Recognition and trial of the 1971 genocide against Bengalis

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Abstract

The United Nations declared 9 December as the International Genocide Day. Sixty-seven years after the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, in 2015 it was decided to globally observe the International Day of Genocide remembrance. It commemorates the victims of genocide in different parts of the world and suggests a global humanitarian responsibility to prevent such crimes. The need to observe an International Genocide Day six decades after 1948 indicates the failure to achieve the desired success in globally preventing genocide and establishing a world with effective humanitarian responsibilities. The decision to observe the day globally was liked to the growing trend of genocide or crimes against humanity – and the goal to build a humane and responsible world to prevent such crimes. Until 2015, no significant initiative was observed in Bangladesh regarding the 1971 genocide committed against Bengalis. In 2017, two years after the declaration of the International Day of Genocide, and 47 years after independence, the government of Bangladesh finally declared 25 March as Genocide Day (Dhaka Tribune, 2017). This is, of course, a matter of hope. To date, the pressure to convince the international forum to duly recognize this genocide has not been effective. Although there has been a lot of discussion in the international arena regarding many other genocides (both older and more recent), the relative silence or indifference regarding the genocide of 1971 is disappointing for the Bengali nation to say the least. […]