Women of Pakistan Apologize for War Crimes in 1971

When the confrontation between the people of Bangladesh and Pakistan's military power climaxed in the War of Liberation in 1971, and Yahya Khan's troops launched a genocide in Bangladesh, the vast majority of people in Pakistan remained silent. Only a few brave voices were heard in protest.

The first time a public statement was issued was around August 1971. Condemning the genocide and recommending negotiations with the elected representatives of the people of Bangladesh, this statement was signed amongst others by the poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, journalist Mazhar Ali Khan, trade unionist Tahera Mazhar. These signatories were at the time accused by Pakistan's establishment of being anti-national and subversive and they had to pay a price for their courageous defiance.

Now, 25 years later, women's groups have become the vanguard of Pakistan's conscience. They resisted military rule in the eighties in their own country. On March 1, 1996 they spoke out in public to apologize for the military atrocities in 1971. In particular, they condemned the acts of rape committed by their military in Bangladesh. Even in 1996 their statement is an act of courage and we welcome their attempt to accept responsibility and to hold out their hands in solidarity with us.

Reproduced below are two public statements issued by the Women's Action Forum, a broad-based coalition of women's groups in Pakistan, and ASR, a resource center, which were in the forefront of resistance to Ziaul Huq's military rule and his attempts to condemn women to subordination in Pakistan. Issued on March 01, to coincide with the day Yahya Khan postponed the Constituent Assembly, the statements were endorsed by other groups including SAHE, Shirkatgah, Institute of Women's Studies, Lahore, Simorgh Collective and Pattan. We print them because we want to recognize the people's initiatives to ascribe responsibility for the genocide. We expect that our sisters in Pakistan will work towards stronger national condemnation of those who were guilty of war crimes in Bangladesh, because we feel that this will strengthen their own struggle for democracy. We also see their apology as a marker towards an affirmation for peace, democracy and non-violence in South Asia.

WAF (Women's Action Forum) Apologizes to Women of Bangladesh

As Bangladesh celebrates its 25 years of independence, the state and the people of Pakistan must reflect on the role played by the state and the Pakistani military in the unprecedented and exceptionally violent suppression of the political aspirations of the people of Bangladesh in 1971. Continued silence on our part makes a mockery not only of the principles of democracy, human rights, and self determinations which we lay claim to, but also makes a mockery of our own history.

The committee of nations has now not only recognized that even in cases of war, and other forms of conflict, there are certain parameters beyond which violence cannot and must not be condoned, and further that those perpetrating and responsible for such violence should be held responsible for such violence. In view of this, and in the larger interests of our own humanity as a nation, we must condemn the oppression by this state of its own citizens in 1971. As Pakistanis who stood silently by, we must also judge ourselves as history has already judged us.

WAF would like to use this opportunity to build public awareness on the issue of state violence and the role of the military in 1971, At the same time there is a need to focus on the systematic violence against women, particularly the mass rapes. While we try to focus the nation's attention towards a period in our history for which we stand ashamed. Women's Action Forum, on its own behalf, would like to apologize to the women of Bangladesh that they became the symbols and the targets in the process of dishonoring and humiliating people.

ASR on 25 Years of Silence

As Pakistan approaches its 50th year, we must reflect on these five decades not only in celebration and nostalgia but with a consciousness of the darker side of our history - a history that is systematically denied to its own citizens. It is ironic that Pakistanis, particularly the younger generation, consider Pakistan's history as continuous when in fact the first half of 50 years were internally challenged. Indeed, this challenge then led to a truncated Pakistan in 1971. This was a critical point for Pakistan since it threw up a crisis in terms of our own identity, our sense of self and most of all, our humanity. While we have still not emerged from this crisis, we make it worse by continuing to be silent. Representing our history under a false patriotism and denying the experience of the oppressed is not the grounds on which we can build a future we may be proud of.

In reviewing our history, both the state and the people of Pakistan need to confront their denial of democratic and human rights and the indifferent attitude toward women. In particular this silence and eclipsing of the voice of the people and the tremendous violence directed against the women of Bangladesh is a shameful testimony. Mass rapes and violence were specifically motivated to seize power from those who had democratically earned it. 1971 was brutal year rationalized under the guise of war, revenge, honor and betrayal through misrepresentations by the powerful classes who determine how history is constructed and obscured.

Progressive movements must no longer allow themselves to fall into the trap of being duped by historical distortions. To some extent, the women's movement in Pakistan has been attempting to reinterpret a people's history while challenging the oppression and exploitation of women on various fronts. It has a courageous history. However, we have not yet questioned the politics of the violence of 1971 beyond that of sympathetic solidarity on the issue of the mass rapes of Bangladeshi women. In particular, we have not confronted the politics of the complicity of our own silence in the collective action that aimed not just to humiliate but stamp out any resistance. In that we are a part of devaluing further the lives of those women. What the movement needs to recognize is that violence against women cannot be delinked from the spectrum of patriarchal violence which is articulated at all levels in society and through all institutions, of which the military is one. While the women's movement has struggled to give expression to all forms of violence, including violence in the domestic sphere, it has tended not to take cognizance of so public and immoral an action such as that of the Pakistani military's mass rapes of millions of Bangladeshi women in 1971. Until we challenge this and see redressal, the climate of violence will continue where the women and the powerless will be the worst victims both when the conflicts exist within and between nation states. All those who agree with this perspective must see to it that the Pakistani state not only acknowledges the role that it played in 1971, but that the state initiates a process by which the women of Bangladesh are elevated to the humanity that is their right and to further ensure that history doest not repeat itself through social, political or military policies.

source:www.adhunika.com