{"id":88493,"date":"2014-07-25T17:29:21","date_gmt":"2014-07-25T21:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kanglaonline.com\/?p=67319"},"modified":"2014-07-25T17:29:21","modified_gmt":"2014-07-25T21:29:21","slug":"bangladesh-sending-its-death-squads-for-the-un-peacekeeping-missions-achr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.manipur.org\/news\/2014\/07\/25\/bangladesh-sending-its-death-squads-for-the-un-peacekeeping-missions-achr\/","title":{"rendered":"Bangladesh sending its death squads for the UN Peacekeeping missions: ACHR"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bangladesh sending its death squads for the UN Peacekeeping missions<\/span>

– BGB being denied UN postings while India\u2019s BSF personnel serve with\u00a0<\/span>various UN Missions –<\/span>

New Delhi: Asian Centre for Human Rights in its report, \u201cBANGLADESH:\u00a0<\/span>SENDING DEATH SQUADS TO KEEP THE UN\u2019s PEACE\u201d<\/span>
(<\/span>http:\/\/www.achrweb.org\/reports\/DPKO-Bangladesh.pdf<\/a>), the first ever\u00a0<\/span>comprehensive study on the issue released today to coincide with the\u00a0<\/span>ongoing visit of United Nations under secretary general for department of\u00a0<\/span>peacekeeping operations (DPKO) Herv\u00e9 Ladsous to Bangladesh from 22 July\u00a0<\/span>2014 stated that Bangladesh is sending its death squads to keep peace for\u00a0<\/span>the United Nations.<\/span>

The troops which are being sent for UN peacekeeping missions include the\u00a0<\/span>Bangladesh Army personnel who are posted in the Chittagong Hill Tracts\u00a0<\/span>(CHTs) and the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), which has been declared as\u00a0<\/span>ineligible to receive technical assistance from the United States under\u00a0<\/span>the Leahy Law because of its personnel being involved in gross human\u00a0<\/span>rights violations with impunity. \u00a0Between 2004 and 2011, the Bangladesh\u00a0<\/span>Army personnel were responsible for 15 cases of extrajudicial killings,<\/span>
464 cases of arbitrary arrest, 374 cases of torture and 285 cases of\u00a0<\/span>forcible evictions in addition to burning down of 1,070 houses of\u00a0<\/span>indigenous Jumma peoples of the CHTs. Bangladesh Army personnel also\u00a0<\/span>murdered at least 70 suspects of 2009 Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) mutiny at\u00a0<\/span>Pilkhana in their custody while the RAB which had 83 Army officers out of\u00a0<\/span>the 208 officers as of August 2013 were responsible for extra-judicial\u00a0<\/span>executions of 776 persons in alleged cross fire between January 2004 and\u00a0<\/span>June 2013. A large number of these human rights violators have been posted\u00a0<\/span>with the UN peace keeping missions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"bangladesh<\/a><\/p>\n


\u201cThe cross-fire is a blatant cover up of the extra-judicial executions by\u00a0<\/span>the RAB. Since its inception in 2004, not a single death has been due to\u00a0<\/span>innumerable crossfire incidents, which supposedly involve cross-firing\u00a0<\/span>with criminal gangs and terrorist groups. About 18 RAB personnel were\u00a0<\/span>killed in the Pilkhana massacre and the rest died in road accidents.\u201d –\u00a0<\/span>stated Mr Suhas Chakma, Director of Asian Centre for Human Rights.<\/span>

Serving in a UN peacekeeping mission is deemed so lucrative [as a\u00a0<\/span>Bangladesh Army officer earn upwards of US $2,200 a month in addition to\u00a0<\/span>other allowances and parks for an officer against Taka 15,000 (about US\u00a0<\/span>$200) for an officer in the country and US $1,100 for a soldier, against\u00a0<\/span>Taka 7,717 (about US $100)] that Bangladesh Army has systematically\u00a0<\/span>monopolised the UN postings. Bangladesh Army constitutes 93% of the\u00a0<\/span>peacekeepers deployed from Bangladesh while the remaining 7% are from\u00a0<\/span>Bangladesh Police, Navy and Air Force personnel.<\/span>

In fact, the denial of opportunities to serve with the UN missions was one\u00a0<\/span>of the main reasons for the revolt by the BDR personnel at Pilkhana, Dhaka\u00a0<\/span>on 25 February 2009 in which a total of 74 persons including 57 Army\u00a0<\/span>Officers deputed to the BDR from the army were massacred. The 10-member\u00a0<\/span>Investigation Committee formed by the Government of Bangladesh instead of\u00a0<\/span>resolving the grudge of the BDR personnel purposely misled the country by\u00a0<\/span>stating that the \u201cUnited Nations has objected to the proposal of BDR<\/span>
members being taken to foreign missions. \u00a0Bangladesh Government has no\u00a0<\/span>jurisdiction in this matter\u201d.<\/span>

\u201cThis is another blatant lie as India\u2019s Border Security Force personnel\u00a0<\/span>who are equivalent of the BDR in Bangladesh are regularly deployed for UN\u00a0<\/span>Missions and have previously served in Namibia, Cambodia, Mozambique,\u00a0<\/span>Angola, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Haiti. That Bangladesh refuses to include\u00a0<\/span>the BDR personnel, rechristened as Border Guards Bangladesh, despite a\u00a0<\/span>national tragedy like Pilkhana massacre shows the vested interest of the\u00a0<\/span>Bangladesh Army to monopolise the UN postings.\u201d – further stated Mr<\/span>
Chakma.<\/span>

About 7% of the Bangladesh Army constantly remain deployed in UN\u00a0<\/span>Peacekeeping missions at any given point of time and the UN has been\u00a0<\/span>steadily contributing to increasing militarisation in the country and\u00a0<\/span>extending the grip of the Army on the country. Bangladesh increased its\u00a0<\/span>defence budget by over 11% for the Financial Year 2011-12, among others,\u00a0<\/span>to purchase 44 new Main Battle Tanks, three Armoured Recovery Vehicles and\u00a0<\/span>two brand new helicopters for the army from China to provide logistical<\/span>
support allegedly for UN peacekeeping missions.<\/span>

As a number of human rights violators from Bangladesh have been posted\u00a0<\/span>with the UN peacekeeping missions, Asian Centre for Human Rights called\u00a0<\/span>upon the United Nations to strictly implement \u201cHuman Rights Screening of\u00a0<\/span>United Nations Personnel Policy\u201d of December 2012 to bar deployment of\u00a0<\/span>such violators.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Read more \/ Original news source: http:\/\/kanglaonline.com\/2014\/07\/bangladesh-sending-its-death-squads-for-the-un-peacekeeping-missions-achr\/<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bangladesh sending its death squads for the UN Peacekeeping missions- BGB being denied UN postings while India\u2019s BSF personnel serve with\u00a0various UN Missions -New Delhi: Asian Centre for Human Rights<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[2894,2895,1849,2896,43,330,100,2897],"class_list":["post-88493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kanglaonline","category-news","tag-achr","tag-asian-centre-for-human-rights","tag-bangladesh","tag-chittagong-hill-tracts","tag-k-featured","tag-kanglaonline-2","tag-press-release","tag-un-peace-keeping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.manipur.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.manipur.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.manipur.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.manipur.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.manipur.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.manipur.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88493\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.manipur.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.manipur.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.manipur.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}