<i>1971 testimony yet afresh</i>
(From left) Dr Sarwar Ali, a trustee of the Liberation War Museum; Air Vice Marshal (retd) AK Khondker, minister for planning; and Rushanara Ali, the first British MP of Bangladesh origin; at a publication ceremony of a compilation of accounts by global personalities on the human tragedy perpetrated on Bangladeshis by the Pakistan occupation forces. The museum and Oxfam Bangladesh jointly organised the discussion on the former's premises in the city yesterday.Photo: STAR
India and the Soviet Union stood by the freedom-loving people of Bangladesh in 1971 as the Pakistan army perpetrated genocide in the country. Their stand was in clear contrast to the position adopted by many democratic countries, which looked the other way. This was stated by Air Vice Marshal (retd) AK Khondker, minister for planning and deputy chief of the liberation army in 1971, at a commemorative discussion in the city yesterday. Referring to the responsibility India took for ten million Bangladeshi war refugees, Khondker termed the gesture as incomparable. The Liberation War Museum and Oxfam Bangladesh jointly organised the discussion on the premises of the former in observance of the publication of Testimony of Sixty, a compilation of accounts by global personalities of the human tragedy perpetrated on Bangladeshis by the Pakistan occupation forces. In his remarks, Dr Sarwar Ali, a trustee of the Liberation War Museum, noted that after the Second World War, the highest number of people were killed in the shortest period of time during the liberation war of Bangladesh. Oxfam, in the course of the liberation war in 1971, gathered testimony from sixty eyewitnesses, whose accounts of the war clearly indicate the sheer scale of the mass killings, torture, displacement and rape which went on. It contains first hand accounts from Mother Teresa, Senator Edward Kennedy and journalists from the international media along with relief workers. The high-profile witnesses described the liberation war as a horrifying story of millions of people 'hounded, homeless and dying.' Rushanara Ali, the first Bangladesh origin British MP now on a visit to the country, said that it is was time for Bangladesh to thrive on her potentials. Gareth Price Jones, country director of Oxfam, said the need for a collection of testimony on the war is still fresh alive four decades into Bangladesh's independence. The liberation museum has been observing the day for the last three years.
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