Feature

Second International Conference on
Genocide, Truth and Justice

Tabassum Mokhduma

To pave the way for identifying the perpetrators of genocide during the Liberation War of 1971 and developing a broad network to bring those responsible to justice, the Liberation War Museum organized the Second International Conference on Genocide, Truth and Justice on 30-31 July, 2009 at CIRDAP Auditorium, Dhaka.

This conference took place at a time when Bangladesh is actively pursuing the trial of the perpetrators of murder, rape and arson during the nine months of 1971 that led to the emergence of Bangladesh as a sovereign state. The Conference has brought focus to the multifarious legal, interpretational and implementation issues that are likely to come our way while the trials are being held.

The guest of honour of the opening ceremony was Law Minister Barrister Shafique Ahmed while Professor Salahuddin Ahmed was the Chair. In his speech the Minister said that the support of the international community is the demand of time to try the war criminals and the government is also working accordingly to try the perpetrators as soon as possible.

The two-day conference saw a distinguished panel of experts that included historians, academics and legal experts from host Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Germany, Korea, Japan, Cambodia and Canada who shared their ideas to ensure justice to the victims of the Liberation War. In all ten papers were presented by foreign participants and there were eight papers by local participants and a roundtable on 'Process of Trial in Bangladesh and the Role of Civil Society' was also held which focused the need of trying the war criminals besides sorting out best possible ways to ensure punishment of the culprits. The event concluded with the declaration of the conference which urged the need for a campaign for United Nations' recognition of the mass killings during the 1971 Liberation War as genocide and that the government, should make necessary preparations for trying the war criminals and pursue diplomatic efforts to drum up international support in favour of the move. The Conference also adopted a resolution calling for the ratification of the International Criminal Court (ICC) statute by the government.

The Conference was particularly significant because the genocide of 1971 that was carried out by the Pakistan Military has become an elapsed issue and is hardly considered as genocide today. The holding of this conference became more important because of the awe-inspiring approval that the common people of Bangladesh have given in favour of holding the trial. As a result, steps have been initiated by the government of Bangladesh for the trial of the perpetrators of 971. The organisers are confident that the cross-pollination that occurred in this conference will enable us to learn from the other countries and international agencies the lessons they have learned from similar trials in other parts of the world.

Other themes that found expression through the discussions in the event were building a global alliance on research and studies on Genocide studies for a fuller understanding of the traumas and tribulations of the victims and the way onward for the trial of culprits of Bangladesh Genocide.

The conference concluded on 31 July where State Minister for Liberation War Affairs AB Tazul Islam was present as the special guest while National Professor Kabir Chowdhury was the Chair. The Minister said that the government is doing everything to ensure the fair trial of war criminals and said that the trial may begin anytime. The National Professor said that the perpetrators of war crimes must be brought to book not to take revenge, but to establish justice.

Akku Chowdhury, a trustee of the Liberation War Museum, said that it is high time that the young generation should know about what the innocent Bangladeshis endured in 1971 and they should also raise their voice to ensure trial of the war criminals.

The Conference was a successful one where more than 120 national participants including students from Bangladesh and Japan also joined. It has opened up the possibility to develop various networks and build alliances with different national and international organisations working with same objectives. The Liberation War Museum is hopeful that this conference will generate a continuous series of programmes of multidimensional activities that may be taken up for a sustained campaign by academic as well as other institutions, helping to keep the issue of Genocide alive in the public domain and to build awareness about this forgotten Genocide of ours as well as other Genocides. In all the conference opened up greater opportunities to work with all humanity to escort in a new era of truth, justice and peace ending impunity for the perpetrators of genocide.

Primary education and teachers

Sarwar Hussain

PRIMARY education is the fundamental level among all the levels of education as it, in most of the cases, stimulates the latent talent of the young minds to come out and patronizes the immense potential among them. The better the quality of education in primary level, the better the overall scenario of education. Therefore, it deserves appropriate importance as well as nourishment.

But sadly enough, primary education including the teachers concerned has been a neglected issue from the beginning of our Liberty. Moreover, to be honest, this issue has never been a domain discussion among the policy makers of our country. Formulation of a standard education policy, particularly in primary education and its infrastructure are still a far cry. Many schools, as it is often found in newspapers, run without minimum number of teachers, let alone skilled ones. We are also accustomed to seeing classes taking place under the barren sky due to lack of proper infrastructure.

We firmly believe that primary school teachers are the lifeblood for ensuring quality education. Living in a country with high illiteracy rate, we can't expect most of our people to be conscious enough to take care of their children's education. So only dependency on teachers is acute. It is observed that the teachers, no doubt, are doing their level best in this regard. But from the time immemorial they have always been ill-paid and ill-treated in terms of our socio-economic context. Their interests are never taken into account and the remuneration being paid is very lower amount to meet their personal demands only, so lets not talk about their family members' demands. On top of that, the teachers are hardly trained to ensure the proper standard of education.

All in all, the reason of this fragile condition of our education system is concealed in the root, which is our primary education system. So our policy maker should take necessary and effective steps to develop the existing primary education system as well as its infrastructure to ensure a world-class education system. To build a knowledge-based society we need enlightened minds. And we have to patronize these minds from primary level. Otherwise the dream of making a digital Bangladesh will remain just a dream!

(Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Chittagong)