The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) wishes to draw your attention to the fact that personnel from Bangladesh being deployed for United Nations peacekeeping missions abroad may be responsible for systemic and grave abuses of human rights in their own country, and to request that you review their role in these missions with a view to suspending further deployments from Bangladesh until such a time that the government of Bangladesh has disbanded its Rapid Action Battalion, for the reasons that follow.
As you are well aware, Bangladesh is today the lead contributor of UN peacekeepers. Over 10,000 of its citizens are now stationed around the world. The country earns a great deal of respect and prestige for its part in these operations. We too strongly appreciate the work of your office in carrying out peacekeeping missions, and the contributions that countries such as Bangladesh make towards ending conflict globally. There is no doubt that your work must continue and be strengthened: in this you have our wholehearted support.
We are also concerned, as will you be, that peacekeepers be persons of the highest professionalism and integrity: persons who respect and uphold the UN charter as well as international humanitarian and human rights law, and persons whom the UN should be able to look upon with pride even long after they have finished their missions. Peacekeepers are ambassadors for the UN: not only abroad, in their place of mission, but also once they return home.
In recent times, attention has been paid to abuses by UN peacekeeping troops in the field. These include allegations of sexual abuse and rape, and of combat operations that have targeted civilians. We are aware that you are taking steps to address these concerns. But we are not fully aware of what steps, if any, your department has taken in recent times to curtail the deployment of personnel from countries where soldiers, police and others are alleged to have committed human rights abuses against their own people.
In 2005 the AHRC drew your attention to the deployment of troops from Nepal at a time that mass disappearances, extrajudicial killings and other gross violations were occurring in that country. We appreciated your response then, to the effect that you would “be keeping under review the participation of members of the [Royal Nepalese Army]” in UN operations given the serious allegations of atrocities committed by its troops at home. We are now urging you, with good reason, to conduct a similar review of involvement of troops and police from Bangladesh. This requires some explanation.
In late 2002 the government of Bangladesh ordered a joint anti-crime operation, codenamed “Clean Heart”, which in three months resulted in at least 58 deaths in custody and arrest and torture of an estimated 11,000 or more persons, of which at least 8000 were completely innocent persons against whom no case was ever lodged. In 2003 it indemnified all army, police and paramilitary personnel from any legal action for abuses arising out of this period. Both the operation and indemnity law have been strongly condemned by independent UN human rights experts.
The government followed the operation by establishing the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in 2004. The RAB, of which there are in fact 12 separate battalions around the country, is neither fish nor fowl: it is again a joint force with personnel from the military, police and elsewhere. It is ostensibly a special law and order unit. In fact, it is an agency that has spread lawlessness, confusion and fear throughout Bangladesh.
The RAB has no mandate other than to do the bidding of whichever government is in power. Its range of generic duties includes “investigation of any offence on the direction of the government” and “such other duties as the government may… assign”. In effect, RAB personnel are the hired guns of the state.
The RAB has a licence to kill. Its own website lists among its “achievements” that 283 persons have “died during exchange of fire” by its members since it was established. This phrase, or “crossfire”, as it is commonly known in Bangladesh, is a euphemism for extrajudicial killing. The standard scenario, as described by the RAB, runs as follows: a suspect is captured; he admits to having illegal weapons or other materials hidden outside a town or village; the RAB takes him there–sometime between midnight and dawn–to recover the said objects; his criminal or terrorist gang is waiting; they exchange fire; the suspect attempts to escape and dies in the shooting. Case closed.
Most human rights groups in Bangladesh put the number of dead by the hands of the RAB at two or three times higher than the figure openly admitted. And this is to say nothing of the killings by police, which appear to have increased since the time that the RAB was formed. The two have engaged in a contest to prove who has more anti-crime credentials, i.e. who can kill and detain more people at will. Personnel also freely move in and out of the RAB and other agencies–a former RAB commander is now police chief–carrying the lessons learned with them back to their original units, thereby steadily weakening the discipline of all security forces in Bangladesh.
The RAB is engaged in a multitude of attendant abuses, including torture, robbery and extortion. In cases documented by the AHRC and its partners, RAB personnel have allegedly taken and held persons incommunicado, assaulted and tortured them in custody, and sought money from family members to have them released or to spare them from “crossfire”. Such incidents are public knowledge in Bangladesh, and many are widely reported in the local media.
Despite the number and scale of allegations, we are not aware of any single case of RAB personnel facing criminal prosecution for gross human rights abuses. You may wish to enquire of the government of Bangladesh as to whether or not there has ever been such a case. RAB members enjoy impunity both due to the patronage they obtain from the highest authorities and the obstacles placed before persons seeking to take legal action against state officers by the defective and non-independent legal system in Bangladesh. Nor has the country enacted necessary measures in accordance with UN human rights treaties to which it claims to be a party, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. As a result, a RAB member found to have committed serious abuse may be transferred back to his original military or police unit, perhaps with other minor disciplinary action imposed. Occasionally he may be dismissed. But for the most part, he will continue in service of the state in one way or another.
Here is the problem for your department: as the RAB is considered an elite unit, its personnel–or those who have served in it–may be particularly likely to be selected for prestigious UN missions. In fact, virtually all of its commanding officers already boast credentials from UN peacekeeping operations: Director General Md. Abdul Aziz Sarkar, in Yugoslavia and Kosovo; Additional Director General Md. Mahbubul Alam Mollah, UNIKOM; Lt. Col. Mirza Ezazur Rahaman (Operations Director), UNOMIG; Lt. Col. Gulzar Uddin Ahmed (Intelligence Director), UNTAC, UNIOSIL; Commander Fatema Begum (Investigation Director), UNIOSIL; Commander Md. Moyeenul Haque (Communications Director), UNMIL; Lt. Col. Asif Ahmed Ansari (RAB-1 CO), ONUMOZ; Additional DIG Md. Akbar Ali (RAB-2 CO), UNTAC, IPTF; Lt. Col. Farhad Ahmed (RAB-3 CO), UNIIMOG; Lt. Col. Md. Badrul Ahsan (RAB-4 CO), UNIOSIL; Lt. Col. Md. Hashinur Rahman (RAB-7 CO), UNIKOM, UNPROFOR; and, Lt. Col. Md. Manikur Rahman (RAB-10 CO), UNPROFOR, MONUK. Any one of these officers or their personnel, or former and future members of the RAB from other parts of the armed forces and police, may yet again be invited to serve abroad under the blue and white flag.
Needless to say, it does little good to the reputation of the United Nations at a critical time in its history to have alleged gross violators of human rights serving on its peacekeeping missions. In this, the AHRC would point out that we hold very strongly to the principle of command responsibility for rights abuses: a senior officer is liable for the actions of his subordinates. It follows that even where RAB officers may not have been directly involved in abuses, they are nonetheless equally accountable. We would expect that you share our belief in this principle. We also expect that where an entire agency is identified as a key contributor to systematic and gross human rights abuse, as is the RAB, you would not look upon it and related agencies favourably when assessing contributors to UN missions.
Therefore, the Asian Human Rights Commission requests that until the government of Bangladesh fully disbands the Rapid Action Battalion and ceases all such joint military-police operations that cause wanton arbitrary and illegal arrest, detention, assault, torture, rape and extrajudicial killing, Bangladeshi personnel should be prohibited from taking part in any further United Nations peacekeeping operations. If these steps are not taken, to invite Bangladeshi personnel to participate in UN activities abroad will be nothing less than a betrayal of the very principles upon which the UN is founded.
We understand that this will be difficult for you. As Bangladesh is the largest contributor to your operations, and has even received funding from abroad to set up a centre for the formal training of its peacekeepers, it will not be easy to suspend it from involvement in your activities, least of all at a time that demands for a UN presence are emerging and growing all over the world. Nonetheless, this is what we are asking. We believe that the request is fully justified, and we urge you give it due consideration without prejudice. We also believe that as you yourself remarked in 2005, your capacity to make this critical decision, which would greatly affect the country’s international standing, gives you a unique leverage on its government. We sincerely trust that the government of Bangladesh would take any communication from your office on these issues extremely seriously. The consequences could only be good: for the people of Bangladesh, for its security forces, and for the UN.
We hereby also inform you that we intend to begin a campaign on the role of Bangladesh in UN peacekeeping operations vis-a-vis atrocities committed by its security personnel at home, notably the RAB, until such a time as the RAB is disbanded and conditions in the country enable effective redress for victims of abuses there.
We look forward to your early and considered intervention.
Yours sincerely
Basil Fernando
Executive Director
Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong
