National Martyr's Memorial

Located in Savar, the National Martyr's Memorial (Jatiyo Smriti Soudho in Bangla) was built to honor the martyrs who sacrificed their lives in the Liberation War of 1971. The war gave birth to what is now the country of Bangladesh.

Constructed from concrete, all surrounding paving is red brick and the complex itself is huge. A large body of water reminds you of the reflecting pool in DC, with the graves of many unidentified freedom fighters along the way.

Huge masses come to spend time here. The Memorial is incredibly important to the Bangladeshis, who are extremely proud of it. One will be  deeply moved, finding it a magnificent tribute and representation of the amazing struggle this country had to go through to gain independence. Or at least I was!

The Blood telegram

I talked in one of my previous posts about Henry Kissinger and his support of Pakistan against what it is now Bangladesh.

It fills my heart with pride to say that not everybody went along with Kissinger's policies. Archer Blood was back then the consul-general in Dhaka, East Pakistan. He witnessed the beginning of a massacre that would take millions of lives. The Pakistan army, faced with a rebellion, slaughtered thousands in an attack on the University of Dacca and the barracks of Bengali police. Columns of troops followed the roads throughout the country, burning and killing.

Blood in his first cable described what he termed a "selective genocide," alerted President Richard Nixon and national security adviser Henry Kissinger to what was happening and urged them to pressure Gen. Yahya Khan, the Pakistani dictator, to stop the killing. His cable, dated March 28, 1971,  wrote:

"Here in Dacca we are mute and horrified witnesses to a reign of terror of the Pak military ..."

Problem was that Nixon and Kissinger had decided to support Pakistan as a counter to the Russian influence and didn't want to hear what Blood was reporting.

That cable was followed by another, signed by 20 Americans diplomats stationed in East Pakistan, decrying the official American silence as serving "neither our moral interests broadly defined nor our national interests narrowly defined ..."

A courageous and upright diplomat, Archer Blood was never seen again in any forefront. He was soon called back of Washington and put in the doghouse, for as long as Nixon was in the White House. When he died, in retirement, there was family, a few old friends and an entire nation to mourn his passing, but the nation that grieved for him was not his own. It was Bangladesh.

The legacy of Henry Kissinger in Bangladesh

Kissinger used to be the US National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, under Nixon and Ford administrations. As the top decision maker in foreign policy, Kissinger was a huge fan of realpolitik. That is diplomacy based on  practical and material factors and considerations, rather than ideological notions. He dealt freely with dictators and democratic principles and international human rights law took a backseat to achieving immediate results.

Bangladeshis are never fond when they remember his name. Under Kissinger's guidance, the United States government supported Pakistan in the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971. Kissinger was particularly concerned about the expansion of Soviet influence in South Asia.
There are a number of comments for which Kissinger came under fire. He described the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as a "bitch" and the Indians as "bastards". But the most famous quote is of him dismissing the idea of an independent Bangladesh by saying, “the place is and always will be a basket case.”

It is the basket case comment still resonates in the minds of Bangladeshis and, since the Liberation everything that goes wrong in the country (including the murder of Sheik Mujibur, the father of the nation) is being attributed to the CIA. To this day, one of the most worst terms used in Bangladesh politics is America dalal, or American lackey.