Monday, September 28, 2015

Kissinger and Nixon support 1971 Genocide in East Pakistan

Bangaladesh is still having issues 40 odd years later because of civil war in 1971 fueled by American weapons.  Now they have a war tribunal that is authorized only to prosecute people living in Bangaladesh, but more a tribunal to go after the opposition.  No West Pakistani's the biggest perpetrators and their helpmates Nixon and Kissinger can be prosecuted.

Hope this stands as a warning to those who are looking for war crimes tribunals in Sri Lanka.  This is not for our good, it is to destabilize our country.

Nixon and Kissinger supported Pakistan’s (west)  fiercely anti-communist military ruler President Yahya Khan in his crackdown on East Pakistan (now Bangaladesh).  The weapons they supplied helped  the 1971 mass murder of mostly Hindu Bengalis who were seeking political autonomy and, ultimately, their own independent nation (i.e. East Pakistan into Bangaladesh). Large scale civilian suffering—mass shootings, rapes, village burnings, and a refugee crisis of almost unimaginable proportions. Members of the Pakistani military and supporting militias killed an estimated 300,000 to 3,000,000 people and raped between 200,000 to 400,000 Bangladeshi women in a systematic campaign of genocidal rape
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Nixon and Kissinger supplied West Pakistan
a) weapons, ammunition, and other military despite a long-standing arms embargo (and against the wishes of the State Department),
b) Transferred advanced fighter aircraft through third countries like Iran and Jordan.  This was like the  Iran-Contra affair, by passing Congress opposition.

NY Times: Sept 29  2013 
Nixon and Kissinger were not just motivated by dispassionate realpolitik, weighing Pakistan’s help with the secret opening to China or India’s pro-Soviet leanings. The White House tapes capture their emotional rage, going far beyond Nixon’s habitual vulgarity. In the Oval Office, Nixon told Kissinger that the Indians needed “a mass famine.” Kissinger sneered at people who “bleed” for “the dying Bengalis.” 
Telegram from Archer Blood, the U.S. consul general in Dacca, East Pakistan
Our government has failed to denounce the suppression of democracy. Our government has failed to denounce atrocities. Our government has failed to take forceful measures to protect its citizens while at the same time bending over backwards to placate the West Pak[istan] dominated government and to lessen likely and deservedly negative international public relations impact against them... We, as professional public servants express our dissent with current policy and fervently hope that our true and lasting interests here can be defined and our policies redirected in order to salvage our nation’s position as a moral leader of the free world.
For his principled stand, Blood—a longtime civil servant not normally given to such activist behavior—earned the opprobrium of Nixon and Kissinger, was sacked for his “rebellion,” and saw his promising career derailed.

NY Times: Sept 29  2013
Bangladesh, despite its recent economic growth, is a haunted country. Part of the tumult centers on the fate of defendants like Abdul Quader Mollah, who face judgment in a series of national war crimes trials for atrocities committed in 1971 by local collaborators with West Pakistan. These trials are popular, but the court has often failed to meet fair standards of due process. 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/28/bloody-bloody-richard-nixon-s-role-in-a-forgotten-genocide.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/opinion/nixon-and-kissingers-forgotten-shame.html

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