Everybody knows that being Secretary of State means you never have to say you’re sorry. Therefore, I was very surprised to hear an “apology” from Henry Kissinger:
Mr Kissinger, 82, has now told a the private Indian television channel NDTV that his comments did not reflect American policy during the 1970s.“I regret that these words were used. I have extremely high regard for Mrs Gandhi as a statesman,” he said. “The fact that we were at cross purposes at that time was inherent in the situation but she was a great leader who did great things for her country.” [BBC]
I find this “apology” completely unsatisfying. I really don’t care what language Nixon and Kissinger used to discuss Indira Gandhi in private. The fact that they used similar language about virtually everybody else — American or Foreign, Democratic or Republican, member of the administration or outsider — makes me care even less.
I care far more about the 500,000 to 3 million who died, and the 6 million to 12 million who were made refugees. [National Geographic uses the 3 million dead and the 10 million refugees figures]. These were not accidental deaths. This was an intentional mass slaughter of civilians by the Pakistani government, coupled with a campaign of ethnic cleansing. In Bangladesh, they call this genocide: 
On February 22, 1971 the generals in West Pakistan took a decision to crush the Awami League and its supporters. It was recognized from the first that a campaign of genocide would be necessary to eradicate the threat: “Kill three million of them,” said President Yahya Khan at the February conference, “and the rest will eat out of our hands.” (Robert Payne, Massacre [1972], p. 50.)On March 25 the genocide was launched. The university in Dacca was attacked and students exterminated in their hundreds. Death squads roamed the streets of Dacca, killing some 7,000 people in a single night. It was only the beginning. “Within a week, half the population of Dacca had fled, and at least 30,000 people had been killed. Chittagong, too, had lost half its population. All over East Pakistan people were taking flight, and it was estimated that in April some thirty million people [!] were wandering helplessly across East Pakistan to escape the grasp of the military.” (Payne, Massacre, p. 48.) Ten million refugees fled to India, overwhelming that country’s resources and spurring the eventual Indian military intervention. (The population of Bangladesh/East Pakistan at the outbreak of the genocide was about 75 million.) [cite]
Half of Bangladesh’s population were refugees, either within the country or outside it!
As we blogged earlier, State Department cables reveal the US government knew full well what was going on. What was the American response? They asked the French to sell more arms to the Pakistanis and they asked the Chinese (one of the largest mass murderers in history) to threaten India:
Nixon: When are you going to see the Chinese? This afternoon?Kissinger: 5:30.
Nixon: What are you going to tell them?
Kissinger: I’m going to tell them everything we did, and I’m going to tell them that we, I’m going to tell them what forces we’re moving.
Nixon: Could you say that it would be very helpful if they could move some forces or threaten to move some forces?
Kissinger: Absolutely.
Nixon: They’ve got to threaten or they’ve got to move, one of the two. You know what I mean?
Kissinger: Yeah.
Nixon: Threaten to move forces or move them, Henry, that’s what they must do. Now goddamn it, we’re playing our role and that will restrain India. And also tell them that this will help us get the ceasefire. [State Department]
I’m disgusted but not surprised. Kissinger has a lot of blood on his hands. He believed that supporting and committing massive human rights violations around the world was the best way to advance America’s national interests. At this point, he simply has too much at stake to ever acknowledge that he was wrong.
For one of the most comprehensive accounts of Bangladesh’s independence, I recommend “Pakistan: Eye of the Storm” by BBC correspondent Owen Bennet Jones. IMHO, it is one of the best current books about Pakistan out there.
“Mr Kissinger and US actions” is that upper birth neighbor and the “whole Indian sub-continent” is that woman-in-the-train Things like these are way(add a lot more ‘a’ and ‘y’ ‘s ) beyond the realms of apology.
What amazes me is that how little the World knows about this genocide. Now if these 3 million or so people were European Jews or Palestinians we would never stop hearing about it.
No doubt Kissinger was one twisted mofo. It is not surprising given other things that happened during the Nixon years.
What’s really twisted is that more than 30 years later, Kissinger publishes books, appears on Letterman, has received a Peace Prize, and generally enjoys a decent life (although he checks with a lawyer before leaving the country, apparently).
But of course he’ll never be arrested, tried, and sentenced, as long as the U.S. is the Veggie Supreme of the world. He’s one of the few people in the world that I actually think should go to some sort of jail for purposes aside rehabilitation.
I don’t like Kissinger’s behavior during Bangladesh situation. Nobody is required to help others no matter how bad situation is. However, actively preventing others from helping (as US did by sending its fleet into the Indian Ocean to scare India into not saving Bangladeshi people from genocide) is morally wrong! By that logic Nixon and Kissinger are guilty! What is their defense? Apparently, they were worried that we were cronies of communist Russia and hence our attack on East Pakistan may contribute to spread of communism! That is, our possibly bad intentions!
But didn’t we do the same thing in Iraq? Bush wanted to invade Iraq to save the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein. We (India) actively prevented it from happening by passing resolution in our Parliament condemning the attack and occupation! Why? Because we were worried that the real motives of Americans were control of the Iraqi oil and avenge the Sept. 11 attack!
How’s that for moral equivalence?
The guilt of the US comes from its active support of Pakistan during this period. It’s not that the US didn’t act to protect the Bangadeshis, or even that it tried to stop others from helping, it’s that it armed Pakistan before, and tried to get the French to arm Pakistan during.
If you know there is a genocide going on, and you keep arming the perpetrators that’s complicity in the crime.
India never armed Iraq. Actually, in the period when Iraq did most of its killings, it got alot of support from the USA. Initially, the USA even tried to block investigations into the gassings of the Kurds by the Iraqi government …
Nice try, but the symmetry isn’t there.
i hope things like this would serve as more proof that America isn’ the ‘good ol’ boy’ that Bush portrays us to be….and that things like this are not isolated w/in certain presidential regimes, rather that they are a common component of each successive regime
Reading abt the Nixon presidency, and what I see everyday from the Bush presidencies, I suddenly realise that the Clinton era saw a more, um, “decent” America. (Hell, it’s kinda startling.) Am I right? Was cigarring Ms Lewinsky the worst of Ol’ Bill’s pranks?? Well, I was a schoolboy in India at the time, and of course I didnt understand sh*t about what was going on in Bosnia. And yeah, there was a few missiles into Sudan.’Wag the Dog’. But well, all that seems mild compared to Bushie’s World Policing right?
The Pakistani mass-murder of Bangladeshis was the single largest genocide of Muslims in history. How’s that for Islamic brotherhood?
Guess what, the Soviets were the most peaceful of all people! Ok, sarcasm off! They had a choice, let Soviets have dominion over south asia or fight it. Even when latter meant dealing with devil. I think he made the correct decision.
Rushabh:
Nixon thought that an independent Bangladesh would side with the Soviets, so he backed mass murder.
Bangladesh is independent, and it never became a hard core communist nation.
So was the mass murder “worth it”? Or was Nixon just plain wrong, and willing to do horrible things in pursuit of his incorrect strategic vision?
More to the point, wasn’t the aim of preventing red spread precisely to prevent mass murder? That took top billing, above economic freedom.
We’ve now got soft socialists in Bengal, Kerala and some European countries. Bad for the people, but no genocide out of them yet.
The U.S. armed Pakistan during the genocide as well, with F-5A fighter jets.
I think Sheikh Mujibs demise was written in 1974 when he banned all political parties, chained media and started the process of adopting communism. Many say that his assasination in 1975 was instigated by CIA. The perpetrators escaped with the help of CIA.
So Kissinger had his revenge.
Ummm Ashish? I can’t detect sarcasm or irony on the Net, but if you’re serious, you need to stop smoking whatever it is you’re smoking. India was under DIRECT THREAT from it’s neighbour – i.e. our very own borders were under threat. We were defending our territory as well of course saving the Bangladeshis (which happened to be ‘good politics’ at the time. Far be it from me to say we’re noble heroes). Further, we may have passed resolutions, but we didn’t send our fleet into the Persian Gulf and threaten to start shooting at Americans. When was the last time an Iraqi force threatened US territory? The fact is, that the US is not the world’s superpower, it’s the world’s biggest coward. Take a look the countries it’s picked a fight with – Korea, Vietnam, Iraq. These countries don’t exactly send shivers down the spine of the rest of the world. The day USA gets into a direct fight with India or China, I would be afraid, very afraid for the world, because it’s not a war that any side would win.
The day USA gets into a direct fight with India or China, I would be afraid, very afraid for the world, because it’s not a war that any side would win.
Yes with all the Inter Continental nukes India has I am sure the whole world will be at risk.
While the Pakistani Army ran riot in Bangladesh those terrible months of 1971 and butchered Bengali Muslims with glee, their special cruelties were reserved for the Bengali Hindus starting with the venerable Dhiren Dutta a public figure of renown. It has been alleged that the Pakistai Army marked out Hindus’ houses for ‘follow up action” by the Razakars – the non-Bengali Muslims. Unfortunately for the Hindus of Bangladesh the nightmare has never ended. Excepting for a brief period of calm during the Mujib years, the Hasina years and between the Wars, ever since the partition of bengal in 1906 thru Noakhali, Direct Action day and post 1947 it has been a hitory of oppression. The proportion of Hindus in Bangladesh has declined from the once high 25% 60 years ago and is all set to vanish as it almost has in Pakistan. The recent bout of violence following the “victory celebrations” of Begum Khaleda Zia in late 2002 is sickening. The violence itself churns one’s stomach. What is unbearable is the silence of “intellectuals” and “conscience keepers” of India and Pakistan for whom this issue is non-existent. The Bangladesh press and civil society ranging from iconoclasts like Taslima Nasreen – whom the Indian government will not naturalise for fear of offending the mullahs of West Bengal – to writers, poets and scientists Muslim or non-Muslim have been the only ones to criticise this unending Darfur. The House of commons recently held a discussion on the continuing oppression of the Hindus of Bangladesh. Follow this link. http://www.hinducounciluk.org/bhhrv.asp
The butchers of 1971 got away with murder – everyone of them. Tikka Khan died peacefully in his sleep, Yahya Khan – who knows? Among the few who acted according to their conscience notably Sahibzada Yakub Khan (who disobeyed the order to fire on dock workers in Chittagong) there is still no talk of those dark days.
Thank you Shiva for bringing up the point that the murderers got away with it all. And why is it that on blogs like this more is written about Nixon and Kissenger’s involvement with this genocide and less about the actual perpetrators?
*Can I hate both Nixon’s foreign policy and the Soviets in this old rehashing of the Cold War policies? (and side unrelated note: how come Vietnam is always intimately connected with Nixon in the American collective consciousness, but never with Kennedy? Why does that guy get away with being all Camelot? I guess having a pretty wife and a telegenic face wipes away a lot of bad Presidential moves in the eyes of historians….)
**And why is it that one of these discussions starts on the SM it seems like people feel they have to ‘choose’ sides instead of recognizing the all purpose bastards for what they are. No. It has to be about the US being better or worse. That’s the only reference point for anything. Odd, on a desi site.
***Although, the Soviets were even more bastard-y, in my opinion. I’d love to see an SM post about the Soviets in Afghanistan. Don’t they count as our South Asian brothers and sisters, too?
***A pox on all their houses. Not that it means anything: if you are Idi Amin you die peacefully in Saudi. Feh.
By the way: ignore everything I’ve just written. I’ve been working round the clock; absolutely insane. Why do desi parents want their kids to do these horrible doctor/engineer/etc jobs anyway? Honestly. Are we on this earth to do nothing but work? Sorry, guys. MD has reached her limits…..
MD, Afghanis with their mix of Pukhtun, Uzbek, Hazaras, Persians and Tajiks are not South Asians. Their language, culture and food are more similar to the language food and culture in Central Asia. Apart from NWFP being in Pakistan there are no real similarities between South Asians and Afghanis or atleast not anymore than the similarities between South Asians and the Iranians. Having said that, we should not ignore the plight of oppressed people anywhere and Afghanis have known nothing but war for over two decades now.
I do agree with you and Shiva that the Pakistani Army atrocities in BDesh have not been given the kind of coverage they deserve.
Shiva,
The fact that BDesh had 25% Hindus 60 years back is not really indicative of anything. Pre-partition figures are not a reflection of the current state of affairs in South Asia and its rather irresponsible to quote them and then extrapolate from those figures. (if you did quote the 25% figure from 1945)
I would be more interested in finding out the percentage of Hindus in BDesh say in 1955 and then compare it with 2005.
For example, the Muslim population in Indian Punjab 60 years back was around 20%. Today there are less than 100,000 Muslims living in Indian Punjab. As I understand the Muslims in Indian Punjab dont have any problems and dont suffer from any kind of discrimination. So giving a figure from 1945 will be misleading.
You also stated ” The proportion of Hindus in Bangladesh has declined from the once high 25% 60 years ago and is all set to vanish as it almost has in Pakistan “
In Pakistan the percentage of Hindus is around 1% and has stayed so for a few decades. According to the CIA Factbook the percentage of Hindus in BDesh is 16%. Source : http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/bg.html I am not sure why you believe that the Hindu population in BDesh is set to vanish. Now the 16% figure is from 1998, so there might be a small shift in population in the last few years. Your your comparison of Hindu population in Pakistan with the Hindu population in BDesh is rather strange to say the least.
I am interested in hearing about the plight of the larger Hindu population in BDesh. I do know they had awful Anti Hindu riots in BDesh after the Ayodhaya riots in India.
Islamic militancy is on the rise in BDesh and that cannot be good news for the Hindus there. The Bengalis that I have met from India seem to be pretty progressive and left leaning especially when compared to the larger populace in North India. Its unfortunate that the Bangladeshis are going down the path of Islamic radicalism and bigotry. There were terrible anti Ahmadi (Ahmadis are a Muslim sect) riots in BDesh recently where Ahamdi mosques were burnt down. Hopefully better sense would prevail in the long run in BDesh.
Mr. Kissinger’s comments prove that he went to wrong school and brought up in a wrong environment where culture and civilization have no place. It also proves that this hypocrite was wrongly chosen for Peace Prize. Power can make a man so dirty! AM
Al Muhajid – thanks for the correction 🙂
i am curious to see more comments from rezwan, but in my family there seem to have been few touches with the 1971 genocide. the only exception was a hindu servant who had her brains blown out. my mom was shot when some pakistani soldiers went wild and decided to spray a bunch of houses, but she obviously lived. also, one of my cousins married a man who had several uncles who got killed because they were involved in the film industry. but ultimately, i have to say that i suspect the relative sanguinity of bangladeshis about the 1971 genocide is that many of those who were killed were hindus, or perhaps poor muslims.
also, re: hindus, i think the percentage has dropped a lot. much of this is simple outmigration, west bengal and tripura are hindu bengali run states, so there is a safe haven. i can attest that all the hindus who supposedly live in my father’s hometown in comilla don’t live there anymore, they have moved to calcutta or tripura and left their property with muslim friends who manage them, and they still exist on the rolls of residents because they wouldn’t be able to own the property if they were registered as foreigners who lived out of country. so be careful of the 16% figure.
re: the “ghost hindus,” these are obviously entrepenurial and professional types who have property which they can rent out and still get an income out of. i suspect that within a few generations the only hindus you will have left in bangaldesh will be those who work the land…when my father was a teenager in the 1950s there was a whole street that was domianted by shops and businesses owned by hindus. today those shops and businesses are run by, and often owned by, muslims. my family, overall, is not particularly happy about this, and one of my uncles even wrote a book where he attributes some of the decline in the environment and social matrix of bangladesh to the outmigration of educated hindus.
p.s. my impression of the religious situation is that there was a lot more tolerance than i expected. my uncle, who is an imam, had no problem showing me a buddhist monastery next to one of my other uncle’s houses. also, i noted that hindu women were prominently walking around with that little streak on their foreheads, which of course is the main way you can distinguish them from the rest of the population, seeing as how only 10% dress “islamic.”
Thanks Razib and Al Mujahid. But then I had to check my post once again to verify that I had posted this link http://www.hinducounciluk.org/bhhrv.asp. The Ayodhya incident happened in 1992. The House of Commons discussion is regarding the latest round of atrocities committed on Hindus which begins with Khaleda Zia’s return to power in 2002(1?). Am I expecting too much of you to follow the link I have posted? Maybe not.
The exchange of populations of Hindus and Sikhs from West Punjab to East and the other way round of the Muslims changed the face of Punjab for good. Before 1948 Lahore was a Hindu majority city as Jalandhar and Ludhiana to quite an extent were Muslim mojority cities. The first partition of Punjab occured earlier in the 19th century when NWFP was carved out of it.
Razib has said a lot. I would request the commentators like TTG, Shiva & KXB to browse through different sources (not only Indian but also Bangladeshi and international) before quoting just one.
We should really look why the misconceptions are there in the first place. The thing is that Bangladeshi media is a taboo in India (readers in Mumbai or Chennai do you get any Bangladeshi TV channels or newspapers?). But there is no restrictions against Indian media to enter Bangladesh.
Indian TV shows invariably feature diplomats and ministers, and treat Bangladesh like an evil neighbour. They don’t talk of any of the larger issues, such as Bangladesh’s apparent internal struggle with hardline elements and there’s never enough time to get beyond pointing fingers at evil “Dhaka”.
So how can you get a different perspective?
Bangladesh is a nation of 140 million people. There are opposition parties and followers which count almost half of the population. The ruling BNP government is facing opposition and protests from these quarters because of its alliance with the Islamists. You will hardly find any support for the Islamists activities in the mainstream print and broadcasting medias (except from a few Islamist newspapers). Read how many attacks against hindus and how many attacks against muslims are there in one day. Read that how Bangladesh is grateful for India’s support in the liberation war. There are voices out there you do not hear, there are columns out there you do not read.
Tip: Did you ever read the Bangladeshi online journals & nespapers?
I admit that there is a threat of extremism, there are minorities attacked. But the headlines you do not see that also the poor muslims are attacked and exploited by the opportunists. Actually this shows that the law order system is corrupted and are controlled by the rich. So not the minority hindus alone, the poor and destitute Muslims are also mistreated. The politically motivated law fails to protect everyone.
And yet the people like us, who inherit the ghost of the Hindu-Muslim dichotomy that our forefathers carried, interpret these as attacks against Hindus or Muslims. And we try to instigate more hatred against Indians and Bangladeshis without understanding the politics behind it.
India-bashing is the powerful political weapon that is now being used by present BNP government. Is the relationship between India and Bangladesh really so bad that Indians have to be panicked? Unfriendly Bangladesh government you would say.. is it so?
One BNP lawmaker Mr. Motlub (owner of NITOL group-agent of TATA motors in Bangladesh) talks rudely against India in podium but makes sure that his business is not hampered by protective budget rulings. About 80% of the ruling party lawmakers are businessmen and many are linked with India. Would they want any impediment to their trade with a bad relation? Never. Indian goods (including media) have a big business in Bangladesh. There is a huge trade imbalance. The Bangladeshi TVs are not aired by cable operators in India. Bangladeshi companies give ads in Indian media because they have a good viewership in Bangladesh. The tensions are being kept alive for political reasons.
Sorry for the long post. I covered more areas in one of my posts about the India -Bangladesh relation.
The House of Commons discussion is regarding the latest round of atrocities committed on Hindus which begins with Khaleda Zia’s return to power in 2002(1?). Am I expecting too much of you to follow the link I have posted? Maybe not.
dude, i only report what i see. i’m not going to follow the link because i haven’t seen much objectivity from south asian “muslim” and “hindu” media sources, period (they make the america ‘MSM’ seem like the paragon of robotic objective rationality). i used to defend the BJP/RSS axis before the whole gujarat affair made me reconsider if hindutva was really the hindu version of christian democracy or the milder hindu version of something else* (hint: think little mustache). as for islam, i regularly assert that the religion needs to be “gelded,” so i don’t see me being partisan of either side.
yes, there are atrocities on both sides, integrated over time since 1947 i’d say that the hindus have had the worst of it because of the more messed up nature of pakistan and bangladesh (you can lay the blame at islam’s feet, it is irrelevant on the specific level). but of course, since 1996 the people of the congo basin have experienced atrocity on a scale that is almost an order of magnitude worse than anything going on in south asia (listen to interviews of pakistani and indian UN peace keepers on the BBC, they have seen the heart of darkness), so if i am honest with myself my only excessive concern over gujarat would be because i am brown and because my family is muslim…but since i don’t particularly have much attachment to brownness and am antagonistic toward muslimness, the only concern should be fellow feeling. in which case, i should look to the congolese before getting concerned with 2000 fatalities in gujarat (that’s a good day in kisingani). so i see hindus crying over atrocities against hindus, muslims shooting back with gujarat, and really a lot more coalitional identification and feeling for people “just like me” than universal humanitarian intent undernearth it all. now, i’m not one to say that universal humanitarian intent is the be-all-and-end-all (i’m close to being an egoist), but, it sure makes arguments with others easier when you can argue from a principled universalist viewpoint. but when partisans of various camps, whether they be hindu, muslim, jew, arab, etc. point to atrocities committed against their group i get frustrated, because of course atrocities are repulsive and unconscionable, but the i also am wary because i am skeptical of the concern that said individuals would have when atrocities are on the other foot (i suspect there would be some justification in some real-politik context).
this is all to get to a final point, when “shiva,” or a muslim, or an israeli,** or someone else, points me to atrocities and oppression, and wants me to be concerned, i get irritated, because 1) i’m an egoist, i have a hard time getting concerned about my own family, 2) i’m also pretty annoyed when people use language that is universalistic, and appeal to people outside their own group, but i suspect they wouldn’t express such concern if outsiders were being gutted and cannibalized (like the ituri pygmies getting eaten by congolese rebels right now, not that that’s not something anyone would be in favor of, but actually to get worked up over that, well…how many congolese live in the west and have control of media organs? a profile in THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE once a year is enough). people who have such a great concern for “their own kind” (to some extent this is natural, i admit) should simply keep aiming their message at their own kind, and not expect those of us who are not their kind to really care about their particular atrocities as long as they don’t give similar attention to other people’s atrocities.
people have particular concerns. that’s life.
** apologists for the palestinian side often complain that 1 jewish fatality gets about 100X more attention than 1 arab fatality. but of course, as many south asian muslims noted, 1 arab fatality at the hands of jews seem to concern the “islamic media” 100X more than 1 indian muslim fatality at the hands of hindus. of course, the gujarat massacre was an atrocity of course great proportions, but would we bat an eye if some intercommunal violence broke out somewhere like burkina faso or mozambique? after all, india is a democracy, there are civilized standards to uphold.
there is so much critcism toward the US…well what can you do? it is the lone superpower in the world, it can do whatever it wants, and it has. its their reward for all their smarts and hard work, don’t you think? same with the UK…yes morally it should have done this and that, but regardless, admire its drive and determination and discipline…unlike India/Pak and everyone else in the developing world….perhaps India should have been exploring the oceans hundreds of years ago
good point razib, I think it is fair, when asking for support from the world community, to only expect such support for those humans who are suffering the most. Whether in congo, sudan, palestine, or elsewhere. At the same time it is quite fair for people to be more concerned with what happens within their in-group rather than some folks thousands of miles away. ALso I think it is perfectly legitimate for these “partisans” to appeal for help from the world community, (e.g. tsunami), you can’t fault them for that. If anything, fault the world community for not being more objective (i.e. giving tons of loot to tsunami victims but balking on sudan literally for years)
Hi,
About a year ago, at http://www.thesquare.com, somebody asked me to write a few paragraphs 101 on US-South Asia past, present and future.
I again posted at http://www.kushtandon.squarespace.com/journal/2005/3/27/us-and-south-asia.html. Some of you guys might want it interesting.
Kush
gyguihoixagxuihc jksbhcuihx xhiojq
He was also responsible for the carpet bombing of Cambodia which killed 600,000 and gave rise to the Khmer Rouge.
Kissinger was one of the most despicable people to hold office at such a high level in U.S. history. The guy just has no freaking conscience.