from:alt.conspiracy As, always, Caveat Lector Om K ----- Click Here: <A HREF="aol://5863:126/alt.conspiracy:614539">Bangladesh: 1975 coup/CIA/IMF/World Bank - Part 2</A> ----- Subject: Bangladesh: 1975 coup/CIA/IMF/World Bank - Part 2 From: "M. E." <A HREF="mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]">[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> Date: Sun, May 7, 2000 4:04 AM Message-id: <8f3irp$8sa$[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Bangladesh welcomes Clinton, but seeks founder's killers Tuesday, 21 March 2000 18:46 (ET) By MARTIN SIEFF, UPI National Security Editor DHAKA, Bangladesh, March 21 (UPI) -- The assassination was brutal, even by 20th century standards. The army soldiers, led by middle-level officers, stormed the residence of the prime minister. They killed all they encountered, man, woman and child. The blood of children was left smeared upon the walls along with their parents. When it was over, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangabandhu, the Father of the Nation, first prime minister of an independent Bangladesh, was dead. So was his wife. And all his three sons, including the youngest, who was only 10. Sheikh Mujibur's two daughters in law were also killed. His brothers were slaughtered, too. And so were many other relatives. The killers were thorough. But they missed Sheikh Mujibur's two daughters, who were out of the country at the time. And today Bangladesh is ruled by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina who glories in the name of her martyred father. But those dark killings on Aug. 15, 1975, continue to spread their long shadow over the domestic politics of Bangladesh and its tortuous relations with the United States. The killers of Sheikh Mujipur have long been known. Eventually, a court convicted 19 of them, and three of those - sentenced to death in absentia - continue to live and prosper within the United States. Sheikh Hasina today is happy to court U.S. support, but she has not forgotten her blood debts. And when President Clinton became the first U.S. president in history to visit Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries on earth Monday, the prime minister had more than food aid, Agency for International Development programs and lucrative gas deals on her mind. She wanted her father's killers extradited and brought to justice. "We requested the (U.S.) President to expedite the deportation of the killers of the father of the nation ... ," Sheikh Hasina said in a joint press statement with Clinton after their meeting in Dhaka Monday. And she added, "I am touched by President Clinton's sympathetic response." Under the U.S. system of separation of powers, extradition will not be easy. For Bangladesh has no extradition treaty with the United States. But President Clinton, who was an idealistic champion of Bangladeshi independence in his student days 30 years ago, made clear in the joint statement that he supported Sheikh Hasina's goal of seeing her father's three killers now in the United States extradited and brought to justice. Any efforts to do that could open long forgotten cans of worms. Long ignored in the United States, the murders of Sheikh Mujipur and his family still dominate the politics of Bangladesh, the second most populous Muslim nation and fourth most populous democracy - after India, the United States, Indonesia and Russia - in the world. (NOTE: Japan has a population of 120 million. Bangladesh has one of 128 million.) Sheikh Mujibur's image is everywhere in Bangladesh. It is as common as that of his daughter and of the current president of the nation. The hatred and enduring feuds that erupted from his murder still define the fault line of politics in this volatile, passionate and still unstable democracy. Sheikh Mujibur was supported by the Soviet Union. He was succeeded by a brutal military regime led by Army strongman Gen. Ziaur "Zia" Rahman, until rebellious junior army officers assassinated him, in his turn, in 1981. Gen. "Zia" founded the right wing Bangladesh National Party. Led by Gen. Zia's widow, Begum Khaleda Zia, it ruled the country from 1991 to 1996 when Sheikh Hasina brought her father's center-left Awami League back to power. Since then, Khalida and the BNP have led the opposition. The relationship between the daughter of the murdered Founding Father and the widow of the army general who benefited from his murder to win power, is easily described. It does not exist. The two women have not met in over a year. Since June 1999, Khalida and her BND have led opposition parties in a boycott of all parliament by-elections and the Chittagong city elections, claiming the government rigged them all. But independent international monitors found the 1996 parliament elections, which returned Sheikh Hasina to power at the expense of Khalida, to be fair. U.S.-Bangladeshi relations have changed dramatically since the days 29 years ago when President Richard Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, knowingly turned blind eyes to the slaughter of one to three million people in Bangladesh at the hands of the occupying Pakistani army. As Bangladeshi popular resistance, led by Sheikh Mujibur, continued to defy the army killers, Nixon and Kissinger even sent the U.S. Seventh Fleet to maneuver in the Bay of Bengal, hinting that it would intervene on the Pakistan army's side. But India entered the war on behalf of the Bangladeshis, and Pakistani resistance collapsed. Memories are long in Bangladesh. To this day, many veteran Awami League members remain convinced that in 1975, the CIA, urged on by Kissinger, conspired to have Sheikh Mujibur and his family murdered. It is certainly the case that Kissinger and Nixon loathed Sheikh Mujibur for leading the Bangladesh independence movement, thus crippling Pakistan, the chief U.S. ally in South Asia throughout the Cold War. It is also a matter of record that Kissinger remained openly contemptuous of Sheikh Mujibur for the remainder of the prime minister's life. And after Gen. Zia took over, he lost no time in severing ties with Moscow and toeing Kissinger's polices from Washington. "There are still some unanswered questions on the role of some staff of the U.S. embassy in Dhaka during that period." columnist Mohammed Nazrul Islam wrote in the Bangladesh Observer newspaper Monday, the day of President Clinton's visit. "Even some U.S. sources had reported on (the) holding of meetings between the killers of Sheikh Mujibur and some embassy members at that time." But now the Cold War is long over. The United States is experiencing growing tensions with Pakistan, which toppled its own democratically elected government last October. And Clinton is eager to court the leaders of still democratic, if fractious, Bangladesh. Now it is Bangladesh, not Pakistan, that is the strategic prize of a new era, thanks to its large reserves of offshore natural gas, which are upgraded in size almost by the month. But Sheikh Hasina will not rest until those of her father's killers who fled to the United States face justice for their crimes and the blood of her martyred family is avenged. -- Copyright 2000 by United Press International. All rights reserved. -- ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. 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