Description

The bare-handed struggle for independence by the Bengalis of East
Pakistan against the Pakistan army in 1971 won the sympathy and support of the world for the cause of Bangladesh. Yet within two years of the founding of the new State, the people had been betrayed by the corrupt, small-minded and power-hungry men who had been swept into office by the tidal wave of the freedom movement. As disillusionment and discontent developed, so did violence. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Founding Father of Bangladesh, was murdered by a group of angry young Majors. Khandaker Moshtaque, who succeeded Mujib as President, initiated the Jail Killings’ and became a by-word for treachery. General Zia, the next leader, became the target of twenty mutinies and coup attempts. The twenty-first killed him. This book is the unvarnished, sad history of the first ten years of Bangladesh, and a textbook of Third World disenchantment.Anthony Mascarenhas, a veteran journalist, has been closely associated with Bangladesh from the start of its freedom struggle. In 1971 he left Pakistan to expose in The Sunday Times of London the atrocities
committed by the Pakistan army in the province which is now Bangladesh. That article, and his subsequent book. The Rape of Bangladesh created a world-wide sensation. In 1972 he won Granada’s Gerald Barry Award (What the Papers Say’), and the International Publishing Company’s Special Award for reporting the genocide in Bangladesh. After serving 14 years on The Sunday Times he is now a freelance writer.