York. “If you run over someone with a car, they don’t blame the car. But if someone is shot, they immediately blame the guns.”
As they have spoken out in the wake of the Parkland shooting, Stoneman Douglas students have endured frequent attacks from opponents of gun control, with some even falsely suggesting they were actors paid by liberal activists.
Houston lawyer and gun-rights activist Collins Iyare Idehen Jr., who uses the pseudonym Colion Noir as a host on NRATV, took to the airwaves ahead of the march to say the students were “getting ready to use your First Amendment to attack everyone else’s Second Amendment” and that “no one would know your names” if the shooting had not occurred.
The White House issued a statement Saturday praising the marchers, despite their calls for tougher gun-control measures than President Trump supports.
“We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said in the statement, in which she added that “keeping our children safe is a top priority of the President’s.”
The president himself was in Florida at Trump International Golf Club, about 35 miles from Parkland. The spending bill he signed on Friday includes a provision to tighten the nation’s background-check system and may slightly open the door to restoring federal funding for gun research.
The Parkland students have already had an impact on the debate.
Lawmakers in Florida, a state long renowned as a laboratory for gun deregulation measures, passed its first significant gun-control legislation in 20 years this month in response to pressure from the Stoneman Douglas survivors.
They will stage another nationwide student walkout on April 20, the anniversary of Columbine, said David Hogg, one of the movement’s leaders. And they are planning future marches on every state capitol.
It remains unclear whether they can shame Congress into passing new restrictions on guns. Many expected action after the killing of 20 first-graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. But although President Barack Obama wept on television and convened a task force to craft stricter gun controls, nothing happened.
James Barden, 17, was in Washington on Saturday, carrying a photo of his 6-year-old brother, Daniel, who was killed at Sandy Hook. Barden and his family have toiled for five years advocating for stricter gun-control laws.
He said he was heartened by the turnout Saturday. “If this doesn’t do anything,” he said, “I don’t know.” Asked how he felt about the demonstration, he replied, “Hopeful.”
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the age of James Barden. He is 17, not 16.
Moriah Balingit, Kayla Epstein, Mary Hadar, Luz Lazo, Erin Logan, Justin Wm. Moyer, Antonio Olivo, Dana Priest, Katie Shaver, Rachel Siegel, Ellie Silverman, Kelyn Soong, Shira Stein, Patricia Sullivan and Julie Zauzmer contributed to this report.
Woman wearing a full veil (niqab) walk in front of posters of Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi during the preparations for tomorrow's presidential election in Cairo, Egypt March 25, 2018. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
CAIRO (Reuters) - Buses with loudspeakers blasting out songs about the importance of voting were touring central Cairo on the eve of the Egyptian presidential election, which analysts say lacks credible challengers to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Bearing the seal of the Cairo municipality, the buses also displayed printed messages such as “be positive” and “participate in the 2018 presidential election”.
Polls open on Monday for three days in what is effectively a referendum on the performance of former military general Sisi, who is expected to coast to an easy victory against a little-known candidate who is considered a Sisi admirer.
Sisi, who led the overthrow of Egypt’s first freely elected president in 2013, wants a high turnout to affirm his legitimacy after all credible opponents dropped out in January, citing intimidation by the authorities after his main challenger was jailed.
Opposition figures have called for a boycott of the election, while Sisi’s campaign spokesman has said the government had not prevented any candidate from running.
Sisi says his first four-year term has brought stability and security and he has urged Egyptians to vote in great numbers.
The military said on Sunday that it had dispatched special vehicles around Egypt to assure Egyptians of a “secure climate” for voting, and policemen were seen on Friday handing out posters urging people to vote.
Sisi promised to work for stability when he assumed power but has struggled to defeat an Islamic State insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula and contain other militant attacks across Egypt.
A street vendor selling clothes walks in front of banners of Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi during preparations for the presidential election in Cairo, Egypt, March 25, 2018. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
His supporters argue that the security situation now is better than the unrest that rocked Egypt for years after the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011.
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Sisi won nearly 97 percent of the vote when he was first elected in 2014, but less than half of eligible Egyptians voted even though the election was extended to three days from two.
The military on Sunday also said it would monitor local and foreign media coverage of the vote from a specially created media centre that would operate 24 hours a day.
Human rights groups say that a crackdown on press freedom has aimed to stifle dissent in the run-up to the vote, with Egyptian authorities calling for legal action against media outlets they deem to be publishing “fake news”. Rights activists say that several local journalists have been arrested in recent months.
Police and military personnel have taken over polling stations and set up nearby checkpoints to maintain security during the voting process, the military said.
Two policemen were killed and five other people wounded in the coastal city of Alexandria in a bomb attack on Saturday that targeted the local security chief.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, though Islamic State released a video last month in which it warned Egyptians against voting and urged Islamists to attack security forces and leaders.
Pakistan’s Military President Yahya Khan government’s double-faced or Janus-faced vicious game-bag full of zest or vigour zingy diddled and defrauded the whole caboodle nation or res-publica designedly happed most high-pitched in the guise of pretension in March 1971 with Bangabandhu Mujib and his lieutenants.
by Anwar A. Khan-
( March 25, 2018, Dhaka, Sri Lanka Guardian) I wish to begin with the words of Ann Clwyd, “Genocide is the responsibility of the entire world.” Some scientists have even gone so far as to assert that genocide leads to the extinction of Neanderthal man or homo sapiens neanderthalensis. It is a positive reinforcing stimulus that Bangladesh parliament on March 11, 2017 nem-con espoused a declaration stating emphatically and authoritatively that March 25 to be observed as the Genocide Day in the country. Now the country wants the UN to recognise the 1971 genocide globally, in commemoration to the barbarities carried out by the Pakistan’s army along with their local collaborators in the soil of Bangladesh on the same day in 1971. Bangladesh now would reach out to the UN for this purpose. From now onwards, the country will fete March 25 as “Genocide Day” all across the world.
I wish to tell confidentially that Bangladesh would have been liberated much earlier had the Bangla-speaking Pakistanis, especially, Jamaat-e-Islami goons not made the Pakistan’s army known the freedom-loving people and the scale of massacre of our people could have been reduced to a great extent. Because Pakistan’s military did not know the residents of freedom-loving people, the country’s villages, roads, highways, bridges, culverts, railway stations, … The Biharis or the non-Bengalis were aliens to us who came from a foreign country to our country and after participation of India in 1947, we welcomed them to our part of the land but they did never honour to our gesticulates; they did never owe allegiance to this part of land belonged to us; instead, they thought it was their own land only like the Pakistanis; they always behaved with us very rudely; they posed to be our masters and treated with us as slaves; once the Pakistnan’s army cracked on us down with full fury, they equally became monstrous to annihilate us from our own land whereas they should have coalesced with us as our people long before and treated us as their brothers and sisters and learnt Bangla to speak to us, but they forced us to speak to them in Urdu. I saw their ferocious nature long before 1971 and during our 1971 war. Many Biharis or the non-Bengalis are still living in Bangladesh, but they do not recognise the country, Bangladesh; they still think that it is their country and it is a part of their beloved Pakistan, but the despicable Pakistanis are still not agreeable to take them to Pakistan. Rather, they consider them as treacherous people. I strongly believe had India along with our freedom fighters started a full-fledged war long before December 1971, Bangladesh came into being long back. I believe then all the misdeed-mongers could have been reduced to ashes long time back. And that should have happened in 1971.
Many Biharis or the non-Bengalis are still living in Bangladesh, but they do not recognise the country, Bangladesh; they still think that it is their country and it is a part of their beloved Pakistan, but the despicable Pakistanis are still not agreeable to take them to Pakistan.
Pakistan’s Military President Yahya Khan government’s double-faced or Janus-faced vicious game-bag full of zest or vigour zingy diddled and defrauded the whole caboodle nation or res-publica designedly happed most high-pitched in the guise of pretension in March 1971 with Bangabandhu Mujib and his lieutenants. Like the Nazi Holocaust, drunkard, philanderer, double-dealer and brute Yahya Khan and his clique including deceitful character and deft schemer like ZA Bhutto took Adolf Hitler’s philosophy of “final solution to the Jewish question” to decimate us in 1971. Jared Diamond has suggested that genocidal violence may have caused the Neanderthals to go extinct. Ronald Wright has also suggested such genocide or the systematic extermination of people on the basis of ethnicity, religion, political opinion, social status, etc. Pakistan’s military junta, like Genghis Khan, was genocidal killers who were known to kill whole nations, leaving nothing but empty ruins and bones. They ordered the extermination of the Bengalis. So, their rule was genocide. If genocide is defined as a state-mandated effort to annihilate whole peoples, then their actions in this regard must certainly qualify. What they did deserve calling them “brutal, hypocritical, opportunistic, and even genocidal in the fullest sense of the word.” They carried out deliberate use of massacres. Large scale massacres by Pakistani Forces, and a deliberate scorched earth policy, contributed to the massive death toll. Thusly, the use of the word genocide is wholly accurate and appropriate to their regime. Their policy has been summed up by a phrase attributed to Pakistan’s army and their local cohorts “To Hell or to Connaught or Amiodarone or Cordarone” and that has been described by historians as genocide. The Almighty sent the potato blight… but they created the havoc all around this part of land. What they did all constituted one of the modern horrible genocides in modern history, where a whole population was attempted to annihilate to satisfy the desires of a group of power-hungry people belonged to Pakistan. They took possession with all sophisticated weapons of destructions in accordance with their customs and they caught all the people. Not one escaped…
In view of these crimes of Pakistan against humanity and civilisation, we hold them responsible for these crimes, as well as those of their agents who were culpably involved in such massacres. They sent their brutal soldiers along with their local accomplices to the former Eastern part of Pakistan only their ‘Death’s Head Units’ with the orders to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of the Bengali race or language. Only in such a way, they boastfully said they would win the vital space that they needed. Once the Pakistan’s army cracked down on us, they implemented a highly organised strategy of persecution, murder, and genocide aimed at ethnically purifying former eastern part of Pakistan, a plan like Hitler called the “Final Solution”. This was a crime so monstrous, so undreamt of in history … that the term genocide has had to be coined to define it. Allyson Schwartz has by right appealed to the world indwellers, “The 20th century taught us how far unbridled evil can and will go when the world fails to confront it. It is time that we heed the lessons of the 20th century and stand up to these murderers. It is time that we end genocide in the 21st century.”
Bangladesh’s genocide is the most brutal, for especially because it did not only kill 3 million people directly. But it killed a whole culture and history – the history of an ancient civilisation and the cradle of civilisation.
The Bangladesh’s genocide is the most brutal, for especially because it did not only kill 3 million people directly. But it killed a whole culture and history – the history of an ancient civilisation and the cradle of civilisation. All that land was destroyed, stolen and denied. That is the most brutal. +It seems unthinkable that humans are capable of atrocities as fierce and as devastating as genocide, yet they committed with near nonchalance. The United Nations has defined genocide as, “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” This includes not only the mass killing of the Bengali people but the attempt to eradicate it as a living culture. Every genocide, regardless of its scale, is a tragedy of epic proportions – the loss of a people, a culture, and a language is an extinction that hits far too close to home. How many times must we say never again? This is a question we still seem to be asking ourselves and one another as I personally watched these massacres happened in 1971; they used our holy religion-Islam and pronouncing the holy words “Naray-e-Takbir, Allah-hu Akbar. Pakistan Zindaba and Pakistan is the holy place of Islam” and slaughtered our freedom-loving people pitilessly. They did never permit for burial of those dead bodies. Instead, they then vauntingly allowed those lamentable dead bodies to eat by the vultures, jackals, dogs and other human flesh eaters and thus celebrated such brutal darts with all unkindness. Let’s avoid repeating such history anymore.
Synonymous with the word “genocide”, Yahya khan junta and his coterie were responsible for one of the most systematic and nauseatingly efficient genocides in history in 1971. Combining all of his concentration camps disgorges, and mass executions together led to a death toll in the three of millions. Today, however, we can see how wrong the Pakistani military junta and some political leaders were and just how merciless their reign of terror was. Bangladesh Genocide is known as the one of the most gruesome genocides in the history. The crimes committed by Pakistani troops during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 were unfortunately remaining somewhat unknown in the greater world even today.
The genocide began on 26 March, 1971 with the commencement of “Operation Searchlight” by West Pakistan rulers in order to curb the rising agitation for the legitimate political and social demands of the Bengalis who formed the majority of the united Pakistan till 1971. The genocide was deliberately brutal since the Pakistanis considered Bengalis as inferior race and used to discriminate against East Pakistan in economic and political terms. The genocide is widely known for heinous crimes against women with estimates of 400,000 women being raped by Pakistani troops as well as their local collaborators. Rape was widely used as a form of political weapon to intimidate people to submit themselves to atrocities of West Pakistan’s regime. The genocide committed by Pakistani Army was assisted by various groups like Jamaat-e-Islami, Shanti committees, Al-Badr and Al-Shams, Razakars which were generally dominated by the Bangla-speaking Pakistani people and the Bihari Muslims. The killings also included deliberate destruction of Bengali culture through the mass killing of intellectuals and other nationalists who regarded Bengali culture as their own.
The move by Pakistan army also sought to get rid of Hindu Minorities in Bangladesh who used to be one of the biggest communities in Bangladesh. Because of that ground, whenever we came across them, they with their red eyes on the first instance enounced the words, “Tum Hindu Hai” (you are a Hindu). Like so many people, I had to show my genital organ on many junctures to prove my Muslim identity at gun points by the Pakistan’s military and their local heinous collaborators-the Bangla-speaking Pakistanis and the Bihari Muslims. Even I narrowly escaped murder attempts five times at their hands during that time. The killings were estimated 3 million which is a huge number considering the fact that the killings took place during the 9 months of Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. The genocide led to the fleeing of 10 million refugees towards India which caused huge economic hardships for her and forced Indira Gandhi to seek international support for recognition of Bangladesh and the training of Mukti Bahini (Freedom Fighters).
The Bangladesh genocide ended only after the involvement of Indian troops with our valiant Freedom Fighters in the war on 3 December 1971 due to Pakistan’s pre-emptive attack on Indian air-force bases and ended with the crushing defeat of Pakistan, surrendering of 93,000 Pakistani soldiers and formation of Bangladesh within two weeks. Time magazine reported the genocide to a high US official as saying “It is the most incredible, calculated thing since the days of the Nazis in Poland.” The Guinness Book of World Records has registered this genocide as the second largest genocide in the history. The unfortunate fact is that all Pakistani participants, whether political or military were never prosecuted under the provisions of International Law on the lines of Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials or UN tribunals like in the case of genocides in Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone and Cambodia. The biggest irony is that USA, who claims to be a big supporter of Democracy and invaded various nations in the name of promoting rule of law, chose to remain apathetic to the plight of Bengali population caused by the West Pakistan in-spite of receiving various news about the genocide from their embassy in Dhaka, especially from Archer Blood for the sake of building bridges with Communist China to create rift between USSR and China and in the this meeting, Pakistan was playing the role of facilitator and so her role in the genocide was not only ignored by Nixon Administration but also encouraged China to intervene against Bangladesh and India or create pressure for immediate ceasefire which would prolong the Bangladesh’s victory and ensured that the genocide against Bengali people remained unabated.
The systematic mass killings in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) in 1971 can be classified as genocide. The conflict started with “Operation Searchlight” as said above earlier, a planned military pacification carried out by the West Pakistani Army on 25 March 1971 to curb the Bengali nationalist movement by taking control of the major cities and then eliminating all opposition, political or military personnel. Major human right abuses and killings were a sad reality of the crisis; those killed included men, women, students and pregnant women also. This act of genocide is officially termed “human rights abuses” by the Bangladesh authorities. History has proven in its course that it has been a producer of the most horrifying and daunting stories the world has ever known. Terrifying! Unimaginable! These facts depict the shocking and inconceivable pictures the evils of men could do: blood splattered on barren lands; the stench of death overcoming the fragrance of life.
25 March, the day before Bangladesh’s Independence Day, will now onwards be commemorated as the Genocide Day for the grave genocides committed by the Pakistani military junta and their local accomplices during the 1971 liberation war.
Genocide, a crime of unprecedented proportions is a sin not worthy of any mercy. It is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group. From the past to the present, from Bangladesh to Rwanda, this herculean crime has been experienced by innocent people and children who have been stripped of their future; men and women who have been degraded to mere objects of ridicule; and of the old whose dignity of life have been taken away from them. More than any horror movie you will ever see, reality always is the best shocker. Bangladesh’s Genocides that the world will remember and will never forget. Because “Genocide” is the most potent of all crimes against humanity because it is an effort to systematically wipe out a people and a culture as well as individual lives” has correctly been written by Jerry Costello. Given the scale of trauma caused by the genocide, Bangladesh has indicated that, however, thin the hope of a community can be, a hero always emerges. Although no one can dare claim that it is now a perfect state, and that no more work is needed, the country has risen from the ashes as a model or truth. We can say in the words of Kendrick Meek, “We can make a difference. We can save lives. We can stop the genocide.” It is time to recognise the Bangladesh’s Genocide. Bangladesh has emerged from the devastation of genocide and become more secure and prosperous than anyone has a right to expect. So, let us call genocide, genocide. Let us not minimise the deliberate murder of 3 million people. Let us have a moral victory that can shine as a light to all nations.
25 March, the day before Bangladesh’s Independence Day, will now onwards be commemorated as the Genocide Day for the grave genocides committed by the Pakistani military junta and their local accomplices during the 1971 liberation war. We have to remember always those horrible genocides. 25 March, shall live as the Eternal Flame in our history. This was a tragic event in human history, but by paying tribute to the Bengali community, we ensure the lessons of the Bangladesh’s genocide are properly understood and acknowledged. Words without deeds violates the moral and legal obligation we have under the genocide convention but, more importantly, violates our sense of right and wrong and the standards we have as human beings about looking to care for one another. Jon Corzine has aptly said, “Never again is the rallying cry for all who believe that mankind must speak out against genocide.” With faith and courage, decades of Bangladesh’s people have overcome great suffering and proudly preserved their culture, traditions, and religion and have told the story of the genocide to an often indifferent world. International community should come forward to recognise the Day as “Genocide Day.” It also will create awareness in combating and preventing the crime of genocide everywhere in the world. Say a prayer for them all who met with tragic murders on 25 March 1971 and throughout the months of 1971. Commemorating such a dark period in history means a solemn affair, with the day marked by remembrance services for those who lost their lives.
FOR most of us this is just a toilet. It’s not something we spend a lot of time thinking about; it’s not something we want to spend a lot of time thinking about. But that’s because pretty much every single person who’s reading this will have easy access to one. Take away that access, and you start to appreciate the significance of this seemingly insignificant thing.
Not having access to public toilets is still a common reality for many in Bangladesh, where the capital Dhaka has 1 toilet for every 215,000 people.
A 2003 study carried out by the government found that 42 percent of Bangladeshis relieved themselves along roadsides, behind bushes, aside homes or wherever they could find a place to go. As open defecation is linked to transmission of many diseases, such as cholera, diarrhoea and dysentery, eradicating the practice became one of the key targets of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
This has gone down dramatically since then, and Bangladesh has been commended for it efforts, but for certain demographics, the prospect of needing the toilet when in public is still a very real fear.
In the words of British Bangladeshi writer, Tahmima Anam: “People who haven’t resided in Dhaka may not understand just how distressing it is for women when they need to use public toilets.”
The issue isn’t just the lack of toilets in Dhaka, it’s also that the existing ones are in awful condition. They are squalid, congested, and dark. Many are non-functional; some toilets are used as storerooms and even sub-leased for shopkeeping.
SM Shaikat (far right) speaking on the Health and Sanitation panel at the APFSD Youth Forum. March 23, 2018. Source: Emma Richards
In such a landscape, it is women and the poor who suffer the most, UN Habitat Youth Advisory member SM Shaikat told Asian Correspondent at the Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development Youth Forum, where he was addressing the issue. At the ARROW organised event, Shaikat stressed the importance of these public services, and the challenges still faced by many in the population.
Not only are the toilets dangerous and unsanitary, they also come with a fee that street dwellers cannot afford.
Many people earn little more than 80 Bangladeshi Taka (US$1) a day, said Shaikat. For men to use the toilets costs 5 Tk each time. Consider the need to use the facilities four times each day, that eats away a quarter of their earnings; an amount that many are, understandably, unwilling to pay.
“This is an economic challenge for the people that are already challenged,” he said. “They are left with no other option than to go in the street.”
That financial burden is also not shared equally. Women are charged double the amount men are to use the facilities; a price they have to pay for the luxury of just being able to shut the door, according to Shaikat. And while men can commit this private act of urinating with impunity in almost any public space, women’s basic safety in the open is far from guaranteed.
It is this double-whammy, Shaikat says, that results in women suffering from both long-term and short-term health risks.
“Many women don’t use the public toilets even when they need to and can afford it,” he said. “They force themselves not to go, resulting in urinary diseases, kidney diseases, serious health issues, all due to lack of access.”
Women in Dhaka, one of the most dense populated cities in the world, struggle to find anywhere to use the toilet. Source: Miss Ruby/Shutterstock
Many women and girls hold their bladder or purposefully drinking much less water for fear of not having usable toilets around. This can then cause severe damage to the bladder, bowel and kidney as well other health implications for women, such as urinary and reproductive tract infections.
But the destructive ripples for women and girls don’t stop there.
“When they suffer with these problems, in a patriarchal society (like Bangladesh), women feel shy to talk to their male counterparts in the family, so they just ignore it,” Shaikat said. “When eventually they get really ill, they are helpless.”
“They have to rely on the male members of the family to take them to the doctor or the hospital, which is another form of suffering.”
Asia Pacific Forum for Sustainable Development Youth Forum, Bangkok, Thailand. March 23, 2018. Source: Emma Richards
A combination of out-of-touch politicians and short-sighted planners are behind the problem, Shaikat believes. And waiting for them to bankroll more toilets should not be relied on for a solution.
The solution could, in fact, be far simpler. While so many councils and charities look to building new facilities, Shaikat argues that the resources needed are already in place – so let’s open them up.
“You may not have the money to build 20,000 new public toilets, but each city has 20,000 religious spaces, mosques, churches, all of which have toilets.”
The misinterpretation of the “impurity of women” is the driving factor behind these spaces not being opened up, Shaikat says. Having tried numerous times, he knows first-hand the difficulties of trying to convince religious men to allow women access. But a shift in attitude to create an inclusive and sympathetic solution is needed to ensure the rights of those most vulnerable.
“As the economy improves, a certain level of people are seeing an improvement in their financial standards, but the poorest of the poor are not,” Shaikat said. “We need to give these people free access and use tax money to pay. That way we don’t leave anyone behind.”
U.S. President Donald Trump and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto during the G-20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7, 2017. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images) 
