International
War Criminal In The city
By Anu
Muhammad
06 June,2004
Countercurrents.org
An
international war criminal has arrived in Dhaka city. This is the man
who has been behind recent atrocities in Afghanistan and Iraq, who is
proved to be sufficiently pervert sadist and inhuman for continuing
imperial mission taking from the past, confirming all sorts of torture,
killing, post killing perversion, tear down all international conventions.
This is the man who had been behind supplying WMD and nurturing terrorist
groups all over the world. This is Donald Rumsfeld, defense secretary
of the United States, one of trio of the US administration, servicemen
of big business, instruments of master evils of todays world,
that has been engaged in the mission to make the world a hell for the
humanity and heaven for the evils all over. Their mission of new
american century is a project of occupying lands, polluting water,
plundering resources, killing humans, eviction of settlements, destroying
ecological balances. This is a project of corporate bodies, Christian
Jew fascists, racist and communal White supremacists and war profiteers.
The photographs
from Abu Graib prison in Iraq have suddenly shaken semi dizzy world
conscience. As usual Bush-Rumsfeld clique tried to put it as a deviation
from the US values and morality. But facts tell otherwise. In home and
abroad the morality of US ruling bodies has always been used to create
injustice to the highest level. The horrific and barbaric treatment
of US army personnel and private contractors in the Iraq prison had/has
been well calculated and deliberate. The officers who were happily conducting
barbaric acts over Iraqi people were those who earlier became notorious
in inhuman acts in the US prisons, which were their credentials to get
lucrative postings in Iraq. The barbarism in Iraq prison is not a single
area of violation of human rights there since US-British presence in
Iraq is itself a violation of human right; they are occupiers, fraud
and plunderers in every definition.
The royal trip of
Rumsfeld to Bangladesh is not surprising and is not supposed to aim
at convincing unwilling partners. The partners seem to be willing and
convinced. Rumsfeld clique must be happy to find their close allies
here, very likely happy to see generic friends in the present cabinet,
war criminals of 1971. In 1971 US had been active patron behind all
war crimes over Bangladeshi people, their close allies were Islamists
embedded with Pak military junta. This role was obviously not a deviation
from US ideology of freedom and democracy; on
the contrary this has always been expression of their freedom and democracy.
Since 1945 the US made attempts to overthrow nearly 50 governments those
became unfriendly to the US business interests and military footing;
it deployed all its machineries to crush more than 50 cases of peoples
movement against intolerable autocratic regimes, bootlicker of the US;
bombed at least 30 countries; it created, nurtured and has been nurturing
countless terrorist groups in and outside US to kill people, to destabilize
different countries for intervention, to create panic, to make accidents,
to counter peoples struggles for freedom, democracy and authority over
own lives and resources; and in the process US administration killed
several million people all over the world. No other State or power could
do bloodshed, destruction and human loss in this scale in the last few
centuries. Therefore as a protector, mentor and creator of terrorists,
state and non-state, US hold today the unchallenging top position. Moreover,
as a terrorist machine it appears as the deadliest of all. This has
become the worst threat against world peace, security, human progress
and vision of free world. Donald Rumsfeld is a leading representative
of that killing machine.
It is very likely
for Rumsfeld to feel at home in Dhaka when the governments have been
engaged to make the space for US corporate-military complex through
signing secret agreements one after another. At least three agreements
have been signed during the last fourteen months, to make Bangladesh
an easy smooth instrument and field of global terrorism conducted by
the US, not to mention earlier ones and other secret understandings.
In August 1993 one agreement was signed in Washington DC which made
Bangladesh bound to allow US military and civilian officials to commit
any crime they wish in this country. The news of signing this agreement
was disclosed in Dhaka after one month, although the detail of the agreement
is still secret. According to press report, under this agreement
no U.S. soldier or officer charged with criminal offences can be tried
in Bangladesh or be extradited to the International Criminal Court for
prosecution. The agreement stipulates that if any American
soldier or officer is charged with criminal offence in Bangladesh, or
is prosecuted in another country and takes shelter here, he cannot be
handed over to the International Criminal Court. It clearly tells
us that the US is creating safety net for the criminals who would be
punishable even in countrys fragile justice system or in the International
Criminal Court (ICC).
Before signing this,
Christina Rocca, Assistant Secretary of the State and ex-CIA official,
visited Bangladesh in March 2003 and signed agreement that gave US blanc
check to bring anything necessary for the development of science
and technology, it also allowed to bring anything for security
purpose . Finally in the last month Rocca visited again and signed
another agreement on 19 May 2004. This agreement has also been kept
secret. Ministry official said to the press that the agreement would
make it binding on the government to take care of every single
US interest including protection of US citizens and installations.
The report further said that to protect American interests in the country
and extend full cooperation to the US in identifying individuals or
groups suspected of working against US interests (Daily Star, 20 May
2004). It is important to note that the draft agreement, like other
ones, was not prepared by Bangladesh Government but US administration
in Dhaka. Now another agreement is in the process of making, which is
Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA).
People were not
told, before or after, but Bangladesh government has given free access
to anything or anybody coming with US governments tag; it has
given them total authority, committed to give total service to find
and take actions against those who are considered as hostile to the
US interests; it has also declared immunity to the US nationals specially
US military from any trial for their crime be it in the scale of Abu
Graib prison or Iraq or Vietnam in general. They can kill people here,
they can rape, they can make tortures, they can harass people of any
kind but nothing will happen to them. They will be given protection
from the Bangladesh state and their muscles. After all these, what differences
are there of this elected sovereign government with the
puppet government in Iraq remain? The governments of Bangladesh have
surrendered their economic sovereignty long before to the World Bank-IMF
and WTO, now it has surrendered its political sovereignty. It has taken
the task to rebuild its repressive machinery to safeguard US corporate
and geo-political interests, in return of securing its own survival
and sucking people.
William Blum, US
author and an expert on US foreign policy and global operations said
that, the engine of American foreign policy has clearly not been
fueled by a devotion to any kind of morality, nor even simple decency,
but rather by the necessity to serve other masters. He has broken
down that to four: (1) making the world open and hospitable to
American transnational corporations; (2) enhancing the financial statements
of defense companies at home who have donated generously to members
of Congress and residents of the White House; (3) preventing the rise
of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative
to the capitalist model; (4) extending American hegemony.
The fake slogan
of global fight against terrorism is in practice a cover
for global mission of occupation and plunder with the means of terrorism.
The root of all forms of terrorism and fundamentalism therefore is located
in the US administration: White House, Pentagon and Corporate capitalist
centre. Who are the people hostile to the US government and who are
the people friendly to them? Governments engaged in oppressing its own
people, be it Muslim or non-Muslim, appear as closest allies of the
US. But people all over the world including the US are not. Anybody
who loves freedom, who cares human dignity, independence, who wants
to save this planet from killers, plunderers and occupiers, who dreams
of a world without discrimination of colour religion class and gender,
who oppose war hatred and bloodshed, everybody of them is opposed to
US imperial vulgar design and barbaric acts. So there is a sharp divide
between governments and people.
The US governments
fear of ICC is well understood, they know what they are doing and any
legal procedure would find them criminal to the highest order. From
the side of the oppressed women and men all over the world, dear and
near ones of killed children and adults in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine,
Vietnam.........., living beings in polluted water and grabbed lands
we have no other option but to stand against these killers, rapists,
fascists and occupiers.