Border guard mutiny in Bangladesh

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"Had the violence spread, it would surely have created an adverse situation in the entire region," the diplomat said. "It would have become difficult then for India to watch idly the destabilisation of the Awami government." Among other things, the diplomat said, the chaos in Bangladesh would have taken the focus off the Mumbai terror attack and undercut India’s attempt to dismantle the terror apparatus in the region. The March 3 attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore was the second element in the Great Game. There’s a Lankan footnote here. Colombo said it agreed to tour Pakistan in order to return the favour Islamabad showed before the 1996 World Cup, when Australia and the West Indies forfeited their matches there citing security concerns (see Whoever Said War Minus The Shooting?).

New Delhi had conveyed it was willing to take counter-measures in Dhaka, direct intervention included.

Then a combined India-Pak team had played an exhibition match there. New Delhi cites two other additional reasons for Colombo’s decision—it wanted to express gratitude for the arms supplied to the Lankan army for its fight against the LTTE; two, to snigger at India’s fear

of touring Pakistan, in a misplaced sense of bravado. A section in the Indian establishment thinks the Lashkar-e-Toiba exploited the opportunity the Lankans provided. Under pressure because of Mumbai, the Lashkar through the Lahore attack was warning the Zardari government to turn off the heat on its members and simultaneously stoking doubts about its ability to tackle terrorism. High Lankan casualties would also have weakened the international pressure on Islamabad to act on Mumbai. But this school of thought is ambivalent about whether or not the army and the ISI played a role in the attack.

A prime ministerial aide told Outlook, "It’s difficult to say with any certainty whether the Lahore incident had the backing of the army establishment in Pakistan or whether there are ‘elements’ in the army and the ISI that are posing a direct threat to both Zardari

Many say the army has no hand, but the terrorists’ method and the fact they all escaped belies this.

and the Pakistani generals." This school believes the old equation in Pakistan could be changing—perhaps the army can’t turn the "tap of terrorism" on and off at will. This means the Islamist elements in the ISI and the army have joined hands to undermine the nation’s image of a moderate Muslim state and challenge the emerging democratic political order there.

The assault on Taj in Mumbai
But others disagree, pointing out that the method of the attack and the fact that all terrorists escaped proves the complicity of the army-ISI. Former diplomat K.C. Singh and others see a direct link between the Mumbai investigations and the Lahore attack. Since the Mumbai investigation has revealed a link between the Mumbai terrorists and their backers in the army, the generals wanted to send the message through the Lahore attack that the Zardari government shouldn’t cross the red line—that the army-terrorist nexus can’t be revealed.
Says Singh, "It’s a crucial point in Indo-Pak relations. A lot will depend on how the investigation into the Mumbai terror attack goes from here." Claiming it’s an ideal opportunity for Zardari and his bete noire, Nawaz Sharif, to join ranks and marginalise the army, Singh said, "Both these democratic leaders should ensure that the Mumbai investigation is taken to its logical conclusion."
The coming together of Sharif and Zardari can provide a fillip to the democratic forces in Pakistan—and the region. Unfortunately, India doesn’t have much leverage in Pakistan to bolster Zardari and Sharif. Therefore, for the moment, India’s next step in this Great Game would be to submit answers to Pakistan’s questions on Mumbai and press for action.

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20090316&fname=Cover+Story&sid=1

 

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BANGLADESH
Behind The Mutiny

It wasn't just the unaddressed grievances over the living and service conditions, but also the anger over the action of the Army chief in carrying out the death sentences awarded to Bangla Bhai and other jihadi leaders in 2007.

B. Raman

Reliable details of the two-day (February 25 and 26, 2009) mutiny of some junior ranks of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) against Army officers are still scanty. However, even the limited details available so far indicate that the situation was and continues to be much more serious than was originally thought. It could flare up again if not handled with care by the Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, the Army Chief , General Moeen U Ahmed, and the new Director-General of the BDR, Brig Gen Moinul Hossain. Sheikh Hasina and the Army chief are till now acting in tandem in dealing with the sequel to the mutiny, but the critics of Sheikh Hasina are already turning their guns on her as the holder of the defence portfolio for not reacting promptly to the mutiny in order to put it down and prevent the massacre of a large number of senior officers of the Army by the jawans (soldiers) and other junior ranks of the BDR. While the Army chief himself has reiterated his faith in the civilian leadership, individual senior officers have been critical of Sheikh Hasina for allegedly not allowing the Army to intervene on February 25 itself after the mutiny broke out and for trying to deal with the situation through her Home Minister, Sahara Khatun, under whom the BDR comes.
The constitution of two parallel probe committees--one by the Home Minister and the other by the Army--speaks of the lack of confidence of the army in the thoroughness of any probe by the committee set up by the Home Minister. Reports indicate that only those, who did not participate in the mutiny, have so far surrendered to the Army or the police and that many--if not most--of those who participated in the mutiny have managed to go underground. The Army is focussing its enquiries on those , who held the peace talks with the Home Minister in a local restaurant in response to his appeal before the talks broke down. The suspected ring leaders are four Deputy Assistant Directors (DAD) of the BDR--Touhidul Alam, Nasiruddin Khan, Mirza Habibur Rahman and Abdul Jalil -- sepoy Md Selim and Abdur Rahim, whose rank in the BDR is not known.
The National Standing Committee of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of Begum Khalida Zia,in a statement on February 28,2009, alleged that the 'action and reaction' in the wake of the killings in the mutiny proved the Government's total failure to resolve the crisis. "Narrow mentality and controversial steps and statements of the Government made the situation more complex," it said and added: "The Government could not take timely steps to prevent the killing of army officers and their family members, and torture on women and children.The Prime Minister, who is also the Defence Minister, cannot avoid responsibility for the failure to take effective measures to protect arms and ammunition, and prevent escape of criminals."
From the details available so far, the following reconstruction is possible: Maj Gen Shakil Ahmed, who was the Director-General of the BDR,and his wife were extremely unpopular with the jawans of the BDR, who used to accuse them of being corrupt and of misusing or misappropriating funds meant for providing relief to the families of poor jawans.The BDR was observing the BDR Week from February 24,2009, to mark its raising day. About 6300 personnel of the BDR were to participate in the various functions organised in this connection. About 3300 of them belonged to BDR battalions stationed in Dhaka. The remaining came from the various field units. Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the Week at a function in the Darbar (conference) hall of the BDR headquarters in their campus at Pilkana on February 24. Some directly-recruited junior officers and other ranks of the BDR had requested Maj.Gen.Shakil Ahmed to allow them to meet her separately after the inaugural function to express their grievances to her.

He turned down their request. On coming to know of this, she wanted to meet them. He advised her not to do so on the ground that it might weaken the discipline. She did not insist on meeting them. That night, pamphlets criticising Shakil Ahmed, his wife and other army officers circulated in the campus. Either the army officers and military and civilian intelligence agencies were not aware of it or they ignored it under the impression that this was one of those things which keep happening in the BDR. On February 25, a conference was held in the Darbar Hall, which was addressed by by Shakil Ahmed. As he was interacting with the staff, some persons wearing red head bands and wielding machine guns forced their way into the hall and started shouting slogans against him and opened fire indiscriminately.
There are two versions as to what happened to him. According to one version, he was shot dead inside the darbar hall itself. According to the other version, he and other Army officers ran out of the hall in panic and fled to their residences or offices located inside the campus. Shakil Ahmed himself ran to his house. Some of the mutineers chased him there and killed him and his wife, Some other mutineers chased the other officers to their offices or residences and killed them.
A number of other jawans and junior officers of the BDR, who initially did not participate in the mutiny, took guns from the BDR armoury and joined the mutineers in their killing spree. Thousands of bullets were fired indiscriminately all over the campus by rampaging personnel of the BDR. When Sheikh Hasina heard of the mutiny and the firing, she thought that the mutineers had taken some Army officers hostage. She, therefore, asked her Home Minister to establish contact with the mutineers and persuade them to release the hostages. She was reportedly not aware that the mutineers had started massacring the officers the moment the mutiny started. It is understood that even the Army chief was not aware of this.
The moment the mutiny broke out, there was an almost total black-out of communications between the Army officers caught inside the BDR headquarters and their superiors in the Army headquarters. Before the mutiny, the mutineers had disrupted all land line telephones. All the army officers caught inside had mobile telephones. Only one of them managed to send out a distress message. Others could not communicate. It is not known why this was so. Some reports suggest that the mutineers had seized all mobile telephones from the officers inside. Thus, while the mutineers were able to remain in touch with their colleagues all over Bangladesh, the Army officers caught inside were unable to communicate with anybody. The Army sent an armed group to the BDR campus to find out what was happening. It also sent two helicopters to fly over the campus. They all withdrew when the mutineers opened fire on them.
Only by the morning of February 26,2009,did the extent of the savagery become evident to Sheikh Hasina and the Army. She authorised the Army to intervene and broadcast a warning message to the mutineers. The sight of the deployment of Army tanks and heavy artillery around the campus unnerved the mutineers and they called off the mutiny. It is not yet known how many of them managed to escape from Dhaka and how many surrendered.
When the Army entered the campus and started looking for the Army officers caught inside, it realised with shock the extent of the savagery perpetrated by the BDR mutineers. So far, the Army has recovered the badly mutilated bodies of 73 army officers and some civilians including wives and other family members of the killed officers. It is repored that there were 137 Army officers of various ranks inside the BDR campus when the mutiny broke out.

Continued....

 

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The remaining are missing and feared killed. Their bodies have not yet been recovered. Many of the recovered bodies carried bullet as well as bayonet injuries. The bodies of the wives of some of the killed officers had been disfigured. Neither Pakistan nor Bangladesh, where miitary revolts and rule are common, had seen a savagery of this kind since the British left the sub-continent in 1947. Brigadier General Mahmud Hossain, Director of Military Intelligence, told a press conference in Dhaka on the night of February 28,2009, that the army was ready to storm the headquarters of the BDR soon after the mutiny erupted, but heeded Sheikh Hasina's advice at the last minute to resolve the issue politically."The Prime Minister directed that the crisis should be solved politically and it has been resolved in that manner." He described the incidents as "possibly the worst massacre of army officers in Bangladesh's history", and added that the anger among the armed forces was "very natural". He said the army has begun its own probe into the killings of its officers during the mutiny even as the investigation ordered by a government-constituted committee continues.

One of those missing is Colonel Gulzar Uddin Ahmed, of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), who had played an active role in the drive against the jihadi organisations such as the Jamia'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).Before being promoted as Additional DG of the RAB, he was in its intelligence wing and had commanded the operation that had led to the capture and execution of JMB operations commander Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai.
The belief in Bangladesh official circles is that the BDR mutiny was triggered off partly by the unaddressed grievances over the living and service conditions and partly by anger over the action of the Army chief in carrying out the death sentences awarded to Bangla Bhai and other jihadi leaders in 2007. There has reportedly been a penetration of the BDR by the Hizbut Tehrir which was very critical of the executions which were projected by it as carried out under US pressure.
B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai.

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20090301&fname=Bangladesh&sid=1

 

[Singh]

BLOOD BROTHERS

The body of Major General Shakeel Ahmed, commander of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), was found on the second day of the mutiny — bullet-ridden and stabbed by the men of the force he commanded. From the manner in which BDR officers were hunted down, killed and buried in a mass grave; the use of mortars; and the snapping of communication links it is obvious that the massacre was pre-planned. All it needed was an occasion.

Several army officers are still missing, including Colonel Gulzar Ahmed who supervised the operation that led to the arrest and execution of Jamaat-ul Mujahedeen Bangladesh chief Sidiqul Alam (Bangla Bhai). It is not known if Ahmed was specially targetted or an accidental victim, but it is true that the fundamentalists were unhappy over the execution of Bangla Bhai and other jihadi leaders in 2007.

Bangladesh’s short history is steeped in blood, starting with the killing by the Punjabi army of West Pakistan of three million men, women and children. The countless rapes and torture left scars that have not yet healed in many cases. The assassination of Banga Bandhu in 1975 was meant to wipe out the entire family but the sisters, Hasina and Rehana, got away. Khandaker Mushtaque Ahmed, who became president after Mujib-ur Rahman’s murder, granted indemnity to the killers and General Zia-ur Rahman later incorporated this indemnity legislation in his constitution. Other leaders were similarly killed and the cult of violence ultimately led to the assassination of Zia-ur Rahman.

It was only 21 years after Mujib-ur’s assassination, after Sheikh Hasina Wajed won the elections in 1996, that a case for the murder was filed — indicating how entrenched interests had taken over early in Bangladesh’s life.

Sheikh Hasina’s announcement this January that the collaborators in the Bangladesh Liberation War would be tried has almost sent Pakistan scuttling for cover. Apart from misguided conviction about their cause, Islamabad cannot afford another slur now. Besides, the trial of right-wing fundamentalists would cause anger in Pakistan. The other announcement, that Anup Chetia, the ULFA leader, would be handed over to India, would embarrass the ISI by making public their links to the ULFA. So far under Khaleda Zia, the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, an ISI clone, had been the loco parentis of the ULFA.

The man linked to these unsavoury deals is Salahuddin Qadir Choudhry who, it is believed, helped infiltrate the BDR with men from Harkat-ul-Jihadi-al-Islami, Al Badr and others owing loyalty to the Jamaat-e-Islami. This is ironic since the BDR had fought on behalf of the Bangla nationalists against the Razakars and the pro-Pakistan Jamaat-e-Islami, and has known pro-Bangla credentials. Salahuddin also figures in the list of culprits involved in brutalities during the 1971 war; he is associated with the smuggling of arms and ammunition meant for Indian insurgents through Chittagong; he is also believed to be the conduit for funds from Pakistan. As a reward for services rendered, Khaleda Zia had proposed his name as secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Conference, presumably at the behest of Islamabad. Now that Sheikh Hasina is in power, it is likely that Salahuddin will be brought to trial soon. She had to be stopped because Salahuddin apparently knows too much.

It is difficult to re-construct the entire drama but maybe the calculation was that the army would react violently to the killing of its of ficers, chaos would result and the Awami League would have to be jettisoned as incompetent.

But it seems that Sheikh Hasina did not blink, the army did not react (some say even General Moeen’s U Ahmed’s life was threatened) and the immediate crisis has passed.
Source : Hindustan Times , 8th March 2009
http://soodvikram.blogspot.com/2009/03/blood-brothers.html

 

[A.V.]

'Dhaka mutiny was pre-planned

DHAKA: The investigation into the Bangladesh Rifles troopers' mutiny last month has shown that the carnage could be "pre-planned" and around 450
border guards were involved in the massacre in which 74 people were killed.

The investigation into the BDR mutiny revealed that "some outsiders" had knowledge about the rebellion, a top official of a law enforcement agency said.

"We have found involvement of around 450 BDR officials and jawans in the mutiny after scrutinising the video footages and photographs," The Daily Star on Tuesday quoted an investigator as saying.

The official said they are now trying to get details about the 450-odd mutineers by interrogating those who were arrested.

The border guards revolted on February 25-26 over low wages and poor working conditions.

"We have so far identified 10 to 12 BDR members who led several groups of mutineers during the 33-hour-long bloody mutiny," said the official.

Another investigator said: "The investigation found that it was done in a planned way. When a group of mutineers attacked and killed BDR director general Maj Gen Shakil Ahmed at the Darbar Hall, another group simultaneously attacked his residence and injured two guards there."

After killing army officers at the BDR headquarters, the rebels dumped the bodies in the sewer and mass graves in such a way that the rescuers found it difficult to trace those, the report said.

Investigators said they are finding it hard to identify the BDR personnel who were on duty at the BDR gates and five armouries inside the BDR headquarters as the duty rosters had either been burnt or torn up.

"This suggests that it was a pre-planned act and we are trying to find the mastermind behind it," said an investigator.

The mutiny by the BDR troopers broke out on February 25 when they took control of their headquarters in the capital. The troopers revolted over low wages and poor working conditions.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina offered general amnesty to them, but the troopers were defiant and refused to lay down arms.

The government held talks with a delegation of the mutineers on February 26 and an agreement was reached but by that time, the mutiny spread to other BDR camps around the country.

The revolt ended in the face of an imminent attack by the Bangladesh army which moved tanks into position outside the BDR headquarters. The mutineers then laid down their arms.

 

[A.V.]

Bangladesh says JMB may have a hand in mutiny

DHAKA: Bangladesh said today that banned militant outfit Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) may have a hand in plotting last month's bloody armed
mutiny at the country's border guard force head-quarters, which left 73 army officers dead.

The Commerce Minister Faruk Khan, who is heading a high-powered probe into the incident has said that screening of some of the Bangladesh Rifles Personnel arrested in connection with involvement in the mutiny had thrown up the facts that they had links with JMB.

Khan said investigations by his group will find out why such radical militants had been recruited into the BDR.

More than 73 senior army officers were massacred when BDR personnel revolted by turning their guns on their senior personnel in a two-day siege of the complex which threatened the new civilian government headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Though the rebel BDR men cited poor pay and working conditions for their revolt, Hasina later said it was a plot to sabotage her government.

The Commerce Minister said the government had yet to ascertain the exact no. of people killed in the mutiny and the no. of persons involved in the plot. Khan's probe is to submit its report by March 19.