Blistering Truths about Ziaur Rahman!

In 1971, I visited 8, Theatre Road, many refugee camps in India, and Meherpur in Bangladesh for three times. I also visited in and around Maj Ziaur Rahman’s Sector (later Maj. Gen. Ziaur Rahman), but I didn’t find him to fight on the frontlines like other Sector Commanders and valiant Freedom Fighters. Rather, I found him sitting on a bedstead in a relaxed mood in a camp, though he was honoured with the gallantry award of ‘Bir Uttam.’

Urdu-toned Bangla-speaking Gen Zia’s ascent to the leadership of Bangladesh resulted from a conspiracy that had begun with the killing of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding Father and President of Bangladesh, in a military coup d'état on August 15, 1975, by Khondokar Mushtaqu Ahmed along with some disgruntled army officers. Ziaur Rahman gained de facto power as head of the government already under martial law imposed by the unlawful Mushtaq government. Zia became the self-declared president of Bangladesh in 1977, forcefully kicking off Chief Justice Abu Sadat Mohammad Sayem, the then president from power at gunpoint.

The bacilli of the defeated forces of 1971 could not be destroyed after Bangladesh’s Founding Father Bangabandhu’s brutal murder because of Zia, his camarilla and the skullduggeries of depraved military rulers Gen. Ershad and their compadre, Begum Zia, for two decades or so. Unfortunately, they have infected, among so many other people in the country.

Zia, the reprobate military ruler, established his illegitimate political squad known as BNP in the Dhaka military cantonment on September 1, 1978, with outgo of a fatso cashbox from the government exchequer and utilising government spy agencies, losing his soul and moral compass.

After Bangladesh came into birth on December 16, 1971, Zia always foot-led at 32 Dhanmondi to gain Bangabandhu’s confidence. From the war field in 1971, Zia sent his representatives to take Begum Zia to him in India, but she flatly refused to go with them. Rather, she reprimanded those of Zia’s people, castigated Zia for what she called Zia’s betrayal to Pakistan. She loved to stay back under the care of the brutal Pakistani army, led by Lt. Col. Janjua. Begum Zia also visited 32 Dhanmondi frequently after our independence. Zia refused to accept Khaleda as his wife. Bangabandhu was so kind that he called both of them and brought them together. Zia then accepted her and took her to his Dhaka Cantonment house, but both of them did never express any feeling of thankfulness and appreciation to Bangabandhu.

Subsequently to usurping power in 1977, Zia by design, freed unlawfully about 11,500 terrible anti-liberation forces from the jails who were facing trials for their mass murders, raping, looting, burning, compelling 10 million of our people to take shelter in India, 30 million of our people for internal displacement in 1971 and rehabilitated them in every circuit on the sacred soils of Bangladesh, some of them were made PM, Ministers, State-ministers, et al and committed colossus crimes by tearing down our glorified spirits that we attained at the bay of blood in 1971 for peoples of all religions to live together in peace. This evil designed policy made a colossus ditch between pro-liberation and anti-liberation people including freedom fighter army men and that has veritably luffed the dirty divide of people, politicians… which were once united in Bangladesh through our liberation war in 1971. After his begrime regime, Gen Ershad and Begum Zia designedly walked below the belt of alley-ways of Gen Zia and further despoiled the land of Bangladesh.

Ziaur Rahman enacted several depraved measures to solidify his power and some to win the support of so-called Islamist political groups. He also facilitated the comeback of the Muslim League and appointed the highly amoral anti-independence Punic character Shah Azizur Rahman as Bangladesh’s prime minister.

Ziaur Rahman gave foreign appointments to several men accused of assassinating Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Major Dalim, Major Rashid and Major Faruk were given jobs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in subsequent years, they were appointed ambassadors of Bangladesh to African and Middle Eastern nations.

The Dhaka High Court declared the seizures of power by military coups between 1975 and 1979, including Zia's military regime, as "unlawful and unconstitutional". Zia's martial law decrees, his ascendancy to the presidency in 1977 and the election held in 1978 were declared "unknown to the constitution". The court ruling over-ruled the Indemnity Act by which these very events were accorded a legal status and enshrined in the constitution.

BNP, as a theatre of the absurd, no longer surprises. Nonetheless, it is understandable that their new actions, which expose the extent to which a lack of probity and respect for what is moral and logical does not cease to cause pain to their present leaders and activists like their corpus sod -Zia.

This unprincipled political outfit (BNP is not a political party as it seems to be) had elapsed on the very day of its bringing into existence. It is now under the full rein of a full Monty (at least in appearance) and her balled-up son. It has brushed up barfs of spoilers of the veridical spirits and values of our glorious Liberation War by the outfit’s amoral kingbolt and her or his scalawag deputies, and the outfit’s present visual modality has tried to lay out something to present as a gift with flicks of some themes and plots of ground bespeaks of ulterior motives and that’s called one-point recipe for climbing-up the throne of Bangladesh.

Deviating from what is considered moral, right, proper, or good, Zia, Ershad, BKZ and their cronies - those reprobate personas, power-hungry men and women in nature and their political outfits – BNP, JP, Jamaat-e-Islami and their perps are unquestionably anti-liberation forces in the country and they embody the defeated forces of our 1971 war to establish our own homeland - Bangladesh.

The black-bespectacled bozo (i.e., Gen Zia) never even got to know someone with a light saber or lightsomeness, much less hold one. It is a yarn about the galaxy’s true misfits — the less-than-special ones who rose up against the imperia out of desperation and for his diaphanous personal Lilliputian necessity. His better-half and sonny son are asplenium adiantum-nigrum, have been more chippies in glorifying the defeated enemies, giving moorage to their past rule of governments and longing for future and the country’s body politic to fosterage gamin for our yester-years’ aureoles.

Ziaur Rahman made the 5th amendment to the Constitution of Bangladesh on July 9, 1979, only to protect the assassins of Bangabandhu and four national leaders. Also, he made arrangements for the safe repatriation of Bangabandhu's assassins while he was the Chief of Army Staff and the de facto head of state under military conditions. I restate he rewarded the killers of Bangabandhu with jobs in embassies of different countries on a hefty salary from the state fund.

The illegal Zia government also assured Major Farooq and Rashid, two of the key killers of Bangabandhu, to lead a luxurious life in Libya. Under the patronage of Ziaur Rahman, they settled in Libya but opened one business after another in Bangladesh, worth crores of money. It should be noted that Farooq and Rashid are brothers-in-law in relation. Again, Rashid is the nephew of Khondaker Mostaq and both were very trusted officials of Ziaur Rahman. In subsequent interviews, the duo admitted having meetings with Ziaur Rahman on more than one occasion before the assassination of Bangabandhu and a coup with the direct support of Zia.

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman confiscated the assets of Pakistani industrialists and took them under the control of the state after the independence. But to please Pakistan, Ziaur Rahman arranged for the return of those assets. He not only moved away from the compensation that Bangladesh had been demanding from Pakistan but also compensated Pakistan.

Bangabandhu cancelled the citizenship of those who were involved in genocide, murder, rape and looting of Bengalis during the Liberation War. He even banned all anti-national and communal political parties for their role during the Liberation War. But following the brutal assassination of Bangabandhu and his family, Ziaur Rahman restored the citizenship of those anti-national criminals and arranged for their return. It paved the way for Jamaati direful leader Ghulam Azam to return to Bangladesh and revived the politics of Jamaat.

Zia’s decision gave the scope to the religion traders like Muslim League, Jamaat, Nezame Islam, Al Badr, Al Shams to revive in independent Bangladesh. He also violated the national policy of the Constitution. By removing secularism from the Constitution, killer Zia helped the extremists walk freely in the country.

Besieged by the 1971 war criminals, mass murderers, rapists…BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and her sonny son brought out now their party’s 1-point formula to turn the country into a “banana republic” to create a political culture where all people of varying opinions cannot coexist peacefully.

It is an outfit based on legerdemain. Good always has to triumph over evil, and a respect for the law-and-order establishment has to be encouraged. Gothic, as if belonging to the Middle Ages, old-fashioned and unenlightened, she or her son or her other leaders may be the residents of an infernal region and operate their fit out in that realm, not in Bangladesh.

BNP’s history is full of skullduggeries! They do not even hold or possess a single word of their speeches, but they want to rule us to chivvy and ravage our country with more savageness than that of 1971. Wow! An utterly shrill cry! A piping up! And what not! But the price of our freedom in 1971 is our eternal vigilance.

The writer is a freedom fighter who writes on politics and international issues.