As the first year anniversary of the BDR Mutiny in Bangladesh approaches, the government is getting ready to charge over 800 members of the Border Guard with murder, arson, looting and hiding bodies in mass graves.
As the Daily Star reports,
In most circumstances, in most countries, this would be heart-wrenching decision. The state is prosecuting 800 of its own for crimes committed against their own brothers and fathers. Unfortunately for them, they chose to mutiny against one the most respected and feared institutions in Bangladesh–the military. Indeed a three-member tribunal, headed by a BDR chief, is presiding over the trials of the BDR mutineers. As such, the military trial cannot be deemed, since a partisan is the presiding judge (does this nullify the content of justice in the proceedings?)
The government of Bangladesh would do well to investigate the root of the mutiny, along with the fact of that vicious set of acts that together comprised the mutiny. The reported cause of the mutiny was deep-seated resentment amongst the ranks of the BDR that their pay was not commensurate with their responsibilities. Employment within the military, for the mutineers, it seems was no reprieve from social enfeeblement. Indeed, since the cadre of the BDR self-selected themselves from a different social group than those who chose other more well-respected careers in the military, the charge had some merit.
But for now, the cause of swift verdicts has trumped all other concerns, principally perhaps because the Awami League will not stand to give the BNP the breath-bandwidth to announce the ruling party weak on national security.
So here we have the ratcheted proceedings:
