Commissioned to work with SALT Research collections, artist Refik Anadol employed machine learning algorithms to search and sort relations among 1,700,000 documents. Interactions of the multidimensional data found in the archives are, in turn, translated into an immersive media installation. Archive Dreaming, which is presented as part of The Uses of Art: Final Exhibition with the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union, is user-driven; however, when idle, the installation "dreams" of unexpected correlations among documents. The resulting high-dimensional data and interactions are translated into an architectural immersive space.

Shortly after receiving the commission, Anadol was a resident artist for Google's Artists and Machine Intelligence Program where he closely collaborated with Mike Tyka and explored cutting-edge developments in the field of machine intelligence in an environment that brings together artists and engineers. Developed during this residency, his intervention Archive Dreaming transforms the gallery space on floor -1 at SALT Galata into an all-encompassing environment that intertwines history with the contemporary, and challenges immutable concepts of the archive, while destabilizing archive-related questions with machine learning algorithms.

In this project, a temporary immersive architectural space is created as a canvas with light and data applied as materials. This radical effort to deconstruct the framework of an illusory space will transgress the normal boundaries of the viewing experience of a library and the conventional flat cinema projection screen, into a three dimensional kinetic and architectonic space of an archive visualized with machine learning algorithms. By training a neural network with images of 1,700,000 documents at SALT Research the main idea is to create an immersive installation with architectural intelligence to reframe memory, history and culture in museum perception for 21st century through the lens of machine intelligence.

SALT is grateful to Google's Artists and Machine Intelligence program, and Doğuş Technology, ŠKODA, Volkswagen Doğuş Finansman for supporting Archive Dreaming.

Location : SALT Gatala, Istanbul, Turkey

Exhibition Dates : April 20 - June 11

6 Meters Wide Circular Architectural Installation

4 Channel Video, 8 Channel Audio

Custom Software, Media Server, Table for UI Interaction

For more information:

refikanadol.com/works/archive-dreaming/

The Report

China is a likely winner of the information age supply chain through ecommerce by sticking with its successful strategy of continued steady growth, coupled with continuing (the appearance of) a transparent society (where currently major decisions are made by top government and business officials behind closed doors) which manipulate and manage economies at large. In order to be considered a great global leader China should maintain peace and respect for corporate property rights. They need to immediately focus on their serious environment pollution problems to survive.

 

Caption: "The sign that says you're welcome in Shanghai" - Johnny Vulkan www.flickr.com/photos/johnnyvulkan/1856903750/

 

The evidence is clear: China has McDonalds restaurants, and with extensive factories they make Dell and other computers. Bill Gates is eagerly pursuing business with China, and the Chinese government has given Microsoft the right to grant post-doctorial fellowships. Key companies invested in technology are willing to go to court to keep the most important Chinese corporate leaders. Kai-Fu Lee, once a vice-president at Microsoft is now Google's manager in China. Mr. Lee was the person at the center of twin lawsuits (suit and countersuit), a battle over which of the two companies would win him to work for them - he may be the ultimate in 'intellectual property.'

 

Caption ”On the Shanghai subway, rather than advertising computers for sale, Dell promotes job openings.” Danburg Murmur www.flickr.com/photos/danburgmurmur/247299162/

 

What is at issue are personably identifiable information (PII) and intellectual property rights (patents and copyrights) which are legislated and widely respected in the West.

 

Personal information is the feeder fish at the bottom of the information age food chain. China does not believe people have a right to privacy because of how communism is structured; this is true of members of their society until that person is wealthy and thus powerful enough to opt out of it, and even then the appearance of opting in must be kept.

 

Even in the West Intellectual property rights are eroding, which is as it should be, as it is not the same as owning a house, and can be damaging to others on a massive scale such as medical patents for aids, cancer, and other life saving drugs.

 

The Chinese style of governance comes with a 5 thousand year old administrative history of ordering a society consisting of large numbers of people. Because most people in American and the West do not speak their language nor write it, much of China remains a society closed to the English speaking countries. Due to communication barriers the West does not have the very healthy level of respect for China that it should.

 

Even the Chinese written language may give China advantages with online screens unknown in the West with their thousands of dense glifts, pictographs, and phonetic parts. Currently it is estimated more than 1 billion people use some form of Chinese as their native language.

 

It can be said that he who owns the resources wins; especially true when supply chains are consistent and reliable. This applies to personally identifiable information in the information age as it relates to sales, because personal information is a building block in the information supply chain. Creating mass marketing campaigns targeting not just individuals but large groups of people is based on creating desire , an example is Steve Jobs and the Apple iPod. This is in addition to knowing what people want, not just what they need.

 

Meeting the needs of all people in the world is still a goal some people are working towards, while many more others try to capture wealth only for themselves and their investors. From the point of view that in the long run we’re all dead, many investors do not view themselves as breaking any moral or other rules, just trying to get ahead, or make a profit on their investment, which they want right now. This uninformed short sighted view is killing people, and eroding the middle class of nations. Any country that has a middle class will miss it when it is gone; most countries are trying to build their middle class.

 

Business to Business (B2B) resource supply chains control wealth. Only the wealthy have a reason to protect privacy of information, because the poor and the very poor have much more immediate concerns. Hopefully the Chinese will learn as other countries like Malaysia did, that including diverse ethnic types is not just a ethical ideal, it is a strategy for long term success.

 

This lesson continues to be a painful and costly lesson to the US, which in many ways is exclusionary. Viewing the poor as beggars while subsidizing production with huge remedies is one of the inadequacies that may be overturned as international growth is managed at a global level because it can not be justified as anything other than corrupt practices. By all accounts I read, generosity in international relationships is mythical and with the digital age has only grown worse . Does it matter what you wear while you ask for money or how well educated you are? Apparently it does.

 

One size fits all privacy will never suit everyone because it has a biological basis and the need increases with education, and its cousin, wealth. Increasingly to have the opt out choice in terms of privacy you need wealth. That too will change subtly because as ecommerce becomes pervasive, some system or sets of systems will always knows that someone is there in some detectable way.

 

The patent and copyright systems can be damaging to others on a global scale by shutting down creativity, and unfairly favoring their protection even against life, due to medical patents for aids, cancer, and other life saving drugs being so expensive to produce or purchase that people are allowed to die as a result. Calls to action for multinational drug companies to reduce these costs, have changed little or nothing in the developing world. This has been featured so well in the headlines and news stories lately that it can hardly be a surprise to anyone that it is a problem – youth know because Digital Rights Management (DRM) is dead.

 

Ecommerce is a tool and can be used in many ways. Trading is already a cold transaction and to remove it from human context makes it even more so. In accounting they discuss "arms length transactions" - with ecommerce those arms get pretty long.

 

So we can expect that the human repercussions of global ecommerce, driven by the integration of B2B procurement systems, could stabilize and destabilize entire populations unless the planning is very good. That means everyone must hold the keys in some way, and be open to transparency at some level which runs counter to special interest groups . Transparency in action does exactly what it need to do, but which, for example, is not a match for existing culture in China.

 

Real transparency in global governance with a goal to meet the basic needs of all people living sounds like a science fiction plot, but that is what makes it exciting. Transparent governance may only become possible due to radically unexpected causes, like education, religious idealism, or a shared social solution of the young through organizations such as www.one.org.

 

Ironically one of the religions likely to have a positive effect in China, and is likely to benefit from it is Tibetan Buddhism, long repressed by the current Chinese government.

 

Ecommerce will not cause peace in the world, educated people working with strong idealism in transparent cultures will. Still my conclusion remains that China is a likely winner of the information age supply chain through ecommerce.

 

We should invest in China.

 

Looking east while standing on the eastern overlook on the quadrangle east of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C., in the United States. The Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol can both be seen. That's Section 6 of the cemetery just below.

 

Arlington's first Amphitheater was constructed of wood in 1874, and soon proved far too small. Congress authorized construction of the Memorial Amphitheater on March 4, 1913. Ground-breaking occurred on March 1, 1915, and President Woodrow Wilson placed the cornerstone on October 15, 1915. It was dedicated on May 15, 1920.

 

Originally, the main entrance to Memorial Amphitheater had a rectangular granite plaza in front of it, from which some short marble steps led down to a slightly elliptical granite plaza surrounded by a marble balustrade. A retaining wall about 20 feet high formed the western end of the "Memorial Park" east of the Amphitheater. In front of the retaining wall, flagstone paths entered from the north and south (the curving paths led back up to the Amphitheater), joining to form a ellipsis with a grassy middle -- which you can see here. (The ellipsis is about 150 feet north-south and 50 feet east-west.) A rectangular grass lawn 50 feet wide extended about 200 feet eastward, ending in a series of short marble steps the led down to Roosevelt Drive. The lawn was bordered on either side with boxwood trees clipped into rectangular shapes.

 

Across Roosevelt Drive was another overlook. This shallow arc contained an Art Deco fountain made of polished bronze. It was anchored on either end with grey granite columns into which were carved by Art Deco eagles. A retaining wall dropped another 15 feet to Section 6 below the overlook.

 

The entire "Memorial Park" was designed to create a formal, Neoclassical space which provided a vista that allowed people standing on the overlooks to see the western end of the National Mall across the Potomac River, and to see the Lincoln Memorial (which began construction in 1914 and was finished in 1922, almost two years to the day after the Memorial Amphitheater was finished).

 

But this soon changed...

 

Memorial Amphitheater was altered forever the year after its dedication. In 1917, America entered World War I. More than 1.3 million Americans served in Europe during the war, and more than 116,516 died. Just 4,221 were unidentified or missing; the missing (3,173) were the vast majority of them. Nonetheless, 1,100 "unidentified" American war dead was a burden on the national conscience, and the media focused heavily on grieving mothers with no body to bury. Some American generals suggested in 1919 that a "Tomb of an Unknown Soldier" be created in the United States. The idea didn't gain traction at first, but in 1920 both England and France held huge public ceremonies honoring their unknown dead. These received much press attention in the United States, and on February 4, 1921, Congress enacted legislation establishing a similar memorial. Some proponents of the memorial originally proposed burying the unknown soldier in the crypt beneath the Capitol Rotunda -- a crypt originally planned for George Washington (but politely declined by his family). Worried that the Capitol might become a mausoleum, Congress instead chose Arlington National Cemetery as the site for the new memorial. On March 4, 1921, with just hours left in his presidency, President Woodrow Wilson signed the legislation into law.

 

In the United States, preparation for the "Tomb of the Unknown Solider" was frantically under way. The newly-formed American Legion (a congressionally-chartered veterans' lobby group) was pressing as late as May 1921 for the body to be buried in the Capitol Crypt. This debate was not resolved until mid-July, and by then very little time remained to create the monument. Where to build the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery continued until October, when it was decided that the view from the Memorial Amphitheater's plaza was the most appropriate site.

 

The Tomb was cut unto the center of the short steps which led down to the granite overlook. Diggers buried downward until they reached the level of the lawn below. They then continued another 20 feet below the surface. The subsurface shaft was 16 feet from east to west and 9.5 feet from north to south, and filled with solid concrete. This formed the footings for the vault above. The footings had to be that deep and that large because tons of marble were going to be placed on top of them, and the memorial could not be permitted to sink or become destabilized. The vault itself was lined with marble. The vault's walls ranged in thickness from 7 feet at the bottom to 2 feet, 4 inches at the top. A plinth (or "sub-base") was set on top of the vault walls. The plinth serves as the base of the memorial proper, and also helps to conceal the rough, unfinished top of the vault walls. The plinth was made of three finished, rectangular pieces of marble which fitted over the vault walls like a collar. These are on the north, south, and west sides of the vault, and were the only part of the substructure visible in 1921. (They remain visible today; you can just see them in this image.) Four rectangular marble pieces form the actual base of the memorial. These were mortared to the top of the plinth. A rectangular marble capstone with curved sides was placed on top of the base. The capstone was pierced with the a hole to permit the coffin to be lowered into through the base, through the plinth, and to the bottom of the grave vault. The bottom of the vault was lined with 2 inches of French soil, taken from various battlefields in France. Once the coffin lay on the floor of the vault, the centerpiece of the capstone was put in place and the tomb sealed.

 

But all that existed was the base. The actual cenotaph, which you see here, did not yet exist.

 

Congress authorized completion of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in July 1926. The Secretary of War held a design competition, with judges from Arlington National Cemetery, the American Battle Monuments Commission, and the Commission of Fine Arts. Only architects of national standing were permitted to enter the competition, and 74 submitted designs. Five were chosen as finalists, and required to submit plaster models of their proposals. Architect Lorimer Rich and sculptor Thomas Hudson Jones won the competition. Their design imitated a sarcophagus, but really was a solid block of marble. The design included a thin rectangular base to go on top of the existing capstone. Then there was the "die block" (the main monument), on top of which was a capstone. The die block featured Doric pilasters (fake columns) in low relief at the corners. On the east side (facing the Potomac River) was a sculpture in low relief of three figures, representing female Victory, Valor (male, to her left), and Peace (female). The north and south sides were divided into three sections by fluted Doric pilasters, with an inverted wreath on the upper portion of each section. On the west side (facing the amphitheater) was the inscription: "Here Rests In Honored Glory An American Soldier Known But To God." It is still not clear who came up with the phrase, but it had been used on crosses marking the graves of unknown soldiers in Europe as early as 1925. The judges asked that the approaches to the Tomb be improved as well. Clarence Renshaw designed the steps. The balustrade was removed, and the short series of steps extended outward and downward until they reached the lawn. A small landing exists two-thirds of the way down, after which the steps continue (wider than before). Congress approved funding for the memorial and new steps on February 29, 1929, and a contract to complete the Tomb was awarded on December 21, 1929. Quartermaster General Brig. Gen. Louis H. Bash oversaw the construction, which was done by Hegman and Harris.

 

The Vermont Marble Company provided the marble. This proved very problematic. The Yule Marble Quarry at Marble, Colorado, was chosen as the quarry. A year passed before suitable pieces of marble could be located at the quarry and mined. Three pieces had to be mined before a piece suitable for the 56-ton die block was found. Three pieces were mined and discarded before a fourth piece was found for the 18-ton base. But once the base arrived at Arlington, workers discovered an imperfection in the marble which caused it to be discarded. A fifth, sixth, and seventh piece of marble was then mined, but only the eighth piece was suitable and brought to the cemetery. Amazingly, a piece for the 14-ton capstone was found on the first try.

 

Work began on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in September 1931, but stopped for three months after a flaw in the base was found. Work resumed in December, and all three pieces were in place on December 31, 1931. Fabrication was completed on-site, with sculptor Jones working five days a week. The Tomb was completed and opened to the public on April 9, 1932. There was no dedication ceremony, and the memorial has never been officially named.

 

Unfortunately, the Tomb began to fall apart almost immediately. Chips and spalls (pieces broken off after heating and contracting) were found coming off the base in 1933. By 1963, a huge horizontal and secondary vertical crack had appeared in the die block -- probably caused by the release of pressure after the marble was mined. Acid rain and pollution have caused the marble sculptures to wear down appreciably, such that today they are only about half as sharp as they once were. Although there is no likelihood that the monument will collapse, debate continues to rage as to whether the monument should be replaced.

Vornüberhängende Frau/Female Nude in a Green Bonnet, 1914 (Bleistift, Aquarell und Deckfarben/Pencil, watercolor and gouache), Albertina

 

Destabilizising his figures spatially and perspectivally is not the only principe of composition Schiele relied on to unsettle the viewer. The most striking example of a conflation of spatial destabilization with a contextual mystification is Female Nude in a Green Bonnet.

As a horizontal format, the irritation of the body posture appears to be less than it would be as a vertical format. Yet even as a horizontal format, the puffed-up garment under the buttocks is still unexplainable; considering that the center of gravity is located far away from the center of the body, the whole figure ought to fall forward.

The female nude is one in a series of two female lovers showing one woman lying on top of the other in a similar position, supported by her partner' body. Although the second female positioned below the other has been deliberately left out in the sheet of the Albertina, Schiele has indirectly integrated her into the picture as an invisible support of the partner on top of her.

 

Die räumlich-perspektivische Destabilisierung der Figuren Schieles bleibt nicht das einzige Gestaltungsprinzip zur Verunsicherung des Betrachters. Das markanteste Beispiel für eine Verschmelzung der räumlichen Destabilisierung mit einer inhaltlichen Verrätselung ist der Frauenakt mit grüner Haube.

Als Querformat scheint die Irritation der Körperhaltung geringer als im Hochformat. Aber selbst im Querformat erklärt sich nicht das gebauschte Gewand unterhalb des Gesäßes, die ganze Figur aufgrund des weit abseits der Körpermitte liegenden Schwerpunkts würde nach vorne kippen.

Dieser Frauenakt ist Teil einer Serie von weiblichen Liebespaaren, in der die Frau in vergleichbarer Haltung auf einer zweiten Frau liegt: abgestützt durch den Körper der Partnerin. Im Frauenakt der Albertina hat Schiele die untere Frau bewusst weggelassen. Als unsichtbare Stützte der über ihr liegenden Partnerin hat eer sie aber indirekt ins Bild integriert.

 

The Albertina

The architectural history of the Palais

(Pictures you can see by clicking on the link at the end of page!)

Image: The oldest photographic view of the newly designed Palais Archduke Albrecht, 1869

"It is my will that ​​the expansion of the inner city of Vienna with regard to a suitable connection of the same with the suburbs as soon as possible is tackled and at this on Regulirung (regulation) and beautifying of my Residence and Imperial Capital is taken into account. To this end I grant the withdrawal of the ramparts and fortifications of the inner city and the trenches around the same".

This decree of Emperor Franz Joseph I, published on 25 December 1857 in the Wiener Zeitung, formed the basis for the largest the surface concerning and architecturally most significant transformation of the Viennese cityscape. Involving several renowned domestic and foreign architects a "master plan" took form, which included the construction of a boulevard instead of the ramparts between the inner city and its radially upstream suburbs. In the 50-years during implementation phase, an impressive architectural ensemble developed, consisting of imperial and private representational buildings, public administration and cultural buildings, churches and barracks, marking the era under the term "ring-street style". Already in the first year tithe decided a senior member of the Austrian imperial family to decorate the facades of his palace according to the new design principles, and thus certified the aristocratic claim that this also "historicism" said style on the part of the imperial house was attributed.

Image: The Old Albertina after 1920

It was the palace of Archduke Albrecht (1817-1895), the Senior of the Habsburg Family Council, who as Field Marshal held the overall command over the Austro-Hungarian army. The building was incorporated into the imperial residence of the Hofburg complex, forming the south-west corner and extending eleven meters above street level on the so-called Augustinerbastei.

The close proximity of the palace to the imperial residence corresponded not only with Emperor Franz Joseph I and Archduke Albert with a close familial relationship between the owner of the palace and the monarch. Even the former inhabitants were always in close relationship to the imperial family, whether by birth or marriage. An exception here again proves the rule: Don Emanuel Teles da Silva Conde Tarouca (1696-1771), for which Maria Theresa in 1744 the palace had built, was just a close friend and advisor of the monarch. Silva Tarouca underpins the rule with a second exception, because he belonged to the administrative services as Generalhofbaudirektor (general court architect) and President of the Austrian-Dutch administration, while all other him subsequent owners were highest ranking military.

In the annals of Austrian history, especially those of military history, they either went into as commander of the Imperial Army, or the Austrian, later kk Army. In chronological order, this applies to Duke Carl Alexander of Lorraine, the brother-of-law of Maria Theresa, as Imperial Marshal, her son-in-law Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, also field marshal, whos adopted son, Archduke Charles of Austria, the last imperial field marshal and only Generalissimo of Austria, his son Archduke Albrecht of Austria as Feldmarschalil and army Supreme commander, and most recently his nephew Archduke Friedrich of Austria, who held as field marshal from 1914 to 1916 the command of the Austro-Hungarian troops. Despite their military profession, all five generals conceived themselves as patrons of the arts and promoted large sums of money to build large collections, the construction of magnificent buildings and cultural life. Charles Alexander of Lorraine promoted as governor of the Austrian Netherlands from 1741 to 1780 the Academy of Fine Arts, the Théâtre de Ja Monnaie and the companies Bourgeois Concert and Concert Noble, he founded the Academie royale et imperial des Sciences et des Lettres, opened the Bibliotheque Royal for the population and supported artistic talents with high scholarships. World fame got his porcelain collection, which however had to be sold by Emperor Joseph II to pay off his debts. Duke Albert began in 1776 according to the concept of conte Durazzo to set up an encyclopedic collection of prints, which forms the core of the world-famous "Albertina" today.

Image : Duke Albert and Archduchess Marie Christine show in family cercle the from Italy brought along art, 1776. Frederick Henry Füger.

1816 declared to Fideikommiss and thus in future indivisible, inalienable and inseparable, the collection 1822 passed into the possession of Archduke Carl, who, like his descendants, it broadened. Under him, the collection was introduced together with the sumptuously equipped palace on the Augustinerbastei in the so-called "Carl Ludwig'schen fideicommissum in 1826, by which the building and the in it kept collection fused into an indissoluble unity. At this time had from the Palais Tarouca by structural expansion or acquisition a veritable Residenz palace evolved. Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen was first in 1800 the third floor of the adjacent Augustinian convent wing adapted to house his collection and he had after 1802 by his Belgian architect Louis de Montoyer at the suburban side built a magnificent extension, called the wing of staterooms, it was equipped in the style of Louis XVI. Only two decades later, Archduke Carl the entire palace newly set up. According to scetches of the architect Joseph Kornhäusel the 1822-1825 retreaded premises presented themselves in the Empire style. The interior of the palace testified from now in an impressive way the high rank and the prominent position of its owner. Under Archduke Albrecht the outer appearance also should meet the requirements. He had the facade of the palace in the style of historicism orchestrated and added to the Palais front against the suburbs an offshore covered access. Inside, he limited himself, apart from the redesign of the Rococo room in the manner of the second Blondel style, to the retention of the paternal stock. Archduke Friedrich's plans for an expansion of the palace were omitted, however, because of the outbreak of the First World War so that his contribution to the state rooms, especially, consists in the layout of the Spanish apartment, which he in 1895 for his sister, the Queen of Spain Maria Christina, had set up as a permanent residence.

Picture: The "audience room" after the restoration: Picture: The "balcony room" around 1990

The era of stately representation with handing down their cultural values ​​found its most obvious visualization inside the palace through the design and features of the staterooms. On one hand, by the use of the finest materials and the purchase of masterfully manufactured pieces of equipment, such as on the other hand by the permanent reuse of older equipment parts. This period lasted until 1919, when Archduke Friedrich was expropriated by the newly founded Republic of Austria. With the republicanization of the collection and the building first of all finished the tradition that the owner's name was synonymous with the building name:

After Palais Tarouca or tarokkisches house it was called Lorraine House, afterwards Duke Albert Palais and Palais Archduke Carl. Due to the new construction of an adjacently located administration building it received in 1865 the prefix "Upper" and was referred to as Upper Palais Archduke Albrecht and Upper Palais Archduke Frederick. For the state a special reference to the Habsburg past was certainly politically no longer opportune, which is why was decided to name the building according to the in it kept collection "Albertina".

Picture: The "Wedgwood Cabinet" after the restoration: Picture: the "Wedgwood Cabinet" in the Palais Archduke Friedrich, 1905

This name derives from the term "La Collection Albertina" which had been used by the gallery Inspector Maurice von Thausing in 1870 in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts for the former graphics collection of Duke Albert. For this reason, it was the first time since the foundation of the palace that the name of the collection had become synonymous with the room shell. Room shell, hence, because the Republic of Austria Archduke Friedrich had allowed to take along all the movable goods from the palace in his Hungarian exile: crystal chandeliers, curtains and carpets as well as sculptures, vases and clocks. Particularly stressed should be the exquisite furniture, which stems of three facilities phases: the Louis XVI furnitures of Duke Albert, which had been manufactured on the basis of fraternal relations between his wife Archduchess Marie Christine and the French Queen Marie Antoinette after 1780 in the French Hofmanufakturen, also the on behalf of Archduke Charles 1822-1825 in the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory by Joseph Danhauser produced Empire furnitures and thirdly additions of the same style of Archduke Friedrich, which this about 1900 at Portois & Ffix as well as at Friedrich Otto Schmidt had commissioned.

The "swept clean" building got due to the strained financial situation after the First World War initially only a makeshift facility. However, since until 1999 no revision of the emergency equipment took place, but differently designed, primarily the utilitarianism committed office furnitures complementarily had been added, the equipment of the former state rooms presented itself at the end of the 20th century as an inhomogeneous administrative mingle-mangle of insignificant parts, where, however, dwelt a certain quaint charm. From the magnificent state rooms had evolved depots, storage rooms, a library, a study hall and several officed.

Image: The Albertina Graphic Arts Collection and the Philipphof after the American bombing of 12 März 1945.

Image: The palace after the demolition of the entrance facade, 1948-52

Worse it hit the outer appearance of the palace, because in times of continued anti-Habsburg sentiment after the Second World War and inspired by an intolerant destruction will, it came by pickaxe to a ministerial erasure of history. In contrast to the graphic collection possessed the richly decorated facades with the conspicuous insignia of the former owner an object-immanent reference to the Habsburg past and thus exhibited the monarchial traditions and values ​​of the era of Francis Joseph significantly. As part of the remedial measures after a bomb damage, in 1948 the aristocratic, by Archduke Albert initiated, historicist facade structuring along with all decorations was cut off, many facade figures demolished and the Hapsburg crest emblems plunged to the ground. Since in addition the old ramp also had been cancelled and the main entrance of the bastion level had been moved down to the second basement storey at street level, ended the presence of the old Archduke's palace after more than 200 years. At the reopening of the "Albertina Graphic Collection" in 1952, the former Hapsburg Palais of splendour presented itself as one of his identity robbed, formally trivial, soulless room shell, whose successful republicanization an oversized and also unproportional eagle above the new main entrance to the Augustinian road symbolized. The emocratic throw of monuments had wiped out the Hapsburg palace from the urban appeareance, whereby in the perception only existed a nondescript, nameless and ahistorical building that henceforth served the lodging and presentation of world-famous graphic collection of the Albertina. The condition was not changed by the decision to the refurbishment because there were only planned collection specific extensions, but no restoration of the palace.

Image: The palace after the Second World War with simplified facades, the rudiment of the Danubiusbrunnens (well) and the new staircase up to the Augustinerbastei

This paradigm shift corresponded to a blatant reversal of the historical circumstances, as the travel guides and travel books for kk Residence and imperial capital of Vienna dedicated itself primarily with the magnificent, aristocratic palace on the Augustinerbastei with the sumptuously fitted out reception rooms and mentioned the collection kept there - if at all - only in passing. Only with the repositioning of the Albertina in 2000 under the direction of Klaus Albrecht Schröder, the palace was within the meaning and in fulfillment of the Fideikommiss of Archduke Charles in 1826 again met with the high regard, from which could result a further inseparable bond between the magnificent mansions and the world-famous collection. In view of the knowing about politically motivated errors and omissions of the past, the facades should get back their noble, historicist designing, the staterooms regain their glamorous, prestigious appearance and culturally unique equippment be repurchased. From this presumption, eventually grew the full commitment to revise the history of redemption and the return of the stately palace in the public consciousness.

Image: The restored suburb facade of the Palais Albertina suburb

The smoothed palace facades were returned to their original condition and present themselves today - with the exception of the not anymore reconstructed Attica figures - again with the historicist decoration and layout elements that Archduke Albrecht had given after the razing of the Augustinerbastei in 1865 in order. The neoclassical interiors, today called after the former inhabitants "Habsburg Staterooms", receiving a meticulous and detailed restoration taking place at the premises of originality and authenticity, got back their venerable and sumptuous appearance. From the world wide scattered historical pieces of equipment have been bought back 70 properties or could be returned through permanent loan to its original location, by which to the visitors is made experiencable again that atmosphere in 1919 the state rooms of the last Habsburg owner Archduke Frederick had owned. The for the first time in 80 years public accessible "Habsburg State Rooms" at the Palais Albertina enable now again as eloquent testimony to our Habsburg past and as a unique cultural heritage fundamental and essential insights into the Austrian cultural history. With the relocation of the main entrance to the level of the Augustinerbastei the recollection to this so valuable Austrian Cultural Heritage formally and functionally came to completion. The vision of the restoration and recovery of the grand palace was a pillar on which the new Albertina should arise again, the other embody the four large newly built exhibition halls, which allow for the first time in the history of the Albertina, to exhibit the collection throughout its encyclopedic breadh under optimal conservation conditions.

Image: The new entrance area of the Albertina

64 meter long shed roof. Hans Hollein.

The palace presents itself now in its appearance in the historicist style of the Ringstrassenära, almost as if nothing had happened in the meantime. But will the wheel of time should not, cannot and must not be turned back, so that the double standards of the "Albertina Palace" said museum - on the one hand Habsburg grandeur palaces and other modern museum for the arts of graphics - should be symbolized by a modern character: The in 2003 by Hans Hollein designed far into the Albertina square cantilevering, elegant floating flying roof. 64 meters long, it symbolizes in the form of a dynamic wedge the accelerated urban spatial connectivity and public access to the palace. It advertises the major changes in the interior as well as the huge underground extensions of the repositioned "Albertina".

 

Christian Benedictine

Art historian with research interests History of Architecture, building industry of the Hapsburgs, Hofburg and Zeremonialwissenschaft (ceremonial sciences). Since 1990 he works in the architecture collection of the Albertina. Since 2000 he supervises as director of the newly founded department "Staterooms" the restoration and furnishing of the state rooms and the restoration of the facades and explores the history of the palace and its inhabitants.

 

www.wien-vienna.at/albertinabaugeschichte.php

 

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, also known as Mustafa Kemal Pasha until 1921, and Ghazi Mustafa Kemal from 1921 until the Surname Law of 1934 (c. 1881 – 10 November 1938), was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation. Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism.

 

Atatürk came to prominence for his role in securing the Ottoman Turkish victory at the Battle of Gallipoli (1915) during World War I. During this time, the Ottoman Empire perpetrated genocides against its Greek, Armenian and Assyrian subjects; while not directly involved, Atatürk's role in their aftermath has been controversial. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, he led the Turkish National Movement, which resisted mainland Turkey's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing a provisional government in the present-day Turkish capital Ankara (known in English at the time as Angora), he defeated the forces sent by the Allies, thus emerging victorious from what was later referred to as the Turkish War of Independence. He subsequently proceeded to abolish the sultanate in 1922 and proclaimed the foundation of the Turkish Republic in its place the following year.

 

As the president of the newly formed Turkish Republic, Atatürk initiated a rigorous program of political, economic, and cultural reforms with the ultimate aim of building a republican and secular nation-state. He made primary education free and compulsory, opening thousands of new schools all over the country. He also introduced the Latin-based Turkish alphabet, replacing the old Ottoman Turkish alphabet. Turkish women received equal civil and political rights during Atatürk's presidency. In particular, women were given voting rights in local elections by Act no. 1580 on 3 April 1930 and a few years later, in 1934, full universal suffrage. His government carried out a policy of Turkification, trying to create a homogeneous, unified and above all secular nation under the Turkish banner. Under Atatürk, the minorities in Turkey were ordered to speak Turkish in public, but were allowed to maintain their own languages in private and within their own communities; non-Turkish toponyms were replaced and non-Turkish families were ordered to adopt a Turkish surname. The Turkish Parliament granted him the surname Atatürk in 1934, which means "Father of the Turks", in recognition of the role he played in building the modern Turkish Republic. He died on 10 November 1938 at Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, at the age of 57; he was succeeded as president by his long-time prime minister İsmet İnönü and was honored with a state funeral.

 

In 1981, the centennial of Atatürk's birth, his memory was honoured by the United Nations and UNESCO, which declared it The Atatürk Year in the World and adopted the Resolution on the Atatürk Centennial, describing him as "the leader of the first struggle given against colonialism and imperialism" and a "remarkable promoter of the sense of understanding between peoples and durable peace between the nations of the world and that he worked all his life for the development of harmony and cooperation between peoples without distinction". Atatürk was also credited for his peace-in-the-world oriented foreign policy and friendship with neighboring countries such as Iran, Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Greece, as well as the creation of the Balkan Pact that resisted the expansionist aggressions of Fascist Italy and Tsarist Bulgaria.

 

The Turkish War of Independence (19 May 1919 – 24 July 1923) was a series of military campaigns and a revolution waged by the Turkish National Movement, after parts of the Ottoman Empire were occupied and partitioned following its defeat in World War I. The conflict was between the Turkish Nationalists against Allied and separatist forces over the application of Wilsonian principles, especially national self-determination, in post-World War I Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. The revolution concluded the collapse of the Ottoman Empire; the Ottoman monarchy and the Islamic caliphate were abolished, and the Republic of Turkey was declared in Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. This resulted in a transfer of vested sovereignty from the sultan-caliph to the nation, setting the stage for Republican Turkey's period of nationalist revolutionary reform.

 

While World War I ended for the Ottoman Empire with the Armistice of Mudros, the Allied Powers continued occupying and securing land per the Sykes–Picot Agreement, as well as to facilitate the prosecution of former members of the Committee of Union and Progress and those involved in the Armenian genocide. Ottoman military commanders therefore refused orders from both the Allies and the Ottoman government to surrender and disband their forces. In an atmosphere of turmoil throughout the remainder of the empire, sultan Mehmed VI dispatched Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk), a well-respected and high-ranking general, to Anatolia to restore order; however, Mustafa Kemal became an enabler and eventually leader of Turkish Nationalist resistance against the Ottoman government, Allied powers, and separatists.

 

In an attempt to establish control over the power vacuum in Anatolia, the Allies agreed to launch a Greek peacekeeping force into Anatolia and occupy Smyrna (İzmir), inflaming sectarian tensions and beginning the Turkish War of Independence. A nationalist counter government led by Mustafa Kemal was established in Ankara when it became clear the Ottoman government was appeasing the Allied powers. The Allies soon pressured the Ottoman government in Constantinople to suspend the Constitution, shutter Parliament, and sign the Treaty of Sèvres, a treaty unfavorable to Turkish interests that the "Ankara government" declared illegal.

 

In the ensuing war, Turkish and Syrian forces defeated the French in the south, and remobilized army units went on to partition Armenia with the Bolsheviks, resulting in the Treaty of Kars (October 1921). The Western Front of the independence war is known as the Greco-Turkish War, in which Greek forces at first encountered unorganized resistance. However, İsmet Pasha (İnönü)'s organization of militia into a regular army paid off when Ankara forces fought the Greeks in the First and Second Battle of İnönü. The Greek army emerged victorious in the Battle of Kütahya-Eskişehir and decided to drive on the Nationalist capital of Ankara, stretching their supply lines. The Turks checked their advance in the Battle of Sakarya and eventually counter-attacked in the Great Offensive, which expelled Greek forces from Anatolia in the span of three weeks. The war effectively ended with the recapture of İzmir and the Chanak Crisis, prompting the signing of another armistice in Mudanya.

 

The Grand National Assembly in Ankara was recognized as the legitimate Turkish government, which signed the Treaty of Lausanne (July 1923), a treaty more favorable to Turkey than the Sèvres Treaty. The Allies evacuated Anatolia and Eastern Thrace, the Ottoman government was overthrown and the monarchy abolished, and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (which remains Turkey's primary legislative body today) declared the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923. With the war, a population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, and the abolition of the sultanate, the Ottoman era came to an end, and with Atatürk's reforms, the Turks created the modern, secular nation-state of Turkey. On 3 March 1924, the Ottoman caliphate was also abolished.

 

The ethnic demographics of the modern Turkish Republic were significantly impacted by the earlier Armenian genocide and the deportations of Greek-speaking, Orthodox Christian Rum people. The Turkish Nationalist Movement carried out massacres and deportations to eliminate native Christian populations—a continuation of the Armenian genocide and other ethnic cleansing operations during World War I. Following these campaigns of ethnic cleansing, the historic Christian presence in Anatolia was destroyed, in large part, and the Muslim demographic had increased from 80% to 98%.

 

Following the chaotic politics of the Second Constitutional Era, the Ottoman Empire came under the control of the Committee of Union and Progress in a coup in 1913, and then further consolidated its control after the assassination of Mahmud Shevket Pasha.[citation needed] Founded as a radical revolutionary group seeking to prevent a collapse of the Ottoman Empire, by the eve of World War I it decided that the solution was to implement nationalist and centralizing policies. The CUP reacted to the losses of land and the expulsion of Muslims from the Balkan Wars by turning even more nationalistic. Part of its effort to consolidate power was to proscribe and exile opposition politicians from the Freedom and Accord Party to remote Sinop.

 

The Unionists brought the Ottoman Empire into World War I on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, during which a genocidal campaign was waged against Ottoman Christians, namely Armenians, Pontic Greeks, and Assyrians. It was based on an alleged conspiracy that the three groups would rebel on the side of the Allies, so collective punishment was applied. A similar suspicion and suppression from the Turkish nationalist government was directed towards the Arab and Kurdish populations, leading to localized rebellions. The Entente powers reacted to these developments by charging the CUP leaders, commonly known as the Three Pashas, with "Crimes against humanity" and threatened accountability. They also had imperialist ambitions on Ottoman territory, with a major correspondence over a post-war settlement in the Ottoman Empire being leaked to the press as the Sykes–Picot Agreement. With Saint Petersburg's exit from World War I and descent into civil war, driven in part from the Ottomans' closure of the Turkish straits of goods bound to Russia, a new imperative was given to the Entente powers to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war to restart the Eastern Front.

 

World War I would be the nail in the coffin of Ottomanism, a monarchist and multicultural nationalism. Mistreatment of non-Turk groups after 1913, and the general context of great socio-political upheaval that occurred in the aftermath of World War I, meant many minorities now wished to divorce their future from imperialism to form futures of their own by separating into (often republican) nation-states.

 

In the summer months of 1918, the leaders of the Central Powers realized that the Great War was lost, including the Ottomans'. Almost simultaneously the Palestinian Front and then the Macedonian Front collapsed. The sudden decision by Bulgaria to sign an armistice cut communications from Constantinople (İstanbul) to Vienna and Berlin, and opened the undefended Ottoman capital to Entente attack. With the major fronts crumbling, Unionist Grand Vizier Talât Pasha intended to sign an armistice, and resigned on 8 October 1918 so that a new government would receive less harsh armistice terms. The Armistice of Mudros was signed on 30 October 1918, ending World War I for the Ottoman Empire. Three days later, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP)—which governed the Ottoman Empire as a one-party state since 1913—held its last congress, where it was decided the party would be dissolved. Talât, Enver Pasha, Cemal Pasha, and five other high-ranking members of the CUP escaped the Ottoman Empire on a German torpedo boat later that night, plunging the country into a power vacuum.

 

The armistice was signed because the Ottoman Empire had been defeated in important fronts, but the military was intact and retreated in good order. Unlike other Central Powers, the Allies did not mandate an abdication of the imperial family as a condition for peace, nor did they request the Ottoman Army to dissolve its general staff. Though the army suffered from mass desertion throughout the war which led to banditry, there was no threat of mutiny or revolutions like in Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Russia. This is despite famine and economic collapse that was brought on by the extreme levels of mobilization, destruction from the war, disease, and mass murder since 1914.

 

Due to the Turkish nationalist policies pursued by the CUP against Ottoman Christians by 1918 the Ottoman Empire held control over a mostly homogeneous land of Muslims from Eastern Thrace to the Persian border. These included mostly Turks, as well as Kurds, Circassians, and Muhacir groups from Rumeli. Most Muslim Arabs were now outside of the Ottoman Empire and under Allied occupation, with some "imperialists" still loyal to the Ottoman Sultanate-Caliphate, and others wishing for independence or Allied protection under a League of Nations mandate. Sizable Greek and Armenian minorities remained within its borders, and most of these communities no longer wished to remain under the Empire.

 

On 30 October 1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies of World War I, bringing hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I to an end. The Ottoman Army was to demobilize, its navy and air force handed to the Allies, and occupied territory in the Caucasus and Persia to be evacuated. Critically, Article VII granted the Allies the right to occupy forts controlling the Turkish Straits and the vague right to occupy "in case of disorder" any territory if there were a threat to security. The clause relating to the occupation of the straits was meant to secure a Southern Russian intervention force, while the rest of the article was used to allow for Allied controlled peace-keeping forces. There was also a hope to follow through punishing local actors that carried out exterminatory orders from the CUP government against Armenian Ottomans. For now, the House of Osman escaped the fates of the Hohenzollerns, Habsburgs, and Romanovs to continue ruling their empire, though at the cost of its remaining sovereignty.

 

On 13 November 1918, a French brigade entered Constantinople to begin a de facto occupation of the Ottoman capital and its immediate dependencies. This was followed by a fleet consisting of British, French, Italian and Greek ships deploying soldiers on the ground the next day, totaling 50,000 troops in Constantinople. The Allied Powers stated that the occupation was temporary and its purpose was to protect the monarchy, the caliphate and the minorities. Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe—the British signatory of the Mudros Armistice—stated the Triple Entente's public position that they had no intention to dismantle the Ottoman government or place it under military occupation by "occupying Constantinople". However, dismantling the government and partitioning the Ottoman Empire among the Allied nations had been an objective of the Entente since the start of WWI.

 

A wave of seizures took place in the rest of the country in the following months. Citing Article VII, British forces demanded that Turkish troops evacuate Mosul, claiming that Christian civilians in Mosul and Zakho were killed en masse. In the Caucasus, Britain established a presence in Menshevik Georgia and the Lori and Aras valleys as peace-keepers. On 14 November, joint Franco-Greek occupation was established in the town of Uzunköprü in Eastern Thrace as well as the railway axis until the train station of Hadımköy on the outskirts of Constantinople. On 1 December, British troops based in Syria occupied Kilis, Marash, Urfa and Birecik. Beginning in December, French troops began successive seizures of the province of Adana, including the towns of Antioch, Mersin, Tarsus, Ceyhan, Adana, Osmaniye, and İslâhiye, incorporating the area into the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration North while French forces embarked by gunboats and sent troops to the Black Sea ports of Zonguldak and Karadeniz Ereğli commanding Turkey's coal mining region. These continued seizures of land prompted Ottoman commanders to refuse demobilization and prepare for the resumption of war.

 

The British similarly asked Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) to turn over the port of Alexandretta (İskenderun), which he reluctantly did, following which he was recalled to Constantinople. He made sure to distribute weapons to the population to prevent them from falling into the hands of Allied forces. Some of these weapons were smuggled to the east by members of Karakol, a successor to the CUP's Special Organization, to be used in case resistance was necessary in Anatolia. Many Ottoman officials participated in efforts to conceal from the occupying authorities details of the burgeoning independence movement spreading throughout Anatolia.

 

Other commanders began refusing orders from the Ottoman government and the Allied powers. After Mustafa Kemal Pasha returned to Constantinople, Ali Fuat Pasha (Cebesoy) brought XX Corps under his command. He marched first to Konya and then to Ankara to organise resistance groups, such as the Circassian çetes he assembled with guerilla leader Çerkes Ethem. Meanwhile, Kazım Karabekir Pasha refused to surrender his intact and powerful XV Corps in Erzurum. Evacuation from the Caucusus, puppet republics and Muslim militia groups were established in the army's wake to hamper with the consolidation of the new Armenian state. Elsewhere in the country, regional nationalist resistance organizations known as Şuras –meaning "councils", not unlike soviets in revolutionary Russia– were founded, most pledging allegiance to the Defence of National Rights movement that protested continued Allied occupation and appeasement by the Sublime Porte.

 

Following the occupation of Constantinople, Mehmed VI Vahdettin dissolved the Chamber of Deputies which was dominated by Unionists elected back in 1914, promising elections for the next year. Vahdettin just ascended to the throne only months earlier with the death of Mehmed V Reşad. He was disgusted with the policies of the CUP, and wished to be a more assertive sovereign than his diseased half brother. Greek and Armenian Ottomans declared the termination of their relationship with the Ottoman Empire through their respective patriarchates, and refused to partake in any future election. With the collapse of the CUP and its censorship regime, an outpouring of condemnation against the party came from all parts of Ottoman media.

 

A general amnesty was soon issued, allowing the exiled and imprisoned dissidents persecuted by the CUP to return to Constantinople. Vahdettin invited the pro-Palace politician Damat Ferid Pasha, leader of the reconstituted Freedom and Accord Party, to form a government, whose members quickly set out to purge the Unionists from the Ottoman government. Ferid Pasha hoped that his Anglophilia and an attitude of appeasement would induce less harsh peace terms from the Allied powers. However, his appointment was problematic for nationalists, many being members of the liquidated committee that were surely to face trial. Years of corruption, unconstitutional acts, war profiteering, and enrichment from ethnic cleansing and genocide by the Unionists soon became basis of war crimes trials and courts martial trials held in Constantinople.[citation needed] While many leading Unionists were sentenced lengthy prison sentences, many made sure to escape the country before Allied occupation or to regions that the government now had minimal control over; thus most were sentenced in absentia. The Allies encouragement of the proceedings and the use of British Malta as their holding ground made the trials unpopular. The partisan nature of the trials was not lost on observers either. The hanging of the Kaymakam of Boğazlıyan district Mehmed Kemal resulted in a demonstration against the courts martials trials.

 

With all the chaotic politics in the capital and uncertainty of the severity of the incoming peace treaty, many Ottomans looked to Washington with the hope that the application of Wilsonian principles would mean Constantinople would stay Turkish, as Muslims outnumbered Christians 2:1. The United States never declared war on the Ottoman Empire, so many imperial elite believed Washington could be a neutral arbiter that could fix the empire's problems. Halide Edip (Adıvar) and her Wilsonian Principles Society led the movement that advocated for the empire to be governed by an American League of Nations Mandate (see United States during the Turkish War of Independence). American diplomats attempted to ascertain a role they could play in the area with the Harbord and King–Crane Commissions. However, with the collapse of Woodrow Wilson's health, the United States diplomatically withdrew from the Middle East to focus on Europe, leaving the Entente powers to construct a post-Ottoman order.

 

The Entente would have arrived at Constantinople to discover an administration attempting to deal with decades of accumulated refugee crisis. The new government issued a proclamation allowing for deportees to return to their homes, but many Greeks and Armenians found their old homes occupied by desperate Rumelian and Caucasian Muslim refugees which were settled in their properties during the First World War. Ethnic conflict restarted in Anatolia; government officials responsible for resettling Christian refugees often assisted Muslim refugees in these disputes, prompting European powers to continue bringing Ottoman territory under their control. Of the 800,000 Ottoman Christian refugees, approximately over half returned to their homes by 1920. Meanwhile 1.4 million refugees from the Russian Civil War would pass through the Turkish straits and Anatolia, with 150,000 White émigrés choosing to settle in Istanbul for short or long term (see Evacuation of the Crimea). Many provinces were simply depopulated from years of fighting, conscription, and ethnic cleansing (see Ottoman casualties of World War I). The province of Yozgat lost 50% of its Muslim population from conscription, while according to the governor of Van, almost 95% of its prewar residents were dead or internally displaced.

 

Administration in much of the Anatolian and Thracian countryside would soon all but collapse by 1919. Army deserters who turned to banditry essentially controlled fiefdoms with tacit approval from bureaucrats and local elites. An amnesty issued in late 1918 saw these bandits strengthen their positions and fight amongst each other instead of returning to civilian life. Albanian and Circassian muhacirs resettled by the government in northwestern Anatolia and Kurds in southeastern Anatolia were engaged in blood feuds that intensified during the war and were hesitant to pledge allegiance to the Defence of Rights movement, and only would if officials could facilitate truces. Various Muhacir groups were suspicious of the continued Ittihadist ideology in the Defence of Rights movement, and the potential for themselves to meet fates 'like the Armenians' especially as warlords hailing from those communities assisted the deportations of the Christians even though as many commanders in the Nationalist movement also had Caucasian and Balkan Muslim ancestry.

 

With Anatolia in practical anarchy and the Ottoman army being questionably loyal in reaction to Allied land seizures, Mehmed VI established the military inspectorate system to reestablish authority over the remaining empire. Encouraged by Karabekir and Edmund Allenby, he assigned Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) as the inspector of the Ninth Army Troops Inspectorate –based in Erzurum– to restore order to Ottoman military units and to improve internal security on 30 April 1919, with his first assignment to suppress a rebellion by Greek rebels around the city of Samsun.

 

Mustafa Kemal was a well known, well respected, and well connected army commander, with much prestige coming from his status as the "Hero of Anafartalar"—for his role in the Gallipoli Campaign—and his title of "Honorary Aide-de-camp to His Majesty Sultan" gained in the last months of WWI. This choice would seem curious, as he was a nationalist and a fierce critic of the government's accommodating policy to the Entente powers. He was also an early member of the CUP. However Kemal Pasha did not associate himself with the fanatical faction of the CUP, many knew that he frequently clashed with the radicals of the Central Committee like Enver. He was therefore sidelined to the periphery of power throughout the Great War; after the CUP's dissolution he vocally aligned himself with moderates that formed the Liberal People's Party instead of the rump radical faction which formed the Renewal Party (both parties would be banned in May 1919 for being successors of the CUP). All these reasons allowed him to be the most legitimate nationalist for the sultan to placate. In this new political climate, he sought to capitalize on his war exploits to attain a better job, indeed several times he unsuccessfully lobbied for his inclusion in cabinet as War Minister. His new assignment gave him effective plenipotentiary powers over all of Anatolia which was meant to accommodate him and other nationalists to keep them loyal to the government.

 

Mustafa Kemal had earlier declined to become the leader of the Sixth Army headquartered in Nusaybin. But according to Patrick Balfour, through manipulation and the help of friends and sympathizers, he became the inspector of virtually all of the Ottoman forces in Anatolia, tasked with overseeing the disbanding process of remaining Ottoman forces. Kemal had an abundance of connections and personal friends concentrated in the post-armistice War Ministry, a powerful tool that would help him accomplish his secret goal: to lead a nationalist movement to safeguard Turkish interests against the Allied powers and a collaborative Ottoman government.

 

The day before his departure to Samsun on the remote Black Sea coast, Kemal had one last audience with Sultan Vahdettin, where he affirmed his loyalty to the sultan-caliph. It was in this meeting that they were informed of the botched occupation ceremony of Smyrna (İzmir) by the Greeks. He and his carefully selected staff left Constantinople aboard the old steamer SS Bandırma on the evening of 16 May 1919.

 

On 19 January 1919, the Paris Peace Conference was first held, at which Allied nations set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers, including the Ottoman Empire. As a special body of the Paris Conference, "The Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey", was established to pursue the secret treaties they had signed between 1915 and 1917. Italy sought control over the southern part of Anatolia under the Agreement of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne. France expected to exercise control over Hatay, Lebanon, Syria, and a portion of southeastern Anatolia based on the Sykes–Picot Agreement.

 

Greece justified their territorial claims of Ottoman land through the Megali Idea as well as international sympathy from the suffering of Ottoman Greeks in 1914 and 1917–1918. Privately, Greek prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos had British prime minister David Lloyd George's backing not least from Greece's entrance to WWI on the Allied side, but also from his charisma and charming personality. Greece's participation in the Allies' Southern Russian intervention also earned it favors in Paris. His demands included parts of Eastern Thrace, the islands of Imbros (Gökçeada), Tenedos (Bozcaada), and parts of Western Anatolia around the city of Smyrna (İzmir), all of which had large Greek populations. Venizelos also advocated a large Armenian state to check a post-war Ottoman Empire. Greece wanted to incorporate Constantinople, but Entente powers did not give permission. Damat Ferid Pasha went to Paris on behalf of the Ottoman Empire hoping to minimize territorial losses using Fourteen Points rhetoric, wishing for a return to status quo ante bellum, on the basis that every province of the Empire holds Muslim majorities. This plea was met with ridicule.

 

At the Paris Peace Conference, competing claims over Western Anatolia by Greek and Italian delegations led Greece to land the flagship of the Greek Navy at Smyrna, resulting in the Italian delegation walking out of the peace talks. On 30 April, Italy responded to the possible idea of Greek incorporation of Western Anatolia by sending a warship to Smyrna as a show of force against the Greek campaign. A large Italian force also landed in Antalya. Faced with Italian annexation of parts of Asia Minor with a significant ethnic Greek population, Venizelos secured Allied permission for Greek troops to land in Smyrna per Article VII, ostensibly as a peacekeeping force to keep stability in the region. Venizelos's rhetoric was more directed against the CUP regime than the Turks as a whole, an attitude not always shared in the Greek military: "Greece is not making war against Islam, but against the anachronistic [İttihadist] Government, and its corrupt, ignominious, and bloody administration, with a view to the expelling it from those territories where the majority of the population consists of Greeks." It was decided by the Triple Entente that Greece would control a zone around Smyrna and Ayvalık in western Asia Minor.

 

Most historians mark the Greek landing at Smyrna on 15 May 1919 as the start date of the Turkish War of Independence as well as the start of the "Kuva-yi Milliye Phase". The occupation ceremony from the outset was tense from nationalist fervor, with Ottoman Greeks greeting the soldiers with an ecstatic welcome, and Ottoman Muslims protesting the landing. A miscommunication in Greek high command led to an Evzone column marching by the municipal Turkish barracks. The nationalist journalist Hasan Tahsin fired the "first bullet"[note 4] at the Greek standard bearer at the head of the troops, turning the city into a warzone. Süleyman Fethi Bey was murdered by bayonet for refusing to shout "Zito Venizelos" (meaning "long live Venizelos"), and 300–400 unarmed Turkish soldiers and civilians and 100 Greek soldiers and civilians were killed or wounded.

 

Greek troops moved from Smyrna outwards to towns on the Karaburun peninsula; to Selçuk, situated a hundred kilometres south of the city at a key location that commands the fertile Küçük Menderes River valley; and to Menemen towards the north. Guerilla warfare commenced in the countryside, as Turks began to organize themselves into irregular guerilla groups known as Kuva-yi Milliye (national forces), which were soon joined by Ottoman soldiers, bandits, and disaffected farmers. Most Kuva-yi Milliye bands were led by rogue military commanders and members of the Special Organization. The Greek troops based in cosmopolitan Smyrna soon found themselves conducting counterinsurgency operations in a hostile, dominantly Muslim hinterland. Groups of Ottoman Greeks also formed contingents that cooperated with the Greek Army to combat Kuva-yi Milliye within the zone of control. A massacre of Turks at Menemen was followed up with a battle for the town of Aydın, which saw intense intercommunal violence and the razing of the city. What was supposed to be a peacekeeping mission of Western Anatolia instead inflamed ethnic tensions and became a counterinsurgency.

 

The reaction of Greek landing at Smyrna and continued Allied seizures of land served to destabilize Turkish civil society. Ottoman bureaucrats, military, and bourgeoisie trusted the Allies to bring peace, and thought the terms offered at Mudros were considerably more lenient than they actually were. Pushback was potent in the capital, with 23 May 1919 being largest of the Sultanahmet Square demonstrations organized by the Turkish Hearths against the Greek occupation of Smyrna, the largest act of civil disobedience in Turkish history at that point. The Ottoman government condemned the landing, but could do little about it. Ferid Pasha tried to resign, but was urged by the sultan to stay in his office.

 

Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his colleagues stepped ashore in Samsun on 19 May and set up their first quarters in the Mıntıka Palace Hotel. British troops were present in Samsun, and he initially maintained cordial contact. He had assured Damat Ferid about the army's loyalty towards the new government in Constantinople. However, behind the government's back, Kemal made the people of Samsun aware of the Greek and Italian landings, staged discreet mass meetings, made fast connections via telegraph with the army units in Anatolia, and began to form links with various Nationalist groups. He sent telegrams of protest to foreign embassies and the War Ministry about British reinforcements in the area and about British aid to Greek brigand gangs. After a week in Samsun, Kemal and his staff moved to Havza. It was there that he first showed the flag of the resistance.

 

Mustafa Kemal wrote in his memoir that he needed nationwide support to justify armed resistance against the Allied occupation. His credentials and the importance of his position were not enough to inspire everyone. While officially occupied with the disarming of the army, he met with various contacts in order to build his movement's momentum. He met with Rauf Pasha, Karabekir Pasha, Ali Fuat Pasha, and Refet Pasha and issued the Amasya Circular (22 June 1919). Ottoman provincial authorities were notified via telegraph that the unity and independence of the nation was at risk, and that the government in Constantinople was compromised. To remedy this, a congress was to take place in Erzurum between delegates of the Six Vilayets to decide on a response, and another congress would take place in Sivas where every Vilayet should send delegates. Sympathy and an lack of coordination from the capital gave Mustafa Kemal freedom of movement and telegraph use despite his implied anti-government tone.

 

On 23 June, High Commissioner Admiral Calthorpe, realising the significance of Mustafa Kemal's discreet activities in Anatolia, sent a report about the Pasha to the Foreign Office. His remarks were downplayed by George Kidson of the Eastern Department. Captain Hurst of the British occupation force in Samsun warned Admiral Calthorpe one more time, but Hurst's units were replaced with the Brigade of Gurkhas. When the British landed in Alexandretta, Admiral Calthorpe resigned on the basis that this was against the armistice that he had signed and was assigned to another position on 5 August 1919. The movement of British units alarmed the population of the region and convinced them that Mustafa Kemal was right.

 

By early July, Mustafa Kemal Pasha received telegrams from the sultan and Calthorpe, asking him and Refet to cease his activities in Anatolia and return to the capital. Kemal was in Erzincan and did not want to return to Constantinople, concerned that the foreign authorities might have designs for him beyond the sultan's plans. Before resigning from his position, he dispatched a circular to all nationalist organizations and military commanders to not disband or surrender unless for the latter if they could be replaced by cooperative nationalist commanders. Now only a civilian stripped of his command, Mustafa Kemal was at the mercy of the new inspector of Third Army (renamed from Ninth Army) Karabekir Pasha, indeed the War Ministry ordered him to arrest Kemal, an order which Karabekir refused. The Erzurum Congress was a meeting of delegates and governors from the six Eastern Vilayets. They drafted the National Pact (Misak-ı Millî), which envisioned new borders for the Ottoman Empire by applying principles of national self-determination per Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and the abolition of the capitulations. The Erzurum Congress concluded with a circular that was effectively a declaration of independence: All regions within Ottoman borders upon the signing of the Mudros Armistice were indivisible from the Ottoman state –Greek and Armenian claims on Thrace and Anatolia were moot– and assistance from any country not coveting Ottoman territory was welcome. If the government in Constantinople was not able to attain this after electing a new parliament, they insisted a provisional government should be promulgated to defend Turkish sovereignty. The Committee of Representation was established as a provisional executive body based in Anatolia, with Mustafa Kemal Pasha as its chairman.

 

Following the congress, the Committee of Representation relocated to Sivas. As announced in the Amasya Circular, a new congress was held there in September with delegates from all Anatolian and Thracian provinces. The Sivas Congress repeated the points of the National Pact agreed to in Erzurum, and united the various regional Defence of National Rights Associations organizations, into a united political organisation: Anatolia and Rumeli Defence of Rights Association (A-RMHC), with Mustafa Kemal as its chairman. In an effort show his movement was in fact a new and unifying movement, the delegates had to swear an oath to discontinue their relations with the CUP and to never revive the party (despite most present in Sivas being previous members).[120] It was also decided there that the Ottoman Empire should not be a League of Nations mandate under the United States, especially after the U.S Senate failed to ratify American membership in the League.

 

Momentum was now on the Nationalists' side. A plot by a loyalist Ottoman governor and a British intelligence officer to arrest Kemal before the Sivas Congress led to the cutting of all ties with the Ottoman government until a new election would be held in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. In October 1919, the last Ottoman governor loyal to Constantinople fled his province. Fearing the outbreak of hostilities, all British troops stationed in the Black Sea coast and Kütahya were evacuated. Damat Ferid Pasha resigned, and the sultan replaced him with a general with nationalist credentials: Ali Rıza Pasha. On 16 October 1919, Ali Rıza and the Nationalists held negotiations in Amasya. They agreed in the Amasya Protocol that an election would be called for the Ottoman Parliament to establish national unity by upholding the resolutions made in the Sivas Congress, including the National Pact.

 

By October 1919, the Ottoman government only held de facto control over Constantinople; the rest of the Ottoman Empire was loyal to Kemal's movement to resist a partition of Anatolia and Thrace. Within a few months Mustafa Kemal went from General Inspector of the Ninth Army to a renegade military commander discharged for insubordination to leading a homegrown anti-Entente movement that overthrew a government and driven it into resistance.

 

In December 1919, an election was held for the Ottoman parliament, with polls only open in unoccupied Anatolia and Thrace. It was boycotted by Ottoman Greeks, Ottoman Armenians and the Freedom and Accord Party, resulting in groups associated with the Turkish Nationalist Movement winning, including the A-RMHC. The Nationalists' obvious links to the CUP made the election especially polarizing and voter intimidation and ballot box stuffing in favor of the Kemalists were regular occurrences in rural provinces. This controversy led to many of the nationalist MPs organizing the National Salvation Group separate from Kemal's movement, which risked the nationalist movement splitting in two.

 

Mustafa Kemal was elected an MP from Erzurum, but he expected the Allies neither to accept the Harbord report nor to respect his parliamentary immunity if he went to the Ottoman capital, hence he remained in Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal and the Committee of Representation moved from Sivas to Ankara so that he could keep in touch with as many deputies as possible as they traveled to Constantinople to attend the parliament.

 

Though Ali Rıza Pasha called the election as per the Amasya Protocol to keep unity between the "Istanbul government" and "Ankara government", he was wrong to think the election could bring him any legitimacy. The Ottoman parliament was under the de facto control of the British battalion stationed at Constantinople and any decisions by the parliament had to have the signatures of both Ali Rıza Pasha and the battalion's commanding officer. The only laws that passed were those acceptable to, or specifically ordered by the British.

 

On 12 January 1920, the last session of the Chamber of Deputies met in the capital. First the sultan's speech was presented, and then a telegram from Mustafa Kemal, manifesting the claim that the rightful government of Turkey was in Ankara in the name of the Committee of Representation. On 28 January the MPs from both sides of the isle secretly met to endorse the National Pact as a peace settlement. They added to the points passed in Sivas, calling for plebiscites to be held in West Thrace; Batum, Kars, and Ardahan, and Arab lands on whether to stay in the Empire or not. Proposals were also made to elect Kemal president of the Chamber;[clarification needed] however, this was deferred in the certain knowledge that the British would prorogue the Chamber. The Chamber of Deputies would be forcefully dissolved for passing the National Pact anyway. The National Pact solidified Nationalist interests, which were in conflict with the Allied plans.

 

From February to April, leaders of Britain, France, and Italy met in London to discuss the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and the crisis in Anatolia. The British began to sense that the elected Ottoman government was under Kemalist influence and if left unchecked, the Entente could once again find themselves at war with the Empire. The Ottoman government was not doing all that it could to suppress the Nationalists.

 

Mustafa Kemal manufactured a crisis to pressure the Istanbul government to pick a side by deploying Kuva-yi Milliye towards İzmit. The British, concerned about the security of the Bosporus Strait, demanded Ali Rıza Pasha to reassert control over the area, to which he responded with his resignation to the sultan.

 

As they were negotiating the partition of the Ottoman Empire, the Allies were growing increasingly concerned about the Turkish National Movement. To this end, the Allied occupational authorities in Istanbul began to plan a raid to arrest nationalist politicians and journalists along with occupying military and police installations and government buildings. On 16 March 1920, the coup was carried out; several Royal Navy warships were anchored in the Galata Bridge to support British forces, including the Indian Army, while they carried out the arrests and occupied several government buildings in the early hours of the morning.

 

An Indian Army operation, the Şehzadebaşı raid, resulted in 5 Ottoman soldiers from the 10th Infantry Division being killed when troops raided their barracks. Among those arrested were the senior leadership of the Turkish National Movement and former members of the CUP. 150 arrested Turkish politicians accused of war crimes were interned in Malta and became known as the Malta exiles.

 

Mustafa Kemal was ready for this move. He warned all the Nationalist organisations that there would be misleading declarations from the capital. He warned that the only way to counter Allied movements was to organise protests. He declared "Today the Turkish nation is called to defend its capacity for civilization, its right to life and independence – its entire future".

 

On 18 March, the Chamber of Deputies declared that it was unacceptable to arrest five of its members, and dissolved itself. Mehmed VI confirmed this and declared the end of Constitutional Monarchy and a return to absolutism. University students were forbidden from joining political associations inside and outside the classroom. With the lower elected Chamber of Deputies shuttered, the Constitution terminated, and the capital occupied; Sultan Vahdettin, his cabinet, and the appointed Senate were all that remained of the Ottoman government, and were basically a puppet regime of the Allied powers. Grand Vizier Salih Hulusi Pasha declared Mustafa Kemal's struggle legitimate, and resigned after less than a month in office. In his place, Damat Ferid Pasha returned to the premiership. The Sublime Porte's decapitation by the Entente allowed Mustafa Kemal to consolidate his position as the sole leader of Turkish resistance against the Allies, and to that end made him the legitimate representative of the Turkish people.

 

The strong measures taken against the Nationalists by the Allies in March 1920 began a distinct new phase of the conflict. Mustafa Kemal sent a note to the governors and force commanders, asking them to conduct elections to provide delegates for a new parliament to represent the Ottoman (Turkish) people, which would convene in Ankara. With the proclamation of the counter-government, Kemal would then ask the sultan to accept its authority. Mustafa Kemal appealed to the Islamic world, asking for help to make sure that everyone knew he was still fighting in the name of the sultan who was also the caliph. He stated he wanted to free the caliph from the Allies. He found an ally in the Khilafat movement of British India, where Indians protested Britain's planned dismemberment of Turkey. A committee was also started for sending funds to help the soon to be proclaimed Ankara government of Mustafa Kemal. A flood of supporters moved to Ankara just ahead of the Allied dragnets. Included among them were Halide Edip and Abdülhak Adnan (Adıvar), Mustafa İsmet Pasha (İnönü), Mustafa Fevzi Pasha (Çakmak), many of Kemal's allies in the Ministry of War, and Celalettin Arif, the president of the now shuttered Chamber of Deputies. Celaleddin Arif's desertion of the capital was of great significance, as he declared that the Ottoman Parliament had been dissolved illegally.

 

Some 100 members of the Chamber of Deputies were able to escape the Allied roundup and joined 190 deputies elected. In March 1920, Turkish revolutionaries announced the establishment of a new parliament in Ankara known as the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNA) that was dominated by the A-RMHC.[citation needed] The parliament included Turks, Circassians, Kurds, and one Jew. They met in a building that used to serve as the provincial headquarters of the local CUP chapter. The inclusion of "Turkey" in its name reflected a increasing trend of new ways Ottoman citizens thought of their country, and was the first time it was formally used as the name of the country. On 23 April, the assembly, assuming full governmental powers, gathered for the first time, electing Mustafa Kemal its first Speaker and Prime Minister.

 

Hoping to undermine the Nationalist Movement, Mehmed VI issued a fatwa to qualify the Turkish revolutionaries as infidels, calling for the death of its leaders. The fatwa stated that true believers should not go along with the Nationalist Movement as they committed apostasy. The mufti of Ankara Rifat Börekçi issued a simultaneous fatwa, declaring that the caliphate was under the control of the Entente and the Ferid Pasha government. In this text, the Nationalist Movement's goal was stated as freeing the sultanate and the caliphate from its enemies. In reaction to the desertion of several prominent figures to the Nationalist Movement, Ferid Pasha ordered Halide Edip, Ali Fuat and Mustafa Kemal to be sentenced to death in absentia for treason.

 

On 28 April the sultan raised 4,000 soldiers known as the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye (Caliphate Army) to combat the Nationalists. Then using money from the Allies, another force about 2,000 strong from non-Muslim inhabitants were initially deployed in İznik. The sultan's government sent the forces under the name of the Caliphate Army to the revolutionaries to arouse counterrevolutionary sympathy. The British, being skeptical of how formidable these insurgents were, decided to use irregular power to counteract the revolutionaries. The Nationalist forces were distributed all around Turkey, so many smaller units were dispatched to face them. In İzmit there were two battalions of the British army. These units were to be used to rout the partisans under the command of Ali Fuat and Refet Pasha.

 

Anatolia had many competing forces on its soil: British troops, Nationalist militia (Kuva-yi Milliye), the sultan's army (Kuva-yi İnzibatiye), and Anzavur's bands. On 13 April 1920, an uprising supported by Anzavur against the GNA occurred at Düzce as a direct consequence of the fatwa. Within days the rebellion spread to Bolu and Gerede. The movement engulfed northwestern Anatolia for about a month. On 14 June, Nationalist militia fought a pitched battle near İzmit against the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye, Anzavur's bands, and British units. Yet under heavy attack some of the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye deserted and joined the Nationalist militia. Anzavur was not so lucky, as the Nationalists tasked Ethem the Circassian with crushing Anzavur's revolt. This revealed the sultan did not have the unwavering support of his own men and allies. Meanwhile, the rest of these forces withdrew behind the British lines which held their position. For now, Istanbul was out of Ankara's grasp.

 

The clash outside İzmit brought serious consequences. British forces conducted combat operations on the Nationalists and the Royal Air Force carried out aerial bombardments against the positions, which forced Nationalist forces to temporarily retreat to more secure missions. The British commander in Turkey, General George Milne—, asked for reinforcements. This led to a study to determine what would be required to defeat the Turkish Nationalists. The report, signed by French Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch, concluded that 27 divisions were necessary, but the British army did not have 27 divisions to spare. Also, a deployment of this size could have disastrous political consequences back home. World War I had just ended, and the British public would not support another lengthy and costly expedition.

 

The British accepted the fact that a nationalist movement could not be defeated without deployment of consistent and well-trained forces. On 25 June, the forces originating from Kuva-i İnzibatiye were dismantled under British supervision. The British realised that the best option to overcome these Turkish Nationalists was to use a force that was battle-tested and fierce enough to fight the Turks on their own soil. The British had to look no further than Turkey's neighbor already occupying its territory: Greece.

 

Eleftherios Venizelos, pessimistic of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Anatolia, requested to the Allies that a peace treaty be drawn up with the hope that fighting would stop. The subsequent treaty of Sèvres in August 1920 confirmed the Arab provinces of the empire would be reorganized into new nations given to Britain and France in the form of Mandates by the League of Nations, while the rest of the Empire would be partitioned between Greece, Italy, France (via Syrian mandate), Britain (via Iraqi mandate), Armenia (potentially under an American mandate), and Georgia. Smyrna would hold a plebiscite on whether to stay with Greece or Turkey, and the Kurdistan region would hold one on the question of independence. British, French, and Italian spheres of influence would also extend into Anatolia beyond the land concessions. The old capital of Constantinople as well as the Dardanelles would be under international League of Nations control.

 

However, the treaty could never come into effect. The treaty was extremely unpopular, with protests against the final document held even before its release in Sultanahmet square. Though Mehmed VI and Ferid Pasha loathed the treaty, they did not want Istanbul to join Ankara in nationalist struggle. The Ottoman government and Greece never ratified it. Though Ferid Pasha signed the treaty, the Ottoman Senate, the upper house with seats appointed by the sultan, refused to ratify the treaty. Greece disagreed on the borders drawn. The other allies began to fracture their support of the settlement immediately. Italy started openly supporting the Nationalists with arms by the end of 1920, and the French signed another separate peace treaty with Ankara only months later.

 

Kemal's GNA Government responded to the Treaty of Sèvres by promulgating a new constitution in January 1921. The resulting constitution consecrated the principle of popular sovereignty; authority not deriving from the unelected sultan, but from the Turkish people who elect governments representative of their interests. This document became the legal basis for the war of independence by the GNA, as the sultan's signature of the Treaty of Sèvres would be unconstitutional as his position was not elected. While the constitution did not specify a future role of the sultan, the document gave Kemal ever more legitimacy in the eyes of Turks for justified resistance against Istanbul.

 

In contrast to the Eastern and Western fronts, it was mostly unorganized Kuva-yi Milliye which were fighting in the Southern Front against France. They had help from the Syrians, who were fighting their own war with the French.

 

The British troops which occupied coastal Syria by the end of World War I were replaced by French troops over 1919, with the Syrian interior going to Faisal bin Al-Hussein's self-proclaimed Arab Kingdom of Syria. France which wanted to take control of all of Syria and Cilicia. There was also a desire facilitate the return of Armenian refugees in the region to their homes, and the occupation force consisted of the French Armenian Legion as well as various Armenian militia groups. 150,000 Armenians were repatriated to their homes within months of French occupation. On 21 January 1920, a Turkish Nationalist uprising and siege occurred against the French garrison in Marash. The French position untenable they retreated to Islahiye, resulting in a massacre of many Armenians by Turkish militia. A grueling siege followed in Antep which featured intense sectarian violence between Turks and Armenians. After a failed uprising by the Nationalists in Adana, by 1921, the French and Turks signed an armistice and eventually a treaty was brokered demarcating the border between the Ankara government and French controlled Syria. In the end, there was a mass exodus of Cilician Armenians to French controlled Syria, Previous Armenian survivors of deportation found themselves again as refugees and families which avoided the worst of the six years violence were forced from their homes, ending thousands of years of Christian presence in Southern Anatolia.[146] With France being the first Allied power to recognize and negotiate with the Ankara government only months after signing the Treaty of Sèvres, it was the first to break from the coordinated Allied approach to the Eastern question. In 1923 the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon under French authority would be proclaimed in former Ottoman territory.

 

Some efforts to coordinate between Turkish Nationalists and the Syrian rebels persisted from 1920 to 1921, with the Nationalists supporting the Faisal's kingdom through Ibrahim Hanunu and Alawite groups which were also fighting the French. While the French conquered Syria, Cilicia had to be abandoned.

 

Kuva-yi Milliye also engaged with British forces in the "Al-Jazira Front," primarily in Mosul. Ali İhsan Pasha (Sabis) and his forces defending Mosul would surrender to the British in October 1918, but the British ignored the armistice and seized the city, following which the pasha also ignored the armistice and distributed weapons to the locals. Even before Mustafa Kemal's movement was fully organized, rogue commanders found allies in Kurdish tribes. The Kurds detested the taxes and centralization the British demanded, including Shaykh Mahmud of the Barzani family. Having previously supported the British invasion of Mesopotamia to become the governor of South Kurdistan, Mahmud revolted but was apprehended by 1919. Without legitimacy to govern the region, he was released from captivity to Sulaymaniyah, where he again declared an uprising against the British as the King of Kurdistan. Though an alliance existed with the Turks, little material support came to him from Ankara, and by 1923 there was a desire to cease hostilities between the Turks and British at Barzanji's expense. Mahmud was overthrown in 1924, and after a 1926 plebiscite, Mosul was awarded to British-controlled Iraq.

 

Since 1917, the Caucasus was in a chaotic state. The border of newly independent Armenia and the Ottoman Empire was defined in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918) after the Bolshevik revolution, and later by the Treaty of Batum (4 June 1918). To the east, Armenia was at war with the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic after the breakup of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, and received support from Anton Denikin's White Russian Army. It was obvious that after the Armistice of Mudros (30 October 1918) the eastern border was not going to stay as it was drawn, which mandated the evacuation of the Ottoman army back to its 1914 borders. Right after the Armistice of Mudros was signed, pro-Ottoman provisional republics were proclaimed in Kars and Aras which were subsequently invaded by Armenia. Ottoman soldiers were convinced not to demobilize lest the area become a 'second Macedonia'.[149] Both sides of the new borders had massive refugee populations and famine, which were compounded by the renewed and more symmetric sectarian violence (See Massacres of Azerbaijanis in Armenia (1917–1921) and Muslim uprisings in Kars and Sharur–Nakhichevan). There were talks going on with the Armenian Diaspora and Allied Powers on reshaping the border. Woodrow Wilson agreed to transfer territories to Armenia based on the principles of national self-determination. The results of these talks were to be reflected on the Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920).

 

Kâzım Karabekir Pasha, commander of the XV corps, encountered Muslim refugees fleeing from the Armenian army, but did not have the authority to cross the border. Karabekir's two reports (30 May and 4 June 1920) outlined the situation in the region. He recommended redrawing the eastern borders, especially around Erzurum. The Russian government was receptive to this and demanded that Van and Bitlis be transferred to Armenia. This was unacceptable to the Turkish revolutionaries. However, Soviet support was absolutely vital for the Turkish Nationalist movement, as Turkey was underdeveloped and had no domestic armaments industry. Bakir Sami (Kunduh) was assigned to negotiate with the Bolsheviks.

 

On 24 September 1920, Karabekir's XV corps and Kurdish militia advance on Kars, blowing through Armenian opposition, and then Alexandropol. With an advance on Yerevan imminent, on 28 November 1920, the 11th Red Army under the command of Anatoliy Gekker crossed over into Armenia from Soviet Azerbaijan, and the Armenian government surrendered to Bolshevik forces, ending the conflict.

 

The Treaty of Alexandropol (2—3 December 1920) was the first treaty (although illegitimate) signed by the Turkish revolutionaries. The 10th article in the Treaty of Alexandropol stated that Armenia renounced the Treaty of Sèvres and its allotted partition of Anatolia. The agreement was signed with representatives of the former government of Armenia, which by that time had no de jure or de facto power in Armenia, since Soviet rule was already established in the country. On 16 March 1921, the Bolsheviks and Turkey signed a more comprehensive agreement, the Treaty of Kars, which involved representatives of Soviet Armenia, Soviet Azerbaijan, and Soviet Georgia.

 

Throughout most of his life, Atatürk was a moderate-to-heavy drinker, often consuming half a litre of rakı a day; he also smoked tobacco, predominantly in the form of cigarettes. During 1937, indications that Atatürk's health was worsening started to appear. In early 1938, while on a trip to Yalova, he suffered from a serious illness. He went to Istanbul for treatment, where he was diagnosed with cirrhosis. During his stay in Istanbul, he made an effort to keep up with his regular lifestyle, but eventually succumbed to his illness. He died on 10 November 1938, at the age of 57, in the Dolmabahçe Palace.

 

Atatürk's funeral called forth both sorrow and pride in Turkey, and 17 countries sent special representatives, while nine contributed armed detachments to the cortège. Atatürk's remains were originally laid to rest in the Ethnography Museum of Ankara, but they were transferred on 10 November 1953 (15 years after his death) in a 42-ton sarcophagus to a mausoleum overlooking Ankara, Anıtkabir.

 

In his will, Atatürk donated all of his possessions to the Republican People's Party, provided that the yearly interest of his funds would be used to look after his sister Makbule and his adopted children, and fund the higher education of İsmet İnönü's children. The remainder was willed to the Turkish Language Association and the Turkish Historical Society.

It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?

  

It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?

  

The Report

China is a likely winner of the information age supply chain through ecommerce by sticking with its successful strategy of continued steady growth, coupled with continuing (the appearance of) a transparent society (where currently major decisions are made by top government and business officials behind closed doors) which manipulate and manage economies at large. In order to be considered a great global leader China should maintain peace and respect for corporate property rights. They need to immediately focus on their serious environment pollution problems to survive.

 

Caption: "The sign that says you're welcome in Shanghai" - Johnny Vulkan www.flickr.com/photos/johnnyvulkan/1856903750/

 

The evidence is clear: China has McDonalds restaurants, and with extensive factories they make Dell and other computers. Bill Gates is eagerly pursuing business with China, and the Chinese government has given Microsoft the right to grant post-doctorial fellowships. Key companies invested in technology are willing to go to court to keep the most important Chinese corporate leaders.

 

Kai-Fu Lee, once a vice-president at Microsoft is now Google's manager in China. Mr. Lee was the person at the center of twin lawsuits (suit and countersuit), a battle over which of the two companies would win him to work for them - he may be the ultimate in 'intellectual property.'

 

Caption ”On the Shanghai subway, rather than advertising computers for sale, Dell promotes job openings.” Danburg Murmur www.flickr.com/photos/danburgmurmur/247299162/

 

What is at issue are personably identifiable information (PII) and intellectual property rights (patents and copyrights) which are legislated and widely respected in the West.

 

Personal information is the feeder fish at the bottom of the information age food chain. China does not believe people have a right to privacy because of how communism is structured; this is true of members of their society until that person is wealthy and thus powerful enough to opt out of it, and even then the appearance of opting in must be kept.

 

Even in the West Intellectual property rights are eroding, which is as it should be, as it is not the same as owning a house, and can be damaging to others on a massive scale such as medical patents for aids, cancer, and other life saving drugs.

 

The Chinese style of governance comes with a 5 thousand year old administrative history of ordering a society consisting of large numbers of people. Because most people in American and the West do not speak their language nor write it, much of China remains a society closed to the English speaking countries. Due to communication barriers the West does not have the very healthy level of respect for China that it should.

 

Even the Chinese written language may give China advantages with online screens unknown in the West with their thousands of dense glifts, pictographs, and phonetic parts. Currently it is estimated more than 1 billion people use some form of Chinese as their native language.

 

It can be said that he who owns the resources wins; especially true when supply chains are consistent and reliable. This applies to personally identifiable information in the information age as it relates to sales, because personal information is a building block in the information supply chain. Creating mass marketing campaigns targeting not just individuals but large groups of people is based on creating desire, an example is Steve Jobs and the Apple iPod. This is in addition to knowing what people want, not just what they need.

 

Meeting the needs of all people in the world is still a goal some people are working towards, while many more others try to capture wealth only for themselves and their investors. From the point of view that in the long run we’re all dead, many investors do not view themselves as breaking any moral or other rules, just trying to get ahead, or make a profit on their investment, which they want right now. This uninformed short sighted view is killing people, and eroding the middle class of nations. Any country that has a middle class will miss it when it is gone; most countries are trying to build their middle class.

 

Business to Business (B2B) resource supply chains control wealth. Only the wealthy have a reason to protect privacy of information, because the poor and the very poor have much more immediate concerns. Hopefully the Chinese will learn as other countries like Malaysia did, that including diverse ethnic types is not just a ethical ideal, it is a strategy for long term success.

 

This lesson continues to be a painful and costly lesson to the US, which in many ways is exclusionary. Viewing the poor as beggars while subsidizing production with huge remedies is one of the inadequacies that may be overturned as international growth is managed at a global level because it can not be justified as anything other than corrupt practices. By all accounts I read, generosity in international relationships is mythical and with the digital age has only grown worse . Does it matter what you wear while you ask for money or how well educated you are? Apparently it does.

 

One size fits all privacy will never suit everyone because it has a biological basis and the need increases with education, and its cousin, wealth. Increasingly to have the opt out choice in terms of privacy you need wealth. That too will change subtly because as ecommerce becomes pervasive, some system or sets of systems will always know that someone is there in some detectable way.

 

The patent and copyright systems can be damaging to others on a global scale by shutting down creativity, and unfairly favoring their protection even against life, due to medical patents for aids, cancer, and other life saving drugs being so expensive to produce or purchase that people are allowed to die as a result. Calls to action for multinational drug companies to reduce these costs, have changed little or nothing in the developing world. This has been featured so well in the headlines and news stories lately that it can hardly be a surprise to anyone that it is a problem – youth know because Digital Rights Management (DRM) is dead.

 

Ecommerce is a tool and can be used in many ways. Trading is already a cold transaction and to remove it from human context makes it even more so. In accounting they discuss "arms length transactions" - with ecommerce those arms get pretty long.

 

So we can expect that the human repercussions of global ecommerce, driven by the integration of B2B procurement systems, could stabilize and destabilize entire populations unless the planning is very good. That means everyone must hold the keys in some way, and be open to transparency at some level which runs counter to special interest groups . Transparency in action does exactly what it need to do, but which, for example, is not a match for existing culture in China.

 

Real transparency in global governance with a goal to meet the basic needs of all people living sounds like a science fiction plot, but that is what makes it exciting. Transparent governance may only become possible due to radically unexpected causes, like education, religious idealism, or a shared social solution of the young through organizations such as www.one.org.

 

Ironically one of the religions likely to have a positive effect in China, and is likely to benefit from it is Tibetan Buddhism, long repressed by the current Chinese government.

 

Ecommerce will not cause peace in the world, educated people working with strong idealism in transparent cultures will. Still my conclusion remains that China is a likely winner of the information age supply chain through ecommerce.

 

We should invest in China.

 

The rear of the submarine.

 

1950's Adventurers / Alpha Team (Mission: Deep Sea) story plot so far:

 

Twenty-seven years after the end of the roaring 1920's, and the demise of Lord Sam Sinister and his friends at the hands of Johnny Thunder & Co. plus the betrayal of Ogel by Sinister, Lord Ogel is ready to exact his revenge! (This event cost Sinister + his evil friends their lives, Ogel his hand, and submerged Ogel's highly advanced country beneath the waves of the North Atlantic in 1929 by way of a mysterious ancient super weapon, by the way.)

 

Now, in 1956, the presumed-dead Ogel is back: his cloaked underwater bases are finally ready to exact his final plan on the surface world: his skeleton drone armies and mutant sea animals are exacting heavy loses on trans-oceanic shipping, bringing down many, many tons of ships for the last six months. The surface nations are clueless, and are pointing fingers at each other as to who is responsible, escalating tension in a Cold War to the boiling point. Meanwhile, the now aged and retired Johnny Thunder is on all-expense-paid luxury cruise of the Caribbean, having just left Miami for the Bahamas. Little does he know an old enemy is waiting there to put a hole right through his plans... and the cruise ship!

 

Unbeknownst to either Lord Ogel or Johnny, a team of super-spies known as Alpha Team are also on board the cruise liner to keep tabs on Thunder, as he still carries a portion of the broken super weapon that sank Ogel's country on his person as a reminder of his guilt. Alpha Team want to procure the shard for the US Government to research it for a potential power source, but the sinking of the cruise ship by Ogel by his submarine's drill prevents that. Thunder ends up in the same boat as team leader Flex, while the rest of his team end up in a separate life boat. Ogel pulls the two into his sub, taking the shard from Thunder after a brief struggle. Ogel reveals his master plan on the way to his sunken capital base.

 

Lord Ogel plans on causing WWIII between the superpowers by sinking enough ships to destabilize the countries enough that a large explosion (caused by the ancient staff on a coastal city or port on an allied city of either side) could result in a nuclear war. Then, Ogel will use his skeleton drones to rise from the seas to take over what's left of the surface world using the military weapons and supplies plucked from the ships they sank earlier.

 

It is at this point that the sub docks with the submerged base and Ogel beckons the two (now handcuffed) figures out of the ship and into the base proper, where a platoon of skeleton drones take the two deeper into the bowels of the base and far from Ogel....

Daniel Benjamin

Coordinator, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism

David Cohen, Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence

  

MR. SULLIVAN: Hello, everyone. This is John Sullivan. I’m the spokesman over at the Treasury Department. Today we’re going to discuss the designation of Hezbollah for their support to the Assad regime in Syria. On the line today I have Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen from the Treasury Department as well as Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, the Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the Department of State.

 

This call will be on the record and there is no embargo for the information on this call. With that, I will turn it over to Under Secretary Cohen to begin, then we’ll move to Ambassador Benjamin, and then we will open it up for a question-and-answer session.

 

UNDER SECRETARY COHEN: Thanks, John. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us on the call today. Today the Treasury Department designated the terrorist group Hezbollah for providing support to the Government of Syria. This action highlights Hezbollah’s activities within Syria as well as its integral role in the continued violence being carried out by the Assad regime against the Syrian population.

 

While today’s actions are focused on Hezbollah’s continuing support of the Syrian regime, it is certainly not the first time that Treasury or the United States has publicly exposed the violent acts of this terrorist organization. Hezbollah has been designated as a Global Terrorist by the United States since 1995 for a long history of terrorist attacks against American citizens and officials, including the bombing of the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon during the 1980s.

 

Before al-Qaida’s attack on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, Hezbollah was responsible for killing more Americans in terrorist attacks than any other terrorist group. Hezbollah started out carrying out bombings and kidnappings in Lebanon but quickly expanded its violent campaign on to a global stage, carrying out and supporting terrorist attacks in South America, Southeast Asia, Europe, and various countries in the Middle East. More recently we have seen the group’s plotting disrupted in Azerbaijan, Egypt, Thailand, and Cyprus.

 

Hezbollah and its leader Hassan Nasrallah have for years painted their organization as a social and political party as well as a resistance movement; however, their activities and statements clearly paint a different picture. Hezbollah has consistently used terrorist operations to attack civilians. Hezbollah’s members have engaged in criminal behavior, including profiting from the narcotics money-laundering scheme of the Lebanese Canadian Bank, which we exposed last year.

 

And now Hezbollah is actively providing support to the Assad regime as it carries out its bloody campaign against the Syrian people. As the wave of revolt has spread across the Middle East, Hezbollah leadership has publicly supported some protests where it suited their needs, and in other cases, such as in Syria, it has actively supported the violent crackdown being carried out by the Syrian dictatorship.

 

For years the Assad regime provided safe haven to Hezbollah training camps and routed weapons and money, in many cases, from Iran to Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon. Hezbollah is now repaying its debt to Assad by providing training, advice, and extensive logistical support to the Government of Syria.

 

Since the start of the unrest in Syria in early 2011, Hezbollah has directly trained Syrian Government personnel inside Syria and has facilitated the training of Syrian forces by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Qods Force. Hezbollah has also played a substantial role in efforts to expel Syrian opposition forces from areas within Syria.

 

We have previously taken a number of actions that have exposed Iran’s involvement in the Assad regime’s violent crackdown on the Syrian people, including by designating the IRGC Qods Force and its commander, Ghasem Soleimani, as well as Iran’s law enforcement forces and its Ministry of Intelligence and Security.

 

As the Assad regime continues to crack under international pressure and the continued success of the Syrian opposition, the Treasury Department and the entire U.S. Government will continue to work to expose the activities of Hezbollah and Iran and whoever else is responsible for assisting the Syrian regime in its campaign of violence against the Syrian population.

 

With that, I’ll turn it over to my colleague, Ambassador Daniel Benjamin from the State Department.

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Thank you very much, David. Let me just pick up where David left off and talk a bit more about Hezbollah today. We are increasingly concerned about Hezbollah’s activities on a number of fronts, including their stepped-up terrorist campaign around the world, their members and supporters’ growing involvement in large-scale international criminal activity, and their critical and ongoing support for the Assad regime.

 

At a time when the international community is rallying in opposition to the Assad regime, Hezbollah remains one of the embattled regime’s few close partners. As this designation highlights, and as David Cohen has outlined, Hezbollah and their Iranian allies have been providing a range of critical support for the Assad regime, including training, advice, and logistical assistance as the regime continues its brutal crackdown against the Syrian people.

 

These continuing close ties in this time of crisis reflect the longstanding and deep relationship between Hezbollah and Syria. Hezbollah’s actions in Syria underscore its fears of a Syria without the Assad regime and the impact that this would have on the group’s capabilities and its strength over the long term.

 

As the designation notes, Hezbollah’s support has been coordinated with Iran’s IRGC Qods force. This is no surprise, given the close partnership between Hezbollah and Tehran, a relationship that was developed over several decades. Hezbollah and the Iranian leadership share a worldview and a strategic vision, and are seeking to exploit the current unrest in the region to their advantage. This approach has at times increased sectarian tensions and conflict throughout the region and it has served as a further destabilizing force in this time of great change.

 

Hezbollah’s activities in recent months have hardly been limited to Syria, however. And like Iran, Hezbollah has also engaged in a stepped-up terrorist campaign around the world. Earlier this year, Hezbollah was preparing to attack what we believe were Israeli tourists in Thailand, according to press reports. We assess that Hezbollah remains interested in attacks in Thailand, as it has a history of returning to locations where its previously attempted operations failed or were thwarted. The Hezbollah operative detained in Thailand, who was carrying a Swedish passport when arrested by Thai officials, reportedly provided officials the address of a warehouse located outside the city where Thai police seized several thousand kilograms of explosives and bomb-making material.

 

Hezbollah may also have been plotting attacks in other European countries. In January 2012, Bulgarian security services investigated an alleged Hezbollah plot to attack Israeli or Jewish interests in Bulgaria, according to press reports. Press reports on the arrest of a Hezbollah member in Cyprus in July 2012 suggest the group was preparing other attacks in Southern Europe. In Bulgaria, as you all know, a bus carrying Israeli tourists was attacked, killing five Israelis and the Bulgarian bus driver. And we are working to assess the facts and with our partners to discover who was responsible. And although the investigation continues, and we are not in a position to make a statement about responsibility, the attack does resemble Hezbollah’s plotting earlier this year.

 

Hezbollah maintains a presence in Europe, and its recent activities demonstrate that it is not constrained by concerns about collateral damage or political fallout that could result from conducting operations there. Our assessment is that Hezbollah and Iran will both continue to maintain a heightened level of terrorist activity in operations in the near future, and we assess that Hezbollah could attack in Europe or elsewhere at any time with little or no warning.

 

Hezbollah believes that there have been sustained Israeli and Western campaigns against the group and its primary backers, Iran and Syria, over the past several years. And this perception is likely – is unlikely to change, excuse me. Both remain determined to exact revenge against Israel and to respond forcefully to the Western-led pressure against Iran and Syria. This suggests that more acts of terrorism by both Hezbollah and Iran are likely, and that they will continue to pose a serious threat for the foreseeable future.

 

Hezbollah members and supporters have also been increasingly involved in criminal activity. The USG has uncovered a massive Hezbollah-related scheme to launder the proceeds of narcotic trafficking and other crimes through Lebanese financial institutions, as Under Secretary Cohen mentioned. And on December 15th of last year, the U.S. attorney filed a civil complaint seeking the forfeiture of over $480 million from several entities, including the Lebanese-Canadian bank, for their role in facilitating this scheme.

 

Let me just conclude by saying that we have been regularly speaking to our partners about Hezbollah in recent months, outlining for them the range of illicit and destabilizing activities that the group is involved in and encouraging them to take a broad series of steps to counter this threat.

 

Hezbollah’s actions in Syria which we are highlighting today are particularly egregious, extending and prolonging this deadly conflict and bringing further instability to this fragile part of the world. And we would urge other governments to follow the U.S. designation here today with similar action of their own, sending a strong message to Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran that the international community condemns their unacceptable behavior.

 

I should note that there will be another Administration action – I believe it’s already on the State Department website – later today, but we’re going to focus here on the Hezbollah designation, and I encourage you to contact State Public Affairs about that one.

 

And with that, why don’t we turn it over for question-and-answer?

 

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, just to echo what Ambassador Benjamin just said, we’ll open it up for questions right now. The operator will give you instructions on how to do that. But please, again, this press call is about the designation of Hezbollah today for providing support to the Assad regime in Syria. Please limit your questions to that.

 

OPERATOR: If you would like to ask a question, please press *1. Be sure to un-mute your phone and record your name clearly when prompted. To withdraw your request, you may press *2. Once again, to ask a question, you may press *1 on your touchtone phone.

 

Our first question comes from Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy.

 

QUESTION: Thank you, gentlemen, for doing the call, and thank you for your service. I’d like to ask you: Since Hezbollah was already designated, and now we’re designating them for an additional reason, does that bring any additional punitive consequences to the group? Does it actually increase the pressure on them in any practical ways? If so, what are those ways?

 

And Ambassador Benjamin, you mentioned that you’re hoping other countries will follow suit. Do you have any indication that any of these countries, especially the EU, will follow suit and designate Hezbollah? Do we have any reason to believe that’s going to happen? Thank you.

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Hi, Josh. I’ll take that one. It’s Dan Benjamin again. It’s always hard to predict if there’s going to be any near-term enforcement action on our own part, but I think that we have a responsibility – there’s been a lot of discussion about Hezbollah involvement in Syria. Here we have the U.S. Government going on the record and describing it, and I think that that is very important in its own right.

 

Additionally, we feel that there needs to be a broader discussion in the international community about the activities of this group. It has portrayed itself, as David Cohen said, as a political party, as a resistance group, so on and so forth. It certainly doesn’t look to us like it’s sympathizing with the people of Syria. We have many partners in the international community who share the revulsion about what is going on in Syria. We believe that if they are presented with this information – and we will, of course, be following up diplomatically – that they may want to take additional measures.

 

And over the long term, that will limit the amount of space that Hezbollah has to operate. It will put the group in a more difficult situation, and, I think, will make them think long and hard before they continue this campaign in which the Syrian people are being brutalized. So we do see very concrete benefits coming from this designation. Whether they will be in the area of financial sanctions or not remains to be seen, but in terms of casting a bright light on what the group is doing, I think that’s vitally important.

 

QUESTION: Okay. So there’s no actual additional punitive measures?

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: So, well – David.

 

UNDER SECRETARY COHEN: Yeah. Josh, as I think you know, when we designate under any of our IEEPA authorities, including the executive order that we’re acting under today, the legal effect is that it freezes the assets of the party being designated and prohibits any U.S. person from transacting with the designee.

 

QUESTION: But they’re already frozen, right?

 

UNDER SECRETARY COHEN: Josh, let me finish. The – Hezbollah has previously been designated. It is already a legal obligation for any U.S. person to freeze their assets and to refrain from any transactions with Hezbollah. But the purpose of our designations, whether it’s the Hezbollah action today or any of our other designations under our authorities, is not solely focused on the immediate financial impact, but as Ambassador Benjamin just expressed, to expose the activity of the party that is being designated for the conduct that has led to the designation.

 

And so the designation of Hezbollah today and the information that underlies that designation that is part of our release today serves the very, very important purpose of making clear to parties around the world – both domestically and internationally – the true nature of Hezbollah’s activities. So that is the purpose of today’s action.

 

QUESTION: Okay. Thank you.

 

OPERATOR: Our next question comes from Hisham Melhem of Al Arabiya.

 

MR. SULLIVAN: Go ahead, Hisham. Are you on the line?

 

QUESTION: Can you hear me?

 

MR. SULLIVAN: Yeah.

 

QUESTION: Okay.

 

OPERATOR: Go ahead and ask your question.

 

QUESTION: Okay. You said that Hezbollah also has played a substantial role in efforts to expel senior opposition forces from areas within Syria. Are you saying essentially that Hezbollah is in the field fighting with the Syrian Government forces against Syrian opposition forces on Syrian soil?

 

UNDER SECRETARY COHEN: I think what we’re saying is what we put forth in the paper itself, that Hezbollah is actively working to expel those forces. It is providing operational support to the Syrian Government in Syria.

 

QUESTION: Do you know whether there were Hezbollah casualties? We’ve seen from reports in Lebanon that there are suspicions that there were Hezbollah casualties fell in Syria. Can you substantiate that?

 

UNDER SECRETARY COHEN: I think we’ve seen those reports as well, but I don’t have anything to add to that.

 

QUESTION: Okay. Thanks.

 

OPERATOR: Our next question is from Emile Baroody of Al Mayadeen TV.

 

QUESTION: Yes. Thank you for doing this call. A very quick question. Is the U.S. Government considering similar sanctions on organizations or countries, encouraging also violence in Syria by providing weapons to other parties in Syria against U.S. policy on avoiding militarization of the Syrian conflict?

 

UNDER SECRETARY COHEN: Well, we do not comment, as a rule, on any future designation actions we may be contemplating. But I will say that we – the action that we’re taking today is based on an executive order that permits us to impose sanctions on the Government of Syria and those supporting the Government of Syria. The executive order has been used today with respect to Hezbollah support to the Government of Syria in its violent crackdown. We’ve used it in the past, as I noted, to impose sanctions on a variety of Iranian entities and officials who have been supporting the Syrian Government’s crackdown. And we have – we will continue to look for appropriate targets under this executive order who are supporting the Government of Syria.

 

QUESTION: Thank you very much.

 

OPERATOR: Our next question is from Eli Lake of Newsweek.

 

QUESTION: Hi. Thanks so much for doing this. So it’s really kind of three questions, but they’re quick. Can you provide any more detail on the kind of support – I know it’s sort of asked before – that Hezbollah is providing to Syria? And also, how do you avoid the problem of some European counterterrorism types say, which is that Hezbollah is so important in the Lebanese Government right now, so how do you target Hezbollah without ruining any U.S. diplomatic relations with Lebanon?

 

UNDER SECRETARY COHEN: So I’ll take the first part of that and Ambassador Benjamin can take the second part. The – and the first part of it’s pretty easy, because I really can’t give you any greater detail than what we’ve put forward in the press release and in my statement this afternoon about the activities of Hezbollah in Syria. But as we note, it is a range of activity, including logistical support, operational support, to the Syrian Government in its violent crackdown.

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Yeah. And as for the second part, our view is that the repression of the Assad regime is intolerable, that we believe that there is a very high priority in exposing the support that Hezbollah has given to that group. I think that there will be other commentators who might say that Hezbollah is in an embarrassed position in Lebanon because of this activity, and we have never shied away, I think, from telling the truth about Hezbollah and we weren’t going to now.

 

OPERATOR: Our next question is from Rick Gladstone of New York Times.

 

QUESTION: Hi, I also have two questions folded into one, which I’ll address to both of you. Thanks very much. How long have you known about what you say is Hezbollah’s logistical and operational support for the Assad regime and its repression? And why are you – why is it – why are you releasing this information now if you’ve known about it for a while? I guess my first question is how long have you known about it?

 

UNDER SECRETARY COHEN: Well, I think those are actually the same question. Look, we take action when we have sufficient evidence to support the action that we’re taking. And as we note, Hezbollah has been providing this support to the Syrian Government really from the outset of the uprising, but I think it’s fair to say that the extent and degree of Hezbollah’s support has increased over time as the Syrian Government has also increased its violence against the Syrian people over time. But we are acting today because we have the facts and the – to support the action.

 

OPERATOR: Our next question is from Rachelle Younglai at Reuters.

 

QUESTION: Hi. Do you know whether Hezbollah still has any assets under U.S. jurisdiction? And if so, can you quantify them anyway?

 

UNDER SECRETARY COHEN: I can’t comment on whether there are any Hezbollah assets under U.S. jurisdiction. As noted before, to the extent that they are here, they should have already been frozen, and anyone who has Hezbollah assets in their possession is required to report those to OFAC. But beyond that, I can’t comment.

 

OPERATOR: Our next question is from Brad Klapper of AP.

 

QUESTION: Yes, Dan, you said you hope that other countries would follow suit after looking at the information that you’ve laid out here. But you don’t really provide too much evidence; you just kind of lay out claims that we’ve heard before. The fact that they’re – you say they’re assisting or abetting or facilitating training, these aren’t new. Where is the evidence for this?

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, first of all, what goes on in the discussions between governments may very well go beyond what is provided here to the public. That’s the first thing. The second thing is that the United States is standing by these charges. This is not a matter of idle speculation or press reports. This is based on a great deal of information gathering that we have done and we’ve synthesized and we’ve put it together in an authoritative document, and we believe that it will be taken seriously by many around the world.

 

OPERATOR: Our next question is from Margaret Brennan of CBS News.

 

QUESTION: Hi. Thanks for doing this. A follow-up on that. In terms of the description “facilitated training and directly training Syrian forces,” what does that actually mean? Are you seeing camps? Are you seeing, like, a regional concentration? Are you seeing a direct delivery of folks across the border? Can you give us some idea of what you’re actually seeing in terms of active engagement by Hezbollah in Syria?

 

UNDER SECRETARY COHEN: Go ahead, Dan.

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, I was just going to say, look, we’re obviously very sensitive here to issues of sources and methods and we’re not going to divulge anything that shouldn’t be divulged.

 

I think it’s safe to say that Hezbollah is playing a critical role in advising the Syrian Government and training its personnel in how to prosecute a counter insurgency. And so at this point, we’re just not going to have any more details on that to provide. But suffice it to say that we are satisfied by our assessment that the group is playing an absolutely integral role in helping the Assad regime try to put down this popular movement for a better day in Syria. And we find it reprehensible and think it ought to be discussed and showcased in public.

 

QUESTION: That sounds interchangeable with how Iran’s role has been described to us in the past, in terms of advising on cleanup tactics, that sort of thing.

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, as we said at the outset, they share a world view and they’re both helping in critical ways, and they often coordinate their activities together as well. So I don’t think it actually should come as any surprise that we find Iran and Hezbollah doing a lot of the same things. I will say that I think that Hezbollah has an awful lot of experience in this kind of activity that surpasses what the Iranians have, and therefore the Iranians find them to be a very, very useful proxy force.

 

OPERATOR: Our next question is from Adam Entous of Wall Street Journal.

 

QUESTION: Yeah. Thank you very much. A question for both of you, maybe. Did Assad specifically ask Hezbollah to get involved? Is there any intelligence on that or whether the Iranians asked Hezbollah to jump in more so? We know that Hezbollah has had operational links with Syria for a long time, so how is actually this different from the involvement in the past? And is there any evidence to suggest that Hezbollah, in providing this assistance, is expecting anything in return? There’s been a lot of concern about Syrian WMD. I was hoping you guys could address those.

 

UNDER SECRETARY COHEN: Well, I think your question sort of highlights what the answer is going to be. We can’t, obviously, talk about intelligence that may speak to whether Assad asked for Hezbollah to come in or not. But it is – it’s certainly true that there is a longstanding relationship between the Assad regime and Hezbollah. Hezbollah has benefitted greatly from its access to Syria for training camps and the like over the years, and as well as it being an important conduit for its support from Iran.

 

So the fact that you have Hezbollah providing the type of support that it’s providing now to the Syrian Government alongside the Qods Force and the law enforcement forces from Iran and the MOIS as well is no surprise really, given the combined interests that those entities have in trying to prop up the Assad regime. But who asked whom to jump in to the fight there against the people of Syria is something that I can’t comment on directly.

 

QUESTION: As for the pursuit of maybe WMD – and maybe you can address the issue – I mean, our reporting from the region is more that Hezbollah has been sort of holding back; they have a lot more capabilities that they could be providing and they seem to not be providing that. Maybe that’s a reflection of their domestic Lebanese ambitions, that they don’t want to get too entangled in neighboring Syria. Is that what you’re seeing here? I think the surprise of many is that Hezbollah is not doing more.

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Doing more in the sense of providing WMD?

 

QUESTION: No. Sorry. Providing --

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: I’m not sure what your question --

 

QUESTION: Providing support to the Syrian Government. I mean, Hezbollah has – could do – could be much more involved than they have been.

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: I’m not sure we would necessarily agree with that assessment. They are deeply involved. And if you watch Hassan Nasrallah’s speeches of late, I don't think that they’re being coy about their support for Syria. And anything on the relationship between Hezbollah and Syria regarding WMD would be either speculative or entirely irresponsible, so I don't think we should go there.

 

OPERATOR: Our next question is from Karen DeYoung of Washington Post.

 

QUESTION: Hi. I pressed this a long time ago and wanted to ask what everybody else has asked, which is can’t you be more specific about this? Has it increased recently, or have you just gotten the specifics recently? Are people being trained in Lebanon or in Syria? Anything else you can tell us in terms of details?

 

UNDER SECRETARY COHEN: So I think as you know, we’ve been asked this question. I think we have put out as much detail as we are able to put out with respect to Hezbollah’s activity in Syria. But I would urge you to look carefully at what’s in the material that we release today. I think it answers some of the questions you have there about where this activity is occurring and what the nature of the activity is.

 

QUESTION: Okay.

 

MR. SULLIVAN: We have time for one more question.

 

OPERATOR: Thank you. Our final question comes from Claudia Rosett of Forbes.com.

 

QUESTION: Thank you so much for this. I have two quick questions. One is: Who is underwriting the stepped up training that you’re describing. I mean, on the nitty-gritty level, who is paying for the coffee breaks and the lodging, et cetera? Is that Syria? Iran? Something else? And second, you mentioned that your assessment is Hezbollah could strike at any time in Europe or elsewhere. Does elsewhere include the continental United States? Thank you.

 

UNDER SECRETARY COHEN: Why don’t I take the first and Ambassador Benjamin can take the second. Hezbollah has, for years, been supported financially to a lavish extent by the Iranians, and I think our assessment is the Iranians continue to provide substantial financial support to Hezbollah. That being said, I think it’s also the case that Hezbollah supplements its income through other activities including, as I noted, involvement in your garden variety criminal activity, including narcotics trafficking. And we, in the action we took about a year and a half ago now against the Lebanese Canadian Bank, noted the linkage between Hezbollah and the activity – the money-laundering activity that was central to that action.

 

So Hezbollah receives funding, and as I noted, from Iran to a very great extent but also is an organization that has demonstrated a willingness to engage in criminal activity to add to its coffers.

 

QUESTION: In other words, this is not coming out of Asma al-Assad’s pocket-money. This is being bankrolled by the Iranians, by Hezbollah itself. This is a gift to the regime of Assad.

 

UNDER SECRETARY COHEN: So I don’t – I can’t comment, like, specifically on the – this camp or that camp that Hezbollah has in Syria today on precisely where the money is coming from for those activities. But broadly speaking, Hezbollah’s financial support comes from Iran and from their own criminal activity.

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: And if I can just quickly answer the question about the geographical areas of Hezbollah operational activity, we have not detected any operational activity of the group in the United States. It’s certainly been the subject of law enforcement actions in the past for primarily fundraising and illicit activities relating to that, but we do not have any information on any operational targeting or anything like that in the U.S. But that said, it’s a very ambitious group with global reach. So why don’t I just leave it at that, and thank you for your time.

 

MR. SULLIVAN: All right, everyone. Thank you for your time today. That concludes our call.

************

Via Teleconference

Washington, DC

August 10, 2012

Destabilize Tour, Pontiac, Mi, Fall 2010

One of the last larger-than-life, and one of the most contradictory presidents in United States history, Pres Lyndon Johnson was the 36th President, known for succeeding the assassinated Pres John Kennedy, facilitating the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the establishment of the Great Society, the War on Poverty and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. However he was also known for the acceleration of the Vietnam Conflict with the Tonkin Resolution. The war would consume much of the remainder of his presidency, its long casualty lists and incessant continuation leading to widespread societal disorder, perhaps consuming Johnson personally as well.

 

Born to a relatively poor tenant Texas family, Johnson worked his way to the top with an aggressive, driven personality, rising from a Congressional legislative secretary to Congressman, served in WWII as an observer, where he was awarded a Silver Star, to finally a Senator of Texas after a contested three-way election. With his aggressive "courtship" of senior senators, Johnson became Senate Majority Whip, then Senate Minority Leader, where he was instrumental in the passage of the 1958 National Aeronautics and Space Act, establishing NASA. After a hard primary, on the back of his support from Southern conservative Democrats, Lyndon Johnson became the running mate of John Kennedy in 1960, and with Pres Kennedy's election, became Vice President.

 

On Nov 22, 1963 Pres John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas Texas. Vice Pres Johnson was promptly flown to take the oath of office as President of the United States. Using Kennedy's death, Johnson successfully pushed the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. One of the most important Civil Rights Bills in history, Johnson was said to remark upon signing it into law, "I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come". He also established the Warren Commission to investigate the Kennedy Assassination and called for a War on Poverty, as well as the Economic Opportunity Act, which created the Job Corps and the Community Action Program, as well as VISTA, Volunteers in Service to America. Concerned about threats to his support, he also called for the wiretapping of Civil Rights groups.

 

Riding high, Pres Lyndon Johnson was reelected in 1964 with both a popular and electoral landslide, winning 61% of the popular vote and 486 electoral college votes. His opponent, Barry Goldwater, who called for the military to use nuclear weapons tactically (portrayed in one of the most infamous attack ads in history, Johnson's "Daisy Ad" ) won only 52.

 

Upon reelection, Johnson successfully pushed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, prohibiting racial discrimination in voting and the 1968 Civil Rights Act, prohibiting segregation in housing. He also appointed Thurgrood Marshall as the first African American Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was also passed, ending the national quotas of the 1920s, allowing non-European immigration to skyrocket; historians are divided on how instrumental Johnson was for this legislation. Continuing his War on Poverty, Johnson pushed through the Revenue Act of 1964 and the Economic Opportunity Act, creating Head Start, food stamps, and work study. As a backup to his attempt at Regional Medical Program (RMP) that largely faltered in Congress, Johnson passed Medicare in 1965, providing hospital insurance under Social Security, a voluntary insurance program for doctor visits and an expanded medical welfare program for the poor, now known as Medicaid. Johnson also created the Transportation Department and the Gun Control Act of 1968.

 

Around 1965-1966 however, the public began to turn against the Johnson Administration. These seem related to two increasingly unpopular issues: Civil Rights, which began becoming more violent and aggressive, leading to major urban unrest in cities, as well as the Vietnam Conflict. The former culminated in the aftermath of the Assassination of Rev Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, which sparked riots in a hundred US cities, mainly Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, and Kansas City. With the massive destruction in the Harlem Riot of 1964, the Watts Riot of 1965, and the Newark and Detroit Riots of 1967, all lead to a view that Johnson was losing control of American cities. Republicans began to regroup under a "law and order" banner.

 

The other big issue was Vietnam. Kennedy had sent about 16000 troops to bolster the weak government of South Vietnam against pressure from North Vietnam and communist supporters. In 1964 after contradictory information where two American destroyers were supposedly attacked by North Vietnamese ships, Johnson pushed through the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, allowing Johnson himself authorization, without a formal declaration of war by Congress, for the use of conventional military force in Southeast Asia. This would be the official start of what would be known in the US as the Vietnam War, which would be a continuous air bombing campaign in Northern Vietnam coupled with the use of US ground troops to bolster the South Vietnamese forces. By 1964, 23000 US troops were in Vietnam; by mid-1965, there were 82000. As the numbers rose, so did the casualties; while the president was personally was reluctant to continue into the conflict, he feared the appearance of caving into communism. By 1966, there were 200000 US troops. By 1967, there were 525000 US troops in Vietnam. The casualty toll continued to mount; the public grew frustrated with the stalemate and the high losses for seemingly little value. Things reached a nadir in 1968, when the communist VietCong led a massive surprise attack throughout South Vietnam in the Tet Offensive. A tactical disaster for the communists, it proved to be the psychological turning point of the war; the massive attack throughout all of South Vietnam laid bare the fact that despite four years of war, the United States had accomplished nothing to ensure the stability of the Republic of Vietnam. When news anchor Walter Cronkite expressed his disillusionment at continuing the war, Johnson exclaimed: "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America".

 

By now the country was in chaos; the next in line for going to war, college students protested angrily; draft cards were burned, the chant "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" became heard throughout the cities. The Democratic Party effectively shattered over the war, dividing into four factions: Johnson (and Sen Herbert Humphrey), Sen Eugene McCarthy, Sen Robert Kennedy, and Gov George Wallace in the American Independent Party. With failing health, increasingly unpopularity and a shattered party, Pres Johnson shocked the nation by announcing that he would not run for reelection. With Robert Kennedy's Assassination, Herbert Humphrey finally won the Democratic nomination. Humphrey would go on to lose to Pres Richard Nixon and Johnson would retire, dying only a few weeks after Nixon's landslide reelection.

 

Lyndon Johnson has one of the most complicated legacies of any modern US president. Perhaps more than any other leader, he appeared to genuinely care about the betterment of all peoples in the United States, passing more, influential Civil Rights and social welfare legislation than any US president. The issues of voting rights, civil freedoms, welfare and government protections remain with us to this day, as well as its consequences (the South shifting Republican, opposition to big government). At the same time, that ran right into the counter of the Vietnam Conflict and its harm to American society, greatly destabilizing the nation that was already dealing with the effects of civil rights struggles and urbanization. His abrasive and aggressive personality, previously used to ram through his way, ultimately seemed to collapse amid the Vietnam quagmire, leading to the final end of the New Deal liberalism and the rise of the Nixonian/Reagan law and order conservatism. It seemed Johnson knew the consequences of his actions as well, summing himself up before his death:

 

“I knew from the start that if I left the woman I love—the Great Society—in order to fight that bitch of a war, then I would lose everything. All my programs. All my hopes. All my dreams..."

 

Deeply flawed, but still well-regarded for his ability to pass legislation to benefit American society, Pres Lyndon Johnson has consistently been ranked by historians as "near great" around 10-12th. Personally I feel he was a better president than that of his much idolized predecessor John Kennedy.

 

Known as the “City of Presidents”, because of nearby Mount Rushmore, Rapid City has erected statues to every American president along its street corners.

Downtown, Rapid City, South Dakota

It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?

  

It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?

  

From August 6 - 9, 2009, about 300 Haitians from different corners of Haiti's diaspora - often called the 11th Department - gathered in Miami Beach, Florida for the 2009 Haitian Diaspora Unity Congress. The event was organized by the Haitian League, whose Chairman of the Board is Dr. Bernier Lauredan. He is a Haitian pediatrician living in New Jersey, where the first conference was held last year without, apparently, too much success.

 

The chair of this year's Congress was Dr. Rudolph Moise, a physician and actor well known in Miami for his more or less conventional activism.

 

Several former Lavalas government officials took part including former Minister for Haitians Living Abroad Leslie Voltaire, former minister without portfolio Marc Bazin, former Justice Minister Camille Leblanc, former Planning Minister Anthony Dessources, and former inspector of the Haitian National Police Luc Eucher Joseph, now Secretary of State of Justice and Public Safety. These officials are considered by Haiti's masses as politically bourgeois and, excepting Voltaire, were never Lavalas Family party members.

 

Meanwhile, there were also members or associates of President Boniface Alexandre's and Prime Minister Gérard Latortue's de facto government (2004 - 2006). The most prominent of them was Bernard Gousse, the former de facto Justice Minister, whom the Miami-based popular organization Veye Yo brands as a criminal for his role in ordering several deadly crackdowns on rebellious shanty towns and the first arrest of the late Father Gérard Jean-Juste, Veye Yo's founder.

 

Several current Haitian government officials were present including Kelly Bastien, the Senate's president, two parliamentarians from the pro-coup social-democratic parties Struggling People Organization (OPL) and Fusion, Youth, Sports and Civic Action Minister Evans Lescouflair, and two mayors from the Center Department.

 

On the Congress's last day, there were also addresses by Haitian Prime Minister Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis and Special United Nations Envoy to Haiti, former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

 

Like other Haitian conferences of this sort, most of the workshops were focused on development and investment with short shrift given to the political struggles, coups, and military occupations that have made both hard to achieve. There were also sessions on dual nationality, the role of the press, the participation of Haitian youth abroad and in Haiti, and on justice and human rights in Haiti.

 

In one workshop, Pierre Leger from the southern city of Les Cayes addressed Haiti's lack of infrastructure. He claimed to be Haiti's largest vetiver exporter, with operations based in the southern department. He castigated Haitian President René Préval's "lack of entrepreneurial vision" and the Haitian government's perennial begging. The current government and those of the past have contented themselves with pursuing international aid without really trying to promote national production, he said. Leger recounted the troubles he had in getting fuel to his operations over Haiti's sole artery to the south which was damaged after the 2008 storms. Building shipping ports and airports could resolve such problems, he argued. "You need to have infrastructure before inviting people to invest in your country, even if it is entrepreneurs from the Haitian diaspora," Leger said.

 

In a workshop on the press, only conservative bourgeois media were represented. Agence France Presse reporter Clarens Renois spoke on the press' role in development, saying the media sometimes misused its power to defend political causes. Of course, he did not point to Radio Métropole, his former employer, which played a key role in the 2001-2004 destabilization campaign against Aristide.

 

"We should not give only negative news about Haiti," Renois said. "We should also give positive news that can help develop the country."

 

One of the most interesting workshops was that on human rights, held on August 7. In this meeting, Secretary of State Eucher defended harsh, often-criticized government measures to establish a climate of security in the country. He was also proud of his government's close cooperation with the United Nations Mission for Stability in Haiti (MINUSTAH), as the UN's military occupation force is called. He made no mention of the massacres or abuses committed by UN troops or the police. "Now we have no red zones or areas where people cannot go in Haiti," Eucher said. "The people have regained confidence in the Police. The working conditions of our officers has changed, and we will continue to work on the professionalization of the Police and to purchase equipment."

 

Daniel Jean, Deputy Justice Minister for Judicial Reforms, said that the government was working to build and improve courts, to better train judges, and to improve prison conditions around the country. But, he complained, there is a lack of funds to carry out such projects.

 

Prison conditions in Haiti are inhuman and have been condemned by several international human rights groups.

 

Among the panelists was Evel Fanfan, an activist lawyer, human rights defender and President of AUMOHD (Association University Students Working for Law in Haiti). He denounced the government officials' account, brandishing reports on several police and UN massacres against the poor, in particular the 2005 Grand Ravine massacre in Martissant, the 2003 Beladeres massacre by the "rebels," and 2005 and 2006 massacres in Cité Soleil. The victims of these massacres are still denied justice while killers like former death-squad leader Louis Jodel Chamblain and former coup-plotter Guy Philippe still circulate freely. The police who carried out the Grand Ravine massacre are still in their posts or living freely. "Here are the letters sent to and received from the President of the Republic, René Préval and members of his former and current government," Fanfan explained. "How can we speak of Haitian law when the majority of people behind bars in our prisons are unconstitutionally imprisoned and their prison conditions are inhumane? For example, the National Penitentiary in Port-Au-Prince was built for hundreds of prisoners, but now it has thousands" He also underlined the case of Ronald Dauphin, a political prisoner and supporter of former President Aristide, the injustice of whose case Amnesty International recently publicized.

 

Bernard Gousse was also supposed to address the human rights workshop and a number of people from the Miami community came to ask him hard questions. But he never showed up that day, although he did appear the next day in a session on dual citizenship.

 

The Haitian Constitution's prohibition of dual nationality remains a burning issue for most expatriates living in Haiti's diaspora. Many have become citizens of the U.S., Canada, or France and want the Constitution amended to allow them participation in Haiti's political life. Haitian Senate president Kelly Bastien said dual citizenship reform is possible. "It's an easy battle, since your participation in the nation's social, political and economic life will change many things," Bastien told the Diaspora Congress. "You need to talk to other political leaders in both Parliamentary houses, because they come here to ask for money during the electoral period. Now it's your turn to ask something in return."

 

There were also moments of entertainment. On Saturday night, there was a long awards dinner ceremony followed by a dance party with Sweet Mickey.

 

The last day of the Congress - Sunday, August 9 - was a day of protest. Across the street from the Trump International Beach Resort where the conference took place, Veye Yo rallied about 50 people starting at 7 a.m. to denounce the participation of "injustice minister" Bernard Gousse at the event. "Bernard Gousse is a criminal! Bernard Gousse is a murderer! He must be arrested if the USA is against terrorism. Why is a terrorist like Bernard Gousse here?" These were some of the demonstrators' slogans and cries.

 

"We are here today to demand the release of political prisoners arrested by Bernard Gousse, and justice for all those who have been victims of the injustice machine of the government of Gérard Latortue," said Lavarice Gaudin, a Veye Yo leader. "We hope that President Bill Clinton, who claims to be a friend of the Haitian people, as Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General, will work with the government in place to secure the release of these people."

 

In the background, demonstrators chanted: "Occupation, No! Democracy, Yes! Titid shall return!"

 

Meanwhile, inside the hotel, amid extremely tight security, conference members and a restricted handful of about 20 mostly non-Haitian journalists gathered to hear presentations by Prime Minister Pierre-Louis and Clinton.

 

Pierre-Louis' plea, as was to be expected, was for unity. "There is not enough debate between the different sectors for them to exchange, to discuss, for them to arrive at what they call compromise," Pierre-Louis said, speaking in Kreyol. " We must discover the interests of each person and, in the end, accept to lose a little so that everyone wins... That's what compromise means. It is an essential process and it is that alone which can create the true unity we are seeking." How ironic, after these words, that President Préval's still refuses to compromise and grant Haitian factory workers a meager increase in their daily minimum wage to 200 gourdes ($5.05), insisting instead that it be raised to only 125 gourdes ($3.11).

 

She also decried the "colonial legacy which we drag behind us" but did not denounce the UN's military occupation of Haiti, the most perfect expression of this "colonial legacy."

 

Pierre-Louis also invoked some ill-defined unity as a way to resolve growing conflicts with the Dominican Republic and as a means to develop the country. "Unity means believing enough in the country to come invest," she said. "There are lots of opportunities for investment. Creating jobs is a priority."

 

Her speech had one particularly pious and politically naive remark which will be most remembered: "We have to stop identifying ourselves as Lavalas or as Macoutes and just identify ourselves as Haitians."

 

She was followed by Bill Clinton, who repeated the same themes and platitudes he has been saying in recent weeks since his UN appointment: he is optimistic, he sees hope for Haiti, this is a time of opportunity for Haiti, and the nation must not fail.

 

He had the air of being slightly on the defensive, perhaps because of the demonstration going on outside the hotel. He said a series of things that are demonstrably false.

 

"There is no UN agenda in Haiti other than to help advance the plans and the aspirations of the government and the people of Haiti," he said. "I'll be working with the President and Prime Minister, with multinational donors, non-governmental groups, philanthropists, business people, and I hope with many of you to transform those plans into specific actions. My work is and will continue to be in complete alignment and coordination with the Haitian government in so far as I can do that. I will not manage the UN peace-keepers. Nor will I be involved in domestic Haitian politics." As the front man for the UN's military occupation, how can he not be involved in "domestic Haitian politics"?

 

The Congress's organizers felt their event was a success. But for most of the poor and working-class Haitian community in the United States and Canada, it was a meeting of some businessmen, politicians and mostly conservative activists, all of whom had the ability to pay the $250 participation fee (not to mention travel and a hotel). The issues addressed were entirely traditional and technocratic, avoiding the key political problems such as the foreign military occupation, the struggle for the 200 gourdes minimum daily wage, the crying injustice for political prisoners and hundreds of inmates who have never seen a judge, the continued exile of former President Aristide, and the neoliberal plan that continues to privatize Haiti's patrimony.

 

"It's basically a glorified business networking conference,"said one participant who wished to remain anonymous.

 

And others weren't satisfied. For example, well-known Haitian compas artist, King Kino of the group Phantoms did not attend the conference because he felt that the central role of Haitian culture was not on the agenda. "For the past 20 years, Haiti has produced and exported practically nothing," he said in a telephone interview. "It's music that keeps the country afloat. How can we have a conference without the participation of people involved in Haitian music? Jamaica is where it is today because of its music."

 

Finally, one must wonder if the Haitian government, or perhaps Washington and the United Nations, helped to fund this meeting, especially given the participation of Pierre-Louis and Clinton. Although Congress organizers say it was carried out on a "shoe-string," the budget was big enough to pay for airline tickets for dozens of guest speakers and for their accommodations at the sumptuous Trump Hotel. Whatever the case, the 2009 Haitian Diaspora Unity Congress did nothing to fundamentally challenge the Haitian government's neoliberal direction and may have actually helped to reinforce it.

 

First in portuguese, then in english for my non-brazilian friends understand. :)

 

Vai em português e inglês, de modo que meus amigos não brasileiros possam entender também.

  

XD My dear friend Gabi tagged me, so I'll have to honor her with some irrelevant stuff about my mustached self.

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Minha querida amiga Gabi me tagueou, portanto devo honrá-la com 10 coisas irrelevantes sobre meu ser embigodado.

 

Tag game -> 1 foto sua + 10 coisas sobre você. Depois repasse a 10 amigos.

Tag game -> 1 picture of you + 10 things about you. Then you can tag 10 friends to keep on with the game if you want.

   

1. Tenho TDA (transtorno do déficit de atenção) e sofro muito com os sintomas, especialmente perfeccionismo, procrastinação, frustração por não conseguir fazer as 10 bilhões de coisas que penso em fazer ao mesmo tempo. Estou em tratamento, mas ainda há um longo caminho a percorrer, até eu estar no ponto de dominar o universo.

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1. I have ADD (attention deficit disorder) and I suffer a lot with its symptoms, specially the perfectionism, procrastination and frustration for not handling the 10 billion things I think to do at the same time. I'm currently in treatment but there's still a long patch to run until the point where I can dominate the universe (be scared then).

  

2. Sou filha única. Quando criança queria ter irmãos, especialmente com quem compartilhar idéias, broncas e talvez uma roupa ou outra.

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2. I'm the only child. When I was young I used to wish to have siblings, specially when I wanted to share ideas, clothes and parent's yells.

   

3. Amo quase tudo dos anos 50, especialmente música, moda e design.

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3. I LOVE almost everything from the 50s, specially music, fashion and design.

  

4. Gosto de fazer as pessoas que gosto rirem, torná-las felizes por alguns momentos que seja, mas ultimamente tenho muita preguiça das pessoas. Não quero sair da minha toca, e isso é problemático.

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4. I really enjoy making people I like to laugh and be happy for some moments if I can, but nowadays I'm too tired of people. I don't want to get out of my evil lair and that's a problem.

  

5. Gostaria muito de aprender fluentemente outros idiomas com a mesma facilidade e autonomia com que aprendi inglês. Comecei francês, mas tive preguiça. Pretendo retomar de onde parei e futuramente pensar em outros idiomas também.

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5. I'd like to learn other languages (fluently) as easily and with the same autonomy as I learnt english. I started french classes but I was too lazy then. I want to go on with this purpose and learn other languages in the future too.

  

6. Em 2007 emagreci 25kg fazendo academia e mudando padrões de pensamento e comportamentos por livre e espontânea vontade. Persisti neste objetivo e consegui. Entretanto, com a morte de uma amiga de infância e outros eventos que me deixaram emocionalmente cagada, engordei tudo de novo e agora preciso retomar essa força de vontade e botar a vida nos eixos novamente.

--

6. In 2007 I got hid of 25kg going to the gym and changing mental patterns and behaviors with my own will. I persisted in this objective and was winning the game. But in the end of the year a friend of mine died, and following some unhappy events that destabilized me emotionally, I got my fat back again. Now I need to get that powerful self esteem and confidence back again to make my life go on decently one more time.

  

7. Sou aquariana com lua e sol em aquário e ascendente em libra. Ou seja, nada de elemento terra no meu mapa, por isso eu viajo tanto na maionese. Talvez. Será?

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7. I'm aquarian with sun and moon in aquarius and more air elements on my map. That's why I live with my head on the stratosphere. Perhaps.

  

8. Quando criança eu amava os New Kids on the Block, que revezava com uma fita dos Beatles que eu adorava, embora não entendesse nada, e cantava tudo errado.

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8. When I was a child I used to love New Kids on The Block (shame!) and only changed the tape for one of the Beatles. I still love Beatles today but back then I didn't understand what they said and sang everything wrong. lol

  

9. Amo e odeio chocolate. Gostaria de poder viver sem ele em paz, mas o vício é forte. Até sonho com chocolate quando tento parar. É pior que cigarro.

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9. I love and hate chocolate. I'd like to live without it in peace with myself, but the addiction is sooo strong... I even dream with chocolate bars when I try to quit. It's worst than smoking.

  

10. Sou faixa vermelha em taekwondo, mas faz mais de um ano que não treino. Pretendo voltar assim que emagrecer o suficiente pra não sacrificar meus joelhos.

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10. I'm a taekwondo red belt, but it's been more than a year I don't practice. I will be back to the classes as soon as I get hid of some excessive weight enough to make my knees safe to kick some asses again.

  

If you like it, just go on with the tag game and tell the world 10 random stuff about yourself. I'd love to hear from you! :)

 

Se gostou da brincadeira, também participe escrevendo 10 coisas aleatórias sobre você. Adoraria ver. :)

It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?

  

Today, the Security Council’s Counterterrorism Committee organized a special meeting to commemorate the adoption of Security Council resolution 1373 (2001) and the creation of the Committee.

 

Ten years later, UNSCR 1373 remains the UN’s signature response to the terrorist attacks on the United States and the global community more than a decade ago. The passage of the groundbreaking Security Council Resolution 1373 and the establishment of the Counterterrorism Committee (CTC) gave the international community a new counterterrorism framework. As a result of UNSCR 1373, many states have revised existing or adopted new counterterrorism laws and ratified and implemented the universal instruments against terrorism. In addition, the CTC has succeeded in identifying capacity gaps and engaging with a range of national and multilateral assistance providers to help countries receive the training or other help they need.

 

As we look back on the past decade, this impact and the Security Council’s responsiveness and sustained commitment to promoting the implementation of a resolution that helped build and catalyze a global movement to strengthen national and regional legal, policy, and institutional counterterrorism frameworks have been remarkable.

----------------------------------------

Secretary-General's Remarks at Counter-Terrorism Committee Event

 

Thank you, Your Excellency Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri, Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations and Chair of the Counter-Terrorism Committee,

 

Mr. Mike Smith, Executive Director of the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate,

 

Excellencies,

 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

  

I thank the Indian chairmanship, the Counter-Terrorism Committee, the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate and all relevant organs of the United Nations for organizing this meeting.

  

Ten years ago on this day, the Security Council took a momentous step against the threat posed by terrorism to international peace and security. The adoption of resolution 1373 was a milestone in the strong leadership of the United Nations in combating terrorism globally.

  

Five years later, the resolve embodied in that resolution was amplified by the unanimous adoption of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.

  

Last week, I was very encouraged by the momentum and outcome of the Symposium on International Counter-Terrorism Cooperation.

  

It is clear that the international community remains determined to meet this challenge.

  

Terrorism is still as potent a threat today as it was ten years ago.

  

Tens of thousands of people have lost their lives.

  

Repeated attacks have had severe economic consequences and taken a toll on State stability and regional harmony.

  

I therefore welcome the resolve of the Council to ensure that no effort is spared to strengthen international action against this global peril.

  

The Council's Counter-Terrorism Committee and its Executive Directorate have continued to play an important role in monitoring the implementation of resolutions 1373 and 1624.

  

The Committee and Executive Directorate continue to assess gaps and shortfalls, and to facilitate much-needed technical assistance and capacity building.

  

The Committee's continued focus on ensuring national respect for human rights and the rule of law is also of great importance.

  

Since 2001, a number of other institutional setups, policy frameworks and measures have taken shape at the United Nations, including enhanced coordination between the Committees established pursuant to resolutions 1267 and 1540 – sister bodies to this Committee.

  

Good coordination within the context of the Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force among these bodies and others will continue to be crucial in meeting our counter-terrorism objectives and in delivering as one.

  

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

  

In the early days after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, the Security Council's resolve contributed greatly to our global efforts against this menace.

  

The threat remains, and the Council's role and active engagement remain of utmost importance.

  

I thank you and wish you a productive conference.

 

Thank you.

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Resolution: The United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy The General Assembly,

 

Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and reaffirming its role under the Charter, including on questions related to international peace and security,

 

Reiterating its strong condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever and for whatever purposes, as it constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security,

 

Reaffirming the Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism, contained in the annex to General Assembly resolution 49/60 of 9 December 1994, the Declaration to Supplement the 1994 Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism, contained in the annex to General Assembly resolution 51/210 of 17 December 1996, and the 2005 World Summit Outcome, in particular its section on terrorism,

 

Recalling all General Assembley resolutions on measures to eliminate international terrorism, including resolution 46/51 of 9 December 1991, and Security Council resolutions on threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts, as well as relevant resolutions of the General Assembly on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism,

 

Recalling also that at the 2005 World Summit Outcome world leaders rededicated themselves to support all efforts to uphold the sovereign equality of all States, respect their territorial integrity and political independence, to refrain in our international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes and principles of the United Nations, to uphold resolution of disputes by peaceful means and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, the right to self-determination of peoples which remain under colonial domination or foreign occupation, non-interference in the internal affairs of States, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, respect for the equal rights of all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion, international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character and the fulfillment in good faith of the obligations assumed in accordance with the Charter,

 

Recalling further the mandate contained in the 2005 World Summit Outcome that the General Assembly should develop without delay the elements identified by the Secretary-General for a counter-terrorism strategy, with a view to adopting and implementing a strategy to promote comprehensive, coordinated and consistent responses, at the national, regional and international levels, to counter terrorism, which also takes into account the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism,

 

Reaffirming that acts, methods and practices of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations are activities aimed at the destruction of human rights, fundamental freedoms and democracy, threatening territorial integrity, security of States and destabilizing legitimately constituted Governments, and that the international community should take the necessary steps to enhance cooperation to prevent and combat terrorism,

 

Reaffirming also that terrorism cannot and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization or ethnic group,

 

Reaffirming further Member States' determination to make every effort to reach an agreement on and conclude a comprehensive convention on international terrorism, including by resolving the outstanding issues related to the legal definition and scope of the acts covered by the convention, so that it can serve as an effective instrument to counter terrorism,

 

Continuing to acknowledge that the question of convening a high level conference under the auspices of the United Nations to formulate an international response to terrorism in all its forms and manifestations could be considered,

 

Recognizing that development, peace and security, and human rights are interlinked and mutually reinforcing,

 

Bearing in mind the need to address the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism,

 

Affirming Member States' determination to continue to do all they can to resolve conflict, end foreign occupation, confront oppression, eradicate poverty, promote sustained economic growth, sustainable development, global prosperity, good governance, human rights for all and rule of law, improve intercultural understanding and ensure respect for all religions, religious values, beliefs or cultures,

 

Expresses its appreciation for the report "Uniting against terrorism: recommendations for a global counter-terrorism strategy" (doc. A/60/825), submitted by the Secretary-General to the General Assembly;

Adopts the present resolution and its annex as theUnited Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy ("the Strategy");

Decides, without prejudice to the continuation of the discussion at its relevant committees of all their agenda items related to terrorism and counter-terrorism, to undertake the following steps for the effective follow-up of the Strategy:

To launch the Strategy at a high-level segment of its sixty-first session; To examine in two years progress made in implementation of the Strategy, and to consider updating it to respond to changes, recognizing that many of the measures contained in the Strategy can be achieved immediately, some will require sustained work through the coming few years, and some should be treated as long term objectives;

To invite the Secretary-General to contribute to the future deliberations of the General Assembly on the review of the implementation and updating of the Strategy;

To encourage Member States, the United Nations and other appropriate international, regional and sub-regional organizations to support the implementation of the Strategy, including through mobilizing resources and expertise;

To further encourage non-governmental organizations and civil society to engage, as appropriate, on how to enhance efforts to implement the Strategy.

Decides to inscribe in the provisional agenda of its sixty-second session an item entitled "TheUnited Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy".

ANNEX

 

Plan of ActionWe, the States Members of the United Nations, resolve:

 

To consistently, unequivocally and strongly condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever and for whatever purposes, as it constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security.

To take urgent action to prevent and combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and, in particular:

To consider becoming parties without delay to the existing international conventions and protocols against terrorism, and implementing them, and to make every effort to reach an agreement on and conclude a comprehensive convention on international terrorism;

To implement all General Assembly resolutions on measures to eliminate international terrorism, and relevant General Assembly resolutions on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism;

To implement all Security Council resolutions related to international terrorism and to cooperate fully with the counter-terrorism subsidiary bodies of the Security Council in the fulfillment of their tasks, recognizing that many States continue to require assistance in implementing these resolutions.

To recognize that international cooperation and any measures that we undertake to prevent and combat terrorism must comply with our obligations under international law, including the Charter of the United Nations and relevant international conventions and protocols, in particular human rights law, refugee law and international humanitarian law.

I. Measures to address the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism

We resolve to undertake the following measures aimed at addressing the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism, including but not limited to prolonged unresolved conflicts, dehumanization of victims of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, lack of rule of law and violations of human rights, ethnic, national and religious discrimination, political exclusion, socio-economic marginalization, and lack of good governance, while recognizing that none of these conditions can excuse or justify acts of terrorism:

 

To continue to strengthen and make best possible use of the capacities of the United Nations in areas such as conflict prevention, negotiation, mediation, conciliation, judicial settlement, rule of law, peacekeeping and peacebuilding , in order to contribute to the successful prevention and peaceful resolution of prolonged unresolved conflicts. We recognize that the peaceful resolution of such conflicts would contribute to strengthening the global fight against terrorism .

To continue to arrange under the auspices of the United Nations initiatives and programmes to promote dialogue, tolerance and understanding among civilizations, cultures, peoples and religions, and to promote mutual respect for and prevent the defamation of religions, religious values, beliefs and cultures. In this regard, we welcome the launching by the Secretary-General of the initiative on the Alliance of Civilizations. We also welcome similar initiatives that have been taken in other parts of the world.

To promote a culture of peace, justice and human development, ethnic, national and religious tolerance, and respect for all religions, religious values, beliefs or cultures by establishing and encouraging, as appropriate, education and public awareness programmes involving all sectors of society. In this regard, we encourage the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to play a key role, including through inter-faith and intra-faith dialogue and dialogue among civilizations.

To continue to work to adopt such measures as may be necessary and appropriate and in accordance with our obligations under international law to prohibit by law incitement to commit a terrorist act or acts and prevent such conduct.

To reiterate our determination to ensure the timely and full realization of the development goals and objectives agreed at the major United Nations conferences and summits, including the Millennium Development Goals. We reaffirm our commitment to eradicate poverty and promote sustained economic growth, sustainable development and global prosperity for all.

To pursue and reinforce development and social inclusion agendas at every level as goals in themselves, recognizing that success in this area, especially on youth unemployment, could reduce marginalization and the subsequent sense of victimization that propels extremism and the recruitment of terrorists.

To encourage the United Nations system as a whole to scale up the cooperation and assistance it is already conducting in the fields of rule of law, human rights and good governance, to support sustained economic and social development.

To consider putting in place, on a voluntary basis, national systems of assistance that would promote the needs of victims of terrorism and their families and facilitate the normalization of their lives. In this regard, we encourage States to request the relevant United Nations entities to help them to develop such national systems. We will also strive to promote international solidarity in support of victims and foster the involvement of civil society in a global campaign against terrorism and for its condemnation. This could include exploring at the General Assembly the possibility of developing practical mechanisms assistance to victims.

II. Measures to prevent and combat terrorism

We resolve to undertake the following measures to prevent and combat terrorism, in particular by denying terrorists access to the means to carry out their attacks, to their targets and to the desired impact of their attacks:

 

To refrain from organizing, instigating, facilitating, participating in , financing, encouraging or tolerating terrorist activities and to take appropriate practical measures to ensure that our respective territories are not used for terrorist installations or training camps, or for the preparation or organization of terrorist acts intended to be committed against other States or their citizens.

To cooperate fully in the fight against terrorism, in accordance with our obligations under international law, in order to find, deny safe haven and bring to justice, on the basis of the principle of extradite or prosecute, any person who supports, facilitates, participates or attempts to participate in the financing, planning, preparation or perpetration of terrorist acts or provides safe havens.

To ensure the apprehension and prosecution or extradition of perpetrators of terrorist acts, in accordance with the relevant provisions of national and international law, in particular human rights law, refugee law and international humanitarian law. We will endeavour to conclude and implement to that effect mutual judicial assistance and extradition agreements, and to strengthen cooperation between law enforcement agencies.

To intensify cooperation, as appropriate, in exchanging timely and accurate information concerning the prevention and combating of terrorism .

To strengthen coordination and cooperation among States in combating crimes that might be connected with terrorism, including drug trafficking in all its aspects, illicit arms trade, in particular of small arms and light weapons, including man-portable air defence systems , money laundering and smuggling of nuclear, chemical, biological, radiological and other potentially deadly materials.

To consider becoming parties without delay to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and to the three protocols supplementing it, and implementing them.

To take appropriate measures, before granting asylum, for the purpose of ensuring that the asylum seeker has not engaged in terrorist activities and, after granting asylum, for the purpose of ensuring that the refugee status is not used in a manner contrary to the provisions set out in paragraph 1 of this section.

To encourage relevant regional and sub-regional organizations to create or strengthen counter-terrorism mechanisms or centres. Should they require cooperation and assistance to this end, we encourage the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee and its Executive Directorate and, where consistent with their existing mandates, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime and the International Criminal Police Organization, to facilitate its provision.

To acknowledge that the question of creating an international centre to fight terrorism could be considered, as part of the international efforts to enhance the fight against terrorism.

To encourage States to implement the comprehensive international standards embodied in the Financial Action Task Force's Forty Recommendations on Money Laundering and Nine Special Recommendations on Terrorist Financing, recognizing that States may require assistance in implementing them.

To invite the United Nations system to develop, together with Member States, a single comprehensive database on biological incidents, ensuring that it is complementary to the International Criminal Police Organization's contemplated Biocrimes Database. We also encourage the Secretary-General to update the roster of experts and laboratories, as well as the technical guidelines and procedures, available to him for the timely and efficient investigation of alleged use. In addition, we note the importance of the proposal of the Secretary-General to bring together, within the framework of the United Nations, the major biotechnology stakeholders, including industry, scientific community, civil society and governments, into a common programme aimed at ensuring that biotechnology's advances are not used for terrorist or other criminal purposes but for the public good, with due respect to the basic international norms on intellectual property rights.

To work with the United Nations, with due regard to confidentiality, respecting human rights and in compliance with other obligations under international law, to explore ways and means to:

coordinate efforts at the international and regional level to counter terrorism in all its forms and manifestations on the Internet, and;

use the Internet as a tool for countering the spread of terrorism, while recognizing that States may require assistance in this regard.

To step-up national efforts and bilateral, sub-regional, regional and international co-operation, as appropriate, to improve border and customs controls, in order to prevent and detect the movement of terrorists and to prevent and detect the illicit traffic in, inter alia, small arms and light weapons, conventional ammunition and explosives, nuclear, chemical, biological or radiological weapons and materials, while recognizing that States may require assistance to that effect.

To encourage the United Nations Counter Terrorism Committee and its Executive Directorate to continue to work with States, at their request, to facilitate the adoption of legislation and administrative measures to implement the terrorist travel-related obligations, and to identify best practices in this area, drawing whenever possible on those developed by technical international organizations such as the International Civil Aviation Organization, the World Customs Organization and the International Criminal Police Organization.

To encourage the Committee established pursuant to Security Council resolution 1267 (1999) to continue to work to strengthen the effectiveness of the travel ban under the United Nations sanctions regime against Al-Qaida and the Taliban and associated individuals and entities , as well as to ensure, as a matter of priority, that fair and transparent procedures exist for placing individuals and entities on its lists, for removing them and for granting humanitarian exceptions. In this regard, we encourage States to share information, including by widely distributing the International Criminal Police Organization-United Nations Special Notices concerning people subject to this sanctions regime.

To step up efforts and co-operation at every level, as appropriate, to improve the security on manufacturing and issuing identity and travel documents and to prevent and detect their alteration or fraudulent use, while recognizing that States may require assistance in doing so. In this regard, we invite the International Criminal Police Organization to enhance its database on stolen and lost travel documents, and we will endeavour to make full use of this tool as appropriate, in particular by sharing relevant information.

To invite the United Nations to improve co-ordination in planning a response to a terrorist attack using nuclear, chemical, biological or radiological weapons or materials, in particular by reviewing and improving the effectiveness of the existing inter-agency co-ordination mechanisms for assistance delivery, relief operations and victim support, so that all States can receive adequate assistance. In this regard, we invite the General Assembly and the Security Council to develop guidelines for the necessary co-operation and assistance in the event of a terrorist attack using weapons of mass destruction.

To step up all efforts to improve the security and protection of particularly vulnerable targets such as infrastructure and public places, as well as the response to terrorist attacks and other disasters, in particular in the area of civil protection, while recognizing that States may require assistance to that effect.

III. Measures to build States' capacity to prevent and combat terrorism and to strengthen

the role of the United Nations system in this regard

We recognize that capacity-building in all States is a core element of the global counter-terrorism effort, and resolve to undertake the following measures to develop State capacity to prevent and combat terrorism and enhance coordination and coherence within the United Nations system in promoting international cooperation in countering terrorism:

 

To encourage Member States to consider making voluntary contributions to United Nations counter-terrorism cooperation and technical assistance projects, and to explore additional sources of funding in this regard. We also encourage the United Nations to consider reaching out to the private sector for contributions to capacity-building programmes, in particular in the areas of port, maritime and civil aviation security.

To take advantage of the framework provided by relevant international, regional and sub-regional organizations to share best practices in counter-terrorism capacity-building, and to facilitate their contributions to the international community's efforts in this area.

To consider establishing appropriate mechanisms to rationalize States' reporting requirements in the field of counter-terrorism and eliminate duplication of reporting requests, taking into account and respecting the different mandates of the General Assembly, the Security Council and its subsidiary bodies that deal with counter terrorism.

To encourage measures, including regular informal meetings, to enhance, as appropriate, more frequent exchanges of information on cooperation and technical assistance among Member States, United Nations bodies dealing with counter terrorism, relevant specialized agencies, relevant international, regional and sub-regional organizations, and the donor community, to develop States' capacities to implement relevant United Nations resolutions.

To welcome the intention of the Secretary-General to institutionalize, within existing resources, the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force within the Secretariat, in order to ensure overall co-ordination and coherence in the United Nations system's counter-terrorism efforts.

To encourage the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee and its Executive Directorate to continue to improve the coherence and efficiency of technical assistance delivery in the field of counter-terrorism, in particular by strengthening its dialogue with States and relevant international, regional and sub-regional organizations and working closely, including by sharing information, with all bilateral and multilateral technical assistance providers.

To encourage the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, including its Terrorism Prevention Branch, to enhance, in close consultation with the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee and its Executive Directorate, its provision of technical assistance to States, upon request, to facilitate the implementation of the international conventions and protocols related to the prevention and suppression of terrorism and relevant United Nations resolutions.

To encourage the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the International Criminal Police Organization to enhance cooperation with States to help them to comply fully with international norms and obligations to combat money-laundering and financing of terrorism.

To encourage the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to continue their efforts, within their respective mandates, in helping States to build capacity to prevent terrorists from accessing nuclear, chemical or radiological materials, to ensure security at related facilities, and to respond effectively in the event of an attack using such materials.

To encourage the World Health Organization to step up its technical assistance to help States improve their public health systems to prevent and prepare for biological attacks by terrorists.

To continue to work within the United Nations system to support the reform and modernization of border management systems, facilities and institutions, at the national, regional and international level.

To encourage the International Maritime Organization, the World Customs Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization to strengthen their co-operation, work with States to identify any national shortfalls in areas of transport security and provide assistance upon request to address them.

To encourage the United Nations to work with Member States and relevant international, regional and sub-regional organizations to identify and share best practices to prevent terrorist attacks on particularly vulnerable targets. We invite the International Criminal Police Organization to work with the Secretary-General so that he can submit proposals to this effect . We also recognize the importance of developing public-private partnerships in this area.

IV. Measures to ensure respect for human rights for all and the rule of law as the fundamental basis of the fight against terrorism

We resolve to undertake the following measures, reaffirming that the promotion and protection of human rights for all and the rule of law is essential to all components of the Strategy, recognizing that effective counter-terrorism measures and the protection of human rights are not conflicting goals, but complementary and mutually reinforcing , and stressing the need to promote and protect the rights of victims of terrorism:

 

To reaffirm that General Assembly resolution 60/158 of 16 December 2005 provides the fundamental framework for the "Protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism".

To reaffirm that States must ensure that any measures taken to combat terrorism comply with their obligations under international law, in particular human rights law, refugee law and international humanitarian law.

To consider becoming parties without delay to the core international instruments on human rights law, refugee law and international humanitarian law, and implementing them, as well as to consider accepting the competence of international and relevant regional human rights monitoring bodies.

To make every effort to develop and maintain an effective and rule of law-based national criminal justice system that can ensure, in accordance with our obligations under international law, that any person who participates in the financing, planning, preparation or perpetration of terrorist acts or in support of terrorist acts is brought to justice, on the basis of the principle to extradite or prosecute, with due respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and that such terrorist acts are established as serious criminal offences in domestic laws and regulations. We recognize that States may require assistance in developing and maintaining such effective and rule of law-based criminal justice system, and we encourage them to resort to the technical assistance delivered, inter alia, by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

To reaffirm the United Nations system's important role in strengthening the international legal architecture by promoting the rule of law, respect for human rights, and effective criminal justice systems, which constitute the fundamental basis of our common fight against terrorism.

To support the Human Rights Council, and to contribute, as it takes shape, to its work on the question of the promotion and protection of human rights for all in the fight against terrorism.

To support the strengthening of the operational capacity of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, with a particular emphasis on increasing field operations and presences. The Office should continue to play a lead role in examining the question of protecting human rights while countering terrorism, by making general recommendations on States' human rights obligations and providing them with assistance and advice, in particular in the area of raising awareness of international human rights law among national law-enforcement agencies, at States' request.

To support the role of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism. The Special Rapporteur should continue to support States' efforts and offer concrete advice by corresponding with Governments, making country visits, liaising with the United Nations and regional organizations, and reporting on these issues.

        

Soldiers from the Bundeswehr, the German armed forces, as part of the U.N.-led MINUSMA enforcement mission (United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission) on March 03, 2017 in Gao, Mali. MINUSMA troops are assisting the Malian government in its struggle against rebels that include a Tuareg movement (MNLA) and several Islamic armed groups, among them Al-Qaeda, in the north of Mali. Rebels have conducted a series of terror attacks to destabilize the current government in recent years. The Bundeswehr has committed helicopters and 750 soldiers to the MINUSMA mission as well as 147 soldiers to the EUTM mission (European Training Mission Mali) to train government troops. 2nd March 2017

 

Photos: Alexander Koerner

 

Special Briefing. Daniel Benjamin

Coordinator, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism.

  

MS. NULAND: Good afternoon, everybody. Before we do the daily briefing, we have a special briefing today on the next stage of implementation of Secretary Clinton’s Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, the establishment in the State Department of a Bureau of Counterterrorism. As you know, we’ve had an office under Ambassador Dan Benjamin. It is now about to become a full-up bureau. So to tell you more about that, Ambassador Daniel Benjamin.

   

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, thank you very much, and thanks for coming today. Today the State Department is pleased to announce the establishment of the Bureau of Counterterrorism, fulfilling one of the key recommendations of the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, which was concluded in December of 2010. We believe that this change will strengthen the State Department’s ability to carry out its counterterrorism mission around the world. My office and the Department have been taking on a growing role in counterterrorism in recent years, moving well beyond coordination. And the creation of this new bureau is another important step to ensure that we can accomplish the mission that the President and the Secretary have set out for us.

The mission of the new bureau will be to lead the Department in the U.S. Government’s effort to counter terrorism abroad and to secure the United States against foreign terrorist threats. The bureau will have a number of concrete responsibilities. In coordination with Department leadership, the National Security Staff, and U.S. Government agencies, other U.S. Government agencies, it will develop and implement counterterrorism strategies, policies, operations, and programs to disrupt and defeat the networks that support terrorism. The bureau will lead in supporting U.S. counterterrorism diplomacy and seek to strengthen homeland security, countering violent extremism, and build the capacity of partner nations to deal effectively with terrorism.

 

There are many examples of the growing importance of civilian counterterrorism work, what we here call strategic counterterrorism, which the Secretary discussed in her September 9th speech on the issue. The Administration puts a strong emphasis on increasing counterterrorism diplomacy, both multilaterally and bilaterally. And just last September, you may recall in a major initiative we established the Global Counterterrorism Forum with the goal of building an international architecture for dealing with 21st century terrorist threats. The GCTF offers CT policy makers and experts an opportunity to exchange best practices and to improve programming around the world. The new bureau will work with partners in the GCTF on a wide range of challenges, such as strengthening the rule of law in countries where terrorism poses the greatest threat.

 

Our ability to oversee and implement CT programs, which cover, by the way, everything from police training to countering the al-Qaida narrative, will be strengthened by the establishment of the bureau. The new bureau will lead the Department in U.S. Government efforts to reduce radicalization and mobilization abroad. It will work with the recently established Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications to de-legitimate the violent extremist narrative, to develop positive alternatives for populations that are vulnerable to recruitment, and it will work to partner with governments and civil society in building capacity to counter violent extremism.

 

As part of the standup, we are reorganizing and taking steps to make the new bureau effective across a wide range of policy and program activities. For example, we’re creating a new Strategic Plans and Policy Unit to improve our ability to do strategic planning and to develop metrics to measure the effectiveness of our programs. We’re also making changes that will tighten coordination between counterterrorism policy and programs, and we’re doing more to improve program implementation.

 

Finally, I want to emphasize that in these tight budget times, we’re doing our part to be good stewards of public funds by standing up the bureau with existing resources. PA will have a Fact Sheet that outlines the bureau’s mission and its priorities, and will provide you with some additional detail. And I’d be happy to take a few questions now.

 

MS. NULAND: Arshad.

 

QUESTION: Not about the creation of the new bureau itself per se, but can you give us an update on where things stand on your ongoing review of the MEK’s status as a Foreign Terrorist Organization?

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, obviously, designations of Foreign Terrorist Organizations is one of the core activities of the office and of the new bureau, and it will continue to be so. And what will also continue is the policy of saying that we continue, pursuant to the U.S. District Court’s order, we continue to do the review. And obviously, it’s a very exhaustive effort, and we’ve been exchanging material with counsel for the other side. And it – I – there’s – we don’t have a date set for any decision, but you will certainly know it when it’s done.

 

QUESTION: And one other one, if I may, on Pakistan. As you well know, there’s been a significant deterioration in the U.S.-Pakistani relationship over the last year, going back certainly to the case of Raymond Davis, but other – lots of other events. From your vantage point, to what extent has or has not U.S.-Pakistani cooperation on counterterrorism deteriorated over the last 12 months or so?

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, metrics are important, but I don’t think we have metrics for assessing exactly that. There’s no question we’re going through a difficult time in the wake of the cross-border incident and a number of other incidents that have occurred in the last year. But let me go back to basics. We think that it is essential that we have a good counterterrorism relationship with Pakistan. We believe it’s in both of our nations’ interests. No country has suffered more at the hands of militancy than Pakistan.

 

And I would add that this bureau, when we’re doing our job right, is also going to be working closely with Pakistan. We hope to continue building civilian capacity for countering terrorism, which is an essential need there and which was one of the working groups of the Strategic Dialogue that the Secretary created with the Pakistanis and which I am sure is something that we will continue doing. And it’s in everyone’s clearest interest.

 

So I can’t – I’m not going to give you a meter – a needle reading on the meter. We obviously have issues that are being worked out. The Pakistanis are doing their own review within their parliament. But we look forward to resuming some of our collaborative efforts.

 

QUESTION: You say, “When we are doing our job right, the bureau will be working with the Pakistanis.” Is it fair to say then that you’re not really doing anything now with the Pakistanis?

 

MR. BENJAMIN: No, it’s not.

 

QUESTION: Your bureau?

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: We do have these long-term processes going on. We are deeply engaged with our post in Islamabad on countering violent extremism, on disability and capacity building, on what we’ve done in the anti-terrorism assistance program. So we’re not going to make any blanket statements that we’re not cooperating by any means. Absolutely, we’re still working together.

 

QUESTION: Can I ask you a question about Iran? In the last couple of days there’s been a lot of bellicose talk from Iranian military leaders. And I’m just wondering, are you worried that as the sting of sanctions grows over this year and as Iran finds itself feeling more isolated, that the threat of Iranian terrorist activity is going to rise or destabilizing activity abroad?

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, another issue that we’ve dealt with extensively as an office and we’ll continue to deal with extensively as a bureau. Obviously, Iran was and remains the number one state sponsor of terrorism in the world. The recent discovery of plotting to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington and the arrests in that connection have certainly given us a great deal to think about and to wonder about exactly the same question you posed.

 

I don’t want to engage in hypotheticals and suggest that the Iranians are going to amp up their support for terrorism, but we know that they do believe that it is a legitimate tool of policy, something we vehemently disagree with. And we’re, of course, going to be as vigilant as we can to ensure that no one is resorting to terror to strike at us or our partners.

 

QUESTION: I’m not asking you, obviously, where, when, or how, but do you see it as a rising threat based on the tendencies that we’re seeing right now?

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: I see it as an existing threat and one that has been there for quite some time. And we’ll have to see how the Iranians respond to the fact that this plot in our hemisphere, in our country, was disrupted.

 

QUESTION: Related to that, you just referenced –

 

MS. NULAND: Can I?

 

QUESTION: Oh, sorry.

 

QUESTION: Yeah. Last year top – several top terrorist leaders were killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan region. Can you give us a sense where do you stand in terms of achieving your goal of defeating these terrorist organizations, terrorist outfits in that region?

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: There’s no question that 2010 – I’m sorry, 2011; I have to get my calendar straight – 2011 was a very successful year in terms of taking some bad actors off the street. And as Administration spokesmen have said on many occasions, we will continue to do what we need to to safeguard our national security against the groups that carried out the 9/11 attacks. But as – I want to underscore we all know that there is no way to shoot our way out of this problem conclusively and forever, and that’s why strengthening our engagement with others to support their civilian institutions so that they can actually hold that territory, police that territory, try people who want to carry out violent attacks either against people who live there or abroad, is an absolutely vital undertaking.

 

Al-Qaida, core al-Qaida, as we’ve called it, is certainly under greater pressure than it has been at any time since 9/11. But as the President has said and as others have said, the job’s not over and the work goes on.

 

QUESTION: And secondly, in November Secretary Clinton has said that the sanctions against Haqqani Network is on its way – they are – U.S. is very close to declaring this as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Where do we stand now on that front? When is it going to become –

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, much as we discussed a moment ago, we don’t set timelines or dates as to when we’re going to put out particular decisions on designations. So we are looking at that very closely and we’ll continue to do so. And obviously, we have a huge concern in reducing the ability of the Haqqani Network to carry out terrorist attacks.

 

MS. NULAND: Can you identify yourself?

 

QUESTION: Mike Ledeen with Fox News. In terms of the bureau, can you talk about what the bureau will be doing that the office before it didn’t do, and also what the bureau will be doing that other parts of government aren’t already doing?

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: The establishment of the bureau in many ways is a confirmation or ratification of the things that we have been doing increasingly in recent years. So the fundamental tasks remain the same, but what we have now is an infrastructure to continue doing them more effectively and building on those successes in the future.

 

So we now are in a position where we can continue to innovate our programming to counter violent extremism, to enhance partner capacity around the world, to do the bilateral diplomacy that we do with other countries to discuss the threats, to underscore where there are gains to be made against particular terrorist groups in particular regions. We have a better platform for doing the work we undertake with, for example, the Department of Homeland Security to work jointly to stop terrorist travel, to improve aviation security, to do all those things we need to do to make for a safer United States at home and to protect our interests abroad.

 

So the fundamental mission doesn’t change, but we now have a much better organization for building on that and for moving beyond this outdated organization that we had that was really to support coordination, which is something that we’ve long since left behind.

 

QUESTION: And in terms of what the bureau will be doing that other entities in government don’t do?

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, we’re the State Department; we have a set of tools and a set of activities that others don’t do. No one else does the bilateral kind of diplomacy that we do with others on a number of different issues, whether it has to do with how we reduce the space that terrorist groups have to fundraise, to operate. We provide a lot of training. We fund other agencies of the U.S. Government to send their experts out to do it in countries around the world, whether it’s anti-money laundering, counterterrorism finance, border security, rule of law with regional resident-led legal advisors – a whole range of different things that are really in the diplomatic toolkit and that we work with our partners in the government to do. So these things couldn’t be done without a strong State platform for carrying them through.

 

I hope that answers your question. There are just different things that are in different agencies’ lanes, and the State Department remains at the forefront in terms of those foreign engagements.

 

MS. NULAND: Karen.

 

QUESTION: I’m wondering how important the cooperation of certain governments will be in your effort and how much you can achieve. If the – if Iran is the number one sponsor of terrorism and it won’t cooperate with you, and Pakistan – let’s say they choose not to cooperate with you, and other countries where terrorism is a problem, how effective can you really be?

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, I would say that in terms of the international cooperation assessment, the glass is 98 percent full, and you’ve got, at least on Iran, the 1 percent that isn’t and the one or two other countries that we have grave concerns about. But international cooperation and the partnerships that have been built have really been one of the great unsung successes of the last decade. There’s extraordinary cooperation in intelligence around the world, in military affairs, and in the diplomatic work to constrain the ability of terrorists to operate and to cooperate, to arrest them, to ensure that they can’t carry out attacks.

 

Yes, there are problems, and we have countries that we have serious challenges working with, and there are a small number of countries that still view terrorism as a legitimate instrument of policy. But I think the remarkable thing about the post 9/11 period is how much countries have cooperated against al-Qaida, the core al-Qaida, against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and their – the governments of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen, Qatar, on and on, against AQ in the Islamic Maghreb, as they call themself, and there we see much greater cooperation among regional partners, for example, in Southeast Asia.

 

There have just been tremendous strides, and frankly, we’re hoping that this Global Counterterrorism Forum will build on those strides and that terrorist – counterterrorism experts will be able to exchange best practices and identify problems and design solutions in a way that we haven’t been able to before on a multilateral basis.

 

MS. NULAND: Samir.

 

QUESTION: Yes. The Syrian Government, after two bombings happened in Damascus two weeks ago, accused elements of al-Qaida behind the bombings and they said they came from Lebanon. Do you know if al-Qaida have a presence in Lebanon?

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, let me just say we’ve seen the reports, and I don’t have any further comment on them. We certainly know that there have been sympathetic groups to al-Qaida in Lebanon for many years. You may recall that the Lebanese forces went into one of the refugee camps some years ago to deal with a group that had an al-Qaida-like ideology. So it is certainly true that there have been elements like that in Lebanon over the years. Whether that had anything to do with what’s going on in Syria is another matter entirely.

 

QUESTION: A follow-up --

 

MS. NULAND: I understand that the Fact Sheet on the bureau has just been released, so that should be available to you all.

 

QUESTION: And do you think that al-Qaida was behind the explosions in Damascus?

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: I don't know. We don’t have anything conclusive on that.

 

MS. NULAND: Said.

 

QUESTION: Thank you. Yes, sir. Do you ever reexamine your classification of Hamas, the entity that governs the Gaza Strip, as a terrorist organization in view of steps taken in the last few months, sort of distancing themselves from Syria and Iran and inching their way towards a unity government with the Palestinian Authority that is a partner with the United States in the peace process?

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: I think we’ve been very clear about what Hamas needs to do if it wants to get out from under the FTO designation, and that has to do with renouncing violence and accepting the Quartet principles. I think that the groundwork is there. The step – the footprints are on the ground. They need to go through them, and we would certainly welcome that, and it’s long overdue.

 

QUESTION: A couple questions on --

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Arshad.

 

QUESTION: -- that I think are addressed in the – I don't think they’re addressed in the Fact Sheet. How many people are there in the bureau? Do you know?

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Yes. I believe that we have 70 FTE government employees and then detailees, contractors, and the like, I think we get to 120, roughly that.

 

QUESTION: Okay. And it’s no – when you said in being a good steward of the public money, you’re not getting any more money or any more people than in becoming a bureau, correct?

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: That’s correct.

 

QUESTION: And then will the bureau continue to produce the Country Reports on Terrorism? And will the intel community continue to separately – as has been the case for years – produce the underlying data based on number of terrorist incidents?

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Let me just say that we – it’s a congressionally-mandated report, the Country Reports on Terrorism. We’re already gathering information for this year. Rhonda Shore sitting over there has this task, and we’ll be putting out the report again.

 

QUESTION: And last one from me. And admittedly, unabashedly, it is hypothetical, but I think it’s of sort of topical interest. Brad talked about the threats that Iran has made and obviously the threats towards the Straits of Hormuz. The question I have is whether an attack on shipping in the Straits of Hormuz would be regarded as an act of war or an act of terrorism, and what is the key determinant? Is it whether it is a non-state actor and therefore it’s terrorism, but if it’s by a state military then it’s an act of war? How do you determine those things?

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: I think that that’s – falls into the – square in the category of hypotheticals, and if there is such an attack we’ll make that determination at that time. As you know, the whole issue of what is an act of state-sponsored terrorism, what isn’t, it’s one we get into frequently. We did with the North Korea issue, for example. So rather than lay out lines that will immediately be overtaken by events, I’ll just leave it at that.

 

And I think that I would remiss if I didn’t save some time for your reliable spokesperson.

 

MS. NULAND: Excellent. Thank you all.

 

AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: (Laughter.) Okay. Thank you.

 

PRN: 2012/012

        

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   

This email was sent to vascopress@yahoo.com.br using GovDelivery, on behalf of: U.S. Department of State

----------------------------------

  

It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?

  

It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?

  

Soldiers from the Bundeswehr, the German armed forces, as part of the U.N.-led MINUSMA enforcement mission (United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission) on March 03, 2017 in Gao, Mali. MINUSMA troops are assisting the Malian government in its struggle against rebels that include a Tuareg movement (MNLA) and several Islamic armed groups, among them Al-Qaeda, in the north of Mali. Rebels have conducted a series of terror attacks to destabilize the current government in recent years. The Bundeswehr has committed helicopters and 750 soldiers to the MINUSMA mission as well as 147 soldiers to the EUTM mission (European Training Mission Mali) to train government troops. 2nd March 2017

 

Photos: Alexander Koerner

 

Mario described the trap that a small country like Guatamala was in. I can't say that I took him seriously.

 

With all the world, except the satanic Soviet Union, under our control it was hardly in our national interest to overthrow a democratic neighbor, no matter how much it's government irritated the board of directors of United Fruit. But in those days I was not aware to what extent big business controlled the government of our own rapidly expiring republic. Now, of course, everyone knows to what extent our subsequent empire, with its militarized economy, controls business The end result is much the same for the rest of the world, only the killing fields are more vast than before and we make mischief not just with weak neighbors, but on every continent.

~ Gore Vidal

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d'%C3%A9tat

The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was a covert operation organized by the United States Central Intelligence Agency to overthrow Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, the democratically-elected President of Guatemala.

 

Árbenz's government put forth a number of new policies, such as seizing and expropriating unused, unfarmed land that private corporations set aside long ago and giving the land to peasants. The U.S. intelligence community deemed such plans communist in nature. This led CIA director Allen Dulles to fear that Guatemala would become a "Soviet beachhead in the western hemisphere". Dulles' concern reverberated within the CIA and the Eisenhower administration, in the context of the anti-communist fears of the McCarthyist era.

 

Árbenz instigated sweeping land reform acts that antagonized the U.S.-based multinational United Fruit Company, which had large stakes in the old order of Guatemala and lobbied various levels of the U.S. government to take action against Árbenz.

 

Both Dulles and his brother were shareholders of United Fruit Company.

 

Under the regime of General Jorge Ubico, and Ubico's predecessor Manuel José Estrada Cabrera, Guatemala was widely opened up to foreign investment, with special favors being made from Ubico to the United Fruit Company (UFC) in particular. The UFC responded by pouring investment capital into the country, buying controlling shares of the railroad, electric utility, and telegraph, while also winning control over the majority of the country's best land and de facto control over its only Atlantic port facilities. As a result, the Guatemalan government was often subservient to the UFC's interests.

 

In the "October Revolution" of 1944 General Jorge Ubico was overthrown. Juan José Arévalo Bermejo was elected. A new constitution allowed for the possibility of expropriating land. This, as well as Arévalo philosophy of "spiritual socialism", alarmed Guatemala's landed elite who began to accuse Arévalo of supporting communism. In 1947 he signed a labor protection law that implicitly targeted the UFC. The US embassy in Guatemala sent alarmed messages that Arévalo was allowing communists to organize and had reputedly provided known communists with support. Arévalo supported the Caribbean Legion, a group of ostensibly reformist Latin Americans who plotted to overthrow dictatorships in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. A 1949 CIA analysis described it as a "destabilizing force."

 

Jacobo Árbenz Guzman, who as an army captain had played an important role in the "October Revolution" of 1944, won 65% of the vote in the 1950 election.

 

Árbenz advocated social and political reforms, unionization, and land reform. For the latter, Árbenz secretly met with members of the Communist Guatemalan Labor Party (known by its Spanish acronym 'PGT') in order to establish an effective land reform program. Such a program was proposed by Árbenz as a means of remedying the extremely unequal land distribution within the country: in 1945, it was estimated that 2.2% of the country's population controlled 70% of all arable land, but with only 12% of it being utilized.

 

After the expropriations began in 1953 the UFC began lobbying the U.S. government in an attempt to draw them into their confrontation with Árbenz. The "father of spin", Edward L. Bernays organized a series of inflammatory articles in major US publications. The U.S. State Department responded by, amongst other things, successfully seeking approved cuts in economic aid and cuts in trade, with devastating effect to Guatemala, since "85% of Guatemala’s exports are sold in the country and 85% of their imports come from the U.S." Internal U.S. State Department documents stated that the cutoff would have to be done "quietly" because this was "a violation of the Non-intervention agreement, to which we are party... If it became obvious that we were in violation of this agreement, other Latin American governments would rally to the support of Guatemala."

 

In retrospect, the US government admitted that these concerns of "communism" under Arbenz were greatly exaggerated not only in their propaganda campaign but in their own private planning as well. After the coup, they initiated an operation to amass documents left from the Arbenz government that might confirm their thesis that Arbenz was becoming a Soviet puppet. They found no evidence that would support such a serious claim. Several academics have commented that "communism" in the Arbenz government was not really the issue, and that Arbenz's supposed "tolerance" of communists only amounted to the democratic permission of party-formation and political participation that Arbenz allowed to all political factions, including communists. While "communism" was shown by Operation PBHISTORY to not have been an actual threat, the primary threat that did motivate the US coup was the program of democratic social reforms that Arbenz was carrying out (and the implicit threat to the interests of US corporations such as United Fruit).

  

PREZ OBAMA has his Egg of Power…but I have the more powerful Beercan Arrow of Reality.

 

The “Beercan Arrow of Reality” symbolizes the fragility of Canadian might and global independence, according to an ancient Canadian proverb, that I just made up:

 

CANADIAN AEROSPACE and MILITARY TECHNOLOGY is like the BEER CAN ARROW; if it’s believed in strongly, and lauded proudly, by the entire nation of Canada, because expectations, achievement, and success, soar to undeniable heights… any such wildly promising military programmes will get crushed prematurely (like a beercan), before the big pay-off, by whomever happens to be the sitting federal government.

 

Think the Arrow and the Iroquois PS.13.

 

Think big government with loads of power, but nary an understanding of big business.

 

And if nothing is believed in at all, but flower-power idiocy, syrupy niceness (like during the Trudeau years) and peacekeeping pacifism, over and above global policing, true greatness and a chance for Canada to really change the world for the better slips through our hands…because nothing really worthy is ever attempted!

 

Why? Because everyone knows intrinsically (which immediately leads to half-hearted efforts) that you can't nation-build anywhere on the face of the earth IF YOU CAN'T totally and mercilessly crush the opposing, and often militarily-radical, belligerents…who will (because they're crazy) destabilize all our noble efforts.

 

The BEER CAN ARROW is hand-made by a local Ontario artist who models various aircraft out of beer or pop cans. As you can see his work is amazing! AND YES…he has done a beer can Lancaster! Spitfires, ME-109s, F-15s, etc.

 

For Obama's ridiculous "Egg of Power" see here: nicedeb.wordpress.com/2009/01/28/obama-has-an-egg-of-powe...

  

The Report

China is a likely winner of the information age supply chain through ecommerce by sticking with its successful strategy of continued steady growth, coupled with continuing (the appearance of) a transparent society (where currently major decisions are made by top government and business officials behind closed doors) which manipulate and manage economies at large. In order to be considered a great global leader China should maintain peace and respect for corporate property rights. They need to immediately focus on their serious environment pollution problems to survive.

 

Caption: "The sign that says you're welcome in Shanghai" - Johnny Vulkan www.flickr.com/photos/johnnyvulkan/1856903750/

 

The evidence is clear: China has McDonalds restaurants, and with extensive factories they make Dell and other computers. Bill Gates is eagerly pursuing business with China, and the Chinese government has given Microsoft the right to grant post-doctorial fellowships. Key companies invested in technology are willing to go to court to keep the most important Chinese corporate leaders. Kai-Fu Lee, once a vice-president at Microsoft is now Google's manager in China. Mr. Lee was the person at the center of twin lawsuits (suit and countersuit), a battle over which of the two companies would win him to work for them - he may be the ultimate in 'intellectual property.'

 

Caption ”On the Shanghai subway, rather than advertising computers for sale, Dell promotes job openings.” Danburg Murmur www.flickr.com/photos/danburgmurmur/247299162/

 

What is at issue are personably identifiable information (PII) and intellectual property rights (patents and copyrights) which are legislated and widely respected in the West.

 

Personal information is the feeder fish at the bottom of the information age food chain. China does not believe people have a right to privacy because of how communism is structured; this is true of members of their society until that person is wealthy and thus powerful enough to opt out of it, and even then the appearance of opting in must be kept.

 

Even in the West Intellectual property rights are eroding, which is as it should be, as it is not the same as owning a house, and can be damaging to others on a massive scale such as medical patents for aids, cancer, and other life saving drugs.

 

The Chinese style of governance comes with a 5 thousand year old administrative history of ordering a society consisting of large numbers of people. Because most people in American and the West do not speak their language nor write it, much of China remains a society closed to the English speaking countries. Due to communication barriers the West does not have the very healthy level of respect for China that it should.

 

Even the Chinese written language may give China advantages with online screens unknown in the West with their thousands of dense glifts, pictographs, and phonetic parts. Currently it is estimated more than 1 billion people use some form of Chinese as their native language.

 

It can be said that he who owns the resources wins; especially true when supply chains are consistent and reliable. This applies to personally identifiable information in the information age as it relates to sales, because personal information is a building block in the information supply chain. Creating mass marketing campaigns targeting not just individuals but large groups of people is based on creating desire , an example is Steve Jobs and the Apple iPod. This is in addition to knowing what people want, not just what they need.

 

Meeting the needs of all people in the world is still a goal some people are working towards, while many more others try to capture wealth only for themselves and their investors. From the point of view that in the long run we’re all dead, many investors do not view themselves as breaking any moral or other rules, just trying to get ahead, or make a profit on their investment, which they want right now. This uninformed short sighted view is killing people, and eroding the middle class of nations. Any country that has a middle class will miss it when it is gone; most countries are trying to build their middle class.

 

Business to Business (B2B) resource supply chains control wealth. Only the wealthy have a reason to protect privacy of information, because the poor and the very poor have much more immediate concerns. Hopefully the Chinese will learn as other countries like Malaysia did, that including diverse ethnic types is not just a ethical ideal, it is a strategy for long term success.

 

This lesson continues to be a painful and costly lesson to the US, which in many ways is exclusionary. Viewing the poor as beggars while subsidizing production with huge remedies is one of the inadequacies that may be overturned as international growth is managed at a global level because it can not be justified as anything other than corrupt practices. By all accounts I read, generosity in international relationships is mythical and with the digital age has only grown worse . Does it matter what you wear while you ask for money or how well educated you are? Apparently it does.

 

One size fits all privacy will never suit everyone because it has a biological basis and the need increases with education, and its cousin, wealth. Increasingly to have the opt out choice in terms of privacy you need wealth. That too will change subtly because as ecommerce becomes pervasive, some system or sets of systems will always knows that someone is there in some detectable way.

 

The patent and copyright systems can be damaging to others on a global scale by shutting down creativity, and unfairly favoring their protection even against life, due to medical patents for aids, cancer, and other life saving drugs being so expensive to produce or purchase that people are allowed to die as a result. Calls to action for multinational drug companies to reduce these costs, have changed little or nothing in the developing world. This has been featured so well in the headlines and news stories lately that it can hardly be a surprise to anyone that it is a problem – youth know because Digital Rights Management (DRM) is dead.

 

Ecommerce is a tool and can be used in many ways. Trading is already a cold transaction and to remove it from human context makes it even more so. In accounting they discuss "arms length transactions" - with ecommerce those arms get pretty long.

 

So we can expect that the human repercussions of global ecommerce, driven by the integration of B2B procurement systems, could stabilize and destabilize entire populations unless the planning is very good. That means everyone must hold the keys in some way, and be open to transparency at some level which runs counter to special interest groups . Transparency in action does exactly what it need to do, but which, for example, is not a match for existing culture in China.

 

Real transparency in global governance with a goal to meet the basic needs of all people living sounds like a science fiction plot, but that is what makes it exciting. Transparent governance may only become possible due to radically unexpected causes, like education, religious idealism, or a shared social solution of the young through organizations such as www.one.org.

 

Ironically one of the religions likely to have a positive effect in China, and is likely to benefit from is Tibetan Buddhism, long repressed by the current Chinese government.

 

Ecommerce will not cause peace in the world, educated people working with strong idealism in transparent cultures will. Still my conclusion remains that China is a likely winner of the information age supply chain through ecommerce.

 

We should invest in China.

 

It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?

  

A winter wonderland of hail! A strong t-storm had just came thru here. Too bad I trailed a bit too far behind it so I missed it lol. This was at the Valero just off of the 99 around Madera, CA. I was chasing thunderstorms in the valley this afternoon! What’s crazy was that I almost didn’t venture out since there was really nothing noteworthy on radar. But a thunderstorm so-happen to drift over my area in San Jose around noon with hail and thunder so that finally motivated me to head out lol. As a reward, heavy rain, hail, thunder and lightning were all witnessed on this outing! The same storm system that had drenched us with widespread rain just the day prior was now ushering in a cold, unstable airmass (behind its main cold front), helping to destabilize the atmosphere to help fuel thunderstorm development, especially for the Central Valley. As for my storm chase, an area of t-storms had formed in the rural areas north of Los Banos around the 1 p.m. hour and then drifted down towards Chowchilla (where I witnessed the 1st encounter of the storm’s deluge of hail) and then continued (while intensifying still) southeast towards Madera/Fresno. Lots of hail and lightning was observed while traveling down the 99 towards Madera, while trying to get ahead of the storm. But due to traffic (likely due to the storm), I lost the chase to the storm and couldn’t get ahead of it anymore so I just exited on one of the exits to take in the lightning the storm was still putting out. Then I continued south a bit more and stopped around the northern areas of Madera to refuel at the Valero and had a quick snack (while also enjoying the winter wonderland of hail that the strong t-storm had left in its wake). As quickly as the storms came, skies turned bright and sunny again as I ate my snack and updated my socials lol. As it neared 4pm and after resting up, I went on the long journey back north towards home. I’ve never seen the air so clear… It has certainly been a while since I’ve chased in the valley. Just like old times! Until next time, happy storm chasing! (Storm chase taken place Thursday afternoon, March 13, 2025)

"Gefangener!"/"Prisoner!", 24. April 1912

Bleistift und Aquarell/Pencil and watercolor

Albertina

 

The Neulengbach self-portraits depict the desperate artist, who provisionally covers himself with his coat and with the gray rug of the jail.

These self-portraits, probably originated without mirrors, are the only ones in which the artist brings about the spatial uncertainty and destabilization often practiced with his female nudes through the rotation of the watercolor from the transverse format into the portrait format. In fact, on the self-portrait with the red-brown coat the bedding is painted distinctly, although colouristically delicate with the hanging down ceilling. Nevertheless, Schiele signed this sheet as a high format.

 

Die Neulengbacher Selbstbildnisse zeigen den verzweifelten Künstler, der sich notdürftig mit seinem Mantel und mit der grauen Wolldecke der Gefängnispritsche bedeckt.

Diese Selbstportraits, die wohl ohne Spiegel entstanden sind, sind die einzigen, bei denen der Künstler die bei seinen weiblichen Akten häufig praktizierte räumliche Verunsicherung und Destabilisierung durch die Drehung des Aquarells vom Querformat ins Hochformat herbeiführt. Tatsächlich ist auf dem Selbstporträt mit dem rotbraunen Mantel die Liegestätte deutlich, wenn auch koloristisch zart, mit der herabhängenden Decke ausgemalt. Dennoch signiert Schiele dieses Blatt als Hochformat.

 

The Albertina

The architectural history of the Palais

(Pictures you can see by clicking on the link at the end of page!)

Image: The oldest photographic view of the newly designed Palais Archduke Albrecht, 1869

"It is my will that ​​the expansion of the inner city of Vienna with regard to a suitable connection of the same with the suburbs as soon as possible is tackled and at this on Regulirung (regulation) and beautifying of my Residence and Imperial Capital is taken into account. To this end I grant the withdrawal of the ramparts and fortifications of the inner city and the trenches around the same".

This decree of Emperor Franz Joseph I, published on 25 December 1857 in the Wiener Zeitung, formed the basis for the largest the surface concerning and architecturally most significant transformation of the Viennese cityscape. Involving several renowned domestic and foreign architects a "master plan" took form, which included the construction of a boulevard instead of the ramparts between the inner city and its radially upstream suburbs. In the 50-years during implementation phase, an impressive architectural ensemble developed, consisting of imperial and private representational buildings, public administration and cultural buildings, churches and barracks, marking the era under the term "ring-street style". Already in the first year tithe decided a senior member of the Austrian imperial family to decorate the facades of his palace according to the new design principles, and thus certified the aristocratic claim that this also "historicism" said style on the part of the imperial house was attributed.

Image: The Old Albertina after 1920

It was the palace of Archduke Albrecht (1817-1895), the Senior of the Habsburg Family Council, who as Field Marshal held the overall command over the Austro-Hungarian army. The building was incorporated into the imperial residence of the Hofburg complex, forming the south-west corner and extending eleven meters above street level on the so-called Augustinerbastei.

The close proximity of the palace to the imperial residence corresponded not only with Emperor Franz Joseph I and Archduke Albert with a close familial relationship between the owner of the palace and the monarch. Even the former inhabitants were always in close relationship to the imperial family, whether by birth or marriage. An exception here again proves the rule: Don Emanuel Teles da Silva Conde Tarouca (1696-1771), for which Maria Theresa in 1744 the palace had built, was just a close friend and advisor of the monarch. Silva Tarouca underpins the rule with a second exception, because he belonged to the administrative services as Generalhofbaudirektor (general court architect) and President of the Austrian-Dutch administration, while all other him subsequent owners were highest ranking military.

In the annals of Austrian history, especially those of military history, they either went into as commander of the Imperial Army, or the Austrian, later kk Army. In chronological order, this applies to Duke Carl Alexander of Lorraine, the brother-of-law of Maria Theresa, as Imperial Marshal, her son-in-law Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, also field marshal, whos adopted son, Archduke Charles of Austria, the last imperial field marshal and only Generalissimo of Austria, his son Archduke Albrecht of Austria as Feldmarschalil and army Supreme commander, and most recently his nephew Archduke Friedrich of Austria, who held as field marshal from 1914 to 1916 the command of the Austro-Hungarian troops. Despite their military profession, all five generals conceived themselves as patrons of the arts and promoted large sums of money to build large collections, the construction of magnificent buildings and cultural life. Charles Alexander of Lorraine promoted as governor of the Austrian Netherlands from 1741 to 1780 the Academy of Fine Arts, the Théâtre de Ja Monnaie and the companies Bourgeois Concert and Concert Noble, he founded the Academie royale et imperial des Sciences et des Lettres, opened the Bibliotheque Royal for the population and supported artistic talents with high scholarships. World fame got his porcelain collection, which however had to be sold by Emperor Joseph II to pay off his debts. Duke Albert began in 1776 according to the concept of conte Durazzo to set up an encyclopedic collection of prints, which forms the core of the world-famous "Albertina" today.

Image : Duke Albert and Archduchess Marie Christine show in family cercle the from Italy brought along art, 1776. Frederick Henry Füger.

1816 declared to Fideikommiss and thus in future indivisible, inalienable and inseparable, the collection 1822 passed into the possession of Archduke Carl, who, like his descendants, it broadened. Under him, the collection was introduced together with the sumptuously equipped palace on the Augustinerbastei in the so-called "Carl Ludwig'schen fideicommissum in 1826, by which the building and the in it kept collection fused into an indissoluble unity. At this time had from the Palais Tarouca by structural expansion or acquisition a veritable Residenz palace evolved. Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen was first in 1800 the third floor of the adjacent Augustinian convent wing adapted to house his collection and he had after 1802 by his Belgian architect Louis de Montoyer at the suburban side built a magnificent extension, called the wing of staterooms, it was equipped in the style of Louis XVI. Only two decades later, Archduke Carl the entire palace newly set up. According to scetches of the architect Joseph Kornhäusel the 1822-1825 retreaded premises presented themselves in the Empire style. The interior of the palace testified from now in an impressive way the high rank and the prominent position of its owner. Under Archduke Albrecht the outer appearance also should meet the requirements. He had the facade of the palace in the style of historicism orchestrated and added to the Palais front against the suburbs an offshore covered access. Inside, he limited himself, apart from the redesign of the Rococo room in the manner of the second Blondel style, to the retention of the paternal stock. Archduke Friedrich's plans for an expansion of the palace were omitted, however, because of the outbreak of the First World War so that his contribution to the state rooms, especially, consists in the layout of the Spanish apartment, which he in 1895 for his sister, the Queen of Spain Maria Christina, had set up as a permanent residence.

Picture: The "audience room" after the restoration: Picture: The "balcony room" around 1990

The era of stately representation with handing down their cultural values ​​found its most obvious visualization inside the palace through the design and features of the staterooms. On one hand, by the use of the finest materials and the purchase of masterfully manufactured pieces of equipment, such as on the other hand by the permanent reuse of older equipment parts. This period lasted until 1919, when Archduke Friedrich was expropriated by the newly founded Republic of Austria. With the republicanization of the collection and the building first of all finished the tradition that the owner's name was synonymous with the building name:

After Palais Tarouca or tarokkisches house it was called Lorraine House, afterwards Duke Albert Palais and Palais Archduke Carl. Due to the new construction of an adjacently located administration building it received in 1865 the prefix "Upper" and was referred to as Upper Palais Archduke Albrecht and Upper Palais Archduke Frederick. For the state a special reference to the Habsburg past was certainly politically no longer opportune, which is why was decided to name the building according to the in it kept collection "Albertina".

Picture: The "Wedgwood Cabinet" after the restoration: Picture: the "Wedgwood Cabinet" in the Palais Archduke Friedrich, 1905

This name derives from the term "La Collection Albertina" which had been used by the gallery Inspector Maurice von Thausing in 1870 in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts for the former graphics collection of Duke Albert. For this reason, it was the first time since the foundation of the palace that the name of the collection had become synonymous with the room shell. Room shell, hence, because the Republic of Austria Archduke Friedrich had allowed to take along all the movable goods from the palace in his Hungarian exile: crystal chandeliers, curtains and carpets as well as sculptures, vases and clocks. Particularly stressed should be the exquisite furniture, which stems of three facilities phases: the Louis XVI furnitures of Duke Albert, which had been manufactured on the basis of fraternal relations between his wife Archduchess Marie Christine and the French Queen Marie Antoinette after 1780 in the French Hofmanufakturen, also the on behalf of Archduke Charles 1822-1825 in the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory by Joseph Danhauser produced Empire furnitures and thirdly additions of the same style of Archduke Friedrich, which this about 1900 at Portois & Ffix as well as at Friedrich Otto Schmidt had commissioned.

The "swept clean" building got due to the strained financial situation after the First World War initially only a makeshift facility. However, since until 1999 no revision of the emergency equipment took place, but differently designed, primarily the utilitarianism committed office furnitures complementarily had been added, the equipment of the former state rooms presented itself at the end of the 20th century as an inhomogeneous administrative mingle-mangle of insignificant parts, where, however, dwelt a certain quaint charm. From the magnificent state rooms had evolved depots, storage rooms, a library, a study hall and several officed.

Image: The Albertina Graphic Arts Collection and the Philipphof after the American bombing of 12 März 1945.

Image: The palace after the demolition of the entrance facade, 1948-52

Worse it hit the outer appearance of the palace, because in times of continued anti-Habsburg sentiment after the Second World War and inspired by an intolerant destruction will, it came by pickaxe to a ministerial erasure of history. In contrast to the graphic collection possessed the richly decorated facades with the conspicuous insignia of the former owner an object-immanent reference to the Habsburg past and thus exhibited the monarchial traditions and values ​​of the era of Francis Joseph significantly. As part of the remedial measures after a bomb damage, in 1948 the aristocratic, by Archduke Albert initiated, historicist facade structuring along with all decorations was cut off, many facade figures demolished and the Hapsburg crest emblems plunged to the ground. Since in addition the old ramp also had been cancelled and the main entrance of the bastion level had been moved down to the second basement storey at street level, ended the presence of the old Archduke's palace after more than 200 years. At the reopening of the "Albertina Graphic Collection" in 1952, the former Hapsburg Palais of splendour presented itself as one of his identity robbed, formally trivial, soulless room shell, whose successful republicanization an oversized and also unproportional eagle above the new main entrance to the Augustinian road symbolized. The emocratic throw of monuments had wiped out the Hapsburg palace from the urban appeareance, whereby in the perception only existed a nondescript, nameless and ahistorical building that henceforth served the lodging and presentation of world-famous graphic collection of the Albertina. The condition was not changed by the decision to the refurbishment because there were only planned collection specific extensions, but no restoration of the palace.

Image: The palace after the Second World War with simplified facades, the rudiment of the Danubiusbrunnens (well) and the new staircase up to the Augustinerbastei

This paradigm shift corresponded to a blatant reversal of the historical circumstances, as the travel guides and travel books for kk Residence and imperial capital of Vienna dedicated itself primarily with the magnificent, aristocratic palace on the Augustinerbastei with the sumptuously fitted out reception rooms and mentioned the collection kept there - if at all - only in passing. Only with the repositioning of the Albertina in 2000 under the direction of Klaus Albrecht Schröder, the palace was within the meaning and in fulfillment of the Fideikommiss of Archduke Charles in 1826 again met with the high regard, from which could result a further inseparable bond between the magnificent mansions and the world-famous collection. In view of the knowing about politically motivated errors and omissions of the past, the facades should get back their noble, historicist designing, the staterooms regain their glamorous, prestigious appearance and culturally unique equippment be repurchased. From this presumption, eventually grew the full commitment to revise the history of redemption and the return of the stately palace in the public consciousness.

Image: The restored suburb facade of the Palais Albertina suburb

The smoothed palace facades were returned to their original condition and present themselves today - with the exception of the not anymore reconstructed Attica figures - again with the historicist decoration and layout elements that Archduke Albrecht had given after the razing of the Augustinerbastei in 1865 in order. The neoclassical interiors, today called after the former inhabitants "Habsburg Staterooms", receiving a meticulous and detailed restoration taking place at the premises of originality and authenticity, got back their venerable and sumptuous appearance. From the world wide scattered historical pieces of equipment have been bought back 70 properties or could be returned through permanent loan to its original location, by which to the visitors is made experiencable again that atmosphere in 1919 the state rooms of the last Habsburg owner Archduke Frederick had owned. The for the first time in 80 years public accessible "Habsburg State Rooms" at the Palais Albertina enable now again as eloquent testimony to our Habsburg past and as a unique cultural heritage fundamental and essential insights into the Austrian cultural history. With the relocation of the main entrance to the level of the Augustinerbastei the recollection to this so valuable Austrian Cultural Heritage formally and functionally came to completion. The vision of the restoration and recovery of the grand palace was a pillar on which the new Albertina should arise again, the other embody the four large newly built exhibition halls, which allow for the first time in the history of the Albertina, to exhibit the collection throughout its encyclopedic breadh under optimal conservation conditions.

Image: The new entrance area of the Albertina

64 meter long shed roof. Hans Hollein.

The palace presents itself now in its appearance in the historicist style of the Ringstrassenära, almost as if nothing had happened in the meantime. But will the wheel of time should not, cannot and must not be turned back, so that the double standards of the "Albertina Palace" said museum - on the one hand Habsburg grandeur palaces and other modern museum for the arts of graphics - should be symbolized by a modern character: The in 2003 by Hans Hollein designed far into the Albertina square cantilevering, elegant floating flying roof. 64 meters long, it symbolizes in the form of a dynamic wedge the accelerated urban spatial connectivity and public access to the palace. It advertises the major changes in the interior as well as the huge underground extensions of the repositioned "Albertina".

 

Christian Benedictine

Art historian with research interests History of Architecture, building industry of the Hapsburgs, Hofburg and Zeremonialwissenschaft (ceremonial sciences). Since 1990 he works in the architecture collection of the Albertina. Since 2000 he supervises as director of the newly founded department "Staterooms" the restoration and furnishing of the state rooms and the restoration of the facades and explores the history of the palace and its inhabitants.

 

www.wien-vienna.at/albertinabaugeschichte.php

 

It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?

  

It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?

  

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, also known as Mustafa Kemal Pasha until 1921, and Ghazi Mustafa Kemal from 1921 until the Surname Law of 1934 (c. 1881 – 10 November 1938), was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation. Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism.

 

Atatürk came to prominence for his role in securing the Ottoman Turkish victory at the Battle of Gallipoli (1915) during World War I. During this time, the Ottoman Empire perpetrated genocides against its Greek, Armenian and Assyrian subjects; while not directly involved, Atatürk's role in their aftermath has been controversial. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, he led the Turkish National Movement, which resisted mainland Turkey's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing a provisional government in the present-day Turkish capital Ankara (known in English at the time as Angora), he defeated the forces sent by the Allies, thus emerging victorious from what was later referred to as the Turkish War of Independence. He subsequently proceeded to abolish the sultanate in 1922 and proclaimed the foundation of the Turkish Republic in its place the following year.

 

As the president of the newly formed Turkish Republic, Atatürk initiated a rigorous program of political, economic, and cultural reforms with the ultimate aim of building a republican and secular nation-state. He made primary education free and compulsory, opening thousands of new schools all over the country. He also introduced the Latin-based Turkish alphabet, replacing the old Ottoman Turkish alphabet. Turkish women received equal civil and political rights during Atatürk's presidency. In particular, women were given voting rights in local elections by Act no. 1580 on 3 April 1930 and a few years later, in 1934, full universal suffrage. His government carried out a policy of Turkification, trying to create a homogeneous, unified and above all secular nation under the Turkish banner. Under Atatürk, the minorities in Turkey were ordered to speak Turkish in public, but were allowed to maintain their own languages in private and within their own communities; non-Turkish toponyms were replaced and non-Turkish families were ordered to adopt a Turkish surname. The Turkish Parliament granted him the surname Atatürk in 1934, which means "Father of the Turks", in recognition of the role he played in building the modern Turkish Republic. He died on 10 November 1938 at Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, at the age of 57; he was succeeded as president by his long-time prime minister İsmet İnönü and was honored with a state funeral.

 

In 1981, the centennial of Atatürk's birth, his memory was honoured by the United Nations and UNESCO, which declared it The Atatürk Year in the World and adopted the Resolution on the Atatürk Centennial, describing him as "the leader of the first struggle given against colonialism and imperialism" and a "remarkable promoter of the sense of understanding between peoples and durable peace between the nations of the world and that he worked all his life for the development of harmony and cooperation between peoples without distinction". Atatürk was also credited for his peace-in-the-world oriented foreign policy and friendship with neighboring countries such as Iran, Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Greece, as well as the creation of the Balkan Pact that resisted the expansionist aggressions of Fascist Italy and Tsarist Bulgaria.

 

The Turkish War of Independence (19 May 1919 – 24 July 1923) was a series of military campaigns and a revolution waged by the Turkish National Movement, after parts of the Ottoman Empire were occupied and partitioned following its defeat in World War I. The conflict was between the Turkish Nationalists against Allied and separatist forces over the application of Wilsonian principles, especially national self-determination, in post-World War I Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. The revolution concluded the collapse of the Ottoman Empire; the Ottoman monarchy and the Islamic caliphate were abolished, and the Republic of Turkey was declared in Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. This resulted in a transfer of vested sovereignty from the sultan-caliph to the nation, setting the stage for Republican Turkey's period of nationalist revolutionary reform.

 

While World War I ended for the Ottoman Empire with the Armistice of Mudros, the Allied Powers continued occupying and securing land per the Sykes–Picot Agreement, as well as to facilitate the prosecution of former members of the Committee of Union and Progress and those involved in the Armenian genocide. Ottoman military commanders therefore refused orders from both the Allies and the Ottoman government to surrender and disband their forces. In an atmosphere of turmoil throughout the remainder of the empire, sultan Mehmed VI dispatched Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk), a well-respected and high-ranking general, to Anatolia to restore order; however, Mustafa Kemal became an enabler and eventually leader of Turkish Nationalist resistance against the Ottoman government, Allied powers, and separatists.

 

In an attempt to establish control over the power vacuum in Anatolia, the Allies agreed to launch a Greek peacekeeping force into Anatolia and occupy Smyrna (İzmir), inflaming sectarian tensions and beginning the Turkish War of Independence. A nationalist counter government led by Mustafa Kemal was established in Ankara when it became clear the Ottoman government was appeasing the Allied powers. The Allies soon pressured the Ottoman government in Constantinople to suspend the Constitution, shutter Parliament, and sign the Treaty of Sèvres, a treaty unfavorable to Turkish interests that the "Ankara government" declared illegal.

 

In the ensuing war, Turkish and Syrian forces defeated the French in the south, and remobilized army units went on to partition Armenia with the Bolsheviks, resulting in the Treaty of Kars (October 1921). The Western Front of the independence war is known as the Greco-Turkish War, in which Greek forces at first encountered unorganized resistance. However, İsmet Pasha (İnönü)'s organization of militia into a regular army paid off when Ankara forces fought the Greeks in the First and Second Battle of İnönü. The Greek army emerged victorious in the Battle of Kütahya-Eskişehir and decided to drive on the Nationalist capital of Ankara, stretching their supply lines. The Turks checked their advance in the Battle of Sakarya and eventually counter-attacked in the Great Offensive, which expelled Greek forces from Anatolia in the span of three weeks. The war effectively ended with the recapture of İzmir and the Chanak Crisis, prompting the signing of another armistice in Mudanya.

 

The Grand National Assembly in Ankara was recognized as the legitimate Turkish government, which signed the Treaty of Lausanne (July 1923), a treaty more favorable to Turkey than the Sèvres Treaty. The Allies evacuated Anatolia and Eastern Thrace, the Ottoman government was overthrown and the monarchy abolished, and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (which remains Turkey's primary legislative body today) declared the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923. With the war, a population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, and the abolition of the sultanate, the Ottoman era came to an end, and with Atatürk's reforms, the Turks created the modern, secular nation-state of Turkey. On 3 March 1924, the Ottoman caliphate was also abolished.

 

The ethnic demographics of the modern Turkish Republic were significantly impacted by the earlier Armenian genocide and the deportations of Greek-speaking, Orthodox Christian Rum people. The Turkish Nationalist Movement carried out massacres and deportations to eliminate native Christian populations—a continuation of the Armenian genocide and other ethnic cleansing operations during World War I. Following these campaigns of ethnic cleansing, the historic Christian presence in Anatolia was destroyed, in large part, and the Muslim demographic had increased from 80% to 98%.

 

Following the chaotic politics of the Second Constitutional Era, the Ottoman Empire came under the control of the Committee of Union and Progress in a coup in 1913, and then further consolidated its control after the assassination of Mahmud Shevket Pasha.[citation needed] Founded as a radical revolutionary group seeking to prevent a collapse of the Ottoman Empire, by the eve of World War I it decided that the solution was to implement nationalist and centralizing policies. The CUP reacted to the losses of land and the expulsion of Muslims from the Balkan Wars by turning even more nationalistic. Part of its effort to consolidate power was to proscribe and exile opposition politicians from the Freedom and Accord Party to remote Sinop.

 

The Unionists brought the Ottoman Empire into World War I on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, during which a genocidal campaign was waged against Ottoman Christians, namely Armenians, Pontic Greeks, and Assyrians. It was based on an alleged conspiracy that the three groups would rebel on the side of the Allies, so collective punishment was applied. A similar suspicion and suppression from the Turkish nationalist government was directed towards the Arab and Kurdish populations, leading to localized rebellions. The Entente powers reacted to these developments by charging the CUP leaders, commonly known as the Three Pashas, with "Crimes against humanity" and threatened accountability. They also had imperialist ambitions on Ottoman territory, with a major correspondence over a post-war settlement in the Ottoman Empire being leaked to the press as the Sykes–Picot Agreement. With Saint Petersburg's exit from World War I and descent into civil war, driven in part from the Ottomans' closure of the Turkish straits of goods bound to Russia, a new imperative was given to the Entente powers to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war to restart the Eastern Front.

 

World War I would be the nail in the coffin of Ottomanism, a monarchist and multicultural nationalism. Mistreatment of non-Turk groups after 1913, and the general context of great socio-political upheaval that occurred in the aftermath of World War I, meant many minorities now wished to divorce their future from imperialism to form futures of their own by separating into (often republican) nation-states.

 

In the summer months of 1918, the leaders of the Central Powers realized that the Great War was lost, including the Ottomans'. Almost simultaneously the Palestinian Front and then the Macedonian Front collapsed. The sudden decision by Bulgaria to sign an armistice cut communications from Constantinople (İstanbul) to Vienna and Berlin, and opened the undefended Ottoman capital to Entente attack. With the major fronts crumbling, Unionist Grand Vizier Talât Pasha intended to sign an armistice, and resigned on 8 October 1918 so that a new government would receive less harsh armistice terms. The Armistice of Mudros was signed on 30 October 1918, ending World War I for the Ottoman Empire. Three days later, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP)—which governed the Ottoman Empire as a one-party state since 1913—held its last congress, where it was decided the party would be dissolved. Talât, Enver Pasha, Cemal Pasha, and five other high-ranking members of the CUP escaped the Ottoman Empire on a German torpedo boat later that night, plunging the country into a power vacuum.

 

The armistice was signed because the Ottoman Empire had been defeated in important fronts, but the military was intact and retreated in good order. Unlike other Central Powers, the Allies did not mandate an abdication of the imperial family as a condition for peace, nor did they request the Ottoman Army to dissolve its general staff. Though the army suffered from mass desertion throughout the war which led to banditry, there was no threat of mutiny or revolutions like in Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Russia. This is despite famine and economic collapse that was brought on by the extreme levels of mobilization, destruction from the war, disease, and mass murder since 1914.

 

Due to the Turkish nationalist policies pursued by the CUP against Ottoman Christians by 1918 the Ottoman Empire held control over a mostly homogeneous land of Muslims from Eastern Thrace to the Persian border. These included mostly Turks, as well as Kurds, Circassians, and Muhacir groups from Rumeli. Most Muslim Arabs were now outside of the Ottoman Empire and under Allied occupation, with some "imperialists" still loyal to the Ottoman Sultanate-Caliphate, and others wishing for independence or Allied protection under a League of Nations mandate. Sizable Greek and Armenian minorities remained within its borders, and most of these communities no longer wished to remain under the Empire.

 

On 30 October 1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies of World War I, bringing hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I to an end. The Ottoman Army was to demobilize, its navy and air force handed to the Allies, and occupied territory in the Caucasus and Persia to be evacuated. Critically, Article VII granted the Allies the right to occupy forts controlling the Turkish Straits and the vague right to occupy "in case of disorder" any territory if there were a threat to security. The clause relating to the occupation of the straits was meant to secure a Southern Russian intervention force, while the rest of the article was used to allow for Allied controlled peace-keeping forces. There was also a hope to follow through punishing local actors that carried out exterminatory orders from the CUP government against Armenian Ottomans. For now, the House of Osman escaped the fates of the Hohenzollerns, Habsburgs, and Romanovs to continue ruling their empire, though at the cost of its remaining sovereignty.

 

On 13 November 1918, a French brigade entered Constantinople to begin a de facto occupation of the Ottoman capital and its immediate dependencies. This was followed by a fleet consisting of British, French, Italian and Greek ships deploying soldiers on the ground the next day, totaling 50,000 troops in Constantinople. The Allied Powers stated that the occupation was temporary and its purpose was to protect the monarchy, the caliphate and the minorities. Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe—the British signatory of the Mudros Armistice—stated the Triple Entente's public position that they had no intention to dismantle the Ottoman government or place it under military occupation by "occupying Constantinople". However, dismantling the government and partitioning the Ottoman Empire among the Allied nations had been an objective of the Entente since the start of WWI.

 

A wave of seizures took place in the rest of the country in the following months. Citing Article VII, British forces demanded that Turkish troops evacuate Mosul, claiming that Christian civilians in Mosul and Zakho were killed en masse. In the Caucasus, Britain established a presence in Menshevik Georgia and the Lori and Aras valleys as peace-keepers. On 14 November, joint Franco-Greek occupation was established in the town of Uzunköprü in Eastern Thrace as well as the railway axis until the train station of Hadımköy on the outskirts of Constantinople. On 1 December, British troops based in Syria occupied Kilis, Marash, Urfa and Birecik. Beginning in December, French troops began successive seizures of the province of Adana, including the towns of Antioch, Mersin, Tarsus, Ceyhan, Adana, Osmaniye, and İslâhiye, incorporating the area into the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration North while French forces embarked by gunboats and sent troops to the Black Sea ports of Zonguldak and Karadeniz Ereğli commanding Turkey's coal mining region. These continued seizures of land prompted Ottoman commanders to refuse demobilization and prepare for the resumption of war.

 

The British similarly asked Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) to turn over the port of Alexandretta (İskenderun), which he reluctantly did, following which he was recalled to Constantinople. He made sure to distribute weapons to the population to prevent them from falling into the hands of Allied forces. Some of these weapons were smuggled to the east by members of Karakol, a successor to the CUP's Special Organization, to be used in case resistance was necessary in Anatolia. Many Ottoman officials participated in efforts to conceal from the occupying authorities details of the burgeoning independence movement spreading throughout Anatolia.

 

Other commanders began refusing orders from the Ottoman government and the Allied powers. After Mustafa Kemal Pasha returned to Constantinople, Ali Fuat Pasha (Cebesoy) brought XX Corps under his command. He marched first to Konya and then to Ankara to organise resistance groups, such as the Circassian çetes he assembled with guerilla leader Çerkes Ethem. Meanwhile, Kazım Karabekir Pasha refused to surrender his intact and powerful XV Corps in Erzurum. Evacuation from the Caucusus, puppet republics and Muslim militia groups were established in the army's wake to hamper with the consolidation of the new Armenian state. Elsewhere in the country, regional nationalist resistance organizations known as Şuras –meaning "councils", not unlike soviets in revolutionary Russia– were founded, most pledging allegiance to the Defence of National Rights movement that protested continued Allied occupation and appeasement by the Sublime Porte.

 

Following the occupation of Constantinople, Mehmed VI Vahdettin dissolved the Chamber of Deputies which was dominated by Unionists elected back in 1914, promising elections for the next year. Vahdettin just ascended to the throne only months earlier with the death of Mehmed V Reşad. He was disgusted with the policies of the CUP, and wished to be a more assertive sovereign than his diseased half brother. Greek and Armenian Ottomans declared the termination of their relationship with the Ottoman Empire through their respective patriarchates, and refused to partake in any future election. With the collapse of the CUP and its censorship regime, an outpouring of condemnation against the party came from all parts of Ottoman media.

 

A general amnesty was soon issued, allowing the exiled and imprisoned dissidents persecuted by the CUP to return to Constantinople. Vahdettin invited the pro-Palace politician Damat Ferid Pasha, leader of the reconstituted Freedom and Accord Party, to form a government, whose members quickly set out to purge the Unionists from the Ottoman government. Ferid Pasha hoped that his Anglophilia and an attitude of appeasement would induce less harsh peace terms from the Allied powers. However, his appointment was problematic for nationalists, many being members of the liquidated committee that were surely to face trial. Years of corruption, unconstitutional acts, war profiteering, and enrichment from ethnic cleansing and genocide by the Unionists soon became basis of war crimes trials and courts martial trials held in Constantinople.[citation needed] While many leading Unionists were sentenced lengthy prison sentences, many made sure to escape the country before Allied occupation or to regions that the government now had minimal control over; thus most were sentenced in absentia. The Allies encouragement of the proceedings and the use of British Malta as their holding ground made the trials unpopular. The partisan nature of the trials was not lost on observers either. The hanging of the Kaymakam of Boğazlıyan district Mehmed Kemal resulted in a demonstration against the courts martials trials.

 

With all the chaotic politics in the capital and uncertainty of the severity of the incoming peace treaty, many Ottomans looked to Washington with the hope that the application of Wilsonian principles would mean Constantinople would stay Turkish, as Muslims outnumbered Christians 2:1. The United States never declared war on the Ottoman Empire, so many imperial elite believed Washington could be a neutral arbiter that could fix the empire's problems. Halide Edip (Adıvar) and her Wilsonian Principles Society led the movement that advocated for the empire to be governed by an American League of Nations Mandate (see United States during the Turkish War of Independence). American diplomats attempted to ascertain a role they could play in the area with the Harbord and King–Crane Commissions. However, with the collapse of Woodrow Wilson's health, the United States diplomatically withdrew from the Middle East to focus on Europe, leaving the Entente powers to construct a post-Ottoman order.

 

The Entente would have arrived at Constantinople to discover an administration attempting to deal with decades of accumulated refugee crisis. The new government issued a proclamation allowing for deportees to return to their homes, but many Greeks and Armenians found their old homes occupied by desperate Rumelian and Caucasian Muslim refugees which were settled in their properties during the First World War. Ethnic conflict restarted in Anatolia; government officials responsible for resettling Christian refugees often assisted Muslim refugees in these disputes, prompting European powers to continue bringing Ottoman territory under their control. Of the 800,000 Ottoman Christian refugees, approximately over half returned to their homes by 1920. Meanwhile 1.4 million refugees from the Russian Civil War would pass through the Turkish straits and Anatolia, with 150,000 White émigrés choosing to settle in Istanbul for short or long term (see Evacuation of the Crimea). Many provinces were simply depopulated from years of fighting, conscription, and ethnic cleansing (see Ottoman casualties of World War I). The province of Yozgat lost 50% of its Muslim population from conscription, while according to the governor of Van, almost 95% of its prewar residents were dead or internally displaced.

 

Administration in much of the Anatolian and Thracian countryside would soon all but collapse by 1919. Army deserters who turned to banditry essentially controlled fiefdoms with tacit approval from bureaucrats and local elites. An amnesty issued in late 1918 saw these bandits strengthen their positions and fight amongst each other instead of returning to civilian life. Albanian and Circassian muhacirs resettled by the government in northwestern Anatolia and Kurds in southeastern Anatolia were engaged in blood feuds that intensified during the war and were hesitant to pledge allegiance to the Defence of Rights movement, and only would if officials could facilitate truces. Various Muhacir groups were suspicious of the continued Ittihadist ideology in the Defence of Rights movement, and the potential for themselves to meet fates 'like the Armenians' especially as warlords hailing from those communities assisted the deportations of the Christians even though as many commanders in the Nationalist movement also had Caucasian and Balkan Muslim ancestry.

 

With Anatolia in practical anarchy and the Ottoman army being questionably loyal in reaction to Allied land seizures, Mehmed VI established the military inspectorate system to reestablish authority over the remaining empire. Encouraged by Karabekir and Edmund Allenby, he assigned Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) as the inspector of the Ninth Army Troops Inspectorate –based in Erzurum– to restore order to Ottoman military units and to improve internal security on 30 April 1919, with his first assignment to suppress a rebellion by Greek rebels around the city of Samsun.

 

Mustafa Kemal was a well known, well respected, and well connected army commander, with much prestige coming from his status as the "Hero of Anafartalar"—for his role in the Gallipoli Campaign—and his title of "Honorary Aide-de-camp to His Majesty Sultan" gained in the last months of WWI. This choice would seem curious, as he was a nationalist and a fierce critic of the government's accommodating policy to the Entente powers. He was also an early member of the CUP. However Kemal Pasha did not associate himself with the fanatical faction of the CUP, many knew that he frequently clashed with the radicals of the Central Committee like Enver. He was therefore sidelined to the periphery of power throughout the Great War; after the CUP's dissolution he vocally aligned himself with moderates that formed the Liberal People's Party instead of the rump radical faction which formed the Renewal Party (both parties would be banned in May 1919 for being successors of the CUP). All these reasons allowed him to be the most legitimate nationalist for the sultan to placate. In this new political climate, he sought to capitalize on his war exploits to attain a better job, indeed several times he unsuccessfully lobbied for his inclusion in cabinet as War Minister. His new assignment gave him effective plenipotentiary powers over all of Anatolia which was meant to accommodate him and other nationalists to keep them loyal to the government.

 

Mustafa Kemal had earlier declined to become the leader of the Sixth Army headquartered in Nusaybin. But according to Patrick Balfour, through manipulation and the help of friends and sympathizers, he became the inspector of virtually all of the Ottoman forces in Anatolia, tasked with overseeing the disbanding process of remaining Ottoman forces. Kemal had an abundance of connections and personal friends concentrated in the post-armistice War Ministry, a powerful tool that would help him accomplish his secret goal: to lead a nationalist movement to safeguard Turkish interests against the Allied powers and a collaborative Ottoman government.

 

The day before his departure to Samsun on the remote Black Sea coast, Kemal had one last audience with Sultan Vahdettin, where he affirmed his loyalty to the sultan-caliph. It was in this meeting that they were informed of the botched occupation ceremony of Smyrna (İzmir) by the Greeks. He and his carefully selected staff left Constantinople aboard the old steamer SS Bandırma on the evening of 16 May 1919.

 

On 19 January 1919, the Paris Peace Conference was first held, at which Allied nations set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers, including the Ottoman Empire. As a special body of the Paris Conference, "The Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey", was established to pursue the secret treaties they had signed between 1915 and 1917. Italy sought control over the southern part of Anatolia under the Agreement of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne. France expected to exercise control over Hatay, Lebanon, Syria, and a portion of southeastern Anatolia based on the Sykes–Picot Agreement.

 

Greece justified their territorial claims of Ottoman land through the Megali Idea as well as international sympathy from the suffering of Ottoman Greeks in 1914 and 1917–1918. Privately, Greek prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos had British prime minister David Lloyd George's backing not least from Greece's entrance to WWI on the Allied side, but also from his charisma and charming personality. Greece's participation in the Allies' Southern Russian intervention also earned it favors in Paris. His demands included parts of Eastern Thrace, the islands of Imbros (Gökçeada), Tenedos (Bozcaada), and parts of Western Anatolia around the city of Smyrna (İzmir), all of which had large Greek populations. Venizelos also advocated a large Armenian state to check a post-war Ottoman Empire. Greece wanted to incorporate Constantinople, but Entente powers did not give permission. Damat Ferid Pasha went to Paris on behalf of the Ottoman Empire hoping to minimize territorial losses using Fourteen Points rhetoric, wishing for a return to status quo ante bellum, on the basis that every province of the Empire holds Muslim majorities. This plea was met with ridicule.

 

At the Paris Peace Conference, competing claims over Western Anatolia by Greek and Italian delegations led Greece to land the flagship of the Greek Navy at Smyrna, resulting in the Italian delegation walking out of the peace talks. On 30 April, Italy responded to the possible idea of Greek incorporation of Western Anatolia by sending a warship to Smyrna as a show of force against the Greek campaign. A large Italian force also landed in Antalya. Faced with Italian annexation of parts of Asia Minor with a significant ethnic Greek population, Venizelos secured Allied permission for Greek troops to land in Smyrna per Article VII, ostensibly as a peacekeeping force to keep stability in the region. Venizelos's rhetoric was more directed against the CUP regime than the Turks as a whole, an attitude not always shared in the Greek military: "Greece is not making war against Islam, but against the anachronistic [İttihadist] Government, and its corrupt, ignominious, and bloody administration, with a view to the expelling it from those territories where the majority of the population consists of Greeks." It was decided by the Triple Entente that Greece would control a zone around Smyrna and Ayvalık in western Asia Minor.

 

Most historians mark the Greek landing at Smyrna on 15 May 1919 as the start date of the Turkish War of Independence as well as the start of the "Kuva-yi Milliye Phase". The occupation ceremony from the outset was tense from nationalist fervor, with Ottoman Greeks greeting the soldiers with an ecstatic welcome, and Ottoman Muslims protesting the landing. A miscommunication in Greek high command led to an Evzone column marching by the municipal Turkish barracks. The nationalist journalist Hasan Tahsin fired the "first bullet"[note 4] at the Greek standard bearer at the head of the troops, turning the city into a warzone. Süleyman Fethi Bey was murdered by bayonet for refusing to shout "Zito Venizelos" (meaning "long live Venizelos"), and 300–400 unarmed Turkish soldiers and civilians and 100 Greek soldiers and civilians were killed or wounded.

 

Greek troops moved from Smyrna outwards to towns on the Karaburun peninsula; to Selçuk, situated a hundred kilometres south of the city at a key location that commands the fertile Küçük Menderes River valley; and to Menemen towards the north. Guerilla warfare commenced in the countryside, as Turks began to organize themselves into irregular guerilla groups known as Kuva-yi Milliye (national forces), which were soon joined by Ottoman soldiers, bandits, and disaffected farmers. Most Kuva-yi Milliye bands were led by rogue military commanders and members of the Special Organization. The Greek troops based in cosmopolitan Smyrna soon found themselves conducting counterinsurgency operations in a hostile, dominantly Muslim hinterland. Groups of Ottoman Greeks also formed contingents that cooperated with the Greek Army to combat Kuva-yi Milliye within the zone of control. A massacre of Turks at Menemen was followed up with a battle for the town of Aydın, which saw intense intercommunal violence and the razing of the city. What was supposed to be a peacekeeping mission of Western Anatolia instead inflamed ethnic tensions and became a counterinsurgency.

 

The reaction of Greek landing at Smyrna and continued Allied seizures of land served to destabilize Turkish civil society. Ottoman bureaucrats, military, and bourgeoisie trusted the Allies to bring peace, and thought the terms offered at Mudros were considerably more lenient than they actually were. Pushback was potent in the capital, with 23 May 1919 being largest of the Sultanahmet Square demonstrations organized by the Turkish Hearths against the Greek occupation of Smyrna, the largest act of civil disobedience in Turkish history at that point. The Ottoman government condemned the landing, but could do little about it. Ferid Pasha tried to resign, but was urged by the sultan to stay in his office.

 

Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his colleagues stepped ashore in Samsun on 19 May and set up their first quarters in the Mıntıka Palace Hotel. British troops were present in Samsun, and he initially maintained cordial contact. He had assured Damat Ferid about the army's loyalty towards the new government in Constantinople. However, behind the government's back, Kemal made the people of Samsun aware of the Greek and Italian landings, staged discreet mass meetings, made fast connections via telegraph with the army units in Anatolia, and began to form links with various Nationalist groups. He sent telegrams of protest to foreign embassies and the War Ministry about British reinforcements in the area and about British aid to Greek brigand gangs. After a week in Samsun, Kemal and his staff moved to Havza. It was there that he first showed the flag of the resistance.

 

Mustafa Kemal wrote in his memoir that he needed nationwide support to justify armed resistance against the Allied occupation. His credentials and the importance of his position were not enough to inspire everyone. While officially occupied with the disarming of the army, he met with various contacts in order to build his movement's momentum. He met with Rauf Pasha, Karabekir Pasha, Ali Fuat Pasha, and Refet Pasha and issued the Amasya Circular (22 June 1919). Ottoman provincial authorities were notified via telegraph that the unity and independence of the nation was at risk, and that the government in Constantinople was compromised. To remedy this, a congress was to take place in Erzurum between delegates of the Six Vilayets to decide on a response, and another congress would take place in Sivas where every Vilayet should send delegates. Sympathy and an lack of coordination from the capital gave Mustafa Kemal freedom of movement and telegraph use despite his implied anti-government tone.

 

On 23 June, High Commissioner Admiral Calthorpe, realising the significance of Mustafa Kemal's discreet activities in Anatolia, sent a report about the Pasha to the Foreign Office. His remarks were downplayed by George Kidson of the Eastern Department. Captain Hurst of the British occupation force in Samsun warned Admiral Calthorpe one more time, but Hurst's units were replaced with the Brigade of Gurkhas. When the British landed in Alexandretta, Admiral Calthorpe resigned on the basis that this was against the armistice that he had signed and was assigned to another position on 5 August 1919. The movement of British units alarmed the population of the region and convinced them that Mustafa Kemal was right.

 

By early July, Mustafa Kemal Pasha received telegrams from the sultan and Calthorpe, asking him and Refet to cease his activities in Anatolia and return to the capital. Kemal was in Erzincan and did not want to return to Constantinople, concerned that the foreign authorities might have designs for him beyond the sultan's plans. Before resigning from his position, he dispatched a circular to all nationalist organizations and military commanders to not disband or surrender unless for the latter if they could be replaced by cooperative nationalist commanders. Now only a civilian stripped of his command, Mustafa Kemal was at the mercy of the new inspector of Third Army (renamed from Ninth Army) Karabekir Pasha, indeed the War Ministry ordered him to arrest Kemal, an order which Karabekir refused. The Erzurum Congress was a meeting of delegates and governors from the six Eastern Vilayets. They drafted the National Pact (Misak-ı Millî), which envisioned new borders for the Ottoman Empire by applying principles of national self-determination per Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and the abolition of the capitulations. The Erzurum Congress concluded with a circular that was effectively a declaration of independence: All regions within Ottoman borders upon the signing of the Mudros Armistice were indivisible from the Ottoman state –Greek and Armenian claims on Thrace and Anatolia were moot– and assistance from any country not coveting Ottoman territory was welcome. If the government in Constantinople was not able to attain this after electing a new parliament, they insisted a provisional government should be promulgated to defend Turkish sovereignty. The Committee of Representation was established as a provisional executive body based in Anatolia, with Mustafa Kemal Pasha as its chairman.

 

Following the congress, the Committee of Representation relocated to Sivas. As announced in the Amasya Circular, a new congress was held there in September with delegates from all Anatolian and Thracian provinces. The Sivas Congress repeated the points of the National Pact agreed to in Erzurum, and united the various regional Defence of National Rights Associations organizations, into a united political organisation: Anatolia and Rumeli Defence of Rights Association (A-RMHC), with Mustafa Kemal as its chairman. In an effort show his movement was in fact a new and unifying movement, the delegates had to swear an oath to discontinue their relations with the CUP and to never revive the party (despite most present in Sivas being previous members).[120] It was also decided there that the Ottoman Empire should not be a League of Nations mandate under the United States, especially after the U.S Senate failed to ratify American membership in the League.

 

Momentum was now on the Nationalists' side. A plot by a loyalist Ottoman governor and a British intelligence officer to arrest Kemal before the Sivas Congress led to the cutting of all ties with the Ottoman government until a new election would be held in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. In October 1919, the last Ottoman governor loyal to Constantinople fled his province. Fearing the outbreak of hostilities, all British troops stationed in the Black Sea coast and Kütahya were evacuated. Damat Ferid Pasha resigned, and the sultan replaced him with a general with nationalist credentials: Ali Rıza Pasha. On 16 October 1919, Ali Rıza and the Nationalists held negotiations in Amasya. They agreed in the Amasya Protocol that an election would be called for the Ottoman Parliament to establish national unity by upholding the resolutions made in the Sivas Congress, including the National Pact.

 

By October 1919, the Ottoman government only held de facto control over Constantinople; the rest of the Ottoman Empire was loyal to Kemal's movement to resist a partition of Anatolia and Thrace. Within a few months Mustafa Kemal went from General Inspector of the Ninth Army to a renegade military commander discharged for insubordination to leading a homegrown anti-Entente movement that overthrew a government and driven it into resistance.

 

In December 1919, an election was held for the Ottoman parliament, with polls only open in unoccupied Anatolia and Thrace. It was boycotted by Ottoman Greeks, Ottoman Armenians and the Freedom and Accord Party, resulting in groups associated with the Turkish Nationalist Movement winning, including the A-RMHC. The Nationalists' obvious links to the CUP made the election especially polarizing and voter intimidation and ballot box stuffing in favor of the Kemalists were regular occurrences in rural provinces. This controversy led to many of the nationalist MPs organizing the National Salvation Group separate from Kemal's movement, which risked the nationalist movement splitting in two.

 

Mustafa Kemal was elected an MP from Erzurum, but he expected the Allies neither to accept the Harbord report nor to respect his parliamentary immunity if he went to the Ottoman capital, hence he remained in Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal and the Committee of Representation moved from Sivas to Ankara so that he could keep in touch with as many deputies as possible as they traveled to Constantinople to attend the parliament.

 

Though Ali Rıza Pasha called the election as per the Amasya Protocol to keep unity between the "Istanbul government" and "Ankara government", he was wrong to think the election could bring him any legitimacy. The Ottoman parliament was under the de facto control of the British battalion stationed at Constantinople and any decisions by the parliament had to have the signatures of both Ali Rıza Pasha and the battalion's commanding officer. The only laws that passed were those acceptable to, or specifically ordered by the British.

 

On 12 January 1920, the last session of the Chamber of Deputies met in the capital. First the sultan's speech was presented, and then a telegram from Mustafa Kemal, manifesting the claim that the rightful government of Turkey was in Ankara in the name of the Committee of Representation. On 28 January the MPs from both sides of the isle secretly met to endorse the National Pact as a peace settlement. They added to the points passed in Sivas, calling for plebiscites to be held in West Thrace; Batum, Kars, and Ardahan, and Arab lands on whether to stay in the Empire or not. Proposals were also made to elect Kemal president of the Chamber;[clarification needed] however, this was deferred in the certain knowledge that the British would prorogue the Chamber. The Chamber of Deputies would be forcefully dissolved for passing the National Pact anyway. The National Pact solidified Nationalist interests, which were in conflict with the Allied plans.

 

From February to April, leaders of Britain, France, and Italy met in London to discuss the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and the crisis in Anatolia. The British began to sense that the elected Ottoman government was under Kemalist influence and if left unchecked, the Entente could once again find themselves at war with the Empire. The Ottoman government was not doing all that it could to suppress the Nationalists.

 

Mustafa Kemal manufactured a crisis to pressure the Istanbul government to pick a side by deploying Kuva-yi Milliye towards İzmit. The British, concerned about the security of the Bosporus Strait, demanded Ali Rıza Pasha to reassert control over the area, to which he responded with his resignation to the sultan.

 

As they were negotiating the partition of the Ottoman Empire, the Allies were growing increasingly concerned about the Turkish National Movement. To this end, the Allied occupational authorities in Istanbul began to plan a raid to arrest nationalist politicians and journalists along with occupying military and police installations and government buildings. On 16 March 1920, the coup was carried out; several Royal Navy warships were anchored in the Galata Bridge to support British forces, including the Indian Army, while they carried out the arrests and occupied several government buildings in the early hours of the morning.

 

An Indian Army operation, the Şehzadebaşı raid, resulted in 5 Ottoman soldiers from the 10th Infantry Division being killed when troops raided their barracks. Among those arrested were the senior leadership of the Turkish National Movement and former members of the CUP. 150 arrested Turkish politicians accused of war crimes were interned in Malta and became known as the Malta exiles.

 

Mustafa Kemal was ready for this move. He warned all the Nationalist organisations that there would be misleading declarations from the capital. He warned that the only way to counter Allied movements was to organise protests. He declared "Today the Turkish nation is called to defend its capacity for civilization, its right to life and independence – its entire future".

 

On 18 March, the Chamber of Deputies declared that it was unacceptable to arrest five of its members, and dissolved itself. Mehmed VI confirmed this and declared the end of Constitutional Monarchy and a return to absolutism. University students were forbidden from joining political associations inside and outside the classroom. With the lower elected Chamber of Deputies shuttered, the Constitution terminated, and the capital occupied; Sultan Vahdettin, his cabinet, and the appointed Senate were all that remained of the Ottoman government, and were basically a puppet regime of the Allied powers. Grand Vizier Salih Hulusi Pasha declared Mustafa Kemal's struggle legitimate, and resigned after less than a month in office. In his place, Damat Ferid Pasha returned to the premiership. The Sublime Porte's decapitation by the Entente allowed Mustafa Kemal to consolidate his position as the sole leader of Turkish resistance against the Allies, and to that end made him the legitimate representative of the Turkish people.

 

The strong measures taken against the Nationalists by the Allies in March 1920 began a distinct new phase of the conflict. Mustafa Kemal sent a note to the governors and force commanders, asking them to conduct elections to provide delegates for a new parliament to represent the Ottoman (Turkish) people, which would convene in Ankara. With the proclamation of the counter-government, Kemal would then ask the sultan to accept its authority. Mustafa Kemal appealed to the Islamic world, asking for help to make sure that everyone knew he was still fighting in the name of the sultan who was also the caliph. He stated he wanted to free the caliph from the Allies. He found an ally in the Khilafat movement of British India, where Indians protested Britain's planned dismemberment of Turkey. A committee was also started for sending funds to help the soon to be proclaimed Ankara government of Mustafa Kemal. A flood of supporters moved to Ankara just ahead of the Allied dragnets. Included among them were Halide Edip and Abdülhak Adnan (Adıvar), Mustafa İsmet Pasha (İnönü), Mustafa Fevzi Pasha (Çakmak), many of Kemal's allies in the Ministry of War, and Celalettin Arif, the president of the now shuttered Chamber of Deputies. Celaleddin Arif's desertion of the capital was of great significance, as he declared that the Ottoman Parliament had been dissolved illegally.

 

Some 100 members of the Chamber of Deputies were able to escape the Allied roundup and joined 190 deputies elected. In March 1920, Turkish revolutionaries announced the establishment of a new parliament in Ankara known as the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNA) that was dominated by the A-RMHC.[citation needed] The parliament included Turks, Circassians, Kurds, and one Jew. They met in a building that used to serve as the provincial headquarters of the local CUP chapter. The inclusion of "Turkey" in its name reflected a increasing trend of new ways Ottoman citizens thought of their country, and was the first time it was formally used as the name of the country. On 23 April, the assembly, assuming full governmental powers, gathered for the first time, electing Mustafa Kemal its first Speaker and Prime Minister.

 

Hoping to undermine the Nationalist Movement, Mehmed VI issued a fatwa to qualify the Turkish revolutionaries as infidels, calling for the death of its leaders. The fatwa stated that true believers should not go along with the Nationalist Movement as they committed apostasy. The mufti of Ankara Rifat Börekçi issued a simultaneous fatwa, declaring that the caliphate was under the control of the Entente and the Ferid Pasha government. In this text, the Nationalist Movement's goal was stated as freeing the sultanate and the caliphate from its enemies. In reaction to the desertion of several prominent figures to the Nationalist Movement, Ferid Pasha ordered Halide Edip, Ali Fuat and Mustafa Kemal to be sentenced to death in absentia for treason.

 

On 28 April the sultan raised 4,000 soldiers known as the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye (Caliphate Army) to combat the Nationalists. Then using money from the Allies, another force about 2,000 strong from non-Muslim inhabitants were initially deployed in İznik. The sultan's government sent the forces under the name of the Caliphate Army to the revolutionaries to arouse counterrevolutionary sympathy. The British, being skeptical of how formidable these insurgents were, decided to use irregular power to counteract the revolutionaries. The Nationalist forces were distributed all around Turkey, so many smaller units were dispatched to face them. In İzmit there were two battalions of the British army. These units were to be used to rout the partisans under the command of Ali Fuat and Refet Pasha.

 

Anatolia had many competing forces on its soil: British troops, Nationalist militia (Kuva-yi Milliye), the sultan's army (Kuva-yi İnzibatiye), and Anzavur's bands. On 13 April 1920, an uprising supported by Anzavur against the GNA occurred at Düzce as a direct consequence of the fatwa. Within days the rebellion spread to Bolu and Gerede. The movement engulfed northwestern Anatolia for about a month. On 14 June, Nationalist militia fought a pitched battle near İzmit against the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye, Anzavur's bands, and British units. Yet under heavy attack some of the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye deserted and joined the Nationalist militia. Anzavur was not so lucky, as the Nationalists tasked Ethem the Circassian with crushing Anzavur's revolt. This revealed the sultan did not have the unwavering support of his own men and allies. Meanwhile, the rest of these forces withdrew behind the British lines which held their position. For now, Istanbul was out of Ankara's grasp.

 

The clash outside İzmit brought serious consequences. British forces conducted combat operations on the Nationalists and the Royal Air Force carried out aerial bombardments against the positions, which forced Nationalist forces to temporarily retreat to more secure missions. The British commander in Turkey, General George Milne—, asked for reinforcements. This led to a study to determine what would be required to defeat the Turkish Nationalists. The report, signed by French Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch, concluded that 27 divisions were necessary, but the British army did not have 27 divisions to spare. Also, a deployment of this size could have disastrous political consequences back home. World War I had just ended, and the British public would not support another lengthy and costly expedition.

 

The British accepted the fact that a nationalist movement could not be defeated without deployment of consistent and well-trained forces. On 25 June, the forces originating from Kuva-i İnzibatiye were dismantled under British supervision. The British realised that the best option to overcome these Turkish Nationalists was to use a force that was battle-tested and fierce enough to fight the Turks on their own soil. The British had to look no further than Turkey's neighbor already occupying its territory: Greece.

 

Eleftherios Venizelos, pessimistic of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Anatolia, requested to the Allies that a peace treaty be drawn up with the hope that fighting would stop. The subsequent treaty of Sèvres in August 1920 confirmed the Arab provinces of the empire would be reorganized into new nations given to Britain and France in the form of Mandates by the League of Nations, while the rest of the Empire would be partitioned between Greece, Italy, France (via Syrian mandate), Britain (via Iraqi mandate), Armenia (potentially under an American mandate), and Georgia. Smyrna would hold a plebiscite on whether to stay with Greece or Turkey, and the Kurdistan region would hold one on the question of independence. British, French, and Italian spheres of influence would also extend into Anatolia beyond the land concessions. The old capital of Constantinople as well as the Dardanelles would be under international League of Nations control.

 

However, the treaty could never come into effect. The treaty was extremely unpopular, with protests against the final document held even before its release in Sultanahmet square. Though Mehmed VI and Ferid Pasha loathed the treaty, they did not want Istanbul to join Ankara in nationalist struggle. The Ottoman government and Greece never ratified it. Though Ferid Pasha signed the treaty, the Ottoman Senate, the upper house with seats appointed by the sultan, refused to ratify the treaty. Greece disagreed on the borders drawn. The other allies began to fracture their support of the settlement immediately. Italy started openly supporting the Nationalists with arms by the end of 1920, and the French signed another separate peace treaty with Ankara only months later.

 

Kemal's GNA Government responded to the Treaty of Sèvres by promulgating a new constitution in January 1921. The resulting constitution consecrated the principle of popular sovereignty; authority not deriving from the unelected sultan, but from the Turkish people who elect governments representative of their interests. This document became the legal basis for the war of independence by the GNA, as the sultan's signature of the Treaty of Sèvres would be unconstitutional as his position was not elected. While the constitution did not specify a future role of the sultan, the document gave Kemal ever more legitimacy in the eyes of Turks for justified resistance against Istanbul.

 

In contrast to the Eastern and Western fronts, it was mostly unorganized Kuva-yi Milliye which were fighting in the Southern Front against France. They had help from the Syrians, who were fighting their own war with the French.

 

The British troops which occupied coastal Syria by the end of World War I were replaced by French troops over 1919, with the Syrian interior going to Faisal bin Al-Hussein's self-proclaimed Arab Kingdom of Syria. France which wanted to take control of all of Syria and Cilicia. There was also a desire facilitate the return of Armenian refugees in the region to their homes, and the occupation force consisted of the French Armenian Legion as well as various Armenian militia groups. 150,000 Armenians were repatriated to their homes within months of French occupation. On 21 January 1920, a Turkish Nationalist uprising and siege occurred against the French garrison in Marash. The French position untenable they retreated to Islahiye, resulting in a massacre of many Armenians by Turkish militia. A grueling siege followed in Antep which featured intense sectarian violence between Turks and Armenians. After a failed uprising by the Nationalists in Adana, by 1921, the French and Turks signed an armistice and eventually a treaty was brokered demarcating the border between the Ankara government and French controlled Syria. In the end, there was a mass exodus of Cilician Armenians to French controlled Syria, Previous Armenian survivors of deportation found themselves again as refugees and families which avoided the worst of the six years violence were forced from their homes, ending thousands of years of Christian presence in Southern Anatolia.[146] With France being the first Allied power to recognize and negotiate with the Ankara government only months after signing the Treaty of Sèvres, it was the first to break from the coordinated Allied approach to the Eastern question. In 1923 the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon under French authority would be proclaimed in former Ottoman territory.

 

Some efforts to coordinate between Turkish Nationalists and the Syrian rebels persisted from 1920 to 1921, with the Nationalists supporting the Faisal's kingdom through Ibrahim Hanunu and Alawite groups which were also fighting the French. While the French conquered Syria, Cilicia had to be abandoned.

 

Kuva-yi Milliye also engaged with British forces in the "Al-Jazira Front," primarily in Mosul. Ali İhsan Pasha (Sabis) and his forces defending Mosul would surrender to the British in October 1918, but the British ignored the armistice and seized the city, following which the pasha also ignored the armistice and distributed weapons to the locals. Even before Mustafa Kemal's movement was fully organized, rogue commanders found allies in Kurdish tribes. The Kurds detested the taxes and centralization the British demanded, including Shaykh Mahmud of the Barzani family. Having previously supported the British invasion of Mesopotamia to become the governor of South Kurdistan, Mahmud revolted but was apprehended by 1919. Without legitimacy to govern the region, he was released from captivity to Sulaymaniyah, where he again declared an uprising against the British as the King of Kurdistan. Though an alliance existed with the Turks, little material support came to him from Ankara, and by 1923 there was a desire to cease hostilities between the Turks and British at Barzanji's expense. Mahmud was overthrown in 1924, and after a 1926 plebiscite, Mosul was awarded to British-controlled Iraq.

 

Since 1917, the Caucasus was in a chaotic state. The border of newly independent Armenia and the Ottoman Empire was defined in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918) after the Bolshevik revolution, and later by the Treaty of Batum (4 June 1918). To the east, Armenia was at war with the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic after the breakup of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, and received support from Anton Denikin's White Russian Army. It was obvious that after the Armistice of Mudros (30 October 1918) the eastern border was not going to stay as it was drawn, which mandated the evacuation of the Ottoman army back to its 1914 borders. Right after the Armistice of Mudros was signed, pro-Ottoman provisional republics were proclaimed in Kars and Aras which were subsequently invaded by Armenia. Ottoman soldiers were convinced not to demobilize lest the area become a 'second Macedonia'.[149] Both sides of the new borders had massive refugee populations and famine, which were compounded by the renewed and more symmetric sectarian violence (See Massacres of Azerbaijanis in Armenia (1917–1921) and Muslim uprisings in Kars and Sharur–Nakhichevan). There were talks going on with the Armenian Diaspora and Allied Powers on reshaping the border. Woodrow Wilson agreed to transfer territories to Armenia based on the principles of national self-determination. The results of these talks were to be reflected on the Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920).

 

Kâzım Karabekir Pasha, commander of the XV corps, encountered Muslim refugees fleeing from the Armenian army, but did not have the authority to cross the border. Karabekir's two reports (30 May and 4 June 1920) outlined the situation in the region. He recommended redrawing the eastern borders, especially around Erzurum. The Russian government was receptive to this and demanded that Van and Bitlis be transferred to Armenia. This was unacceptable to the Turkish revolutionaries. However, Soviet support was absolutely vital for the Turkish Nationalist movement, as Turkey was underdeveloped and had no domestic armaments industry. Bakir Sami (Kunduh) was assigned to negotiate with the Bolsheviks.

 

On 24 September 1920, Karabekir's XV corps and Kurdish militia advance on Kars, blowing through Armenian opposition, and then Alexandropol. With an advance on Yerevan imminent, on 28 November 1920, the 11th Red Army under the command of Anatoliy Gekker crossed over into Armenia from Soviet Azerbaijan, and the Armenian government surrendered to Bolshevik forces, ending the conflict.

 

The Treaty of Alexandropol (2—3 December 1920) was the first treaty (although illegitimate) signed by the Turkish revolutionaries. The 10th article in the Treaty of Alexandropol stated that Armenia renounced the Treaty of Sèvres and its allotted partition of Anatolia. The agreement was signed with representatives of the former government of Armenia, which by that time had no de jure or de facto power in Armenia, since Soviet rule was already established in the country. On 16 March 1921, the Bolsheviks and Turkey signed a more comprehensive agreement, the Treaty of Kars, which involved representatives of Soviet Armenia, Soviet Azerbaijan, and Soviet Georgia.

 

Throughout most of his life, Atatürk was a moderate-to-heavy drinker, often consuming half a litre of rakı a day; he also smoked tobacco, predominantly in the form of cigarettes. During 1937, indications that Atatürk's health was worsening started to appear. In early 1938, while on a trip to Yalova, he suffered from a serious illness. He went to Istanbul for treatment, where he was diagnosed with cirrhosis. During his stay in Istanbul, he made an effort to keep up with his regular lifestyle, but eventually succumbed to his illness. He died on 10 November 1938, at the age of 57, in the Dolmabahçe Palace.

 

Atatürk's funeral called forth both sorrow and pride in Turkey, and 17 countries sent special representatives, while nine contributed armed detachments to the cortège. Atatürk's remains were originally laid to rest in the Ethnography Museum of Ankara, but they were transferred on 10 November 1953 (15 years after his death) in a 42-ton sarcophagus to a mausoleum overlooking Ankara, Anıtkabir.

 

In his will, Atatürk donated all of his possessions to the Republican People's Party, provided that the yearly interest of his funds would be used to look after his sister Makbule and his adopted children, and fund the higher education of İsmet İnönü's children. The remainder was willed to the Turkish Language Association and the Turkish Historical Society.

A mecha that was designed for heavy weaponry, used as a front-line warrior to destabilize and breach enemy defenses.

It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?

  

It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?

  

It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?

  

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, also known as Mustafa Kemal Pasha until 1921, and Ghazi Mustafa Kemal from 1921 until the Surname Law of 1934 (c. 1881 – 10 November 1938), was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation. Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism.

 

Atatürk came to prominence for his role in securing the Ottoman Turkish victory at the Battle of Gallipoli (1915) during World War I. During this time, the Ottoman Empire perpetrated genocides against its Greek, Armenian and Assyrian subjects; while not directly involved, Atatürk's role in their aftermath has been controversial. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, he led the Turkish National Movement, which resisted mainland Turkey's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing a provisional government in the present-day Turkish capital Ankara (known in English at the time as Angora), he defeated the forces sent by the Allies, thus emerging victorious from what was later referred to as the Turkish War of Independence. He subsequently proceeded to abolish the sultanate in 1922 and proclaimed the foundation of the Turkish Republic in its place the following year.

 

As the president of the newly formed Turkish Republic, Atatürk initiated a rigorous program of political, economic, and cultural reforms with the ultimate aim of building a republican and secular nation-state. He made primary education free and compulsory, opening thousands of new schools all over the country. He also introduced the Latin-based Turkish alphabet, replacing the old Ottoman Turkish alphabet. Turkish women received equal civil and political rights during Atatürk's presidency. In particular, women were given voting rights in local elections by Act no. 1580 on 3 April 1930 and a few years later, in 1934, full universal suffrage. His government carried out a policy of Turkification, trying to create a homogeneous, unified and above all secular nation under the Turkish banner. Under Atatürk, the minorities in Turkey were ordered to speak Turkish in public, but were allowed to maintain their own languages in private and within their own communities; non-Turkish toponyms were replaced and non-Turkish families were ordered to adopt a Turkish surname. The Turkish Parliament granted him the surname Atatürk in 1934, which means "Father of the Turks", in recognition of the role he played in building the modern Turkish Republic. He died on 10 November 1938 at Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, at the age of 57; he was succeeded as president by his long-time prime minister İsmet İnönü and was honored with a state funeral.

 

In 1981, the centennial of Atatürk's birth, his memory was honoured by the United Nations and UNESCO, which declared it The Atatürk Year in the World and adopted the Resolution on the Atatürk Centennial, describing him as "the leader of the first struggle given against colonialism and imperialism" and a "remarkable promoter of the sense of understanding between peoples and durable peace between the nations of the world and that he worked all his life for the development of harmony and cooperation between peoples without distinction". Atatürk was also credited for his peace-in-the-world oriented foreign policy and friendship with neighboring countries such as Iran, Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Greece, as well as the creation of the Balkan Pact that resisted the expansionist aggressions of Fascist Italy and Tsarist Bulgaria.

 

The Turkish War of Independence (19 May 1919 – 24 July 1923) was a series of military campaigns and a revolution waged by the Turkish National Movement, after parts of the Ottoman Empire were occupied and partitioned following its defeat in World War I. The conflict was between the Turkish Nationalists against Allied and separatist forces over the application of Wilsonian principles, especially national self-determination, in post-World War I Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. The revolution concluded the collapse of the Ottoman Empire; the Ottoman monarchy and the Islamic caliphate were abolished, and the Republic of Turkey was declared in Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. This resulted in a transfer of vested sovereignty from the sultan-caliph to the nation, setting the stage for Republican Turkey's period of nationalist revolutionary reform.

 

While World War I ended for the Ottoman Empire with the Armistice of Mudros, the Allied Powers continued occupying and securing land per the Sykes–Picot Agreement, as well as to facilitate the prosecution of former members of the Committee of Union and Progress and those involved in the Armenian genocide. Ottoman military commanders therefore refused orders from both the Allies and the Ottoman government to surrender and disband their forces. In an atmosphere of turmoil throughout the remainder of the empire, sultan Mehmed VI dispatched Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk), a well-respected and high-ranking general, to Anatolia to restore order; however, Mustafa Kemal became an enabler and eventually leader of Turkish Nationalist resistance against the Ottoman government, Allied powers, and separatists.

 

In an attempt to establish control over the power vacuum in Anatolia, the Allies agreed to launch a Greek peacekeeping force into Anatolia and occupy Smyrna (İzmir), inflaming sectarian tensions and beginning the Turkish War of Independence. A nationalist counter government led by Mustafa Kemal was established in Ankara when it became clear the Ottoman government was appeasing the Allied powers. The Allies soon pressured the Ottoman government in Constantinople to suspend the Constitution, shutter Parliament, and sign the Treaty of Sèvres, a treaty unfavorable to Turkish interests that the "Ankara government" declared illegal.

 

In the ensuing war, Turkish and Syrian forces defeated the French in the south, and remobilized army units went on to partition Armenia with the Bolsheviks, resulting in the Treaty of Kars (October 1921). The Western Front of the independence war is known as the Greco-Turkish War, in which Greek forces at first encountered unorganized resistance. However, İsmet Pasha (İnönü)'s organization of militia into a regular army paid off when Ankara forces fought the Greeks in the First and Second Battle of İnönü. The Greek army emerged victorious in the Battle of Kütahya-Eskişehir and decided to drive on the Nationalist capital of Ankara, stretching their supply lines. The Turks checked their advance in the Battle of Sakarya and eventually counter-attacked in the Great Offensive, which expelled Greek forces from Anatolia in the span of three weeks. The war effectively ended with the recapture of İzmir and the Chanak Crisis, prompting the signing of another armistice in Mudanya.

 

The Grand National Assembly in Ankara was recognized as the legitimate Turkish government, which signed the Treaty of Lausanne (July 1923), a treaty more favorable to Turkey than the Sèvres Treaty. The Allies evacuated Anatolia and Eastern Thrace, the Ottoman government was overthrown and the monarchy abolished, and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (which remains Turkey's primary legislative body today) declared the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923. With the war, a population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, and the abolition of the sultanate, the Ottoman era came to an end, and with Atatürk's reforms, the Turks created the modern, secular nation-state of Turkey. On 3 March 1924, the Ottoman caliphate was also abolished.

 

The ethnic demographics of the modern Turkish Republic were significantly impacted by the earlier Armenian genocide and the deportations of Greek-speaking, Orthodox Christian Rum people. The Turkish Nationalist Movement carried out massacres and deportations to eliminate native Christian populations—a continuation of the Armenian genocide and other ethnic cleansing operations during World War I. Following these campaigns of ethnic cleansing, the historic Christian presence in Anatolia was destroyed, in large part, and the Muslim demographic had increased from 80% to 98%.

 

Following the chaotic politics of the Second Constitutional Era, the Ottoman Empire came under the control of the Committee of Union and Progress in a coup in 1913, and then further consolidated its control after the assassination of Mahmud Shevket Pasha.[citation needed] Founded as a radical revolutionary group seeking to prevent a collapse of the Ottoman Empire, by the eve of World War I it decided that the solution was to implement nationalist and centralizing policies. The CUP reacted to the losses of land and the expulsion of Muslims from the Balkan Wars by turning even more nationalistic. Part of its effort to consolidate power was to proscribe and exile opposition politicians from the Freedom and Accord Party to remote Sinop.

 

The Unionists brought the Ottoman Empire into World War I on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, during which a genocidal campaign was waged against Ottoman Christians, namely Armenians, Pontic Greeks, and Assyrians. It was based on an alleged conspiracy that the three groups would rebel on the side of the Allies, so collective punishment was applied. A similar suspicion and suppression from the Turkish nationalist government was directed towards the Arab and Kurdish populations, leading to localized rebellions. The Entente powers reacted to these developments by charging the CUP leaders, commonly known as the Three Pashas, with "Crimes against humanity" and threatened accountability. They also had imperialist ambitions on Ottoman territory, with a major correspondence over a post-war settlement in the Ottoman Empire being leaked to the press as the Sykes–Picot Agreement. With Saint Petersburg's exit from World War I and descent into civil war, driven in part from the Ottomans' closure of the Turkish straits of goods bound to Russia, a new imperative was given to the Entente powers to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war to restart the Eastern Front.

 

World War I would be the nail in the coffin of Ottomanism, a monarchist and multicultural nationalism. Mistreatment of non-Turk groups after 1913, and the general context of great socio-political upheaval that occurred in the aftermath of World War I, meant many minorities now wished to divorce their future from imperialism to form futures of their own by separating into (often republican) nation-states.

 

In the summer months of 1918, the leaders of the Central Powers realized that the Great War was lost, including the Ottomans'. Almost simultaneously the Palestinian Front and then the Macedonian Front collapsed. The sudden decision by Bulgaria to sign an armistice cut communications from Constantinople (İstanbul) to Vienna and Berlin, and opened the undefended Ottoman capital to Entente attack. With the major fronts crumbling, Unionist Grand Vizier Talât Pasha intended to sign an armistice, and resigned on 8 October 1918 so that a new government would receive less harsh armistice terms. The Armistice of Mudros was signed on 30 October 1918, ending World War I for the Ottoman Empire. Three days later, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP)—which governed the Ottoman Empire as a one-party state since 1913—held its last congress, where it was decided the party would be dissolved. Talât, Enver Pasha, Cemal Pasha, and five other high-ranking members of the CUP escaped the Ottoman Empire on a German torpedo boat later that night, plunging the country into a power vacuum.

 

The armistice was signed because the Ottoman Empire had been defeated in important fronts, but the military was intact and retreated in good order. Unlike other Central Powers, the Allies did not mandate an abdication of the imperial family as a condition for peace, nor did they request the Ottoman Army to dissolve its general staff. Though the army suffered from mass desertion throughout the war which led to banditry, there was no threat of mutiny or revolutions like in Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Russia. This is despite famine and economic collapse that was brought on by the extreme levels of mobilization, destruction from the war, disease, and mass murder since 1914.

 

Due to the Turkish nationalist policies pursued by the CUP against Ottoman Christians by 1918 the Ottoman Empire held control over a mostly homogeneous land of Muslims from Eastern Thrace to the Persian border. These included mostly Turks, as well as Kurds, Circassians, and Muhacir groups from Rumeli. Most Muslim Arabs were now outside of the Ottoman Empire and under Allied occupation, with some "imperialists" still loyal to the Ottoman Sultanate-Caliphate, and others wishing for independence or Allied protection under a League of Nations mandate. Sizable Greek and Armenian minorities remained within its borders, and most of these communities no longer wished to remain under the Empire.

 

On 30 October 1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies of World War I, bringing hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I to an end. The Ottoman Army was to demobilize, its navy and air force handed to the Allies, and occupied territory in the Caucasus and Persia to be evacuated. Critically, Article VII granted the Allies the right to occupy forts controlling the Turkish Straits and the vague right to occupy "in case of disorder" any territory if there were a threat to security. The clause relating to the occupation of the straits was meant to secure a Southern Russian intervention force, while the rest of the article was used to allow for Allied controlled peace-keeping forces. There was also a hope to follow through punishing local actors that carried out exterminatory orders from the CUP government against Armenian Ottomans. For now, the House of Osman escaped the fates of the Hohenzollerns, Habsburgs, and Romanovs to continue ruling their empire, though at the cost of its remaining sovereignty.

 

On 13 November 1918, a French brigade entered Constantinople to begin a de facto occupation of the Ottoman capital and its immediate dependencies. This was followed by a fleet consisting of British, French, Italian and Greek ships deploying soldiers on the ground the next day, totaling 50,000 troops in Constantinople. The Allied Powers stated that the occupation was temporary and its purpose was to protect the monarchy, the caliphate and the minorities. Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe—the British signatory of the Mudros Armistice—stated the Triple Entente's public position that they had no intention to dismantle the Ottoman government or place it under military occupation by "occupying Constantinople". However, dismantling the government and partitioning the Ottoman Empire among the Allied nations had been an objective of the Entente since the start of WWI.

 

A wave of seizures took place in the rest of the country in the following months. Citing Article VII, British forces demanded that Turkish troops evacuate Mosul, claiming that Christian civilians in Mosul and Zakho were killed en masse. In the Caucasus, Britain established a presence in Menshevik Georgia and the Lori and Aras valleys as peace-keepers. On 14 November, joint Franco-Greek occupation was established in the town of Uzunköprü in Eastern Thrace as well as the railway axis until the train station of Hadımköy on the outskirts of Constantinople. On 1 December, British troops based in Syria occupied Kilis, Marash, Urfa and Birecik. Beginning in December, French troops began successive seizures of the province of Adana, including the towns of Antioch, Mersin, Tarsus, Ceyhan, Adana, Osmaniye, and İslâhiye, incorporating the area into the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration North while French forces embarked by gunboats and sent troops to the Black Sea ports of Zonguldak and Karadeniz Ereğli commanding Turkey's coal mining region. These continued seizures of land prompted Ottoman commanders to refuse demobilization and prepare for the resumption of war.

 

The British similarly asked Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) to turn over the port of Alexandretta (İskenderun), which he reluctantly did, following which he was recalled to Constantinople. He made sure to distribute weapons to the population to prevent them from falling into the hands of Allied forces. Some of these weapons were smuggled to the east by members of Karakol, a successor to the CUP's Special Organization, to be used in case resistance was necessary in Anatolia. Many Ottoman officials participated in efforts to conceal from the occupying authorities details of the burgeoning independence movement spreading throughout Anatolia.

 

Other commanders began refusing orders from the Ottoman government and the Allied powers. After Mustafa Kemal Pasha returned to Constantinople, Ali Fuat Pasha (Cebesoy) brought XX Corps under his command. He marched first to Konya and then to Ankara to organise resistance groups, such as the Circassian çetes he assembled with guerilla leader Çerkes Ethem. Meanwhile, Kazım Karabekir Pasha refused to surrender his intact and powerful XV Corps in Erzurum. Evacuation from the Caucusus, puppet republics and Muslim militia groups were established in the army's wake to hamper with the consolidation of the new Armenian state. Elsewhere in the country, regional nationalist resistance organizations known as Şuras –meaning "councils", not unlike soviets in revolutionary Russia– were founded, most pledging allegiance to the Defence of National Rights movement that protested continued Allied occupation and appeasement by the Sublime Porte.

 

Following the occupation of Constantinople, Mehmed VI Vahdettin dissolved the Chamber of Deputies which was dominated by Unionists elected back in 1914, promising elections for the next year. Vahdettin just ascended to the throne only months earlier with the death of Mehmed V Reşad. He was disgusted with the policies of the CUP, and wished to be a more assertive sovereign than his diseased half brother. Greek and Armenian Ottomans declared the termination of their relationship with the Ottoman Empire through their respective patriarchates, and refused to partake in any future election. With the collapse of the CUP and its censorship regime, an outpouring of condemnation against the party came from all parts of Ottoman media.

 

A general amnesty was soon issued, allowing the exiled and imprisoned dissidents persecuted by the CUP to return to Constantinople. Vahdettin invited the pro-Palace politician Damat Ferid Pasha, leader of the reconstituted Freedom and Accord Party, to form a government, whose members quickly set out to purge the Unionists from the Ottoman government. Ferid Pasha hoped that his Anglophilia and an attitude of appeasement would induce less harsh peace terms from the Allied powers. However, his appointment was problematic for nationalists, many being members of the liquidated committee that were surely to face trial. Years of corruption, unconstitutional acts, war profiteering, and enrichment from ethnic cleansing and genocide by the Unionists soon became basis of war crimes trials and courts martial trials held in Constantinople.[citation needed] While many leading Unionists were sentenced lengthy prison sentences, many made sure to escape the country before Allied occupation or to regions that the government now had minimal control over; thus most were sentenced in absentia. The Allies encouragement of the proceedings and the use of British Malta as their holding ground made the trials unpopular. The partisan nature of the trials was not lost on observers either. The hanging of the Kaymakam of Boğazlıyan district Mehmed Kemal resulted in a demonstration against the courts martials trials.

 

With all the chaotic politics in the capital and uncertainty of the severity of the incoming peace treaty, many Ottomans looked to Washington with the hope that the application of Wilsonian principles would mean Constantinople would stay Turkish, as Muslims outnumbered Christians 2:1. The United States never declared war on the Ottoman Empire, so many imperial elite believed Washington could be a neutral arbiter that could fix the empire's problems. Halide Edip (Adıvar) and her Wilsonian Principles Society led the movement that advocated for the empire to be governed by an American League of Nations Mandate (see United States during the Turkish War of Independence). American diplomats attempted to ascertain a role they could play in the area with the Harbord and King–Crane Commissions. However, with the collapse of Woodrow Wilson's health, the United States diplomatically withdrew from the Middle East to focus on Europe, leaving the Entente powers to construct a post-Ottoman order.

 

The Entente would have arrived at Constantinople to discover an administration attempting to deal with decades of accumulated refugee crisis. The new government issued a proclamation allowing for deportees to return to their homes, but many Greeks and Armenians found their old homes occupied by desperate Rumelian and Caucasian Muslim refugees which were settled in their properties during the First World War. Ethnic conflict restarted in Anatolia; government officials responsible for resettling Christian refugees often assisted Muslim refugees in these disputes, prompting European powers to continue bringing Ottoman territory under their control. Of the 800,000 Ottoman Christian refugees, approximately over half returned to their homes by 1920. Meanwhile 1.4 million refugees from the Russian Civil War would pass through the Turkish straits and Anatolia, with 150,000 White émigrés choosing to settle in Istanbul for short or long term (see Evacuation of the Crimea). Many provinces were simply depopulated from years of fighting, conscription, and ethnic cleansing (see Ottoman casualties of World War I). The province of Yozgat lost 50% of its Muslim population from conscription, while according to the governor of Van, almost 95% of its prewar residents were dead or internally displaced.

 

Administration in much of the Anatolian and Thracian countryside would soon all but collapse by 1919. Army deserters who turned to banditry essentially controlled fiefdoms with tacit approval from bureaucrats and local elites. An amnesty issued in late 1918 saw these bandits strengthen their positions and fight amongst each other instead of returning to civilian life. Albanian and Circassian muhacirs resettled by the government in northwestern Anatolia and Kurds in southeastern Anatolia were engaged in blood feuds that intensified during the war and were hesitant to pledge allegiance to the Defence of Rights movement, and only would if officials could facilitate truces. Various Muhacir groups were suspicious of the continued Ittihadist ideology in the Defence of Rights movement, and the potential for themselves to meet fates 'like the Armenians' especially as warlords hailing from those communities assisted the deportations of the Christians even though as many commanders in the Nationalist movement also had Caucasian and Balkan Muslim ancestry.

 

With Anatolia in practical anarchy and the Ottoman army being questionably loyal in reaction to Allied land seizures, Mehmed VI established the military inspectorate system to reestablish authority over the remaining empire. Encouraged by Karabekir and Edmund Allenby, he assigned Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) as the inspector of the Ninth Army Troops Inspectorate –based in Erzurum– to restore order to Ottoman military units and to improve internal security on 30 April 1919, with his first assignment to suppress a rebellion by Greek rebels around the city of Samsun.

 

Mustafa Kemal was a well known, well respected, and well connected army commander, with much prestige coming from his status as the "Hero of Anafartalar"—for his role in the Gallipoli Campaign—and his title of "Honorary Aide-de-camp to His Majesty Sultan" gained in the last months of WWI. This choice would seem curious, as he was a nationalist and a fierce critic of the government's accommodating policy to the Entente powers. He was also an early member of the CUP. However Kemal Pasha did not associate himself with the fanatical faction of the CUP, many knew that he frequently clashed with the radicals of the Central Committee like Enver. He was therefore sidelined to the periphery of power throughout the Great War; after the CUP's dissolution he vocally aligned himself with moderates that formed the Liberal People's Party instead of the rump radical faction which formed the Renewal Party (both parties would be banned in May 1919 for being successors of the CUP). All these reasons allowed him to be the most legitimate nationalist for the sultan to placate. In this new political climate, he sought to capitalize on his war exploits to attain a better job, indeed several times he unsuccessfully lobbied for his inclusion in cabinet as War Minister. His new assignment gave him effective plenipotentiary powers over all of Anatolia which was meant to accommodate him and other nationalists to keep them loyal to the government.

 

Mustafa Kemal had earlier declined to become the leader of the Sixth Army headquartered in Nusaybin. But according to Patrick Balfour, through manipulation and the help of friends and sympathizers, he became the inspector of virtually all of the Ottoman forces in Anatolia, tasked with overseeing the disbanding process of remaining Ottoman forces. Kemal had an abundance of connections and personal friends concentrated in the post-armistice War Ministry, a powerful tool that would help him accomplish his secret goal: to lead a nationalist movement to safeguard Turkish interests against the Allied powers and a collaborative Ottoman government.

 

The day before his departure to Samsun on the remote Black Sea coast, Kemal had one last audience with Sultan Vahdettin, where he affirmed his loyalty to the sultan-caliph. It was in this meeting that they were informed of the botched occupation ceremony of Smyrna (İzmir) by the Greeks. He and his carefully selected staff left Constantinople aboard the old steamer SS Bandırma on the evening of 16 May 1919.

 

On 19 January 1919, the Paris Peace Conference was first held, at which Allied nations set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers, including the Ottoman Empire. As a special body of the Paris Conference, "The Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey", was established to pursue the secret treaties they had signed between 1915 and 1917. Italy sought control over the southern part of Anatolia under the Agreement of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne. France expected to exercise control over Hatay, Lebanon, Syria, and a portion of southeastern Anatolia based on the Sykes–Picot Agreement.

 

Greece justified their territorial claims of Ottoman land through the Megali Idea as well as international sympathy from the suffering of Ottoman Greeks in 1914 and 1917–1918. Privately, Greek prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos had British prime minister David Lloyd George's backing not least from Greece's entrance to WWI on the Allied side, but also from his charisma and charming personality. Greece's participation in the Allies' Southern Russian intervention also earned it favors in Paris. His demands included parts of Eastern Thrace, the islands of Imbros (Gökçeada), Tenedos (Bozcaada), and parts of Western Anatolia around the city of Smyrna (İzmir), all of which had large Greek populations. Venizelos also advocated a large Armenian state to check a post-war Ottoman Empire. Greece wanted to incorporate Constantinople, but Entente powers did not give permission. Damat Ferid Pasha went to Paris on behalf of the Ottoman Empire hoping to minimize territorial losses using Fourteen Points rhetoric, wishing for a return to status quo ante bellum, on the basis that every province of the Empire holds Muslim majorities. This plea was met with ridicule.

 

At the Paris Peace Conference, competing claims over Western Anatolia by Greek and Italian delegations led Greece to land the flagship of the Greek Navy at Smyrna, resulting in the Italian delegation walking out of the peace talks. On 30 April, Italy responded to the possible idea of Greek incorporation of Western Anatolia by sending a warship to Smyrna as a show of force against the Greek campaign. A large Italian force also landed in Antalya. Faced with Italian annexation of parts of Asia Minor with a significant ethnic Greek population, Venizelos secured Allied permission for Greek troops to land in Smyrna per Article VII, ostensibly as a peacekeeping force to keep stability in the region. Venizelos's rhetoric was more directed against the CUP regime than the Turks as a whole, an attitude not always shared in the Greek military: "Greece is not making war against Islam, but against the anachronistic [İttihadist] Government, and its corrupt, ignominious, and bloody administration, with a view to the expelling it from those territories where the majority of the population consists of Greeks." It was decided by the Triple Entente that Greece would control a zone around Smyrna and Ayvalık in western Asia Minor.

 

Most historians mark the Greek landing at Smyrna on 15 May 1919 as the start date of the Turkish War of Independence as well as the start of the "Kuva-yi Milliye Phase". The occupation ceremony from the outset was tense from nationalist fervor, with Ottoman Greeks greeting the soldiers with an ecstatic welcome, and Ottoman Muslims protesting the landing. A miscommunication in Greek high command led to an Evzone column marching by the municipal Turkish barracks. The nationalist journalist Hasan Tahsin fired the "first bullet"[note 4] at the Greek standard bearer at the head of the troops, turning the city into a warzone. Süleyman Fethi Bey was murdered by bayonet for refusing to shout "Zito Venizelos" (meaning "long live Venizelos"), and 300–400 unarmed Turkish soldiers and civilians and 100 Greek soldiers and civilians were killed or wounded.

 

Greek troops moved from Smyrna outwards to towns on the Karaburun peninsula; to Selçuk, situated a hundred kilometres south of the city at a key location that commands the fertile Küçük Menderes River valley; and to Menemen towards the north. Guerilla warfare commenced in the countryside, as Turks began to organize themselves into irregular guerilla groups known as Kuva-yi Milliye (national forces), which were soon joined by Ottoman soldiers, bandits, and disaffected farmers. Most Kuva-yi Milliye bands were led by rogue military commanders and members of the Special Organization. The Greek troops based in cosmopolitan Smyrna soon found themselves conducting counterinsurgency operations in a hostile, dominantly Muslim hinterland. Groups of Ottoman Greeks also formed contingents that cooperated with the Greek Army to combat Kuva-yi Milliye within the zone of control. A massacre of Turks at Menemen was followed up with a battle for the town of Aydın, which saw intense intercommunal violence and the razing of the city. What was supposed to be a peacekeeping mission of Western Anatolia instead inflamed ethnic tensions and became a counterinsurgency.

 

The reaction of Greek landing at Smyrna and continued Allied seizures of land served to destabilize Turkish civil society. Ottoman bureaucrats, military, and bourgeoisie trusted the Allies to bring peace, and thought the terms offered at Mudros were considerably more lenient than they actually were. Pushback was potent in the capital, with 23 May 1919 being largest of the Sultanahmet Square demonstrations organized by the Turkish Hearths against the Greek occupation of Smyrna, the largest act of civil disobedience in Turkish history at that point. The Ottoman government condemned the landing, but could do little about it. Ferid Pasha tried to resign, but was urged by the sultan to stay in his office.

 

Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his colleagues stepped ashore in Samsun on 19 May and set up their first quarters in the Mıntıka Palace Hotel. British troops were present in Samsun, and he initially maintained cordial contact. He had assured Damat Ferid about the army's loyalty towards the new government in Constantinople. However, behind the government's back, Kemal made the people of Samsun aware of the Greek and Italian landings, staged discreet mass meetings, made fast connections via telegraph with the army units in Anatolia, and began to form links with various Nationalist groups. He sent telegrams of protest to foreign embassies and the War Ministry about British reinforcements in the area and about British aid to Greek brigand gangs. After a week in Samsun, Kemal and his staff moved to Havza. It was there that he first showed the flag of the resistance.

 

Mustafa Kemal wrote in his memoir that he needed nationwide support to justify armed resistance against the Allied occupation. His credentials and the importance of his position were not enough to inspire everyone. While officially occupied with the disarming of the army, he met with various contacts in order to build his movement's momentum. He met with Rauf Pasha, Karabekir Pasha, Ali Fuat Pasha, and Refet Pasha and issued the Amasya Circular (22 June 1919). Ottoman provincial authorities were notified via telegraph that the unity and independence of the nation was at risk, and that the government in Constantinople was compromised. To remedy this, a congress was to take place in Erzurum between delegates of the Six Vilayets to decide on a response, and another congress would take place in Sivas where every Vilayet should send delegates. Sympathy and an lack of coordination from the capital gave Mustafa Kemal freedom of movement and telegraph use despite his implied anti-government tone.

 

On 23 June, High Commissioner Admiral Calthorpe, realising the significance of Mustafa Kemal's discreet activities in Anatolia, sent a report about the Pasha to the Foreign Office. His remarks were downplayed by George Kidson of the Eastern Department. Captain Hurst of the British occupation force in Samsun warned Admiral Calthorpe one more time, but Hurst's units were replaced with the Brigade of Gurkhas. When the British landed in Alexandretta, Admiral Calthorpe resigned on the basis that this was against the armistice that he had signed and was assigned to another position on 5 August 1919. The movement of British units alarmed the population of the region and convinced them that Mustafa Kemal was right.

 

By early July, Mustafa Kemal Pasha received telegrams from the sultan and Calthorpe, asking him and Refet to cease his activities in Anatolia and return to the capital. Kemal was in Erzincan and did not want to return to Constantinople, concerned that the foreign authorities might have designs for him beyond the sultan's plans. Before resigning from his position, he dispatched a circular to all nationalist organizations and military commanders to not disband or surrender unless for the latter if they could be replaced by cooperative nationalist commanders. Now only a civilian stripped of his command, Mustafa Kemal was at the mercy of the new inspector of Third Army (renamed from Ninth Army) Karabekir Pasha, indeed the War Ministry ordered him to arrest Kemal, an order which Karabekir refused. The Erzurum Congress was a meeting of delegates and governors from the six Eastern Vilayets. They drafted the National Pact (Misak-ı Millî), which envisioned new borders for the Ottoman Empire by applying principles of national self-determination per Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and the abolition of the capitulations. The Erzurum Congress concluded with a circular that was effectively a declaration of independence: All regions within Ottoman borders upon the signing of the Mudros Armistice were indivisible from the Ottoman state –Greek and Armenian claims on Thrace and Anatolia were moot– and assistance from any country not coveting Ottoman territory was welcome. If the government in Constantinople was not able to attain this after electing a new parliament, they insisted a provisional government should be promulgated to defend Turkish sovereignty. The Committee of Representation was established as a provisional executive body based in Anatolia, with Mustafa Kemal Pasha as its chairman.

 

Following the congress, the Committee of Representation relocated to Sivas. As announced in the Amasya Circular, a new congress was held there in September with delegates from all Anatolian and Thracian provinces. The Sivas Congress repeated the points of the National Pact agreed to in Erzurum, and united the various regional Defence of National Rights Associations organizations, into a united political organisation: Anatolia and Rumeli Defence of Rights Association (A-RMHC), with Mustafa Kemal as its chairman. In an effort show his movement was in fact a new and unifying movement, the delegates had to swear an oath to discontinue their relations with the CUP and to never revive the party (despite most present in Sivas being previous members).[120] It was also decided there that the Ottoman Empire should not be a League of Nations mandate under the United States, especially after the U.S Senate failed to ratify American membership in the League.

 

Momentum was now on the Nationalists' side. A plot by a loyalist Ottoman governor and a British intelligence officer to arrest Kemal before the Sivas Congress led to the cutting of all ties with the Ottoman government until a new election would be held in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. In October 1919, the last Ottoman governor loyal to Constantinople fled his province. Fearing the outbreak of hostilities, all British troops stationed in the Black Sea coast and Kütahya were evacuated. Damat Ferid Pasha resigned, and the sultan replaced him with a general with nationalist credentials: Ali Rıza Pasha. On 16 October 1919, Ali Rıza and the Nationalists held negotiations in Amasya. They agreed in the Amasya Protocol that an election would be called for the Ottoman Parliament to establish national unity by upholding the resolutions made in the Sivas Congress, including the National Pact.

 

By October 1919, the Ottoman government only held de facto control over Constantinople; the rest of the Ottoman Empire was loyal to Kemal's movement to resist a partition of Anatolia and Thrace. Within a few months Mustafa Kemal went from General Inspector of the Ninth Army to a renegade military commander discharged for insubordination to leading a homegrown anti-Entente movement that overthrew a government and driven it into resistance.

 

In December 1919, an election was held for the Ottoman parliament, with polls only open in unoccupied Anatolia and Thrace. It was boycotted by Ottoman Greeks, Ottoman Armenians and the Freedom and Accord Party, resulting in groups associated with the Turkish Nationalist Movement winning, including the A-RMHC. The Nationalists' obvious links to the CUP made the election especially polarizing and voter intimidation and ballot box stuffing in favor of the Kemalists were regular occurrences in rural provinces. This controversy led to many of the nationalist MPs organizing the National Salvation Group separate from Kemal's movement, which risked the nationalist movement splitting in two.

 

Mustafa Kemal was elected an MP from Erzurum, but he expected the Allies neither to accept the Harbord report nor to respect his parliamentary immunity if he went to the Ottoman capital, hence he remained in Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal and the Committee of Representation moved from Sivas to Ankara so that he could keep in touch with as many deputies as possible as they traveled to Constantinople to attend the parliament.

 

Though Ali Rıza Pasha called the election as per the Amasya Protocol to keep unity between the "Istanbul government" and "Ankara government", he was wrong to think the election could bring him any legitimacy. The Ottoman parliament was under the de facto control of the British battalion stationed at Constantinople and any decisions by the parliament had to have the signatures of both Ali Rıza Pasha and the battalion's commanding officer. The only laws that passed were those acceptable to, or specifically ordered by the British.

 

On 12 January 1920, the last session of the Chamber of Deputies met in the capital. First the sultan's speech was presented, and then a telegram from Mustafa Kemal, manifesting the claim that the rightful government of Turkey was in Ankara in the name of the Committee of Representation. On 28 January the MPs from both sides of the isle secretly met to endorse the National Pact as a peace settlement. They added to the points passed in Sivas, calling for plebiscites to be held in West Thrace; Batum, Kars, and Ardahan, and Arab lands on whether to stay in the Empire or not. Proposals were also made to elect Kemal president of the Chamber;[clarification needed] however, this was deferred in the certain knowledge that the British would prorogue the Chamber. The Chamber of Deputies would be forcefully dissolved for passing the National Pact anyway. The National Pact solidified Nationalist interests, which were in conflict with the Allied plans.

 

From February to April, leaders of Britain, France, and Italy met in London to discuss the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and the crisis in Anatolia. The British began to sense that the elected Ottoman government was under Kemalist influence and if left unchecked, the Entente could once again find themselves at war with the Empire. The Ottoman government was not doing all that it could to suppress the Nationalists.

 

Mustafa Kemal manufactured a crisis to pressure the Istanbul government to pick a side by deploying Kuva-yi Milliye towards İzmit. The British, concerned about the security of the Bosporus Strait, demanded Ali Rıza Pasha to reassert control over the area, to which he responded with his resignation to the sultan.

 

As they were negotiating the partition of the Ottoman Empire, the Allies were growing increasingly concerned about the Turkish National Movement. To this end, the Allied occupational authorities in Istanbul began to plan a raid to arrest nationalist politicians and journalists along with occupying military and police installations and government buildings. On 16 March 1920, the coup was carried out; several Royal Navy warships were anchored in the Galata Bridge to support British forces, including the Indian Army, while they carried out the arrests and occupied several government buildings in the early hours of the morning.

 

An Indian Army operation, the Şehzadebaşı raid, resulted in 5 Ottoman soldiers from the 10th Infantry Division being killed when troops raided their barracks. Among those arrested were the senior leadership of the Turkish National Movement and former members of the CUP. 150 arrested Turkish politicians accused of war crimes were interned in Malta and became known as the Malta exiles.

 

Mustafa Kemal was ready for this move. He warned all the Nationalist organisations that there would be misleading declarations from the capital. He warned that the only way to counter Allied movements was to organise protests. He declared "Today the Turkish nation is called to defend its capacity for civilization, its right to life and independence – its entire future".

 

On 18 March, the Chamber of Deputies declared that it was unacceptable to arrest five of its members, and dissolved itself. Mehmed VI confirmed this and declared the end of Constitutional Monarchy and a return to absolutism. University students were forbidden from joining political associations inside and outside the classroom. With the lower elected Chamber of Deputies shuttered, the Constitution terminated, and the capital occupied; Sultan Vahdettin, his cabinet, and the appointed Senate were all that remained of the Ottoman government, and were basically a puppet regime of the Allied powers. Grand Vizier Salih Hulusi Pasha declared Mustafa Kemal's struggle legitimate, and resigned after less than a month in office. In his place, Damat Ferid Pasha returned to the premiership. The Sublime Porte's decapitation by the Entente allowed Mustafa Kemal to consolidate his position as the sole leader of Turkish resistance against the Allies, and to that end made him the legitimate representative of the Turkish people.

 

The strong measures taken against the Nationalists by the Allies in March 1920 began a distinct new phase of the conflict. Mustafa Kemal sent a note to the governors and force commanders, asking them to conduct elections to provide delegates for a new parliament to represent the Ottoman (Turkish) people, which would convene in Ankara. With the proclamation of the counter-government, Kemal would then ask the sultan to accept its authority. Mustafa Kemal appealed to the Islamic world, asking for help to make sure that everyone knew he was still fighting in the name of the sultan who was also the caliph. He stated he wanted to free the caliph from the Allies. He found an ally in the Khilafat movement of British India, where Indians protested Britain's planned dismemberment of Turkey. A committee was also started for sending funds to help the soon to be proclaimed Ankara government of Mustafa Kemal. A flood of supporters moved to Ankara just ahead of the Allied dragnets. Included among them were Halide Edip and Abdülhak Adnan (Adıvar), Mustafa İsmet Pasha (İnönü), Mustafa Fevzi Pasha (Çakmak), many of Kemal's allies in the Ministry of War, and Celalettin Arif, the president of the now shuttered Chamber of Deputies. Celaleddin Arif's desertion of the capital was of great significance, as he declared that the Ottoman Parliament had been dissolved illegally.

 

Some 100 members of the Chamber of Deputies were able to escape the Allied roundup and joined 190 deputies elected. In March 1920, Turkish revolutionaries announced the establishment of a new parliament in Ankara known as the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNA) that was dominated by the A-RMHC.[citation needed] The parliament included Turks, Circassians, Kurds, and one Jew. They met in a building that used to serve as the provincial headquarters of the local CUP chapter. The inclusion of "Turkey" in its name reflected a increasing trend of new ways Ottoman citizens thought of their country, and was the first time it was formally used as the name of the country. On 23 April, the assembly, assuming full governmental powers, gathered for the first time, electing Mustafa Kemal its first Speaker and Prime Minister.

 

Hoping to undermine the Nationalist Movement, Mehmed VI issued a fatwa to qualify the Turkish revolutionaries as infidels, calling for the death of its leaders. The fatwa stated that true believers should not go along with the Nationalist Movement as they committed apostasy. The mufti of Ankara Rifat Börekçi issued a simultaneous fatwa, declaring that the caliphate was under the control of the Entente and the Ferid Pasha government. In this text, the Nationalist Movement's goal was stated as freeing the sultanate and the caliphate from its enemies. In reaction to the desertion of several prominent figures to the Nationalist Movement, Ferid Pasha ordered Halide Edip, Ali Fuat and Mustafa Kemal to be sentenced to death in absentia for treason.

 

On 28 April the sultan raised 4,000 soldiers known as the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye (Caliphate Army) to combat the Nationalists. Then using money from the Allies, another force about 2,000 strong from non-Muslim inhabitants were initially deployed in İznik. The sultan's government sent the forces under the name of the Caliphate Army to the revolutionaries to arouse counterrevolutionary sympathy. The British, being skeptical of how formidable these insurgents were, decided to use irregular power to counteract the revolutionaries. The Nationalist forces were distributed all around Turkey, so many smaller units were dispatched to face them. In İzmit there were two battalions of the British army. These units were to be used to rout the partisans under the command of Ali Fuat and Refet Pasha.

 

Anatolia had many competing forces on its soil: British troops, Nationalist militia (Kuva-yi Milliye), the sultan's army (Kuva-yi İnzibatiye), and Anzavur's bands. On 13 April 1920, an uprising supported by Anzavur against the GNA occurred at Düzce as a direct consequence of the fatwa. Within days the rebellion spread to Bolu and Gerede. The movement engulfed northwestern Anatolia for about a month. On 14 June, Nationalist militia fought a pitched battle near İzmit against the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye, Anzavur's bands, and British units. Yet under heavy attack some of the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye deserted and joined the Nationalist militia. Anzavur was not so lucky, as the Nationalists tasked Ethem the Circassian with crushing Anzavur's revolt. This revealed the sultan did not have the unwavering support of his own men and allies. Meanwhile, the rest of these forces withdrew behind the British lines which held their position. For now, Istanbul was out of Ankara's grasp.

 

The clash outside İzmit brought serious consequences. British forces conducted combat operations on the Nationalists and the Royal Air Force carried out aerial bombardments against the positions, which forced Nationalist forces to temporarily retreat to more secure missions. The British commander in Turkey, General George Milne—, asked for reinforcements. This led to a study to determine what would be required to defeat the Turkish Nationalists. The report, signed by French Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch, concluded that 27 divisions were necessary, but the British army did not have 27 divisions to spare. Also, a deployment of this size could have disastrous political consequences back home. World War I had just ended, and the British public would not support another lengthy and costly expedition.

 

The British accepted the fact that a nationalist movement could not be defeated without deployment of consistent and well-trained forces. On 25 June, the forces originating from Kuva-i İnzibatiye were dismantled under British supervision. The British realised that the best option to overcome these Turkish Nationalists was to use a force that was battle-tested and fierce enough to fight the Turks on their own soil. The British had to look no further than Turkey's neighbor already occupying its territory: Greece.

 

Eleftherios Venizelos, pessimistic of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Anatolia, requested to the Allies that a peace treaty be drawn up with the hope that fighting would stop. The subsequent treaty of Sèvres in August 1920 confirmed the Arab provinces of the empire would be reorganized into new nations given to Britain and France in the form of Mandates by the League of Nations, while the rest of the Empire would be partitioned between Greece, Italy, France (via Syrian mandate), Britain (via Iraqi mandate), Armenia (potentially under an American mandate), and Georgia. Smyrna would hold a plebiscite on whether to stay with Greece or Turkey, and the Kurdistan region would hold one on the question of independence. British, French, and Italian spheres of influence would also extend into Anatolia beyond the land concessions. The old capital of Constantinople as well as the Dardanelles would be under international League of Nations control.

 

However, the treaty could never come into effect. The treaty was extremely unpopular, with protests against the final document held even before its release in Sultanahmet square. Though Mehmed VI and Ferid Pasha loathed the treaty, they did not want Istanbul to join Ankara in nationalist struggle. The Ottoman government and Greece never ratified it. Though Ferid Pasha signed the treaty, the Ottoman Senate, the upper house with seats appointed by the sultan, refused to ratify the treaty. Greece disagreed on the borders drawn. The other allies began to fracture their support of the settlement immediately. Italy started openly supporting the Nationalists with arms by the end of 1920, and the French signed another separate peace treaty with Ankara only months later.

 

Kemal's GNA Government responded to the Treaty of Sèvres by promulgating a new constitution in January 1921. The resulting constitution consecrated the principle of popular sovereignty; authority not deriving from the unelected sultan, but from the Turkish people who elect governments representative of their interests. This document became the legal basis for the war of independence by the GNA, as the sultan's signature of the Treaty of Sèvres would be unconstitutional as his position was not elected. While the constitution did not specify a future role of the sultan, the document gave Kemal ever more legitimacy in the eyes of Turks for justified resistance against Istanbul.

 

In contrast to the Eastern and Western fronts, it was mostly unorganized Kuva-yi Milliye which were fighting in the Southern Front against France. They had help from the Syrians, who were fighting their own war with the French.

 

The British troops which occupied coastal Syria by the end of World War I were replaced by French troops over 1919, with the Syrian interior going to Faisal bin Al-Hussein's self-proclaimed Arab Kingdom of Syria. France which wanted to take control of all of Syria and Cilicia. There was also a desire facilitate the return of Armenian refugees in the region to their homes, and the occupation force consisted of the French Armenian Legion as well as various Armenian militia groups. 150,000 Armenians were repatriated to their homes within months of French occupation. On 21 January 1920, a Turkish Nationalist uprising and siege occurred against the French garrison in Marash. The French position untenable they retreated to Islahiye, resulting in a massacre of many Armenians by Turkish militia. A grueling siege followed in Antep which featured intense sectarian violence between Turks and Armenians. After a failed uprising by the Nationalists in Adana, by 1921, the French and Turks signed an armistice and eventually a treaty was brokered demarcating the border between the Ankara government and French controlled Syria. In the end, there was a mass exodus of Cilician Armenians to French controlled Syria, Previous Armenian survivors of deportation found themselves again as refugees and families which avoided the worst of the six years violence were forced from their homes, ending thousands of years of Christian presence in Southern Anatolia.[146] With France being the first Allied power to recognize and negotiate with the Ankara government only months after signing the Treaty of Sèvres, it was the first to break from the coordinated Allied approach to the Eastern question. In 1923 the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon under French authority would be proclaimed in former Ottoman territory.

 

Some efforts to coordinate between Turkish Nationalists and the Syrian rebels persisted from 1920 to 1921, with the Nationalists supporting the Faisal's kingdom through Ibrahim Hanunu and Alawite groups which were also fighting the French. While the French conquered Syria, Cilicia had to be abandoned.

 

Kuva-yi Milliye also engaged with British forces in the "Al-Jazira Front," primarily in Mosul. Ali İhsan Pasha (Sabis) and his forces defending Mosul would surrender to the British in October 1918, but the British ignored the armistice and seized the city, following which the pasha also ignored the armistice and distributed weapons to the locals. Even before Mustafa Kemal's movement was fully organized, rogue commanders found allies in Kurdish tribes. The Kurds detested the taxes and centralization the British demanded, including Shaykh Mahmud of the Barzani family. Having previously supported the British invasion of Mesopotamia to become the governor of South Kurdistan, Mahmud revolted but was apprehended by 1919. Without legitimacy to govern the region, he was released from captivity to Sulaymaniyah, where he again declared an uprising against the British as the King of Kurdistan. Though an alliance existed with the Turks, little material support came to him from Ankara, and by 1923 there was a desire to cease hostilities between the Turks and British at Barzanji's expense. Mahmud was overthrown in 1924, and after a 1926 plebiscite, Mosul was awarded to British-controlled Iraq.

 

Since 1917, the Caucasus was in a chaotic state. The border of newly independent Armenia and the Ottoman Empire was defined in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918) after the Bolshevik revolution, and later by the Treaty of Batum (4 June 1918). To the east, Armenia was at war with the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic after the breakup of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, and received support from Anton Denikin's White Russian Army. It was obvious that after the Armistice of Mudros (30 October 1918) the eastern border was not going to stay as it was drawn, which mandated the evacuation of the Ottoman army back to its 1914 borders. Right after the Armistice of Mudros was signed, pro-Ottoman provisional republics were proclaimed in Kars and Aras which were subsequently invaded by Armenia. Ottoman soldiers were convinced not to demobilize lest the area become a 'second Macedonia'.[149] Both sides of the new borders had massive refugee populations and famine, which were compounded by the renewed and more symmetric sectarian violence (See Massacres of Azerbaijanis in Armenia (1917–1921) and Muslim uprisings in Kars and Sharur–Nakhichevan). There were talks going on with the Armenian Diaspora and Allied Powers on reshaping the border. Woodrow Wilson agreed to transfer territories to Armenia based on the principles of national self-determination. The results of these talks were to be reflected on the Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920).

 

Kâzım Karabekir Pasha, commander of the XV corps, encountered Muslim refugees fleeing from the Armenian army, but did not have the authority to cross the border. Karabekir's two reports (30 May and 4 June 1920) outlined the situation in the region. He recommended redrawing the eastern borders, especially around Erzurum. The Russian government was receptive to this and demanded that Van and Bitlis be transferred to Armenia. This was unacceptable to the Turkish revolutionaries. However, Soviet support was absolutely vital for the Turkish Nationalist movement, as Turkey was underdeveloped and had no domestic armaments industry. Bakir Sami (Kunduh) was assigned to negotiate with the Bolsheviks.

 

On 24 September 1920, Karabekir's XV corps and Kurdish militia advance on Kars, blowing through Armenian opposition, and then Alexandropol. With an advance on Yerevan imminent, on 28 November 1920, the 11th Red Army under the command of Anatoliy Gekker crossed over into Armenia from Soviet Azerbaijan, and the Armenian government surrendered to Bolshevik forces, ending the conflict.

 

The Treaty of Alexandropol (2—3 December 1920) was the first treaty (although illegitimate) signed by the Turkish revolutionaries. The 10th article in the Treaty of Alexandropol stated that Armenia renounced the Treaty of Sèvres and its allotted partition of Anatolia. The agreement was signed with representatives of the former government of Armenia, which by that time had no de jure or de facto power in Armenia, since Soviet rule was already established in the country. On 16 March 1921, the Bolsheviks and Turkey signed a more comprehensive agreement, the Treaty of Kars, which involved representatives of Soviet Armenia, Soviet Azerbaijan, and Soviet Georgia.

 

Throughout most of his life, Atatürk was a moderate-to-heavy drinker, often consuming half a litre of rakı a day; he also smoked tobacco, predominantly in the form of cigarettes. During 1937, indications that Atatürk's health was worsening started to appear. In early 1938, while on a trip to Yalova, he suffered from a serious illness. He went to Istanbul for treatment, where he was diagnosed with cirrhosis. During his stay in Istanbul, he made an effort to keep up with his regular lifestyle, but eventually succumbed to his illness. He died on 10 November 1938, at the age of 57, in the Dolmabahçe Palace.

 

Atatürk's funeral called forth both sorrow and pride in Turkey, and 17 countries sent special representatives, while nine contributed armed detachments to the cortège. Atatürk's remains were originally laid to rest in the Ethnography Museum of Ankara, but they were transferred on 10 November 1953 (15 years after his death) in a 42-ton sarcophagus to a mausoleum overlooking Ankara, Anıtkabir.

 

In his will, Atatürk donated all of his possessions to the Republican People's Party, provided that the yearly interest of his funds would be used to look after his sister Makbule and his adopted children, and fund the higher education of İsmet İnönü's children. The remainder was willed to the Turkish Language Association and the Turkish Historical Society.

Captured 7 Mar 2021, 21:15 hrs ET, Springfield, VA, USA. Bortle 8 skies, Mallincam DS10C camera, Celestron 8 inch SCT f/6, exposure 45 sec, gain 20, bin 2, stack of 10 light frames, dark and flat frames subtracted, Optolong Lenhance filter.

 

Clouds: clear

Seeing: 40

Transparency: 20

Moon phase: 34%

 

FOV: 49 x 37 arcmin

Resolution: 1.5 arcsec/pixel

Orientation: Up is 153 degrees E of N

 

Apparent magnitude: +4

Apparent size: 65 arcmin

 

Appearance: Large bright pink and white burst of light, with clearly visible dark nebula lanes. One of a kind spectacular nebula like a flaming Phoenix. This is no "faint fuzzy" unlike most deep sky objects. It was briefly visible through the tree canopy enabling capture.

 

From Wikipedia:

The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way, being south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion. It is one of the brightest nebulae, and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. It is 1,344 ± 20 light-years (412.1 ± 6.1 pc) away and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light years across. It has a mass of about 2,000 times that of the Sun. Older texts frequently refer to the Orion Nebula as the Great Nebula in Orion or the Great Orion Nebula.

 

The Orion Nebula is one of the most scrutinized and photographed objects in the night sky, and is among the most intensely studied celestial features. The nebula has revealed much about the process of how stars and planetary systems are formed from collapsing clouds of gas and dust. Astronomers have directly observed protoplanetary disks and brown dwarfs within the nebula, intense and turbulent motions of the gas, and the photo-ionizing effects of massive nearby stars in the nebula.

 

The Nebula is visible with the naked eye even from areas affected by some light pollution. It is seen as the middle "star" in the "sword" of Orion, which are the three stars located south of Orion's Belt. The star appears fuzzy to sharp-eyed observers, and the nebulosity is obvious through binoculars or a small telescope. The peak surface brightness of the central region is about 17 Mag/arcsec2 (about 14 milli nits) and the outer bluish glow has a peak surface brightness of 21.3 Mag/arcsec2 (about 0.27 millinits).

 

The Orion Nebula contains a very young open cluster, known as the Trapezium due to the asterism of its primary four stars. Two of these can be resolved into their component binary systems on nights with good seeing, giving a total of six stars. The stars of the Trapezium, along with many other stars, are still in their early years. The Trapezium is a component of the much larger Orion Nebula Cluster, an association of about 2,800 stars within a diameter of 20 light years. Two million years ago this cluster may have been the home of the runaway stars AE Aurigae, 53 Arietis, and Mu Columbae, which are currently moving away from the nebula at speeds greater than 100 km/s (62 mi/s).

 

Observers have long noted a distinctive greenish tint to the nebula, in addition to regions of red and of blue-violet. The red hue is a result of the Hα recombination line radiation at a wavelength of 656.3 nm. The blue-violet coloration is the reflected radiation from the massive O-class stars at the core of the nebula.

 

The green hue was a puzzle for astronomers in the early part of the 20th century because none of the known spectral lines at that time could explain it. There was some speculation that the lines were caused by a new element, and the name nebulium was coined for this mysterious material. With better understanding of atomic physics, however, it was later determined that the green spectrum was caused by a low-probability electron transition in doubly ionized oxygen, a so-called "forbidden transition". This radiation was all but impossible to reproduce in the laboratory at the time, because it depended on the quiescent and nearly collision-free environment found in the high vacuum of deep space.

 

There has been speculation that the Mayans of Central America may have described the nebula within their "Three Hearthstones" creation myth; if so, the three would correspond to two stars at the base of Orion, Rigel and Saiph, and another, Alnitak at the tip of the "belt" of the imagined hunter, the vertices of a nearly perfect equilateral triangle[vague] with Orion's Sword (including the Orion Nebula) in the middle of the triangle[vague] seen as the smudge of smoke from copal incense in a modern myth, or, in (the translation it suggests of) an ancient one, the literal or figurative embers of a fiery creation.

 

Neither Ptolemy's Almagest nor Al Sufi's Book of Fixed Stars noted this nebula, even though they both listed patches of nebulosity elsewhere in the night sky; nor did Galileo mention it, even though he also made telescopic observations surrounding it in 1610 and 1617. This has led to some speculation that a flare-up of the illuminating stars may have increased the brightness of the nebula.

 

The first discovery of the diffuse nebulous nature of the Orion Nebula is generally credited to French astronomer Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, on November 26, 1610 when he made a record of observing it with a refracting telescope purchased by his patron Guillaume du Vair.

 

The first published observation of the nebula was by the Jesuit mathematician and astronomer Johann Baptist Cysat of Lucerne in his 1619 monograph on the comets (describing observations of the nebula that may date back to 1611). He made comparisons between it and a bright comet seen in 1618 and described how the nebula appeared through his telescope as:

 

"one sees how in like manner some stars are compressed into a very narrow space and how round about and between the stars a white light like that of a white cloud is poured out"

 

His description of the center stars as different from a comet's head in that they were a "rectangle" may have been an early description of the Trapezium Cluster. (The first detection of three of the four stars of this cluster is credited to Galileo Galilei in a February 4, 1617 although he did not notice the surrounding nebula – possibly due to the narrow field of vision of his early telescope.)

 

The nebula was independently "discovered" (though visible to the naked eye) by several other prominent astronomers in the following years, including by Giovanni Battista Hodierna (whose sketch was the first published in De systemate orbis cometici, deque admirandis coeli characteribus).

 

Charles Messier observed the nebula on March 4, 1769, and he also noted three of the stars in Trapezium. Messier published the first edition of his catalog of deep sky objects in 1774 (completed in 1771). As the Orion Nebula was the 42nd object in his list, it became identified as M42.

 

In 1865 English amateur astronomer William Huggins used his visual spectroscopy method to examine the nebula showing it, like other nebulae he had examined, was made up of "luminous gas". On September 30, 1880 Henry Draper used the new dry plate photographic process with an 11-inch (28 cm) refracting telescope to make a 51-minute exposure of the Orion Nebula, the first instance of astrophotography of a nebula in history. Another set of photographs of the nebula in 1883 saw a breakthrough in astronomical photography when amateur astronomer Andrew Ainslie Common used the dry plate process to record several images in exposures up to 60 minutes with a 36-inch (91 cm) reflecting telescope that he constructed in the backyard of his home in Ealing, west London. These images for the first time showed stars and nebula detail too faint to be seen by the human eye.

 

In 1902, Vogel and Eberhard discovered differing velocities within the nebula, and by 1914 astronomers at Marseilles had used the interferometer to detect rotation and irregular motions. Campbell and Moore confirmed these results using the spectrograph, demonstrating turbulence within the nebula.

 

In 1931, Robert J. Trumpler noted that the fainter stars near the Trapezium formed a cluster, and he was the first to name them the Trapezium cluster. Based on their magnitudes and spectral types, he derived a distance estimate of 1,800 light years. This was three times farther than the commonly accepted distance estimate of the period but was much closer to the modern value.

 

In 1993, the Hubble Space Telescope first observed the Orion Nebula. Since then, the nebula has been a frequent target for HST studies. The images have been used to build a detailed model of the nebula in three dimensions. Protoplanetary disks have been observed around most of the newly formed stars in the nebula, and the destructive effects of high levels of ultraviolet energy from the most massive stars have been studied.

 

In 2005, the Advanced Camera for Surveys instrument of the Hubble Space Telescope finished capturing the most detailed image of the nebula yet taken. The image was taken through 104 orbits of the telescope, capturing over 3,000 stars down to the 23rd magnitude, including infant brown dwarfs and possible brown dwarf binary stars. A year later, scientists working with the HST announced the first ever masses of a pair of eclipsing binary brown dwarfs, 2MASS J05352184–0546085. The pair are located in the Orion Nebula and have approximate masses of 0.054 M☉ and 0.034 M☉ respectively, with an orbital period of 9.8 days. Surprisingly, the more massive of the two also turned out to be the less luminous.

 

The entirety of the Orion Nebula extends across a 1° region of the sky, and includes neutral clouds of gas and dust, associations of stars, ionized volumes of gas, and reflection nebulae.

 

The Nebula is part of a much larger nebula that is known as the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. The Orion Molecular Cloud Complex extends throughout the constellation of Orion and includes Barnard's Loop, the Horsehead Nebula, M43, M78, and the Flame Nebula. Stars are forming throughout the entire Cloud Complex, but most of the young stars are concentrated in dense clusters like the one illuminating the Orion Nebula.

 

The current astronomical model for the nebula consists of an ionized (H II) region, roughly centered on Theta1 Orionis C, which lies on the side of an elongated molecular cloud in a cavity formed by the massive young stars. (Theta1 Orionis C emits 3-4 times as much photoionizing light as the next brightest star, Theta2 Orionis A.) The H II region has a temperature ranging up to 10,000 K, but this temperature falls dramatically near the edge of the nebula. The nebulous emission comes primarily from photoionized gas on the back surface of the cavity. The H II region is surrounded by an irregular, concave bay of more neutral, high-density cloud, with clumps of neutral gas lying outside the bay area. This in turn lies on the perimeter of the Orion Molecular Cloud. The gas in the molecular cloud displays a range of velocities and turbulence, particularly around the core region. Relative movements are up to 10 km/s (22,000 mi/h), with local variations of up to 50 km/s and possibly more.

 

Observers have given names to various features in the Orion Nebula. The dark lane that extends from the north toward the bright region is called the "Fish's Mouth". The illuminated regions to both sides are called the "Wings". Other features include "The Sword", "The Thrust", and "The Sail".

 

The Orion Nebula is an example of a stellar nursery where new stars are being born. Observations of the nebula have revealed approximately 700 stars in various stages of formation within the nebula.

 

In 1979 observations with the Lallemand electronic camera at the Pic-du-Midi Observatory showed six unresolved high-ionization sources near the Trapezium Cluster. These sources were interpreted as partly ionized globules (PIGs). The idea was that these objects are being ionized from the outside by M42. Later observations with the Very Large Array showed solar-system-sized condensations associated with these sources. Here the idea appeared that these objects might be low-mass stars surrounded by an evaporating protostellar accretion disk. In 1993 observations with the Hubble Space Telescope have yielded the major confirmation of protoplanetary disks within the Orion Nebula, which have been dubbed proplyds. HST has revealed more than 150 of these within the nebula, and they are considered to be systems in the earliest stages of solar system formation. The sheer numbers of them have been used as evidence that the formation of star systems is fairly common in the universe.

 

Stars form when clumps of hydrogen and other gases in an H II region contract under their own gravity. As the gas collapses, the central clump grows stronger and the gas heats to extreme temperatures by converting gravitational potential energy to thermal energy. If the temperature gets high enough, nuclear fusion will ignite and form a protostar. The protostar is 'born' when it begins to emit enough radiative energy to balance out its gravity and halt gravitational collapse.

 

Typically, a cloud of material remains a substantial distance from the star before the fusion reaction ignites. This remnant cloud is the protostar's protoplanetary disk, where planets may form. Recent infrared observations show that dust grains in these protoplanetary disks are growing, beginning on the path towards forming planetesimals.

 

Once the protostar enters into its main sequence phase, it is classified as a star. Even though most planetary disks can form planets, observations show that intense stellar radiation should have destroyed any proplyds that formed near the Trapezium group, if the group is as old as the low mass stars in the cluster. Since proplyds are found very close to the Trapezium group, it can be argued that those stars are much younger than the rest of the cluster members.

 

Once formed, the stars within the nebula emit a stream of charged particles known as a stellar wind. Massive stars and young stars have much stronger stellar winds than the Sun.

The wind forms shock waves or hydrodynamical instabilities when it encounters the gas in the nebula, which then shapes the gas clouds. The shock waves from stellar wind also play a large part in stellar formation by compacting the gas clouds, creating density inhomogeneities that lead to gravitational collapse of the cloud.

 

There are three different kinds of shocks in the Orion Nebula. Many are featured in Herbig–Haro objects:

 

Bow shocks are stationary and are formed when two particle streams collide with each other. They are present near the hottest stars in the nebula where the stellar wind speed is estimated to be thousands of kilometers per second and in the outer parts of the nebula where the speeds are tens of kilometers per second. Bow shocks can also form at the front end of stellar jets when the jet hits interstellar particles.

Jet-driven shocks are formed from jets of material sprouting off newborn T Tauri stars. These narrow streams are traveling at hundreds of kilometers per second, and become shocks when they encounter relatively stationary gases.

Warped shocks appear bow-like to an observer. They are produced when a jet-driven shock encounters gas moving in a cross-current.

 

The interaction of the stellar wind with the surrounding cloud also forms "waves" which are believed to be due to the hydrodynamical Kelvin-Helmholtz instability.

The dynamic gas motions in M42 are complex, but are trending out through the opening in the bay and toward the Earth. The large neutral area behind the ionized region is currently contracting under its own gravity.

 

There are also supersonic "bullets" of gas piercing the hydrogen clouds of the Orion Nebula. Each bullet is ten times the diameter of Pluto's orbit and tipped with iron atoms glowing in the infra-red. They were probably formed one thousand years earlier from an unknown violent event.[46]

 

Interstellar clouds like the Orion Nebula are found throughout galaxies such as the Milky Way. They begin as gravitationally bound blobs of cold, neutral hydrogen, intermixed with traces of other elements. The cloud can contain hundreds of thousands of solar masses and extend for hundreds of light years. The tiny force of gravity that could compel the cloud to collapse is counterbalanced by the very faint pressure of the gas in the cloud.

 

Whether due to collisions with a spiral arm, or through the shock wave emitted from supernovae, the atoms are precipitated into heavier molecules and the result is a molecular cloud. This presages the formation of stars within the cloud, usually thought to be within a period of 10–30 million years, as regions pass the Jeans mass and the destabilized volumes collapse into disks. The disk concentrates at the core to form a star, which may be surrounded by a protoplanetary disk. This is the current stage of evolution of the nebula, with additional stars still forming from the collapsing molecular cloud.

 

The youngest and brightest stars we now see in the Orion Nebula are thought to be less than 300,000 years old, and the brightest may be only 10,000 years in age. Some of these collapsing stars can be particularly massive, and can emit large quantities of ionizing ultraviolet radiation. An example of this is seen with the Trapezium cluster. Over time the ultraviolet light from the massive stars at the center of the nebula will push away the surrounding gas and dust in a process called photo evaporation. This process is responsible for creating the interior cavity of the nebula, allowing the stars at the core to be viewed from Earth.[8] The largest of these stars have short life spans and will evolve to become supernovae.

 

Within about 100,000 years, most of the gas and dust will be ejected. The remains will form a young open cluster, a cluster of bright, young stars surrounded by wispy filaments from the former cloud.

 

Messier 43 or M43, also known as De Mairan's Nebula and NGC 1982, is a star-forming nebula with a prominent H II region in the equatorial constellation of Orion. It was discovered by the French scientist Jean-Jacques Dortous de Mairan some time before 1731, then catalogued by Charles Messier in 1769. It is physically part of the Orion Nebula (Messier 42), separate from that main nebula by a dense lane of dust known as the northeast dark lane. It is part of the much larger Orion Molecular Cloud Complex.

 

The main ionizing star in this nebula is HD 37061 (variable star designation NU Ori), the focus of the H II region, 1,300 ± 160 ly (400 ± 50 pc) away. This is a triple star system with the brighter component being a single-lined spectroscopic binary. The main component is a blue-white hued B-type main-sequence star with a stellar classification of B0.5V or B1V. It has 19±7 times the mass of the Sun (M☉) and 5.7±0.8 times the Sun's radius (R☉). It is radiating over 26,000 times the Sun's luminosity (L☉) from its photosphere at an effective temperature of 31,000 K. It is spinning rapidly with a projected rotational velocity of around 200 km/s.

 

The H II region is a roundish volume of ionized hydrogen. It has a diameter of about 4.5′, at its distance meaning it measures 2.1 ly (0.65 pc). The net (meaning omitting the star) hydrogen alpha luminosity of this region is (3.0±1.1)×1035 erg s−1; equivalent to 78 L☉. There is a dark lane crossing the whole west-centre strip from north to south, known as the M43 dark lane, which forming a swirling belt extension to the south links to Orion's northeast dark lane. All of these resemble a mixture of smoke rising from a chimney and in watercolour broad and fine dark brushstrokes, at many wavelengths.

Two U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III aircraft operating at the request of the French government and African Union authorities continued airlifting a Rwandan mechanized battalion Jan. 19.

The joint operation with personnel from the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force is in support of an African Union effort to confront destabilizing forces and violence within Central African Republic.

 

To learn more about U.S. Army Africa visit our official website at www.usaraf.army.mil

 

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It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?

  

It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?

  

It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?

  

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, also known as Mustafa Kemal Pasha until 1921, and Ghazi Mustafa Kemal from 1921 until the Surname Law of 1934 (c. 1881 – 10 November 1938), was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation. Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism.

 

Atatürk came to prominence for his role in securing the Ottoman Turkish victory at the Battle of Gallipoli (1915) during World War I. During this time, the Ottoman Empire perpetrated genocides against its Greek, Armenian and Assyrian subjects; while not directly involved, Atatürk's role in their aftermath has been controversial. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, he led the Turkish National Movement, which resisted mainland Turkey's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing a provisional government in the present-day Turkish capital Ankara (known in English at the time as Angora), he defeated the forces sent by the Allies, thus emerging victorious from what was later referred to as the Turkish War of Independence. He subsequently proceeded to abolish the sultanate in 1922 and proclaimed the foundation of the Turkish Republic in its place the following year.

 

As the president of the newly formed Turkish Republic, Atatürk initiated a rigorous program of political, economic, and cultural reforms with the ultimate aim of building a republican and secular nation-state. He made primary education free and compulsory, opening thousands of new schools all over the country. He also introduced the Latin-based Turkish alphabet, replacing the old Ottoman Turkish alphabet. Turkish women received equal civil and political rights during Atatürk's presidency. In particular, women were given voting rights in local elections by Act no. 1580 on 3 April 1930 and a few years later, in 1934, full universal suffrage. His government carried out a policy of Turkification, trying to create a homogeneous, unified and above all secular nation under the Turkish banner. Under Atatürk, the minorities in Turkey were ordered to speak Turkish in public, but were allowed to maintain their own languages in private and within their own communities; non-Turkish toponyms were replaced and non-Turkish families were ordered to adopt a Turkish surname. The Turkish Parliament granted him the surname Atatürk in 1934, which means "Father of the Turks", in recognition of the role he played in building the modern Turkish Republic. He died on 10 November 1938 at Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, at the age of 57; he was succeeded as president by his long-time prime minister İsmet İnönü and was honored with a state funeral.

 

In 1981, the centennial of Atatürk's birth, his memory was honoured by the United Nations and UNESCO, which declared it The Atatürk Year in the World and adopted the Resolution on the Atatürk Centennial, describing him as "the leader of the first struggle given against colonialism and imperialism" and a "remarkable promoter of the sense of understanding between peoples and durable peace between the nations of the world and that he worked all his life for the development of harmony and cooperation between peoples without distinction". Atatürk was also credited for his peace-in-the-world oriented foreign policy and friendship with neighboring countries such as Iran, Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Greece, as well as the creation of the Balkan Pact that resisted the expansionist aggressions of Fascist Italy and Tsarist Bulgaria.

 

The Turkish War of Independence (19 May 1919 – 24 July 1923) was a series of military campaigns and a revolution waged by the Turkish National Movement, after parts of the Ottoman Empire were occupied and partitioned following its defeat in World War I. The conflict was between the Turkish Nationalists against Allied and separatist forces over the application of Wilsonian principles, especially national self-determination, in post-World War I Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. The revolution concluded the collapse of the Ottoman Empire; the Ottoman monarchy and the Islamic caliphate were abolished, and the Republic of Turkey was declared in Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. This resulted in a transfer of vested sovereignty from the sultan-caliph to the nation, setting the stage for Republican Turkey's period of nationalist revolutionary reform.

 

While World War I ended for the Ottoman Empire with the Armistice of Mudros, the Allied Powers continued occupying and securing land per the Sykes–Picot Agreement, as well as to facilitate the prosecution of former members of the Committee of Union and Progress and those involved in the Armenian genocide. Ottoman military commanders therefore refused orders from both the Allies and the Ottoman government to surrender and disband their forces. In an atmosphere of turmoil throughout the remainder of the empire, sultan Mehmed VI dispatched Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk), a well-respected and high-ranking general, to Anatolia to restore order; however, Mustafa Kemal became an enabler and eventually leader of Turkish Nationalist resistance against the Ottoman government, Allied powers, and separatists.

 

In an attempt to establish control over the power vacuum in Anatolia, the Allies agreed to launch a Greek peacekeeping force into Anatolia and occupy Smyrna (İzmir), inflaming sectarian tensions and beginning the Turkish War of Independence. A nationalist counter government led by Mustafa Kemal was established in Ankara when it became clear the Ottoman government was appeasing the Allied powers. The Allies soon pressured the Ottoman government in Constantinople to suspend the Constitution, shutter Parliament, and sign the Treaty of Sèvres, a treaty unfavorable to Turkish interests that the "Ankara government" declared illegal.

 

In the ensuing war, Turkish and Syrian forces defeated the French in the south, and remobilized army units went on to partition Armenia with the Bolsheviks, resulting in the Treaty of Kars (October 1921). The Western Front of the independence war is known as the Greco-Turkish War, in which Greek forces at first encountered unorganized resistance. However, İsmet Pasha (İnönü)'s organization of militia into a regular army paid off when Ankara forces fought the Greeks in the First and Second Battle of İnönü. The Greek army emerged victorious in the Battle of Kütahya-Eskişehir and decided to drive on the Nationalist capital of Ankara, stretching their supply lines. The Turks checked their advance in the Battle of Sakarya and eventually counter-attacked in the Great Offensive, which expelled Greek forces from Anatolia in the span of three weeks. The war effectively ended with the recapture of İzmir and the Chanak Crisis, prompting the signing of another armistice in Mudanya.

 

The Grand National Assembly in Ankara was recognized as the legitimate Turkish government, which signed the Treaty of Lausanne (July 1923), a treaty more favorable to Turkey than the Sèvres Treaty. The Allies evacuated Anatolia and Eastern Thrace, the Ottoman government was overthrown and the monarchy abolished, and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (which remains Turkey's primary legislative body today) declared the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923. With the war, a population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, and the abolition of the sultanate, the Ottoman era came to an end, and with Atatürk's reforms, the Turks created the modern, secular nation-state of Turkey. On 3 March 1924, the Ottoman caliphate was also abolished.

 

The ethnic demographics of the modern Turkish Republic were significantly impacted by the earlier Armenian genocide and the deportations of Greek-speaking, Orthodox Christian Rum people. The Turkish Nationalist Movement carried out massacres and deportations to eliminate native Christian populations—a continuation of the Armenian genocide and other ethnic cleansing operations during World War I. Following these campaigns of ethnic cleansing, the historic Christian presence in Anatolia was destroyed, in large part, and the Muslim demographic had increased from 80% to 98%.

 

Following the chaotic politics of the Second Constitutional Era, the Ottoman Empire came under the control of the Committee of Union and Progress in a coup in 1913, and then further consolidated its control after the assassination of Mahmud Shevket Pasha.[citation needed] Founded as a radical revolutionary group seeking to prevent a collapse of the Ottoman Empire, by the eve of World War I it decided that the solution was to implement nationalist and centralizing policies. The CUP reacted to the losses of land and the expulsion of Muslims from the Balkan Wars by turning even more nationalistic. Part of its effort to consolidate power was to proscribe and exile opposition politicians from the Freedom and Accord Party to remote Sinop.

 

The Unionists brought the Ottoman Empire into World War I on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, during which a genocidal campaign was waged against Ottoman Christians, namely Armenians, Pontic Greeks, and Assyrians. It was based on an alleged conspiracy that the three groups would rebel on the side of the Allies, so collective punishment was applied. A similar suspicion and suppression from the Turkish nationalist government was directed towards the Arab and Kurdish populations, leading to localized rebellions. The Entente powers reacted to these developments by charging the CUP leaders, commonly known as the Three Pashas, with "Crimes against humanity" and threatened accountability. They also had imperialist ambitions on Ottoman territory, with a major correspondence over a post-war settlement in the Ottoman Empire being leaked to the press as the Sykes–Picot Agreement. With Saint Petersburg's exit from World War I and descent into civil war, driven in part from the Ottomans' closure of the Turkish straits of goods bound to Russia, a new imperative was given to the Entente powers to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war to restart the Eastern Front.

 

World War I would be the nail in the coffin of Ottomanism, a monarchist and multicultural nationalism. Mistreatment of non-Turk groups after 1913, and the general context of great socio-political upheaval that occurred in the aftermath of World War I, meant many minorities now wished to divorce their future from imperialism to form futures of their own by separating into (often republican) nation-states.

 

In the summer months of 1918, the leaders of the Central Powers realized that the Great War was lost, including the Ottomans'. Almost simultaneously the Palestinian Front and then the Macedonian Front collapsed. The sudden decision by Bulgaria to sign an armistice cut communications from Constantinople (İstanbul) to Vienna and Berlin, and opened the undefended Ottoman capital to Entente attack. With the major fronts crumbling, Unionist Grand Vizier Talât Pasha intended to sign an armistice, and resigned on 8 October 1918 so that a new government would receive less harsh armistice terms. The Armistice of Mudros was signed on 30 October 1918, ending World War I for the Ottoman Empire. Three days later, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP)—which governed the Ottoman Empire as a one-party state since 1913—held its last congress, where it was decided the party would be dissolved. Talât, Enver Pasha, Cemal Pasha, and five other high-ranking members of the CUP escaped the Ottoman Empire on a German torpedo boat later that night, plunging the country into a power vacuum.

 

The armistice was signed because the Ottoman Empire had been defeated in important fronts, but the military was intact and retreated in good order. Unlike other Central Powers, the Allies did not mandate an abdication of the imperial family as a condition for peace, nor did they request the Ottoman Army to dissolve its general staff. Though the army suffered from mass desertion throughout the war which led to banditry, there was no threat of mutiny or revolutions like in Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Russia. This is despite famine and economic collapse that was brought on by the extreme levels of mobilization, destruction from the war, disease, and mass murder since 1914.

 

Due to the Turkish nationalist policies pursued by the CUP against Ottoman Christians by 1918 the Ottoman Empire held control over a mostly homogeneous land of Muslims from Eastern Thrace to the Persian border. These included mostly Turks, as well as Kurds, Circassians, and Muhacir groups from Rumeli. Most Muslim Arabs were now outside of the Ottoman Empire and under Allied occupation, with some "imperialists" still loyal to the Ottoman Sultanate-Caliphate, and others wishing for independence or Allied protection under a League of Nations mandate. Sizable Greek and Armenian minorities remained within its borders, and most of these communities no longer wished to remain under the Empire.

 

On 30 October 1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies of World War I, bringing hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I to an end. The Ottoman Army was to demobilize, its navy and air force handed to the Allies, and occupied territory in the Caucasus and Persia to be evacuated. Critically, Article VII granted the Allies the right to occupy forts controlling the Turkish Straits and the vague right to occupy "in case of disorder" any territory if there were a threat to security. The clause relating to the occupation of the straits was meant to secure a Southern Russian intervention force, while the rest of the article was used to allow for Allied controlled peace-keeping forces. There was also a hope to follow through punishing local actors that carried out exterminatory orders from the CUP government against Armenian Ottomans. For now, the House of Osman escaped the fates of the Hohenzollerns, Habsburgs, and Romanovs to continue ruling their empire, though at the cost of its remaining sovereignty.

 

On 13 November 1918, a French brigade entered Constantinople to begin a de facto occupation of the Ottoman capital and its immediate dependencies. This was followed by a fleet consisting of British, French, Italian and Greek ships deploying soldiers on the ground the next day, totaling 50,000 troops in Constantinople. The Allied Powers stated that the occupation was temporary and its purpose was to protect the monarchy, the caliphate and the minorities. Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe—the British signatory of the Mudros Armistice—stated the Triple Entente's public position that they had no intention to dismantle the Ottoman government or place it under military occupation by "occupying Constantinople". However, dismantling the government and partitioning the Ottoman Empire among the Allied nations had been an objective of the Entente since the start of WWI.

 

A wave of seizures took place in the rest of the country in the following months. Citing Article VII, British forces demanded that Turkish troops evacuate Mosul, claiming that Christian civilians in Mosul and Zakho were killed en masse. In the Caucasus, Britain established a presence in Menshevik Georgia and the Lori and Aras valleys as peace-keepers. On 14 November, joint Franco-Greek occupation was established in the town of Uzunköprü in Eastern Thrace as well as the railway axis until the train station of Hadımköy on the outskirts of Constantinople. On 1 December, British troops based in Syria occupied Kilis, Marash, Urfa and Birecik. Beginning in December, French troops began successive seizures of the province of Adana, including the towns of Antioch, Mersin, Tarsus, Ceyhan, Adana, Osmaniye, and İslâhiye, incorporating the area into the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration North while French forces embarked by gunboats and sent troops to the Black Sea ports of Zonguldak and Karadeniz Ereğli commanding Turkey's coal mining region. These continued seizures of land prompted Ottoman commanders to refuse demobilization and prepare for the resumption of war.

 

The British similarly asked Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) to turn over the port of Alexandretta (İskenderun), which he reluctantly did, following which he was recalled to Constantinople. He made sure to distribute weapons to the population to prevent them from falling into the hands of Allied forces. Some of these weapons were smuggled to the east by members of Karakol, a successor to the CUP's Special Organization, to be used in case resistance was necessary in Anatolia. Many Ottoman officials participated in efforts to conceal from the occupying authorities details of the burgeoning independence movement spreading throughout Anatolia.

 

Other commanders began refusing orders from the Ottoman government and the Allied powers. After Mustafa Kemal Pasha returned to Constantinople, Ali Fuat Pasha (Cebesoy) brought XX Corps under his command. He marched first to Konya and then to Ankara to organise resistance groups, such as the Circassian çetes he assembled with guerilla leader Çerkes Ethem. Meanwhile, Kazım Karabekir Pasha refused to surrender his intact and powerful XV Corps in Erzurum. Evacuation from the Caucusus, puppet republics and Muslim militia groups were established in the army's wake to hamper with the consolidation of the new Armenian state. Elsewhere in the country, regional nationalist resistance organizations known as Şuras –meaning "councils", not unlike soviets in revolutionary Russia– were founded, most pledging allegiance to the Defence of National Rights movement that protested continued Allied occupation and appeasement by the Sublime Porte.

 

Following the occupation of Constantinople, Mehmed VI Vahdettin dissolved the Chamber of Deputies which was dominated by Unionists elected back in 1914, promising elections for the next year. Vahdettin just ascended to the throne only months earlier with the death of Mehmed V Reşad. He was disgusted with the policies of the CUP, and wished to be a more assertive sovereign than his diseased half brother. Greek and Armenian Ottomans declared the termination of their relationship with the Ottoman Empire through their respective patriarchates, and refused to partake in any future election. With the collapse of the CUP and its censorship regime, an outpouring of condemnation against the party came from all parts of Ottoman media.

 

A general amnesty was soon issued, allowing the exiled and imprisoned dissidents persecuted by the CUP to return to Constantinople. Vahdettin invited the pro-Palace politician Damat Ferid Pasha, leader of the reconstituted Freedom and Accord Party, to form a government, whose members quickly set out to purge the Unionists from the Ottoman government. Ferid Pasha hoped that his Anglophilia and an attitude of appeasement would induce less harsh peace terms from the Allied powers. However, his appointment was problematic for nationalists, many being members of the liquidated committee that were surely to face trial. Years of corruption, unconstitutional acts, war profiteering, and enrichment from ethnic cleansing and genocide by the Unionists soon became basis of war crimes trials and courts martial trials held in Constantinople.[citation needed] While many leading Unionists were sentenced lengthy prison sentences, many made sure to escape the country before Allied occupation or to regions that the government now had minimal control over; thus most were sentenced in absentia. The Allies encouragement of the proceedings and the use of British Malta as their holding ground made the trials unpopular. The partisan nature of the trials was not lost on observers either. The hanging of the Kaymakam of Boğazlıyan district Mehmed Kemal resulted in a demonstration against the courts martials trials.

 

With all the chaotic politics in the capital and uncertainty of the severity of the incoming peace treaty, many Ottomans looked to Washington with the hope that the application of Wilsonian principles would mean Constantinople would stay Turkish, as Muslims outnumbered Christians 2:1. The United States never declared war on the Ottoman Empire, so many imperial elite believed Washington could be a neutral arbiter that could fix the empire's problems. Halide Edip (Adıvar) and her Wilsonian Principles Society led the movement that advocated for the empire to be governed by an American League of Nations Mandate (see United States during the Turkish War of Independence). American diplomats attempted to ascertain a role they could play in the area with the Harbord and King–Crane Commissions. However, with the collapse of Woodrow Wilson's health, the United States diplomatically withdrew from the Middle East to focus on Europe, leaving the Entente powers to construct a post-Ottoman order.

 

The Entente would have arrived at Constantinople to discover an administration attempting to deal with decades of accumulated refugee crisis. The new government issued a proclamation allowing for deportees to return to their homes, but many Greeks and Armenians found their old homes occupied by desperate Rumelian and Caucasian Muslim refugees which were settled in their properties during the First World War. Ethnic conflict restarted in Anatolia; government officials responsible for resettling Christian refugees often assisted Muslim refugees in these disputes, prompting European powers to continue bringing Ottoman territory under their control. Of the 800,000 Ottoman Christian refugees, approximately over half returned to their homes by 1920. Meanwhile 1.4 million refugees from the Russian Civil War would pass through the Turkish straits and Anatolia, with 150,000 White émigrés choosing to settle in Istanbul for short or long term (see Evacuation of the Crimea). Many provinces were simply depopulated from years of fighting, conscription, and ethnic cleansing (see Ottoman casualties of World War I). The province of Yozgat lost 50% of its Muslim population from conscription, while according to the governor of Van, almost 95% of its prewar residents were dead or internally displaced.

 

Administration in much of the Anatolian and Thracian countryside would soon all but collapse by 1919. Army deserters who turned to banditry essentially controlled fiefdoms with tacit approval from bureaucrats and local elites. An amnesty issued in late 1918 saw these bandits strengthen their positions and fight amongst each other instead of returning to civilian life. Albanian and Circassian muhacirs resettled by the government in northwestern Anatolia and Kurds in southeastern Anatolia were engaged in blood feuds that intensified during the war and were hesitant to pledge allegiance to the Defence of Rights movement, and only would if officials could facilitate truces. Various Muhacir groups were suspicious of the continued Ittihadist ideology in the Defence of Rights movement, and the potential for themselves to meet fates 'like the Armenians' especially as warlords hailing from those communities assisted the deportations of the Christians even though as many commanders in the Nationalist movement also had Caucasian and Balkan Muslim ancestry.

 

With Anatolia in practical anarchy and the Ottoman army being questionably loyal in reaction to Allied land seizures, Mehmed VI established the military inspectorate system to reestablish authority over the remaining empire. Encouraged by Karabekir and Edmund Allenby, he assigned Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) as the inspector of the Ninth Army Troops Inspectorate –based in Erzurum– to restore order to Ottoman military units and to improve internal security on 30 April 1919, with his first assignment to suppress a rebellion by Greek rebels around the city of Samsun.

 

Mustafa Kemal was a well known, well respected, and well connected army commander, with much prestige coming from his status as the "Hero of Anafartalar"—for his role in the Gallipoli Campaign—and his title of "Honorary Aide-de-camp to His Majesty Sultan" gained in the last months of WWI. This choice would seem curious, as he was a nationalist and a fierce critic of the government's accommodating policy to the Entente powers. He was also an early member of the CUP. However Kemal Pasha did not associate himself with the fanatical faction of the CUP, many knew that he frequently clashed with the radicals of the Central Committee like Enver. He was therefore sidelined to the periphery of power throughout the Great War; after the CUP's dissolution he vocally aligned himself with moderates that formed the Liberal People's Party instead of the rump radical faction which formed the Renewal Party (both parties would be banned in May 1919 for being successors of the CUP). All these reasons allowed him to be the most legitimate nationalist for the sultan to placate. In this new political climate, he sought to capitalize on his war exploits to attain a better job, indeed several times he unsuccessfully lobbied for his inclusion in cabinet as War Minister. His new assignment gave him effective plenipotentiary powers over all of Anatolia which was meant to accommodate him and other nationalists to keep them loyal to the government.

 

Mustafa Kemal had earlier declined to become the leader of the Sixth Army headquartered in Nusaybin. But according to Patrick Balfour, through manipulation and the help of friends and sympathizers, he became the inspector of virtually all of the Ottoman forces in Anatolia, tasked with overseeing the disbanding process of remaining Ottoman forces. Kemal had an abundance of connections and personal friends concentrated in the post-armistice War Ministry, a powerful tool that would help him accomplish his secret goal: to lead a nationalist movement to safeguard Turkish interests against the Allied powers and a collaborative Ottoman government.

 

The day before his departure to Samsun on the remote Black Sea coast, Kemal had one last audience with Sultan Vahdettin, where he affirmed his loyalty to the sultan-caliph. It was in this meeting that they were informed of the botched occupation ceremony of Smyrna (İzmir) by the Greeks. He and his carefully selected staff left Constantinople aboard the old steamer SS Bandırma on the evening of 16 May 1919.

 

On 19 January 1919, the Paris Peace Conference was first held, at which Allied nations set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers, including the Ottoman Empire. As a special body of the Paris Conference, "The Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey", was established to pursue the secret treaties they had signed between 1915 and 1917. Italy sought control over the southern part of Anatolia under the Agreement of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne. France expected to exercise control over Hatay, Lebanon, Syria, and a portion of southeastern Anatolia based on the Sykes–Picot Agreement.

 

Greece justified their territorial claims of Ottoman land through the Megali Idea as well as international sympathy from the suffering of Ottoman Greeks in 1914 and 1917–1918. Privately, Greek prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos had British prime minister David Lloyd George's backing not least from Greece's entrance to WWI on the Allied side, but also from his charisma and charming personality. Greece's participation in the Allies' Southern Russian intervention also earned it favors in Paris. His demands included parts of Eastern Thrace, the islands of Imbros (Gökçeada), Tenedos (Bozcaada), and parts of Western Anatolia around the city of Smyrna (İzmir), all of which had large Greek populations. Venizelos also advocated a large Armenian state to check a post-war Ottoman Empire. Greece wanted to incorporate Constantinople, but Entente powers did not give permission. Damat Ferid Pasha went to Paris on behalf of the Ottoman Empire hoping to minimize territorial losses using Fourteen Points rhetoric, wishing for a return to status quo ante bellum, on the basis that every province of the Empire holds Muslim majorities. This plea was met with ridicule.

 

At the Paris Peace Conference, competing claims over Western Anatolia by Greek and Italian delegations led Greece to land the flagship of the Greek Navy at Smyrna, resulting in the Italian delegation walking out of the peace talks. On 30 April, Italy responded to the possible idea of Greek incorporation of Western Anatolia by sending a warship to Smyrna as a show of force against the Greek campaign. A large Italian force also landed in Antalya. Faced with Italian annexation of parts of Asia Minor with a significant ethnic Greek population, Venizelos secured Allied permission for Greek troops to land in Smyrna per Article VII, ostensibly as a peacekeeping force to keep stability in the region. Venizelos's rhetoric was more directed against the CUP regime than the Turks as a whole, an attitude not always shared in the Greek military: "Greece is not making war against Islam, but against the anachronistic [İttihadist] Government, and its corrupt, ignominious, and bloody administration, with a view to the expelling it from those territories where the majority of the population consists of Greeks." It was decided by the Triple Entente that Greece would control a zone around Smyrna and Ayvalık in western Asia Minor.

 

Most historians mark the Greek landing at Smyrna on 15 May 1919 as the start date of the Turkish War of Independence as well as the start of the "Kuva-yi Milliye Phase". The occupation ceremony from the outset was tense from nationalist fervor, with Ottoman Greeks greeting the soldiers with an ecstatic welcome, and Ottoman Muslims protesting the landing. A miscommunication in Greek high command led to an Evzone column marching by the municipal Turkish barracks. The nationalist journalist Hasan Tahsin fired the "first bullet"[note 4] at the Greek standard bearer at the head of the troops, turning the city into a warzone. Süleyman Fethi Bey was murdered by bayonet for refusing to shout "Zito Venizelos" (meaning "long live Venizelos"), and 300–400 unarmed Turkish soldiers and civilians and 100 Greek soldiers and civilians were killed or wounded.

 

Greek troops moved from Smyrna outwards to towns on the Karaburun peninsula; to Selçuk, situated a hundred kilometres south of the city at a key location that commands the fertile Küçük Menderes River valley; and to Menemen towards the north. Guerilla warfare commenced in the countryside, as Turks began to organize themselves into irregular guerilla groups known as Kuva-yi Milliye (national forces), which were soon joined by Ottoman soldiers, bandits, and disaffected farmers. Most Kuva-yi Milliye bands were led by rogue military commanders and members of the Special Organization. The Greek troops based in cosmopolitan Smyrna soon found themselves conducting counterinsurgency operations in a hostile, dominantly Muslim hinterland. Groups of Ottoman Greeks also formed contingents that cooperated with the Greek Army to combat Kuva-yi Milliye within the zone of control. A massacre of Turks at Menemen was followed up with a battle for the town of Aydın, which saw intense intercommunal violence and the razing of the city. What was supposed to be a peacekeeping mission of Western Anatolia instead inflamed ethnic tensions and became a counterinsurgency.

 

The reaction of Greek landing at Smyrna and continued Allied seizures of land served to destabilize Turkish civil society. Ottoman bureaucrats, military, and bourgeoisie trusted the Allies to bring peace, and thought the terms offered at Mudros were considerably more lenient than they actually were. Pushback was potent in the capital, with 23 May 1919 being largest of the Sultanahmet Square demonstrations organized by the Turkish Hearths against the Greek occupation of Smyrna, the largest act of civil disobedience in Turkish history at that point. The Ottoman government condemned the landing, but could do little about it. Ferid Pasha tried to resign, but was urged by the sultan to stay in his office.

 

Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his colleagues stepped ashore in Samsun on 19 May and set up their first quarters in the Mıntıka Palace Hotel. British troops were present in Samsun, and he initially maintained cordial contact. He had assured Damat Ferid about the army's loyalty towards the new government in Constantinople. However, behind the government's back, Kemal made the people of Samsun aware of the Greek and Italian landings, staged discreet mass meetings, made fast connections via telegraph with the army units in Anatolia, and began to form links with various Nationalist groups. He sent telegrams of protest to foreign embassies and the War Ministry about British reinforcements in the area and about British aid to Greek brigand gangs. After a week in Samsun, Kemal and his staff moved to Havza. It was there that he first showed the flag of the resistance.

 

Mustafa Kemal wrote in his memoir that he needed nationwide support to justify armed resistance against the Allied occupation. His credentials and the importance of his position were not enough to inspire everyone. While officially occupied with the disarming of the army, he met with various contacts in order to build his movement's momentum. He met with Rauf Pasha, Karabekir Pasha, Ali Fuat Pasha, and Refet Pasha and issued the Amasya Circular (22 June 1919). Ottoman provincial authorities were notified via telegraph that the unity and independence of the nation was at risk, and that the government in Constantinople was compromised. To remedy this, a congress was to take place in Erzurum between delegates of the Six Vilayets to decide on a response, and another congress would take place in Sivas where every Vilayet should send delegates. Sympathy and an lack of coordination from the capital gave Mustafa Kemal freedom of movement and telegraph use despite his implied anti-government tone.

 

On 23 June, High Commissioner Admiral Calthorpe, realising the significance of Mustafa Kemal's discreet activities in Anatolia, sent a report about the Pasha to the Foreign Office. His remarks were downplayed by George Kidson of the Eastern Department. Captain Hurst of the British occupation force in Samsun warned Admiral Calthorpe one more time, but Hurst's units were replaced with the Brigade of Gurkhas. When the British landed in Alexandretta, Admiral Calthorpe resigned on the basis that this was against the armistice that he had signed and was assigned to another position on 5 August 1919. The movement of British units alarmed the population of the region and convinced them that Mustafa Kemal was right.

 

By early July, Mustafa Kemal Pasha received telegrams from the sultan and Calthorpe, asking him and Refet to cease his activities in Anatolia and return to the capital. Kemal was in Erzincan and did not want to return to Constantinople, concerned that the foreign authorities might have designs for him beyond the sultan's plans. Before resigning from his position, he dispatched a circular to all nationalist organizations and military commanders to not disband or surrender unless for the latter if they could be replaced by cooperative nationalist commanders. Now only a civilian stripped of his command, Mustafa Kemal was at the mercy of the new inspector of Third Army (renamed from Ninth Army) Karabekir Pasha, indeed the War Ministry ordered him to arrest Kemal, an order which Karabekir refused. The Erzurum Congress was a meeting of delegates and governors from the six Eastern Vilayets. They drafted the National Pact (Misak-ı Millî), which envisioned new borders for the Ottoman Empire by applying principles of national self-determination per Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and the abolition of the capitulations. The Erzurum Congress concluded with a circular that was effectively a declaration of independence: All regions within Ottoman borders upon the signing of the Mudros Armistice were indivisible from the Ottoman state –Greek and Armenian claims on Thrace and Anatolia were moot– and assistance from any country not coveting Ottoman territory was welcome. If the government in Constantinople was not able to attain this after electing a new parliament, they insisted a provisional government should be promulgated to defend Turkish sovereignty. The Committee of Representation was established as a provisional executive body based in Anatolia, with Mustafa Kemal Pasha as its chairman.

 

Following the congress, the Committee of Representation relocated to Sivas. As announced in the Amasya Circular, a new congress was held there in September with delegates from all Anatolian and Thracian provinces. The Sivas Congress repeated the points of the National Pact agreed to in Erzurum, and united the various regional Defence of National Rights Associations organizations, into a united political organisation: Anatolia and Rumeli Defence of Rights Association (A-RMHC), with Mustafa Kemal as its chairman. In an effort show his movement was in fact a new and unifying movement, the delegates had to swear an oath to discontinue their relations with the CUP and to never revive the party (despite most present in Sivas being previous members).[120] It was also decided there that the Ottoman Empire should not be a League of Nations mandate under the United States, especially after the U.S Senate failed to ratify American membership in the League.

 

Momentum was now on the Nationalists' side. A plot by a loyalist Ottoman governor and a British intelligence officer to arrest Kemal before the Sivas Congress led to the cutting of all ties with the Ottoman government until a new election would be held in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. In October 1919, the last Ottoman governor loyal to Constantinople fled his province. Fearing the outbreak of hostilities, all British troops stationed in the Black Sea coast and Kütahya were evacuated. Damat Ferid Pasha resigned, and the sultan replaced him with a general with nationalist credentials: Ali Rıza Pasha. On 16 October 1919, Ali Rıza and the Nationalists held negotiations in Amasya. They agreed in the Amasya Protocol that an election would be called for the Ottoman Parliament to establish national unity by upholding the resolutions made in the Sivas Congress, including the National Pact.

 

By October 1919, the Ottoman government only held de facto control over Constantinople; the rest of the Ottoman Empire was loyal to Kemal's movement to resist a partition of Anatolia and Thrace. Within a few months Mustafa Kemal went from General Inspector of the Ninth Army to a renegade military commander discharged for insubordination to leading a homegrown anti-Entente movement that overthrew a government and driven it into resistance.

 

In December 1919, an election was held for the Ottoman parliament, with polls only open in unoccupied Anatolia and Thrace. It was boycotted by Ottoman Greeks, Ottoman Armenians and the Freedom and Accord Party, resulting in groups associated with the Turkish Nationalist Movement winning, including the A-RMHC. The Nationalists' obvious links to the CUP made the election especially polarizing and voter intimidation and ballot box stuffing in favor of the Kemalists were regular occurrences in rural provinces. This controversy led to many of the nationalist MPs organizing the National Salvation Group separate from Kemal's movement, which risked the nationalist movement splitting in two.

 

Mustafa Kemal was elected an MP from Erzurum, but he expected the Allies neither to accept the Harbord report nor to respect his parliamentary immunity if he went to the Ottoman capital, hence he remained in Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal and the Committee of Representation moved from Sivas to Ankara so that he could keep in touch with as many deputies as possible as they traveled to Constantinople to attend the parliament.

 

Though Ali Rıza Pasha called the election as per the Amasya Protocol to keep unity between the "Istanbul government" and "Ankara government", he was wrong to think the election could bring him any legitimacy. The Ottoman parliament was under the de facto control of the British battalion stationed at Constantinople and any decisions by the parliament had to have the signatures of both Ali Rıza Pasha and the battalion's commanding officer. The only laws that passed were those acceptable to, or specifically ordered by the British.

 

On 12 January 1920, the last session of the Chamber of Deputies met in the capital. First the sultan's speech was presented, and then a telegram from Mustafa Kemal, manifesting the claim that the rightful government of Turkey was in Ankara in the name of the Committee of Representation. On 28 January the MPs from both sides of the isle secretly met to endorse the National Pact as a peace settlement. They added to the points passed in Sivas, calling for plebiscites to be held in West Thrace; Batum, Kars, and Ardahan, and Arab lands on whether to stay in the Empire or not. Proposals were also made to elect Kemal president of the Chamber;[clarification needed] however, this was deferred in the certain knowledge that the British would prorogue the Chamber. The Chamber of Deputies would be forcefully dissolved for passing the National Pact anyway. The National Pact solidified Nationalist interests, which were in conflict with the Allied plans.

 

From February to April, leaders of Britain, France, and Italy met in London to discuss the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and the crisis in Anatolia. The British began to sense that the elected Ottoman government was under Kemalist influence and if left unchecked, the Entente could once again find themselves at war with the Empire. The Ottoman government was not doing all that it could to suppress the Nationalists.

 

Mustafa Kemal manufactured a crisis to pressure the Istanbul government to pick a side by deploying Kuva-yi Milliye towards İzmit. The British, concerned about the security of the Bosporus Strait, demanded Ali Rıza Pasha to reassert control over the area, to which he responded with his resignation to the sultan.

 

As they were negotiating the partition of the Ottoman Empire, the Allies were growing increasingly concerned about the Turkish National Movement. To this end, the Allied occupational authorities in Istanbul began to plan a raid to arrest nationalist politicians and journalists along with occupying military and police installations and government buildings. On 16 March 1920, the coup was carried out; several Royal Navy warships were anchored in the Galata Bridge to support British forces, including the Indian Army, while they carried out the arrests and occupied several government buildings in the early hours of the morning.

 

An Indian Army operation, the Şehzadebaşı raid, resulted in 5 Ottoman soldiers from the 10th Infantry Division being killed when troops raided their barracks. Among those arrested were the senior leadership of the Turkish National Movement and former members of the CUP. 150 arrested Turkish politicians accused of war crimes were interned in Malta and became known as the Malta exiles.

 

Mustafa Kemal was ready for this move. He warned all the Nationalist organisations that there would be misleading declarations from the capital. He warned that the only way to counter Allied movements was to organise protests. He declared "Today the Turkish nation is called to defend its capacity for civilization, its right to life and independence – its entire future".

 

On 18 March, the Chamber of Deputies declared that it was unacceptable to arrest five of its members, and dissolved itself. Mehmed VI confirmed this and declared the end of Constitutional Monarchy and a return to absolutism. University students were forbidden from joining political associations inside and outside the classroom. With the lower elected Chamber of Deputies shuttered, the Constitution terminated, and the capital occupied; Sultan Vahdettin, his cabinet, and the appointed Senate were all that remained of the Ottoman government, and were basically a puppet regime of the Allied powers. Grand Vizier Salih Hulusi Pasha declared Mustafa Kemal's struggle legitimate, and resigned after less than a month in office. In his place, Damat Ferid Pasha returned to the premiership. The Sublime Porte's decapitation by the Entente allowed Mustafa Kemal to consolidate his position as the sole leader of Turkish resistance against the Allies, and to that end made him the legitimate representative of the Turkish people.

 

The strong measures taken against the Nationalists by the Allies in March 1920 began a distinct new phase of the conflict. Mustafa Kemal sent a note to the governors and force commanders, asking them to conduct elections to provide delegates for a new parliament to represent the Ottoman (Turkish) people, which would convene in Ankara. With the proclamation of the counter-government, Kemal would then ask the sultan to accept its authority. Mustafa Kemal appealed to the Islamic world, asking for help to make sure that everyone knew he was still fighting in the name of the sultan who was also the caliph. He stated he wanted to free the caliph from the Allies. He found an ally in the Khilafat movement of British India, where Indians protested Britain's planned dismemberment of Turkey. A committee was also started for sending funds to help the soon to be proclaimed Ankara government of Mustafa Kemal. A flood of supporters moved to Ankara just ahead of the Allied dragnets. Included among them were Halide Edip and Abdülhak Adnan (Adıvar), Mustafa İsmet Pasha (İnönü), Mustafa Fevzi Pasha (Çakmak), many of Kemal's allies in the Ministry of War, and Celalettin Arif, the president of the now shuttered Chamber of Deputies. Celaleddin Arif's desertion of the capital was of great significance, as he declared that the Ottoman Parliament had been dissolved illegally.

 

Some 100 members of the Chamber of Deputies were able to escape the Allied roundup and joined 190 deputies elected. In March 1920, Turkish revolutionaries announced the establishment of a new parliament in Ankara known as the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNA) that was dominated by the A-RMHC.[citation needed] The parliament included Turks, Circassians, Kurds, and one Jew. They met in a building that used to serve as the provincial headquarters of the local CUP chapter. The inclusion of "Turkey" in its name reflected a increasing trend of new ways Ottoman citizens thought of their country, and was the first time it was formally used as the name of the country. On 23 April, the assembly, assuming full governmental powers, gathered for the first time, electing Mustafa Kemal its first Speaker and Prime Minister.

 

Hoping to undermine the Nationalist Movement, Mehmed VI issued a fatwa to qualify the Turkish revolutionaries as infidels, calling for the death of its leaders. The fatwa stated that true believers should not go along with the Nationalist Movement as they committed apostasy. The mufti of Ankara Rifat Börekçi issued a simultaneous fatwa, declaring that the caliphate was under the control of the Entente and the Ferid Pasha government. In this text, the Nationalist Movement's goal was stated as freeing the sultanate and the caliphate from its enemies. In reaction to the desertion of several prominent figures to the Nationalist Movement, Ferid Pasha ordered Halide Edip, Ali Fuat and Mustafa Kemal to be sentenced to death in absentia for treason.

 

On 28 April the sultan raised 4,000 soldiers known as the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye (Caliphate Army) to combat the Nationalists. Then using money from the Allies, another force about 2,000 strong from non-Muslim inhabitants were initially deployed in İznik. The sultan's government sent the forces under the name of the Caliphate Army to the revolutionaries to arouse counterrevolutionary sympathy. The British, being skeptical of how formidable these insurgents were, decided to use irregular power to counteract the revolutionaries. The Nationalist forces were distributed all around Turkey, so many smaller units were dispatched to face them. In İzmit there were two battalions of the British army. These units were to be used to rout the partisans under the command of Ali Fuat and Refet Pasha.

 

Anatolia had many competing forces on its soil: British troops, Nationalist militia (Kuva-yi Milliye), the sultan's army (Kuva-yi İnzibatiye), and Anzavur's bands. On 13 April 1920, an uprising supported by Anzavur against the GNA occurred at Düzce as a direct consequence of the fatwa. Within days the rebellion spread to Bolu and Gerede. The movement engulfed northwestern Anatolia for about a month. On 14 June, Nationalist militia fought a pitched battle near İzmit against the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye, Anzavur's bands, and British units. Yet under heavy attack some of the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye deserted and joined the Nationalist militia. Anzavur was not so lucky, as the Nationalists tasked Ethem the Circassian with crushing Anzavur's revolt. This revealed the sultan did not have the unwavering support of his own men and allies. Meanwhile, the rest of these forces withdrew behind the British lines which held their position. For now, Istanbul was out of Ankara's grasp.

 

The clash outside İzmit brought serious consequences. British forces conducted combat operations on the Nationalists and the Royal Air Force carried out aerial bombardments against the positions, which forced Nationalist forces to temporarily retreat to more secure missions. The British commander in Turkey, General George Milne—, asked for reinforcements. This led to a study to determine what would be required to defeat the Turkish Nationalists. The report, signed by French Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch, concluded that 27 divisions were necessary, but the British army did not have 27 divisions to spare. Also, a deployment of this size could have disastrous political consequences back home. World War I had just ended, and the British public would not support another lengthy and costly expedition.

 

The British accepted the fact that a nationalist movement could not be defeated without deployment of consistent and well-trained forces. On 25 June, the forces originating from Kuva-i İnzibatiye were dismantled under British supervision. The British realised that the best option to overcome these Turkish Nationalists was to use a force that was battle-tested and fierce enough to fight the Turks on their own soil. The British had to look no further than Turkey's neighbor already occupying its territory: Greece.

 

Eleftherios Venizelos, pessimistic of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Anatolia, requested to the Allies that a peace treaty be drawn up with the hope that fighting would stop. The subsequent treaty of Sèvres in August 1920 confirmed the Arab provinces of the empire would be reorganized into new nations given to Britain and France in the form of Mandates by the League of Nations, while the rest of the Empire would be partitioned between Greece, Italy, France (via Syrian mandate), Britain (via Iraqi mandate), Armenia (potentially under an American mandate), and Georgia. Smyrna would hold a plebiscite on whether to stay with Greece or Turkey, and the Kurdistan region would hold one on the question of independence. British, French, and Italian spheres of influence would also extend into Anatolia beyond the land concessions. The old capital of Constantinople as well as the Dardanelles would be under international League of Nations control.

 

However, the treaty could never come into effect. The treaty was extremely unpopular, with protests against the final document held even before its release in Sultanahmet square. Though Mehmed VI and Ferid Pasha loathed the treaty, they did not want Istanbul to join Ankara in nationalist struggle. The Ottoman government and Greece never ratified it. Though Ferid Pasha signed the treaty, the Ottoman Senate, the upper house with seats appointed by the sultan, refused to ratify the treaty. Greece disagreed on the borders drawn. The other allies began to fracture their support of the settlement immediately. Italy started openly supporting the Nationalists with arms by the end of 1920, and the French signed another separate peace treaty with Ankara only months later.

 

Kemal's GNA Government responded to the Treaty of Sèvres by promulgating a new constitution in January 1921. The resulting constitution consecrated the principle of popular sovereignty; authority not deriving from the unelected sultan, but from the Turkish people who elect governments representative of their interests. This document became the legal basis for the war of independence by the GNA, as the sultan's signature of the Treaty of Sèvres would be unconstitutional as his position was not elected. While the constitution did not specify a future role of the sultan, the document gave Kemal ever more legitimacy in the eyes of Turks for justified resistance against Istanbul.

 

In contrast to the Eastern and Western fronts, it was mostly unorganized Kuva-yi Milliye which were fighting in the Southern Front against France. They had help from the Syrians, who were fighting their own war with the French.

 

The British troops which occupied coastal Syria by the end of World War I were replaced by French troops over 1919, with the Syrian interior going to Faisal bin Al-Hussein's self-proclaimed Arab Kingdom of Syria. France which wanted to take control of all of Syria and Cilicia. There was also a desire facilitate the return of Armenian refugees in the region to their homes, and the occupation force consisted of the French Armenian Legion as well as various Armenian militia groups. 150,000 Armenians were repatriated to their homes within months of French occupation. On 21 January 1920, a Turkish Nationalist uprising and siege occurred against the French garrison in Marash. The French position untenable they retreated to Islahiye, resulting in a massacre of many Armenians by Turkish militia. A grueling siege followed in Antep which featured intense sectarian violence between Turks and Armenians. After a failed uprising by the Nationalists in Adana, by 1921, the French and Turks signed an armistice and eventually a treaty was brokered demarcating the border between the Ankara government and French controlled Syria. In the end, there was a mass exodus of Cilician Armenians to French controlled Syria, Previous Armenian survivors of deportation found themselves again as refugees and families which avoided the worst of the six years violence were forced from their homes, ending thousands of years of Christian presence in Southern Anatolia.[146] With France being the first Allied power to recognize and negotiate with the Ankara government only months after signing the Treaty of Sèvres, it was the first to break from the coordinated Allied approach to the Eastern question. In 1923 the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon under French authority would be proclaimed in former Ottoman territory.

 

Some efforts to coordinate between Turkish Nationalists and the Syrian rebels persisted from 1920 to 1921, with the Nationalists supporting the Faisal's kingdom through Ibrahim Hanunu and Alawite groups which were also fighting the French. While the French conquered Syria, Cilicia had to be abandoned.

 

Kuva-yi Milliye also engaged with British forces in the "Al-Jazira Front," primarily in Mosul. Ali İhsan Pasha (Sabis) and his forces defending Mosul would surrender to the British in October 1918, but the British ignored the armistice and seized the city, following which the pasha also ignored the armistice and distributed weapons to the locals. Even before Mustafa Kemal's movement was fully organized, rogue commanders found allies in Kurdish tribes. The Kurds detested the taxes and centralization the British demanded, including Shaykh Mahmud of the Barzani family. Having previously supported the British invasion of Mesopotamia to become the governor of South Kurdistan, Mahmud revolted but was apprehended by 1919. Without legitimacy to govern the region, he was released from captivity to Sulaymaniyah, where he again declared an uprising against the British as the King of Kurdistan. Though an alliance existed with the Turks, little material support came to him from Ankara, and by 1923 there was a desire to cease hostilities between the Turks and British at Barzanji's expense. Mahmud was overthrown in 1924, and after a 1926 plebiscite, Mosul was awarded to British-controlled Iraq.

 

Since 1917, the Caucasus was in a chaotic state. The border of newly independent Armenia and the Ottoman Empire was defined in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918) after the Bolshevik revolution, and later by the Treaty of Batum (4 June 1918). To the east, Armenia was at war with the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic after the breakup of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, and received support from Anton Denikin's White Russian Army. It was obvious that after the Armistice of Mudros (30 October 1918) the eastern border was not going to stay as it was drawn, which mandated the evacuation of the Ottoman army back to its 1914 borders. Right after the Armistice of Mudros was signed, pro-Ottoman provisional republics were proclaimed in Kars and Aras which were subsequently invaded by Armenia. Ottoman soldiers were convinced not to demobilize lest the area become a 'second Macedonia'.[149] Both sides of the new borders had massive refugee populations and famine, which were compounded by the renewed and more symmetric sectarian violence (See Massacres of Azerbaijanis in Armenia (1917–1921) and Muslim uprisings in Kars and Sharur–Nakhichevan). There were talks going on with the Armenian Diaspora and Allied Powers on reshaping the border. Woodrow Wilson agreed to transfer territories to Armenia based on the principles of national self-determination. The results of these talks were to be reflected on the Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920).

 

Kâzım Karabekir Pasha, commander of the XV corps, encountered Muslim refugees fleeing from the Armenian army, but did not have the authority to cross the border. Karabekir's two reports (30 May and 4 June 1920) outlined the situation in the region. He recommended redrawing the eastern borders, especially around Erzurum. The Russian government was receptive to this and demanded that Van and Bitlis be transferred to Armenia. This was unacceptable to the Turkish revolutionaries. However, Soviet support was absolutely vital for the Turkish Nationalist movement, as Turkey was underdeveloped and had no domestic armaments industry. Bakir Sami (Kunduh) was assigned to negotiate with the Bolsheviks.

 

On 24 September 1920, Karabekir's XV corps and Kurdish militia advance on Kars, blowing through Armenian opposition, and then Alexandropol. With an advance on Yerevan imminent, on 28 November 1920, the 11th Red Army under the command of Anatoliy Gekker crossed over into Armenia from Soviet Azerbaijan, and the Armenian government surrendered to Bolshevik forces, ending the conflict.

 

The Treaty of Alexandropol (2—3 December 1920) was the first treaty (although illegitimate) signed by the Turkish revolutionaries. The 10th article in the Treaty of Alexandropol stated that Armenia renounced the Treaty of Sèvres and its allotted partition of Anatolia. The agreement was signed with representatives of the former government of Armenia, which by that time had no de jure or de facto power in Armenia, since Soviet rule was already established in the country. On 16 March 1921, the Bolsheviks and Turkey signed a more comprehensive agreement, the Treaty of Kars, which involved representatives of Soviet Armenia, Soviet Azerbaijan, and Soviet Georgia.

 

Throughout most of his life, Atatürk was a moderate-to-heavy drinker, often consuming half a litre of rakı a day; he also smoked tobacco, predominantly in the form of cigarettes. During 1937, indications that Atatürk's health was worsening started to appear. In early 1938, while on a trip to Yalova, he suffered from a serious illness. He went to Istanbul for treatment, where he was diagnosed with cirrhosis. During his stay in Istanbul, he made an effort to keep up with his regular lifestyle, but eventually succumbed to his illness. He died on 10 November 1938, at the age of 57, in the Dolmabahçe Palace.

 

Atatürk's funeral called forth both sorrow and pride in Turkey, and 17 countries sent special representatives, while nine contributed armed detachments to the cortège. Atatürk's remains were originally laid to rest in the Ethnography Museum of Ankara, but they were transferred on 10 November 1953 (15 years after his death) in a 42-ton sarcophagus to a mausoleum overlooking Ankara, Anıtkabir.

 

In his will, Atatürk donated all of his possessions to the Republican People's Party, provided that the yearly interest of his funds would be used to look after his sister Makbule and his adopted children, and fund the higher education of İsmet İnönü's children. The remainder was willed to the Turkish Language Association and the Turkish Historical Society.

Story by U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Mark Patton

   

NAPLES, Italy – A new center designed to enhance cooperation among organizations held a Sept. 5, 2017, ceremony at Allied Joint Force Command Naples to mark the NATO Strategic Direction South Hub’s opening.

  

"Fifty years after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization opened the doors on the Brussels headquarters, the Alliance today faces a dynamic security environment,” said U.S. Navy Admiral Howard, commander of JFC Naples, to the ceremony crowd. "The change has led us to the Hub, a new facility to enhance our understanding of the Middle East and North Africa.”

  

The NSD-S Hub, under the roof and lead of JFC Naples, is designed to focus on a variety of current and potential issues to include destabilization, potential terrorism, radicalization, migration and environmental concerns. A role of the new center is also to coordinate and work alongside agencies outside of the NATO and national military structures as they concentrate on southern regions to include the Middle East, North Africa and Sahel, sub-Saharan Africa and adjacent areas, waters and airspace.

  

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced the decision to create the Hub in mid-February of this year.

  

Hub officials say the center’s opening provides the crucial beginning step for its staff, which is developing relationships with potential partners to ensure the eventual production of useful product and analysis.

  

Howard echoed the importance of starting off with interested and invested stakeholders.

  

"The first order of business is seeking out people and organizations that live or operate in the south,” Howard said.

  

Some of the partners the NSD-S Hub hopes to connect with include actors such as regional development and crisis handling experts, academics and non-governmental organizations.

  

Alejandro Alvargonzalez, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy, highlighted the regular political dialogue and practical cooperation over the past years NATO has held with Mediterranean Dialogue countries and Arab Gulf states in the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative.

  

At the ceremony, Alvargonzalez also highlighted NATO’s ability to successfully build a new culture of cooperation in the security field with 12 regional partner countries.

  

"These partners are adopting NATO standards and promoting interoperability with the Alliance, while modernizing their defense and security sectors,” said Alvargonzalez. "They all are asking NATO for more cooperation and more assistance in the defence and security fields.”

  

It’s the strengthened cooperation and two-way dialogue that Alvargonzalez said will benefit the Hub’s experts and stakeholders from NATO and non-NATO partners. He said these groups will include international organizations that NATO is already working together with, such as the United Nations, European Union, the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

  

Howard pointed out that although the more recognized articles of the 1949 Washington Treaty speak to the idea of collective self-defence in NATO, it’s Article 2 that sets the existence for a Hub.

  

"The Parties will contribute toward the further development of peaceful and friendly international relations by strengthening their free institutions, by bringing about a better understanding of the principles upon which these institutions are founded, and by promoting conditions of stability and well-being,” states the first sentence of the treaty’s Article 2.

  

NATO’s experience with partnering is something Howard thinks will assist the Hub with its efforts.

  

"As we are an Alliance, it is abundantly clear that we know the value of teaming, and the Hub must work in concert with friends and partners,” Howard said. "We have the chance to form a community to share expertise and experience, exchange information and take the path to a better future.”

  

The NSD-S Hub is slated to reach full capability by the end of this year, and French Air Force Colonel Eric Asselin, deputy director and acting director of the Hub, said the ribbon cutting was the first step following months of preparation to establish the center.

  

"Now we have to get to work,” Asselin said.

  

More information about NATO Strategic Direction South Hub is available at www.thesouthernhub.org.

It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?

  

It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?

  

Several NGOs protest the Xinjiang-related report released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

 

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recently released a report on human rights in Xinjiang, which claimed that "China is responsible for serious human rights violations" in Xinjiang, prompting strong protests from many international Non-Governmental Organizations.

This so-called Xinjiang-related "assessment" was drafted by the OHCHR without the official authorization of the Human Rights Council, which seriously violated the OHCHR's responsibilities. It is an illegal and invalid fake report, an absurd farce directed and staged by the United States and some Western anti-China forces.

In May this year, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet was invited to China and visited Xinjiang, she went to all the places she wanted to visit, met all the people she wanted to meet, and issued a basically objective official statement based on what she saw and felt with her own eyes. This has exasperated the anti-China forces in the U.S. and the West. They tried their best to coerce, pressure and even threaten the High Commissioner, and manipulated the anti-China elements within the High Commissioner to plan this so-called "assessment" report, which has no credibility. The report copied the Xinjiang-related clichés that the anti-China forces in the United States and the West have repeatedly hyped up. Such despicable tactics cannot deceive international public opinion.

The United States and other Western countries insist on manipulating so-called Xinjiang-related issues even when their lies are repeatedly exposed. The purpose is to disrupt Xinjiang, undermine China's stability and national unity, and to contain and suppress China. These are evidenced by statements made by senior U.S. government officials and diplomats.

In 2018, former Secretary of State Col. Powell's Chief of Staff and former Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson stated publicly at Ron Paul College, "The best way for the CIA to destabilize China is to create instability in China. Stimulate Beijing with those Uighurs，without external force, and directly bring down China from the inside." In 2021, the then head of the Economic and Political Department of the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou, Consul Ge Mingxi and Andrew Sheila, told guests at a reception, "There is no problem in Xinjiang, in fact we all know it very well, but using Xinjiang to speculate on forced labor, genocide, and attack human rights issues is an effective means to force Xinjiang enterprises to decouple from international industrial chains, to make Uyghurs discontent, to destroy their ethnic relations, and to impoverish, destabilize, and even split Xinjiang out. We can use these to get the Chinese government completely and deeply into the mud."

Counter-terrorism and de-extremism are issues faced by many countries around the world, and all countries are exploring and practicing effective measures to combat crime and de-extremism according to their own realities. France, for example, has "de-extremism centers" and "closed education centers," as well as "intensive education centers" for underage recidivists, which are managed with the participation of military personnel. The French government also has "closed education centers" and "intensive education centers" for underage recidivists, which are run by military personnel. Foreigners who promote extremist ideology are expelled without mercy.

In previous years, Xinjiang established vocational skills education and training centers in accordance with the law, which is a useful attempt to prevent terrorism and de-extremism. At present, Xinjiang has social stability, economic development, religious harmony, and people living and working in peace and happiness, which is not a violation of human rights, but the greatest protection of human rights. All Xinjiang-related lies and rumors will be self-defeating in the face of facts, and the sinister attempt of some countries to manipulate Xinjiang-related issues to smear China is doomed to fail.

From August 6 - 9, 2009, about 300 Haitians from different corners of Haiti's diaspora - often called the 11th Department - gathered in Miami Beach, Florida for the 2009 Haitian Diaspora Unity Congress. The event was organized by the Haitian League, whose Chairman of the Board is Dr. Bernier Lauredan. He is a Haitian pediatrician living in New Jersey, where the first conference was held last year without, apparently, too much success.

 

The chair of this year's Congress was Dr. Rudolph Moise, a physician and actor well known in Miami for his more or less conventional activism.

 

Several former Lavalas government officials took part including former Minister for Haitians Living Abroad Leslie Voltaire, former minister without portfolio Marc Bazin, former Justice Minister Camille Leblanc, former Planning Minister Anthony Dessources, and former inspector of the Haitian National Police Luc Eucher Joseph, now Secretary of State of Justice and Public Safety. These officials are considered by Haiti's masses as politically bourgeois and, excepting Voltaire, were never Lavalas Family party members.

 

Meanwhile, there were also members or associates of President Boniface Alexandre's and Prime Minister Gérard Latortue's de facto government (2004 - 2006). The most prominent of them was Bernard Gousse, the former de facto Justice Minister, whom the Miami-based popular organization Veye Yo brands as a criminal for his role in ordering several deadly crackdowns on rebellious shanty towns and the first arrest of the late Father Gérard Jean-Juste, Veye Yo's founder.

 

Several current Haitian government officials were present including Kelly Bastien, the Senate's president, two parliamentarians from the pro-coup social-democratic parties Struggling People Organization (OPL) and Fusion, Youth, Sports and Civic Action Minister Evans Lescouflair, and two mayors from the Center Department.

 

On the Congress's last day, there were also addresses by Haitian Prime Minister Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis and Special United Nations Envoy to Haiti, former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

 

Like other Haitian conferences of this sort, most of the workshops were focused on development and investment with short shrift given to the political struggles, coups, and military occupations that have made both hard to achieve. There were also sessions on dual nationality, the role of the press, the participation of Haitian youth abroad and in Haiti, and on justice and human rights in Haiti.

 

In one workshop, Pierre Leger from the southern city of Les Cayes addressed Haiti's lack of infrastructure. He claimed to be Haiti's largest vetiver exporter, with operations based in the southern department. He castigated Haitian President René Préval's "lack of entrepreneurial vision" and the Haitian government's perennial begging. The current government and those of the past have contented themselves with pursuing international aid without really trying to promote national production, he said. Leger recounted the troubles he had in getting fuel to his operations over Haiti's sole artery to the south which was damaged after the 2008 storms. Building shipping ports and airports could resolve such problems, he argued. "You need to have infrastructure before inviting people to invest in your country, even if it is entrepreneurs from the Haitian diaspora," Leger said.

 

In a workshop on the press, only conservative bourgeois media were represented. Agence France Presse reporter Clarens Renois spoke on the press' role in development, saying the media sometimes misused its power to defend political causes. Of course, he did not point to Radio Métropole, his former employer, which played a key role in the 2001-2004 destabilization campaign against Aristide.

 

"We should not give only negative news about Haiti," Renois said. "We should also give positive news that can help develop the country."

 

One of the most interesting workshops was that on human rights, held on August 7. In this meeting, Secretary of State Eucher defended harsh, often-criticized government measures to establish a climate of security in the country. He was also proud of his government's close cooperation with the United Nations Mission for Stability in Haiti (MINUSTAH), as the UN's military occupation force is called. He made no mention of the massacres or abuses committed by UN troops or the police. "Now we have no red zones or areas where people cannot go in Haiti," Eucher said. "The people have regained confidence in the Police. The working conditions of our officers has changed, and we will continue to work on the professionalization of the Police and to purchase equipment."

 

Daniel Jean, Deputy Justice Minister for Judicial Reforms, said that the government was working to build and improve courts, to better train judges, and to improve prison conditions around the country. But, he complained, there is a lack of funds to carry out such projects.

 

Prison conditions in Haiti are inhuman and have been condemned by several international human rights groups.

 

Among the panelists was Evel Fanfan, an activist lawyer, human rights defender and President of AUMOHD (Association University Students Working for Law in Haiti). He denounced the government officials' account, brandishing reports on several police and UN massacres against the poor, in particular the 2005 Grand Ravine massacre in Martissant, the 2003 Beladeres massacre by the "rebels," and 2005 and 2006 massacres in Cité Soleil. The victims of these massacres are still denied justice while killers like former death-squad leader Louis Jodel Chamblain and former coup-plotter Guy Philippe still circulate freely. The police who carried out the Grand Ravine massacre are still in their posts or living freely. "Here are the letters sent to and received from the President of the Republic, René Préval and members of his former and current government," Fanfan explained. "How can we speak of Haitian law when the majority of people behind bars in our prisons are unconstitutionally imprisoned and their prison conditions are inhumane? For example, the National Penitentiary in Port-Au-Prince was built for hundreds of prisoners, but now it has thousands" He also underlined the case of Ronald Dauphin, a political prisoner and supporter of former President Aristide, the injustice of whose case Amnesty International recently publicized.

 

Bernard Gousse was also supposed to address the human rights workshop and a number of people from the Miami community came to ask him hard questions. But he never showed up that day, although he did appear the next day in a session on dual citizenship.

 

The Haitian Constitution's prohibition of dual nationality remains a burning issue for most expatriates living in Haiti's diaspora. Many have become citizens of the U.S., Canada, or France and want the Constitution amended to allow them participation in Haiti's political life. Haitian Senate president Kelly Bastien said dual citizenship reform is possible. "It's an easy battle, since your participation in the nation's social, political and economic life will change many things," Bastien told the Diaspora Congress. "You need to talk to other political leaders in both Parliamentary houses, because they come here to ask for money during the electoral period. Now it's your turn to ask something in return."

 

There were also moments of entertainment. On Saturday night, there was a long awards dinner ceremony followed by a dance party with Sweet Mickey.

 

The last day of the Congress - Sunday, August 9 - was a day of protest. Across the street from the Trump International Beach Resort where the conference took place, Veye Yo rallied about 50 people starting at 7 a.m. to denounce the participation of "injustice minister" Bernard Gousse at the event. "Bernard Gousse is a criminal! Bernard Gousse is a murderer! He must be arrested if the USA is against terrorism. Why is a terrorist like Bernard Gousse here?" These were some of the demonstrators' slogans and cries.

 

"We are here today to demand the release of political prisoners arrested by Bernard Gousse, and justice for all those who have been victims of the injustice machine of the government of Gérard Latortue," said Lavarice Gaudin, a Veye Yo leader. "We hope that President Bill Clinton, who claims to be a friend of the Haitian people, as Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General, will work with the government in place to secure the release of these people."

 

In the background, demonstrators chanted: "Occupation, No! Democracy, Yes! Titid shall return!"

 

Meanwhile, inside the hotel, amid extremely tight security, conference members and a restricted handful of about 20 mostly non-Haitian journalists gathered to hear presentations by Prime Minister Pierre-Louis and Clinton.

 

Pierre-Louis' plea, as was to be expected, was for unity. "There is not enough debate between the different sectors for them to exchange, to discuss, for them to arrive at what they call compromise," Pierre-Louis said, speaking in Kreyol. " We must discover the interests of each person and, in the end, accept to lose a little so that everyone wins... That's what compromise means. It is an essential process and it is that alone which can create the true unity we are seeking." How ironic, after these words, that President Préval's still refuses to compromise and grant Haitian factory workers a meager increase in their daily minimum wage to 200 gourdes ($5.05), insisting instead that it be raised to only 125 gourdes ($3.11).

 

She also decried the "colonial legacy which we drag behind us" but did not denounce the UN's military occupation of Haiti, the most perfect expression of this "colonial legacy."

 

Pierre-Louis also invoked some ill-defined unity as a way to resolve growing conflicts with the Dominican Republic and as a means to develop the country. "Unity means believing enough in the country to come invest," she said. "There are lots of opportunities for investment. Creating jobs is a priority."

 

Her speech had one particularly pious and politically naive remark which will be most remembered: "We have to stop identifying ourselves as Lavalas or as Macoutes and just identify ourselves as Haitians."

 

She was followed by Bill Clinton, who repeated the same themes and platitudes he has been saying in recent weeks since his UN appointment: he is optimistic, he sees hope for Haiti, this is a time of opportunity for Haiti, and the nation must not fail.

 

He had the air of being slightly on the defensive, perhaps because of the demonstration going on outside the hotel. He said a series of things that are demonstrably false.

 

"There is no UN agenda in Haiti other than to help advance the plans and the aspirations of the government and the people of Haiti," he said. "I'll be working with the President and Prime Minister, with multinational donors, non-governmental groups, philanthropists, business people, and I hope with many of you to transform those plans into specific actions. My work is and will continue to be in complete alignment and coordination with the Haitian government in so far as I can do that. I will not manage the UN peace-keepers. Nor will I be involved in domestic Haitian politics." As the front man for the UN's military occupation, how can he not be involved in "domestic Haitian politics"?

 

The Congress's organizers felt their event was a success. But for most of the poor and working-class Haitian community in the United States and Canada, it was a meeting of some businessmen, politicians and mostly conservative activists, all of whom had the ability to pay the $250 participation fee (not to mention travel and a hotel). The issues addressed were entirely traditional and technocratic, avoiding the key political problems such as the foreign military occupation, the struggle for the 200 gourdes minimum daily wage, the crying injustice for political prisoners and hundreds of inmates who have never seen a judge, the continued exile of former President Aristide, and the neoliberal plan that continues to privatize Haiti's patrimony.

 

"It's basically a glorified business networking conference,"said one participant who wished to remain anonymous.

 

And others weren't satisfied. For example, well-known Haitian compas artist, King Kino of the group Phantoms did not attend the conference because he felt that the central role of Haitian culture was not on the agenda. "For the past 20 years, Haiti has produced and exported practically nothing," he said in a telephone interview. "It's music that keeps the country afloat. How can we have a conference without the participation of people involved in Haitian music? Jamaica is where it is today because of its music."

 

Finally, one must wonder if the Haitian government, or perhaps Washington and the United Nations, helped to fund this meeting, especially given the participation of Pierre-Louis and Clinton. Although Congress organizers say it was carried out on a "shoe-string," the budget was big enough to pay for airline tickets for dozens of guest speakers and for their accommodations at the sumptuous Trump Hotel. Whatever the case, the 2009 Haitian Diaspora Unity Congress did nothing to fundamentally challenge the Haitian government's neoliberal direction and may have actually helped to reinforce it.

 

VENEZIA ARCHEOLOGIA e RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA: As Tourists Crowd Out Locals, Venice Faces 'Endangered' List. NPR NEWS - All Things Considered | WASHINGTON DC (25/11/2016) & SALVATORE SETTIS, THE NEW YORK TIMES (29/08/2016).

 

VENICE - As Tourists Crowd Out Locals, Venice Faces 'Endangered' List. NPR NEWS - All Things Considered | WASHINGTON DC (25/11/2016)

 

On a recent fall morning, a large crowd clogged the steps at one of Venice's main tourist sites, the Rialto Bridge. But on this day, there was a twist: it was filled with Venetians, not tourists.

 

"People are cheering and holding their carts in the air," says Giovanni Claudio Di Giorgio, who helped organize the march with a grass-roots organization called Generazione '90.

 

The carts he refers to are small shopping carts — the symbol of a true Venetian.

 

"It started as a joke," he says with a laugh. "The idea was to put blades on the wheels! You know? Like Ben Hur. Precisely like that, you just go around and mow people down."

 

Venice is on many bucket lists. But that's a problem. Up to 90,000 tourists crowd its streets and canals every day — far outnumbering the 55,000 permanent residents.

 

The tourist influx is one key reason the city's population is down from 175,000 in the 1950s. The outnumbered Venetians have been steadily fleeing. And those who stick around are tired of living in a place where they can't even get to the market without wading through a sea of picture-snapping tourists.

 

Laura Chigi, a grandmother at the march, says the local and national governments have failed to do anything about the crowds for decades, because they're only interested in tourism — the primary industry in Venice, worth more than $3 billion in 2015.

 

"Venice is a cash cow," she says, "and everyone wants a piece."

 

Just beyond St. Mark's Square, a cruise ship passes, one of hundreds every year that loom over their medieval surroundings. Their massive wake churns up the lagoon bottom, destabilizing the foundations of the centuries-old buildings themselves.

 

"Every time I see a cruise ship, I go into mourning," Chigi says. "You see the mud it drags, the destruction it leaves in its wake? That hurts the ancient wooden pylons holding up the city underwater. One day we'll see Venice crumble down."

 

For a time, UNESCO, the cultural wing of the United Nations, seemed to agree. Two years ago, it put Italy on notice, saying the government was not protecting Venice. UNESCO considers the entire city a World Heritage Site, a prestigious honor that means Venice, at the cultural level, belongs to all of the world's people.

 

In 2014, UNESCO gave Italy two years to manage Venice's rampant tourism or the city would be placed on another list — World Heritage In Danger, joining such sites as Aleppo and Palmyra, destroyed by the war in Syria.

 

Venice's deadline passed with barely a murmur this summer, just as UNESCO was meeting in Istanbul. Only one representative, Jad Tabet from Lebanon, tried to raise the issue.

 

"For several years, the situation of heritage in Venice has been worsening, and it has now reached a dramatic situation," Tabet told UNESCO. "We have to act quickly."

 

But UNESCO didn't even hold a vote.

 

"It's been postponed until 2017," says Anna Somers Cocks, the founder and CEO of The Art Newspaper and the former head of Venice in Peril, a group devoted to restoring Venetian art.

 

She says the main reason the U.N. cultural organization didn't vote to declare Venice a World Heritage Site in Danger is because UNESCO has become "intensely politicized. There would have been some back-room negotiations."

 

Italy boasts more UNESCO World Heritage Sites than any other country in the world, granting it considerable clout and influence within the organization. The former head of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, which oversees heritage sites, is Francesco Bandarin, a Venetian who now serves as UNESCO's assistant director-general for culture.

 

Earlier this year, Italy signed an accord with UNESCO to establish a task force of police art detectives and archaeologists to protect cultural heritage from natural disasters and terror groups, such as ISIS. The accord underlined Italy's global reputation as a good steward of art and culture.

 

But adding Venice to the UNESCO endangered list — which is dominated by sites in developing and conflict-ridden countries — would be an international embarrassment, and could even hurt Italy's lucrative tourism industry.

 

The Italian Culture Ministry says it is unaware of any government efforts to pressure UNESCO. As for the organization itself, it declined a request for an interview.

 

The city's current mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, has ridiculed UNESCO and told it to mind its own business, while continuing to support the cruise ship industry, which employs 5,000 Venice residents.

 

As for Venetians, they're exasperated.

 

"It's a nightmare for me. Some situations are really difficult with tourists around," says Di Giorgio as he navigates around a swelling crowd at the Rialto Bridge.

 

Then it hits him: This crowd isn't made up of tourists. They're Venetians. Di Giorgio says he's never experienced the Rialto Bridge this way in all his 22 years.

 

"For once, we are the ones who are blocking the traffic," he rejoices. "It feels unreal. It feels like we're some form of endangered species. It's just nice. The feeling is just pure."

 

But, he worries, if tourism isn't managed and his fellow locals continue to move to the mainland, his generation might be the last who can call themselves native Venetians.

 

FONTE | SOURCE:

 

-- NPR NEWS - All Things Considered | WASHINGTON DC (25/11/2016).

 

www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/11/25/503038911/as-to...

  

VENEZIA ARCHEOLOGIA e RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA: SALVATORE SETTIS, Can We Save Venice Before It’s Too Late? THE NEW YORK TIMES (29/08/2016).

 

PISA, Italy — A deadly plague haunts Venice, and it’s not the cholera to which Thomas Mann’s character Gustav von Aschenbach succumbed in the Nobel laureate’s 1912 novella “Death in Venice.” A rapacious tourist monoculture threatens Venice’s existence, decimating the historic city and turning the Queen of the Adriatic into a Disneyfied shopping mall.

 

Millions of tourists pour into Venice’s streets and canals each year, profoundly altering the population and the economy, as many native citizens are banished from the island city and those who remain have no choice but to serve in hotels, restaurants and shops selling glass souvenirs and carnival masks.

 

Tourism is tearing apart Venice’s social fabric, cohesion and civic culture, growing ever more predatory. The number of visitors to the city may rise even further now that international travelers are avoiding destinations like Turkey and Tunisia because of fears of terrorism and unrest. This means that the 2,400 hotels and other overnight accommodations the city now has no longer satisfy the travel industry’s appetites. The total number of guest quarters in Venice’s historic center could reach 50,000 and take it over entirely.

 

Just along the Grand Canal, Venice’s main waterway, the last 15 years have seen the closure of state institutions, judicial offices, banks, the German Consulate, medical practices and stores to make way for 16 new hotels.

 

Alarm at this state of affairs led to last month’s decision by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to place Venice on its World Heritage in Danger list unless substantial progress to halt the degradation of the city and its ecosystem is made by next February. Unesco has so far stripped only one city of its status as a heritage site from the more than 1,000 on the list: Dresden, after German authorities ignored Unesco’s 2009 recommendations against building a bridge over the River Elbe that marred the Baroque urban ensemble. Will Venice be next to attain this ignominious status?

 

Unesco’s ultimatum stems from several longstanding problems. First, the increasing imbalance between the number of the city’s inhabitants (which plummeted from 174,808 in 1951 to 56,311 in 2014, the most recent year for which numbers are available) and the tourists. Proposed large-scale development, including new deepwater navigation channels and a subway running under the lagoon, would hasten erosion and strain the fragile ecological-urban system that has grown up around Venice.

 

For now, gigantic cruise liners regularly parade in front of Piazza San Marco, the city’s main public square, mocking the achievements of the last 1,500 years. To mention but one, the M.S.C. Divina is 222 feet high, twice as tall as the Doge’s Palace, a landmark of the city that was built in the 14th century. At times, a dozen liners have entered the lagoon in a single day.

 

The inept response of the Italian authorities to the very real problems facing Venice gives little hope that this situation will change anytime soon. After the shipwreck of the Costa Concordia in January 2012 off the coast of Tuscany left 32 people dead, the Italian government ruled that megaships must stay at least two miles from shore to prevent similar occurrences in the future. But the Italian government, predictably, failed to stand up to the big money promised by the tourist companies: A loophole to that law was created just for Venice. A cruise liner running ashore in the Piazza San Marco would wreck centuries of irreplaceable history.

 

Furthermore, after a corruption scandal over a multibillion-dollar lagoon barrier project forced Mayor Giorgio Orsoni to resign in June 2014, he was replaced a year later by Luigi Brugnaro, a booster of Venice’s tourism. Mr. Brugnaro not only fully welcomes the gargantuan ships but has even proposed the sale of millions of dollars of art from the city’s museums to help manage Venice’s ballooning debt.

 

The destruction of Venice is not in Italy’s best interest, yet the authorities remain paralyzed. Local authorities — the city and the region — are at odds with the government in Rome. Regardless, they have failed to diversify the city’s economy, meaning that any changes would put the few remaining Venetians out of work. To renew Venice’s economic life, new policies are strongly needed, aimed at encouraging young people to stay in the historic city, encouraging manufacturing and generating opportunities for creative jobs — from research to universities and the art world — while reutilizing vacant buildings.

 

No effective provision on Venice’s behalf has been enforced so far by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, although protection of environment and cultural heritage is among the fundamental principles of the Italian Constitution. Nor are authorities developing any project whatsoever aimed not just at preserving the monuments of Venice, but at ensuring its citizens a future worth living.

 

If Italy is to spare Venice from further violation by the new plague devouring its beauty and collective memory, it must first review its overall priorities and, abiding by its own Constitution, place cultural heritage, education and research before petty business.

 

FONTE | SOURCE:

 

-- THE NEW YORK TIMES (29/08/2016).

 

www.nytimes.com/2016/08/30/opinion/can-we-save-venice-bef...

  

It was 5.23 pm on 21st august 2004 when Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was wrapping up a rally protesting Sylhet blasts. A wave of grenade attacks on her left at least 16 people killed and left around 200 persons critically injured including top Awami League leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah.

The party secretary on Women affairs Ivy Rahman died in the Hospital later in the day. The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the bulletproof SUV that Hasina boarded immediately after the blast.

The unusually poor deployment of police at the rally and the absence of forces on nearby building rooftops are a remarkable deviation from the usual practice.

Motaher Hossain, general secretary of AL Krishak League said some people on the roof of Ramna hotel and adjacent building were throwing bombs. At least 13 grenades exploded one after another, and also who were present on the spot told a white Microbus carried of some injured person who were among the assailant and were wounded by their own bomb.

Blame game started at the very moment Hasina spoke out loud about government’s conspiracy to kill the remaining member of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiber Rahman’s remaining family members, BNP leaders hold back and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan commented that they have blamed the government out of emotion. But soon BNP leaders changed their tone and started to blame AL for attacking their own rally, they argued AL had done it to destabilize the country and discredit the government only to grab the power.

Fiction and conspiracy theories were put forward by various columnists in the media. Pro Awami columnists blamed the fundamentalist forces and the right wing coalition government for this attack while pro BNP columnists blamed AL and pointed finger towards the country’s biggest neighbor India.

However most columnists inclined towards Awami league and left parties and leaders and activists of these parties discovered a pattern in the bomb blasts. In most cases secular forces and those who believe in culture, tradition and democratic values had been the target. The same group was behind the attack on Hasina’s rally.

Those pro BNP columnists pick up the same incident and argued Hasina was not the target of those assailants, if she were their target then why none of those grenades fall on the truck and also wrote thousand pages about AL’s possible motive behind this?

Some suspected it as a plot by international Muslim extremist groups; some pointed towards the association of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence); while Jamaat leader Matiur Rahman Nizami believes it is the work of “well known enemies of Islam” who masterminded, through various covert organizations, to carry out such brutal murders.

It became increasingly hard to dig out the truth from these fictions. With conspiracy theories you can use any piece of evidence to either prove or disprove your opinion and you can pick up any particular incident to strengthen your position. Truth has many faces but with conspiracy theory all you can achieve is a thousand shade of the truth and all these are equally probable and could be equally false.

In this present regime we have finally a charge sheet that clearly indicates Awami Leagues position is correct in this issue, RAB and other government intelligence agency finally concluded that Islamic militants are behind this attack and also a small fraction of BNP activists patronized this attack.

But is it the whole truth or only a facade? Lets look at the proceedings of the investigations.

To investigate 21st August 2004 bomb blast then BNP government first employed metropolitan police’s detective branch to investigate this incident, then this case was handed over to the criminal investigation department of Bangladesh Police. Five investigating officer under 3 officers in charge investigated this incident for over 4 years and they had submitted two charge sheet contradicting each other.

What is the progress in this case? When ever you ask this question to a law enforcement officer, a certain reply will be that “we are still investigating this matter. We had some lead but for the sake of this on going investigation we can not tell you anything.” Even after submitting charge sheet against 22 person in June 11, 2008 and acquitting all other person found guilty (on the first charge sheet presented by the CID), still the investigation has not been closed. So far we have 2 persons who claimed that they had actively participated in this failed assassination. On 26th June, 2005 Joj Miah from Noakhali confessed to police that for 5000 taka he carried out this attack under the order of Subrata Bain, a top terrorist. Subrata Bain and his group had close ties with some notorious AL leaders and they fled to India after alliance government took over the state in October 2001. He confessed to a magistrate that he had never seen any grenade before but Subrata Bain, Joy, Molla Masud ordered him to participate in this assassination. ASP of Police [CID] Abdur Rashid was the investigation officer then.

But the government were not satisfied with this finding so led by Munsi Atikur Rahman the investigation continued. The investigation found a paved path established by the coalition government.

So far we have two investigation reports, one of them was by Justice Jaynul Abedin, chairman of the one man investigation committee formed by the government to investigate 21st august grenade attack on Awami leagues rally. Awami League has rejected this report claiming it lacks neutrality. And another one was submitted by the Supreme Court Bar Association. According to Moudud Ahmed, who was Law minister at that time, claimed that this inquiry committee is illegal.

Jaynul Abedin’s investigation report:

Justice Jaynul Abedin had submitted his 162 pages manuscript of coalition governments collective story on 2nd October 2004. He was the member and chairman of one man inquiry committee formed by the government to investigate the grenade attack on Awami League rally on 21st august. On the eve of this submission those authorities in concern had invited journalist to give some insight of the report.

After scrutiny, critical and painstaking analysis, Jaynul Abedin did omit the possibility that coalition government and his ally, some extremist religious group and a part of Awami League was behind this heinous attack on Awami League activists.

But he did claim with certainty that a foreign intelligence agency actively participated in this event. They trained those assailants and equipped them with necessary ammunitions. He described this event on that informal press conference, “this incident is a naked attack on the independence and sovereignty of the country.”

Because Jaynul Abedin was a BNP activist in the past, Awami League questioned the neutrality of the investigation committee. Even though 123 people given their statement to this committee but that does not include Sheikh Hasina, who was the prime target of this massacre. Sheikh Hasina rejected the call for her statement.

In that one and half hour informal briefing on the report prior to its submission Jaynul concluded “the commission may not have received cooperation from all, which may have somewhat hindered the investigation, but the inquiry is in no way incomplete.”

Like any other investigation report submitted by any government formed investigation committee it also embraced the fate to remain unpublished till-to-date.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee report:

On 22nd august, 2004, immediately after the grenade attack, The Supreme Court Bar Association formed an inquiry committee. Barrister Kamal Hossain was elected as the chairman of that committee and the other members of this committee were Rokonuddin Mahmud, Abdul Malek, Amir-ul-Islam, M Zahir and Muhammad Ayenuddin.

While Hasina wrapped up the rally, at that very moment a grenade went off loud and it was followed by at least 10 such explosions. Awami League leaders formed a human shield to cover Hasina from the splinter, they were injured in this process and soon after they escorted Hasina to her bullet proof SUV and Hasina left for Sudha Sadan, while on the move that SUV was attacked by bullets. Witnesses on their statement confirmed the SCBA inquiry committee that they had not seen any member of the law enforcing agency in action there.

After inspecting the place of occurrence on 27th august 2004 they went to Sudha Sadan, where Hasina assured the committee her full cooperation to find out the truth. Hasina’s security personal and her driver gave their statement to this committee and this committee also inspected the SUV.

Driver on his statement told the committee that he drove towards the east, then took a left turn and then he drove towards Sudha Sadan through zero point. But police officers deployed at the rally on 21st August on their statement said to inquiry committee, SUV carrying Sheikh Hasina away from that place drove westward, took a right turn, and then went to Sudha Sadan through zero point.

On 16th, 17th, 18th September the committee watched the video tape recorded by ATN, Channel I and NTV. On ATN video tape they saw a young man purposefully looking towards the multi storied Dhaka City Bhaban. Apart from this, on Channel I and NTV footage some suspicious incidents were seen by the committee members.

The inquiry committee sent two letters to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, requesting her to extend cooperation for the inquiry and to direct the law enforcing agency to cooperate with them in interest of its work.

A letter was sent from the inquiry committee to IGP Shahudul Huq on 29 August 2004 requesting him to direct the police authorities to inform the inquiry committee of the number of persons who were deployed for maintaining the law and order in the public meeting on 21st August 2004 with the descriptions of their duties and locations.

After 3 weeks another letter was sent to him, requesting for his interview. The inquiry committee requested state minister of home affairs, but all of them turned down their request further more the law minister Moudud Ahmed on several occasion said that this inquiry committee had no legal basis and any report of any such illegal committee should not be recognized.

But the government did inform the SCBA inquiry committee that they had done every thing that is possible for them and sent a copy of the statement made by the State Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament. In that speech the State Minister mentioned that the police made all out efforts to identify the culprits immediately after the incident and within 24 hours a Judicial Inquiry Commission was constituted with a judge of the Supreme Court as the sole Member. He also mentioned that the Government also arranged for an “international” inquiry into the 21st August incident side by side with Bangladesh police investigation and in response to the Government invitation 3 (three) teams from Interpol visited Bangladesh and helped the inquiry. Besides this, the government had also taken cooperation of FBI of USA.

The SCBA inquiry committee made repeated requests at the highest levels of the government for obtaining copies of reports of earlier bomb-blasts, the report of the ‘judicial inquiry’ into the 21 August, 2004 constituted by the Government, and other documents and information, but such requests have till-to-date were turned down.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) inquiry committee concluded it was a pre-planned attack, carried out on the basis of a carefully prepared plan, targeting Sheikh Hasina and other leaders and persons attending the rally. The firing of the bullets and grenades on the vehicle by which she was leaving the place of occurrence, confirms that she was the target.

The committee urged government to publish all reports of investigation within one month or else public may lead to believe attempt on Sheikh Hasina’s life was to some extent was patronized by this government.

The alleged HUJI rage against Awami League:

Some columnists claimed in the media that the AL government, after assuming power in 1996 barred Islamic scholars from issuing fatwa’s through a High Court order. The government also came on strong against the right wing protesters and arrested hundreds across the country. This had angered HUJI.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operative commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami revealed on 19th November 2006.

“I masterminded all grenade attacks across the country excepting the August 21, 2004 gruesome attack on the AL rally, and three people financed the outfit for carrying out the attacks”

Hannan gave another detailed statement on 1st November 2007:

“Kajol was given the responsibility to collect funds and grenades for the attack. They decided that 12 persons would carry out the attack and Kajol and Abu Jandal would select the commanders of the operation. It was decided that Kajol and Jandal brief the attackers about their positions and Jandal would throw the first grenade after getting instruction from Sayeed. The others would throw their grenades at around the same time. Hannan said the attackers targeted the truck and left the spot individually after the operation.”

However question remains as why HUJI chose to attack Hasina after all those years and during the period when there was a row of political killings of Awami League leaders (Kibria, Ahsan Master etc.) were happening. HUJI members were used but who masterminded the attack?

The BNP connection:

In January 2008, former deputy minister for information of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu was arrested for his involvement with the grenade attacks on Awami League rally on August 21 in 2004. He was arrested on the basis of confessional statement made earlier by detained Mufti Hannan who claimed that the attack on the AL rally was planned at the official residence of the former Deputy Minister. Hannan said that Pintu was present at the meeting and later supplied the grenades.

He made startling disclosure to interrogators about the involvement of former State Minister of Home Lutfuzzaman Babar and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ in the grenade attacks. From The New Nation:

“The CID officer said they were certain after the arrest of Mufti Hannan and Pintu that the attack on the AL rally had been aided and abetted by Lutfuzzaman Babar and the Hawa Bhaban.

“To hide the truth, former investigation officer Ruhul Amin, a CID officer, had gone to Pintu’s house several times,” he said, and added, “former State Minister of Home Babar was involved in the entire process and Pintu would regularly inquire with him about the progress.”

Pintu’s counsel Advocate Sanaullah Mia, however, told : “He was implicated only because his cousin Maulana Tajul Islam, a militant leader and an accused in the grenade attack case, had visited his house when Pintu was a Minister,”

HUJI is the culprit but who used them and why?

On June 11, 2008 charges were finally made against 22 persons including top Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. Newspaper reports say:

“CID Chief Additional Inspector General Jabed Patwari said HUJI top leaders planned and carried out the attacks to kill Hasina as a few arrested attackers said in their confessional statements that Hasina would harm Islam if she was alive and came to power again.

BNP leader Pintu is not involved with Huji but he has been charged since the attackers had held two meetings at his residence to take decision about the attack.”

But the question remains whether HUJI tried to kill Hasina on their own or it was a political assassination plot linked by BNP to take out the opposition. Like every other political massacre the 21st August grenade attack on Hasina has no clear motive whatsoever and after 4 years of investigation we are not certain whether those who were behind this ghastly attack have finally been exposed. Will we be able to know the truth?