‘Genocide-1971’ to get global recognition soon: Ex Dutch MP Bommel

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: Former Member of Dutch Parliament and human rights activist Harry van Bommel on Sunday said Bangladesh will get global recognition of the Genocide committed in the country by the Pakistani army in 1971.

“Even if it takes a hundred years to get global recognition of the Armenian Genocide, I hope it will not take that long in the case of Bangladeshi Genocide. We want to have it within a few years, not even decades”, Bommel told a press conference at Jatiya press club in Dhaka.

Amra Ekattor, Projonmo Ekattor and the European Bangladesh Forum (EBF), a platform of the Bangladeshi diaspora in Europe, organized the press conference on the occasion of holding an international conference titled ‘International Conference on Bangladesh Genocide Recognition’ scheduled for today.

To gather global public opinion in favor of Bangladeshi Genocide, the conference is being arranged at Dhaka University campus, organizers said in the conference.

Harry van Bommel said cold war and the then global superpower, the United States, support to Pakistan is the reason why Bangladeshi Genocide has not been recognised globally even after fifty-one years of independence.

In 1971, the US extended their cooperation to Pakistan directly providing arms while India was with Russia at that time. That’s why US has been pretending to know nothing about the genocide even though they have been well aware of everything”, said Bommel, adding, “West’s friendship with Pakistan is the reason of this dilemma.

Social and human rights activist Aroma Dutta, MP, Jatiya Press Club president Farida Yasmin, Dr. Anthony Holsman of Vrije University, Amsterdam, Senior journalist of United Kingdom Chris Blackburn, EBF UK Branch president Ansar Ahmed Ullah, and Bangladesh Support Group(BASUG) chairperson Bikash Chowdhury also addressed the press conference, conducted by Aamra Ekattor Chairperson Mahbub Zaman.

While addressing as chief guest Aroma Dutta, MP, said, “I myself am a martyr’s child.” The world’s worst genocide took place in Bangladesh which demands international recognition. The United Nations is obliged to recognize this”.

Bangladesh’s brave freedom fighters, children of martyrs and family members of martyrs were present in the press conference.