Thread: Pakistani Genocide

People DID die

They were Civillians.
And PA killed them.

That , Fuey , is Genocide.

Since you like to quote him, here's an extract from Anthony Mascaranhas of what the Bengali civilian population had done to the Biharis (non-Bengalis/Urdu speakers), in the days leading up to 25th March, 1971. His figures are way exagerrated though, who knows what else, but it's someone you like to quote.

Link not working!

Originally Posted by lemontree

Originally Posted by Hongkongfuey
[33] US Consul-General Archer Blood revised his initial assessment as
civil war ensued: ". we realized that the term 'genocide' was not
appropriate to characterize all killings of Muslim Bengalis. Atrocities
were being committed on both sides .. it seemed to us that Army violence
was increasingly being used for military purposes." However, Blood still
felt the term 'genocide' could be applied to the targeting of Hindus.
(Blood, (2002), p. 216-217).

It's really very simple. Archie Blood described the events of the 25th and 26th of March as genocidal/one-sided, and then realized that the rest of the war was not genocidal.

1. Archie Blood's initial assessment was based on the incidents in Dacca on 25th/26th Mar 1971. He was however, asked by Nixon to reduce the pressure on Niazi, this hand written note is available on the net. So it is possible that Archie Blood had to alter his assessment to reduce the impact of his earlier reports.
2. After the pogrom in Dacca, there was not much left to destroy there. The students and politicians were sorted out. When the country side exploded after the 25th Mar military crack down, there was no way for the US embassy to know what was happening there.
3. The EBR/EPR/police and most other bengali service men had revolted due to the military crackdown. There was no way for the US embassy to know what happened to the bengali soldiers of 2 Bn SSG or the soldiers and officers of the regimental center of EBR.

1) is incorrect. Firstly, the note was to Yahya. Secondly, Archie Blood revised his assessment in his memoirs which he wrote in 2000. This was when Nixon had long gone.

2) No way for the US embassy to know what was going on there? That's just ridiculous. There was no change in the situation after Op Searchlight. US embassy staff were still there. Archie Blood and the rest of the US officials that signed the Telegrams that went to the Senate did not see the fighting in Dhaka. However they got their information, it did not change throughtout the entire war. Why would it have?

3) Not sure what your final point is. There were most likely different reasons why people revolted. Some from the speech given on the 25th, but the crackdown would have swayed minds. Even after the desertions of the East Pakistani soldiers they still killed all their West Pakistani officers though.

Originally Posted by lemontree

Atrocities were committed on both sides.

Yes there is no doubt in that, but these were in retaliation for what was perpetrated on the bengalis. In particular biharis who were pro West Pakistanis were targeted by the Mukhti Bhaini, there was also a case of a PA officers teenage daughter who was raped and muredered in Dacca cantonment in revenge.

See above. Biharis were targeted by the Bengalis/Mukto Bahini prior to any attack by West Pakistani soldiers, as you've said.

Originally Posted by Ray

It appears that the lady's (Sam Bose) views are the sole authorative account and the only researched account.

To base all discussion on solely one source as the only authorative account indicates the myopic vision that is being applied.

One account that is well researched, objective, and scientific, is worth a thousand other accounts that have vested aims, poorly objective, and are individual accounts of survivors with a victim attitude. As an example, Brownmiller's book on rape in Bangladesh sold 16 million copies. That is a vested interest in my opinion. On the other hand, Samila Bose has not written a book, just released her findings in a report. Combined with the fact she's a Hindu, she has no need for attention being from a famous family, and she clearly knows how to research, I'd put her report well above anything written by the other clowns you've mentioned. It's an objective account by Samila, and she does highlight atrocities committed by Pakistani troops in her report - something which noone denies, they happen in any war of that intensity. But it wasnt a genocide, and 3 million definitely werent killed as much as you Indians would wish for it to be true.

Hongkongfeuy,

"The murder of army personnel, caught in ones and twos, became an everyday
occurrence," writes Maj. Gen. H. A. Qureishi, "In our area we lost Lt.
Abbas of 29 Cavalry. With an escort of Bengali soldiers, he had ventured
out of the unit lines to buy fresh vegetables for the troops. The escort
was "rushed" by the militants, the officer was killed, weapons were
'confiscated' and the Bengali members of the guard sent back unharmed."

Who is Maj.Gen. H.A Qureshi?....Since he says that "in our area" I take it that he would have been the Division Commander. But in 1971, 29 Cavalry was attached with 57 Brigade (HQ at Jhenida) which part of PA 9 Infantry Division (HQ Jessore). The GOC 9 Div was Maj. Gen MH Ansari.
The 6 Maj. Generals of Pakistan Army that were in Bangladesh in 1971 were, Maj.Gen MH Ansari (GOC 9 Div), Maj.Gen. Qazi Abdul Majid (GOC 14 Div), Maj. Gen Nazar Hussain Shah (GOC 16 Div), Maj.Gen Rao Farmal Ali (advisor to Governor E Pakistan), Maj.Gen Mohammad Jamshed and Maj Gen. M Rahim Khan (HQ Eastern Command).
This proves that Sarmila Bose interviewed ghost generals that did not exist in Bangladesh in 1971. A pointer that her research is false.

Originally Posted by Jay

Originally Posted by Hongkongfuey
Seems like i missed one or two things whilst laughing my head off going through what Jay was saying.

Lucky you, its LMAO for the rest of us

In your case you probably do laugh through your butt

Originally Posted by Jay

It's really VERY simple. Report = http://www.drishtipat.org/1971/sarmila_paper.html
Report, Read.

The same report again. First read all tghe other reports that we have posted, then we will give a fair chance. See, Sarmila Bose's word is not the end of world here.

Read above for objectivity, scientific analysis, a logical approach, it is the best report.

Originally Posted by Jay

It's really very simple. Archie Blood described the events of the 25th and 26th of March as genocidal/one-sided, and then realized that the rest of the war was not genocidal. Atrocities were committed on both sides. It sounds like the man was a bit quick in jumping the gun, and he even admits this. Niazi himself condemned what happened on the 25th and the 26th in April.

Yes, indeed its very simple. As Archie said it was a genocide. Retracting reports is just so easy and its done for political compulsions. Like when JKLF leader said Pakistani minsiter was running terrorist camps and then later retracted it. Atrocities indeed were committed on both sides, but Pakistani soldiers started out first.

Read above. Bengalis targeted Biharis first of all, then the declaration of Independence was announced on the radio on the 25th March, 1971.

As for the point about Blood, again you're wrong. There was nothing political in what he said in his memoirs (2002). They were written long after he'd left politics, and long after Nixon had left office. He said that as the war went on there clearly was no genocide and that there were atrocities committed on both sides.

Originally Posted by Jay

If you didnt know the context of these reports, some information has recently been declassified, including what Archie Blood wrote to the US Senate, known as the "Blood Telegram" which was signed by 20 US officials and swung US Congress to support the Bengalis.

So Archir Blood brainwashed the other 20 US officials as well? If Archie Blood retracted it later, did the other 20 officials also did the same in one way or another??

Read above. You dont understand the Telegram obviously.

Originally Posted by Jay

Archie Blood only admitted that it wasnt a genocide in 2002. In other words he knew all along for all those years in between that there was no genocide, yet stayed quiet till he wrote his memoirs!!

Read US Foreign policy summary, they say US did not act to save Bengali population, coz of the nexus they had with Yahaya.

It was a genocide with thousands raped, hundreds of thousands jkilled and maimed.

There's no doubt that the US favoured the West Pakistani side. They even sent a group of ships there to lend moral support to the West Pakistanis. But you dont seem to understand that Archie Blood said in his memoirs in 2000, LONG AFTER THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION, that there was no genocide in East Pakistan.

Your figures I see are coming down which is good. Thousands raped, and hundreds of thousands killed. That's possible. But that is NOT a genocide. There's 700,000 abortions in Bangladesh each year. Most likely there's countless rapes as well. Look what happens in America when anarchy occurs. Countless stories of rapes and looting by civilians. Thousands of citizen on citizen rapes is not unlikely in such an anarchic scenario.

Originally Posted by Hongkongfuey

1) is incorrect. Firstly, the note was to Yahya.

I am referring to the note written by Nixon regarding Archies telegrams.

2) No way for the US embassy to know what was going on there? That's just ridiculous. There was no change in the situation after Op Searchlight. US embassy staff were still there.

How would the US embassy know about incidents in other town and villages when they could not move out of the city owing to the chaos?

Archie Blood and the rest of the US officials that signed the Telegrams that went to the Senate did not see the fighting in Dhaka. However they got their information, it did not change throughtout the entire war. Why would it have?

Dacca was largely quiet after the 25/26 March massacre, it was the other towns that flared up in the following weeks.

3) Not sure what your final point is.

The point is that genocide did take place and it was official PoG policy to terrorise its people. Which nation kills its own SSG commandos that have remained faithfull inspite of the revolt by other units? No same army does that. The 2 Bn SSG bengalis were killed as a precaution and not because they revolted.

Even after the desertions of the East Pakistani soldiers they still killed all their West Pakistani officers though.

That situation was created by the PA., by its attack on EPR units and the police. The PA was using tanks and recoiless rifles on civilian crowds, this obviously infuriated the bengali servicemen and they turned into your enemies.

See above. Biharis were targeted by the Bengalis/Mukto Bahini prior to any attack by West Pakistani soldiers, as you've said.

That was only done in retaliation after the PA started the butchery. The biharis were not innocent either, they formed the razakar units that helped the PA terrorise the bengalis.

Originally Posted by Jay

There Blood witnessed the beginning of a massacre that would take hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives. The Pakistan army, faced with an incipient rebellion among the Bengalis, slaughtered thousands in a pre-emptive attack on the University of Dacca and the barracks of Bengali police. Columns of troops followed the roads throughout the country, burning and killing.

Blood in his first cable described what he termed a "selective genocide," alerted President Richard Nixon and national security adviser Henry Kissinger to what was happening and urged them to pressure Gen. Yahya Khan, the Pakistani dictator, to stop the killing.

His cable, dated March 28, 1971, was declassified last year. In it Blood wrote: "Here in Dacca we are mute and horrified witnesses to a reign of terror of the Pak military ..."

The trouble was that Nixon and Kissinger had tilted toward Pakistan as a counter to Soviet influence in the subcontinent. The administration didn't want to hear what Blood was reporting.

That cable was followed by another, signed by 20 Americans stationed in East Pakistan with various U.S. government agencies, decrying the official American silence as serving "neither our moral interests broadly defined nor our national interests narrowly defined ..."

Blood did not sign that cable, but he added a footnote subscribing fully to the views it expressed and then wrote prophetically: "I believe the most likely eventual outcome of the struggle under way in East Pakistan is a Bengali victory and the consequent establishment of an independent Bangladesh." He argued strongly against "pursuing a rigid policy of one-sided support to the likely loser."

Nixon chose an option of trying to help Khan negotiate a settlement with the Bengalis, but added, in his own handwriting, "To all hands: DON'T squeeze Yahya at this time." So nobody in authority squeezed Yahya Khan, the killings continued and 20 million Bengali refugees poured into India.

>>At this time, I'll post Nixon's handwritten note about Yahaya, which makes it more appropriate.


To counter reports of the army's massacre, the Pakistanis brought in a few foreign journalists for a tightly controlled tour that it said would prove that it was actually Bengali Hindus slaughtering non-Bengali Muslims. At the end of the tour the reporters would be packed off without hearing any other stories.

>> I see the above very familiar to Hongkongdong's posts. Awfully similar that Bengalis are slaughtering Bengali Biharis or Bihari Bengalis

I was on that trip. At the end of the tour, on ancient crop-duster planes literally coated with DDT, I simply declared myself deathly ill and refused to leave. Security was heavy when I left the hotel and so it was too dangerous to interview on the streets, but they couldn't follow me into the American consulate.

There I met Arch Blood, who told me that he had been officially "silenced" by Washington, but that my suspicions of a continuing slaughter of Bengalis by the Pakistan army were quite correct.

Blood said he couldn't speak, but he had scores of Bengalis on the consulate staff. He pointed to an office across the hall and said: "It's yours for as long as you need it. Those staffers who want to tell you their stories will come visit you there."

For the better part of a day I listened to men and women who wept as they told how parents, siblings, even children had died in Dhaka and in towns from Chittagong to Naryanganj to the hill country tea plantations. When my plane lifted off from Dhaka I began banging out a lead I still remember:

"Fear, fire and the sword are the only things holding East and West Pakistan together ... "

I never saw Arch Blood again, but I never met a more upright and courageous diplomat. Not long after that he was called back to Washington and put in the doghouse, for as long as Nixon was in the White House.

In 1971 his colleagues in the American Foreign Service voted Arch K. Blood the recipient of the Christian A. Herter Award for "initiative, integrity, intellectual courage and creative dissent."

His death made headlines in Bangladesh, the nation that emerged in 1971 as Blood predicted. A delegation of Bengalis attended his memorial service in Fort Collins, Colo. His wife, Margaret, has been swamped with mail from Bangladesh.

Arch Blood spread the news of a new nation being born amid calamity. He ought to be remembered as an American hero as well.

http://www.military.com/Opinions/0,,...110304,00.html

Yes, all very graphic, but it isnt a systematic analysis unlike the Bose report.

There's no doubt that Blood wasnt liked by Nixon for what he said. He was summoned. The 20 US officials were later demoted by Kissinger. Nixon went so far as to describe Blood as a pansy or something, because he hadnt seen war before, and so everything was grossly exagerrated.

But Blood states in his 2002 memoirs, which he wrote well after the Nixon administration that there was no genocide in East Pakistan.

Originally Posted by Hongkongfuey

Thousands raped, and hundreds of thousands killed. That's possible. But that is NOT a genocide.

What in your opinion is genocide?...Please state a figure that you are comfortable with.

Look what happens in America when anarchy occurs. Countless stories of rapes and looting by civilians. Thousands of citizen on citizen rapes is not unlikely in such an anarchic scenario.

Please don't compare govt policy to murder its own people with criminal acts committed by individuals.

Hongkongfeuy,
What is your reply to post #126?

Originally Posted by Jay

Archie never retracted the telegrams he sent behalf of the Consulate, did he?

Read, Read and Read them again.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB79/BEBB1.pdf

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB79/BEBB2.pdf

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB79/BEBB3.pdf

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB79/BEBB4.pdf

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB79/BEBB5.pdf

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB79/BEBB6.pdf

This is the best of all,
U.S. Department of State Cable, USG Expression of Concern on East Pakistan; April 6, 1971, Confidential, 8 pp.
During a conversation with Assistant Secretary Sisco, Pakistani Ambassador Agha Hilaly asks that "due allowance be made for behavior of Pak officials and others during what had amounted to civil war for a few days," because the "army had to kill people in order to keep country together." Expressing concern over the situation and bloodshed as well as use of U.S. arms in repression, Sisco observed that the US is "keenly sensitive to problems and feelings on developments [in East Pakistan]."
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB79/BEBB7.pdf

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB79/BEBB8.pdf
The list of Consul officers that signed the dissent telegram are listed in this document. Blood endorsed and subscribed their views.

As I see none of them has retracted their statements so far.

This has been discussed before, it's getting tiresome. Read his memoirs.

US Consul-General Archer Blood revised his initial assessment as
civil war ensued: ". we realized that the term 'genocide' was not
appropriate to characterize all killings of Muslim Bengalis. Atrocities
were being committed on both sides .. it seemed to us that Army violence
was increasingly being used for military purposes." However, Blood still
felt the term 'genocide' could be applied to the targeting of Hindus.
(Blood, (2002), p. 216-217).
http://www.drishtipat.org/1971/sarmila_paper.html

Look up what revised means please.

Originally Posted by lemontree

I am surprised you did not mention that the photos were of people killed in the cyclone the previous year.
I have no political gains by posting these photos, this thread was started to show the true meaning of genocide to people who feel that Indians are carrying genocide in Kashmir.

Showing photos of a few corpses does not show a genocide occurred. People died, sure at the hands of who is another matter. There were many factions involved in the Bangladesh War of 1971. There's absolutely zero proof ANY of those pictures were the work of West Pakistani soldiers.

The Kashmir issue is completely seperate. Indian Army atrocities are occurring. Systematic rape of Kashmiris is occurring in Kashmir. Whereas East Pakistanis had voted to join with West Pakistan during Partition, Kashmir did not vote to join with India. The systematic rape of Kashmiris has been highlighted by ALL the major independent, well reputed human rights organizations, such as Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, and more, unlike the Brownmillers, and Drings which you quote from from Bangladesh.

You don't have to search too long to find a NEUTRAL article saying with a high level of confidence that someone's family has been murdered in Kashmir, usually brutally involving tortured to death, systematic rapes, summary executions, just for being SUSPECTED of cooperating with the armed liberation outfits. Let me draw your attention to this list. Given the Indian Army's history of covering up crimes and trying to blame them on the insurgents, dont you think this is very hypocritical coming from you. Virtually EVERY neutral human rights agency with a creditable reputation has described the SYSTEMATIC rapes of Kashmiri women, not just a few rotten apples here and there, but the use of rapes to torture women suspected of being sympathetic to the insurgents, the disappearances of young men suspected of being insurgents, the torture of men and women, the list is endless of the crimes being committed in Kashmir.

http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/kashmir/index.htm
http://www.amnestyusa.org/women/doc...02569A500714D22
http://www.phrusa.org/research/torture/torcra.html
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2001/07/14/india167.htm
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Inde...COUNTRIES\INDIA
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/kashmir/1996/

A very touching introduction in this one :-

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Inde...COUNTRIES\INDIA

Some more on the renegade militant secret police in Kashmir :-

http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/kashmi...7.htm#TopOfPage

http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/kashmir/defenders.htm
http://web.amnesty.org/802568F7005C...24004651F6?Open
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/kashmir/impunity.htm

Originally Posted by Hongkongfuey

This has been discussed before, it's getting tiresome. Read his memoirs.

Dumbo, did you read his memoirs, if so post it. Did he refute the fact that Pakistani military killed, raped and maimed civilians?? If so, do post it.

Look up what revised means please.

That still does not discount the telegrams and statistics he sent to the State dept.

While at it, Joe Galloway who met Archie Blood at that time, has also said the same thing about Pakistani Army.

so come back with a better arguement.

Hongkongfeuy,
O.k so Archie revised his memoir. What about the false Maj.Gen HA Qureshi that Sarmila created?

"The murder of army personnel, caught in ones and twos, became an everyday occurrence," writes Maj. Gen. H. A. Qureishi, "In our area we lost Lt.
Abbas of 29 Cavalry. With an escort of Bengali soldiers, he had ventured
out of the unit lines to buy fresh vegetables for the troops. The escort
was "rushed" by the militants, the officer was killed, weapons were
'confiscated' and the Bengali members of the guard sent back unharmed."

Who is Maj.Gen. H.A Qureshi?....Since he says that "in our area" I take it that he would have been the Division Commander. But in 1971, 29 Cavalry was attached with 57 Brigade (HQ at Jhenida) which part of PA 9 Infantry Division (HQ Jessore). The GOC 9 Div was Maj. Gen MH Ansari.
The 6 Maj. Generals of Pakistan Army that were in Bangladesh in 1971 were, Maj.Gen MH Ansari (GOC 9 Div), Maj.Gen. Qazi Abdul Majid (GOC 14 Div), Maj. Gen Nazar Hussain Shah (GOC 16 Div), Maj.Gen Rao Farmal Ali (advisor to Governor E Pakistan), Maj.Gen Mohammad Jamshed and Maj Gen. M Rahim Khan (HQ Eastern Command).
This proves that Sarmila Bose interviewed ghost generals that did not exist in Bangladesh in 1971. A pointer that her research is false.