On 16 December 1971, Lt. Gen A. A.
K. Niazi, CO of Pakistan Army forces located in East Pakistan signed the Instrument of Surrender. At the time
of surrender only a few countries had provided diplomatic recognition to the new
nation. Over 93,000 Pakistani troops surrendered to the Indian forces, making
it the largest surrender since World War
II. Bangladesh sought admission in the UN with most voting in its
favour, but China vetoed this as Pakistan was its key ally The United
States, also a key ally of Pakistan, was one of the last nations to accord
Bangladesh recognition. To ensure a smooth transition, in 1972
the Smile Agreement was signed between India and Pakistan .
The treaty ensured that Pakistan recognized
the independence of Bangladesh in
exchange for the return of the Pakistani PoWs. India treated all the PoWs in
strict accordance with the Geneva Convention, rule 1925. It released more
than 93,000 Pakistani PoWs in five months. Further, as a gesture of
goodwill, nearly 200 soldiers who were sought for war crimes by
Bengalis were also pardoned by India .
The accord also gave back more than 13,000 km2(5,019 sq mi)
of land that Indian troops had seized in West Pakistan during the war, though
India retained a few strategic areas; most notably Kargil (which
would in turn again be the focal point for a war between
the two nations in 1999). This was done as a measure of promoting "lasting
peace" and was acknowledged by many observers as a sign of maturity by India . However,
some in India felt
that the treaty had been too lenient to Bhutto, who had pleaded for leniency,
arguing that the fragile democracy in Pakistan would crumble if the
accord was perceived as being overly harsh by Pakistanis.
In the immediate aftermath of the war, one pressing problem
was the very high number of unwanted pregnancies of rape victims. Estimates of
the number of pregnancies resulting in births range from 25,000 to the
Bangladeshi government's figure of 70,000, while
one publication by the Centre for Reproductive Law and Policy gave a total of 250,000. A
government-mandated victim relief programme was set up with the support of
the World Health Organization and International Planned
Parenthood Federation, among whose goals it was to organize abortion facilities
to help rape victims terminate unwanted pregnancies. A doctor at a
rehabilitation centre in Dhaka reported
170,000 abortions of pregnancies caused by the rapes, and the births of
30,000 war babies during the first three months of
1972. Dr. Geoffrey Davis, an Australian doctor
and abortion specialist who worked for the programme, estimated that there had
been about 5,000 cases of self-induced abortions. He also said he
heard of numerous suicides by victims and of infanticides during
the course of his work. His estimate of the total number of rape victims was
400,000, twice as high as the official estimate of 200,000 cited by the
Bangladeshi government. Most of the victims also contracted sexual
infections. Many suffered from feelings of intense shame and humiliation,
and a number were ostracised by their families and communities or committed
suicide.
The feminist writer Cynthia
Enloe has written that some of the pregnancies were intended by the
soldiers and perhaps their officers as well. A report from theInternational Commission of Jurists said,
"Whatever the precise numbers, the teams of American and British surgeons
carrying out abortions and the widespread government efforts to persuade people
to accept these girls into the community, testify to the scale on which raping
occurred".The commission also said that Pakistani officers not only
allowed their men to rape, but enslaved women themselves.
Following the conflict the rape victims were seen as a
symbol of "social pollution" and shame. Few were able to return to
families or old homes because of this. Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman called the victims birangona ("heroine"),
but this served as a reminder that these women were now deemed socially
unacceptable as they were "dishonored", and the term became
associated with barangona ("prostitute").The official
strategy of marrying the women off and encouraging them to be seen as war
heroines failed as few men came forward, and those who did expected the state
to provide a large dowry. Those women who did marry were usually mistreated, and
the majority of men, once having received a dowry, abandoned their wives.
On 18 February 1972 the state formed the Bangladesh Women's
Rehabilitation Board, which was tasked with helping the victims of rape and to
help with the adoption programmed. Several international agencies took
part in the adoption programme, such as Mother
Teresa's Sisters of Charity. The majority of the war
babies were adopted in the Netherlands and Canada as the state wished to remove the
reminders of Pakistan from
the newly formed nation. However, not all women wanted their child taken,
and some were forcibly removed and sent for adoption, a practice which was
encouraged by Rahman, who said, "I do not want those polluted blood in
this country". While many women were glad for the abortion programme,
as they did not have to bear a child conceived of rape, others had to go full
term, filled with hatred towards the child they carried. Others, who had their
children adopted out so as to return to "mainstream life", would not
look at their newborn as it was taken from them. In the 1990s many of these
children returned to Bangladesh to
search for their birth mothers. In 2008, D'Costa attempted to find those who
had been adopted, however very few responded, one who did said "I hated
being a kid, and I am angry at Bangladesh for not taking care
of me when I needed it most. I don’t have any roots and that makes me cry. So
that is why I am trying to learn more about where I was born."
Forty years after the war, two sisters who had been raped
were interviewed by Deutsche Welle. Aleya stated she had been taken by
the Pakistani army when she was thirteen, and was gang raped repeatedly for
seven months. She states she was tortured and was five months pregnant when she
returned to her home. Her sister, Laily, says she was pregnant when she was
taken by the armed forces, and lost the child. Later she fought alongside the
Mukti Bahini. Both say that the state has failed the birangona, and that
all they received was "humiliation, insults, hatred, and ostracism."
pregnant when the military began to release them. Some
women were forcibly used as prostitutes. While the Pakistani
government estimated the number of rapes in the hundreds, other estimates
range between 200,000 and 400,000. The Pakistani government had
tried to censor reports coming out of the region, but media reports on the
atrocities did reach the public worldwide, and gave rise to widespread
international public support for the liberation movement.
In what has been described by Jenneke Arens as a deliberate
attempt to destroy an ethnic group, many of those assaulted were raped,
murdered and then bayoneted in the genitalia. Adam Jones, a political scientist,
has said that one of the reasons for the mass rapes was to undermine Bengali
society through the "dishonoring" of Bengali women and that some
women were raped until they died or were killed following repeated
attacks. The Pakistani army also raped Bengali males. The men, when
passing through a checkpoint, would be ordered to prove they were circumcised,
and this is where the rapes usually happened. The International Commission of Jurists concluded
that the atrocities carried out by the Pakistan armed forces "were part of
a deliberate policy by a disciplined force".The writer Mulk
Raj Anand said of the Pakistani army actions, "The rapes were so
systematic and pervasive that they had to be conscious Army policy,
"planned by the West Pakistanis in a deliberate effort to create a new
race" or to dilute Bengali nationalism". Amita Malik,
reporting from Bangladesh following
the Pakistan armed
forces surrender, wrote that one West Pakistani soldier said: "We are
going. But we are leaving our Seed behind".
Not all Pakistani military personnel supported the violence:
General Sahabzada Yaqub Khan, who advised the
president against military action, and Major Ikram
Sehgal both resigned in protest, as did Air Marshal Asghar Khan. Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, a Balochi politician,
and Khan Abdul Wali Khan, leader of the National Awami Party, protested over the
actions of the armed forces. Those imprisoned for their dissenting views on the
violence included Sabihuddin Ghausi and I. A. Rahman, who were
both journalists, the Sindhi leader G. M. Syed,
the poet Ahmad Salim, Anwar Pirzado, who was a member of the air
force, Professor M. R. Hassan, Tahera Mazhar and Imtiaz Ahmed. Malik
Ghulam Jilani, who was also arrested, had openly opposed the armed action in
the East; a letter he had written to Yahya Khan was widely publicised. Altaf
Hussain Gauhar, the editor of the Dawn newspaper,
was also imprisoned. In 2013 Jilani and Faiz
Ahmad Faiz, a poet, were honoured by the Bangladeshi government for their
actions.
Militias
According to Peter
Tomsen, a political scientist, Pakistan's secret service, in conjunction with the
political party Jamaat-e-Islami, formed militias such
as Al-Badr ("the moon") and
the Al-Shams ("the sun") to
conduct operations against the nationalist movement. These militias
targeted non-combatants and committed rapes as well as other
crimes. Local collaborators known as Razakars also took part in the atrocities.
The term has since become a pejorative akin
to the western term "Judas"
Members of the Muslim
league, such as Nizam-e-Islam, Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema
Pakistan, who had lost the election, collaborated with the military and acted
as an intelligence organisation for them. Members of Jamaat-e-Islami and
some of its leaders collaborated with the Pakistani forces in rapes and
targeted killings. The atrocities by Al-Badr and the Al-Shams garnered
worldwide attention from news agencies; accounts of massacres and rapes were
widely reported.
Mukti Bahini actions
A portion of native Bangladeshis targeted the minority Biharis, who had given support to the West Pakistan regime. Bihari women were raped and
tortured during the war and in its aftermath by Bengali males. The killing of
300 Biharis in Chittagong was used by the Pakistani government as a
justification to launch their crackdown on the Bengali nationalist
movement. The Pakistani General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi wrote in his
memoirs that thousands of men and women had been killed or raped in Chittagong .
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