Where are the Moderates in Pakistan?

In an interview with a Southern California Monthly, Salman Ahmed of Pakistani pop band Junoon mentioned that the voices of moderations are gaining steady grounds in Pakistan. He further stressed that almost 95% of Pakistanis are moderates. If what he said is even 25% true and the moderates finally prevail over the fanatics in near future, it will tremendously benefit not only Pakistan, but also her neighbors. We often forget that hatred begets hatred. It is an endless vicious cycle, and the moderates in Indian subcontinent should take the necessary initiatives to break this.

A moderate has to be honest, sincere and brave enough to face the truth. A moderate who committed injustices to others needs to acknowledge it, and at a minimum, should work for reconciliation by seeking apology to the victims. In this regard, I like to find out how moderates the Pakistanis are by revisiting a serious issue still remained unsettled for 36 years. The issue involves the brutal war crimes committed by the Pakistani Army and military rulers during the 1971 war in Bangladesh. 1.5 to 3 millions civilians were murdered, and close to 200,000 women were raped. Around 80% of the raped women were Muslims, which shows that the Pakistani Military junta was engaged in an ugly ethnic cleansing of the local Bengali population regardless of their religion. Many women had to choose abortions, suicides, and prostitutions. Many of the 25,000 war babies were adopted by the western Christian families, mostly the Canadians.

In her groundbreaking book, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, Susan Brownmiller wrote: "Girls of eight and grandmothers of seventy-five had been sexually assaulted ... Pakistani soldiers had not only violated Bengali women on the spot; they abducted tens of hundreds and held them by force in their military barracks for nightly use…The women were kept naked to prevent their escape. In some camps, pornographic movies were shown to the soldiers." How many died from this atrocious treatment can only be guessed at. To make these crimes look legitimate, many of the soldiers even had been told by their superiors during the war that either all Bengalis were infidels or had become such, so killing or raping them would not be immoral.

Adding insult to injury, not a single Pakistani army officer or soldier was put to trial after the war. Only thing the Pakistan government did was to set up a commission to investigate the reasons and causes of its worst ever defeat. The commission headed by the then chief Justice of Pakistan Hamoodur Rahman held widespread atrocities such as murders and rapes of innocent civilians, serious acts of human rights violations, other abuses of power by Pakistani generals and complete failure in civilian and martial law leadership responsible for the loss of East Pakistan. There is even an instance in the "Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report" of a Brigadier entertaining women while his troops were being shelled. The commission had recommended stringent punishment for top army officials including court-martial for a number of them. But no Pakistani government, be it martial law regime or a legally elected government ever gave a thought to punish guilty members of its armed forces. The Pakistani government never apologized to Bangladeshi people and the role of its armed forces in 1971 war has never been part of its history curriculum. Not only that, the Pakistani public are generally unaware of these crimes, and are still being told that their armed forces only killed some Indian agents in that war. (Note: USA under Nixon-Kissinger administration fully supported Pakistan during the 1971 war politically, financially and militarily. China, most of the Arab and Muslim countries also supported Pakistan. During that turbulent period only India, Soviet Union and other socialist countries, and US Senator Edward Kennedy sided with the plight of Bangladeshi people.)

A good number of Bangladeshis and Muhajirs mostly from Bihar, India (known as Biharis) also collaborated with the Pakistani armed forces in those crimes. Golam Azam (literally means great servant – aptly named considering his lifelong service to his masters, the Pakistanis), the top leader of Jama’ate Islami of Bangladesh, a political party based on Pakistani scholar Moududi’s twisted religious teachings, even declared all the war rapes as "Muta marriages" (temporary marriages which are banned in traditional Islam) through self-style religious edict (fatwa). After the war, the new Bangladeshi government jailed approximately 10,000 worst Bangladeshi offenders. The Bihari war criminals had already left Bangladesh for Pakistan soon after the war. But that was then. Not only were they released from jail by the military dictator Zia after the 1975 bloody coup, but also given special status and power; and utilizing it fully, these Moududi followers have now become all powerful in Bangladeshi politics with royal money from the Middle East and sometime tacit support from the West. It often becomes very difficult to form viable government without making alliance with them. Two of the most notorious and well-publicized criminals, Matiur Rahman Nijami and Ali Ahsan Mujahid, served as ministers in previous BNP-Jama'at led government. These two were the topmost leaders of Al Badr, a notorious organization who orchestrated the killing of the intellectuals. When the Pak Army and their local collaborators found out that the defeat was inevitable and imminent, Al Badr came up with a savage idea of ridding Bangladesh of her intellectual base. They thought the new country would not survive long as a result. During the dying hours of the war, they meticulously executed their evil plan, and killed thousands in most gruesome ways. Some grateful people of Bangladesh rewarded these killers, who murdered and raped their very own people to please foreign masters, with ministership! And the same people in their abundant spare time criticize Israel, India, USA, UK, Russia….

A strong movement has been going on among these pro-war-criminal Bangladeshis and their supporters to hide and distort the facts of crimes committed by the Pakistani armed forces and even eliminate them from history. Whenever these issues are brought up, they feel so much embarrassed as if their parents had committed those crimes. They condone the heinous acts by their beloved Pakistanis by saying, "You know, these types of incidents happen in every war. We should forget the past and forgive our Pakistani brothers…" The irony is that these same people react completely other way whenever they hear any news of atrocities committed by the US, Israeli or Indian army. They also conveniently forget that the Rwandans, Serbians, and numerous other war criminals are still being prosecuted in many places. Argentina and Chile have been prosecuting their own army officers for the 70’s and 80’s brutalities they unleashed on their own civilian population. In one of the latest incidents in USA, some soldiers are being prosecuted for the murder and rape of an Iraqi 14-year-old girl and the murders of her parents and little sister. The prosecutors have recommended capital punishment if they are found guilty.

Israelis are relentless in their pursuit of finding and punishing Nazi war criminals even 60 years after World War II. Japan and Germany teach their children about the atrocities committed by their armed forces during that war. What about Pakistan, and its collaborators and supporters in Bangladesh? We always criticize others, but never check our faces in mirror. Is it not hypocrisy? Aren’t hypocrites the worst of all in Islam?

Asking for justice in Pakistan is oxymoronic in nature. This is a country that even does not do justice to its own womenfolks. Under the pretext of Sharia, the Pakistani parliament passed barbaric Hudood ordinance to prosecute rape victims for adultery. The rapists are safe as long as there are no four male witnesses in a rape case. How many rape cases in the world can produce at least four male witnesses per incident? Since when do the rapists rape in front of four or more male witnesses?

Finally, as long as MMA (the coalition of the religion based parties in Pakistan) stays in power or does not change its extremist views, laws like Hudood remain, roles of the Pakistani armed forces in 1971 war are not taught in schools as part of history lessons, and criminal members of the Pakistani armed forces are not punished (even posthumously since some of the war criminals are already dead), statement like “95% of the Pakistanis are moderates” would be considered as nothing but gross exaggeration.