please don’t turn your backs to Bangladesh this time

Bangladesh is the 8^th most populated country in the world with around 160 million inhabitants and its capital Dhaka is a megacity with more than 15 million people. Today I had a direct flight from Istanbul to Dhaka, which was complete, but even in Istanbul Atatürk Airport we can see the lack of importance given to Bangladesh, reserving for it the very last gate of the airport. This could be a trivial example of how Bangladesh is forgotten internationally, too trivial perhaps. But did you know that in 1971, during 9 months of terror, in Bangladesh 3 million people were killed and around 4 hundred thousand women were raped? “Operation Searchlight” was planned and carried out by the Pakistani Army, with the help of local agents, and besides many indiscriminate killing it systematically targeted Bengali dissidents and religious and ethnic minorities.

These hideous genocide and genocidal rape were part of a plan to subjugate people with a different language, culture and who were willing to live in democracy under the rule of law. It surely represents one of the darkest pages of our World’s History, being without any doubt the 2^nd largest genocide in casualties, after the Holocaust. Nevertheless, this is not well known. Now it was finally formed the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh in order to judge war crimes and end 40 years of impunity by the genocide perpetrators. If this happens, this will no longer be what so many people call "a forgotten genocide".

As international community we must not turn once again our backs to the Bengali people, to Human Rights and to its universal declaration. We know that there are many people interested in destroying the reputation of this court and end its activity. As responsible human beings we and our countries must support the International Crimes Tribunal and give the Bangladeshi people a chance to see Human Rights and the Rule of Law flourish in their beautiful country, once for all.

Above all we shall remember what happened in 1971 and avoid by all means such terrible humanitarian disasters to happen again. Never again.