António Vieira da Cruz

“Afghan Girl” (1984), de Steve McCurry      Foi a capa da National Geographic em Junho de 1985. Mostra Sharbat Gula, uma rapariga pashtun então com 12 anos, que vivia no campo de Nasir Bagh (Peshawar, Paquistão) entre cerca de 100 mil refugiados afegãos. Com a intervenção da NATO no Afeganistão e afastamento dos Taliban, Sharbat Gula e outros refugiados voltaram ao seu país e o campo onde viviam fechou em 2002. Em 2021 a NATO retirou as forças militares do Afeganistão e os Taliban retomaram o poder. Com o regresso dos Taliban, a vida de Sharbat Gula foi ameaçada e ela teve novamente de sair do país. Vive em Itália desde então, outra vez como refugiada. Passados quarenta anos desta fotografia, as raparigas e mulheres afegãs ainda vivem hoje com graves limitações no acesso à educação, ao mercado de trabalho, e à liberdade de uma vida digna.

(também publicado no Substack ) Meeting lawmakers at the Portuguese Parliament These last days of Advent I have been following a delegation of Christians from Pakistan visiting Lisbon, Portugal. They represent the Peter John Sahotra Foundation, an  institution  of good courageous people that provides the Christian community with relief from the heavy burdens of poverty and religious persecution. The couple Sadaf and Joel Amir Sahotra have been meeting members of the Portuguese Parliament, civil society organisations, media, schools and universities. The purpose of this visit is to update the Portuguese society about the situation of Christians in Pakistan with key facts and to find new opportunities of cooperation on the issues of human rights and education. Pakistan is a 240 million country with about 1% Christians living mainly in Punjab, but also in smaller communities in Sindh and Karachi. The majority of these 2.5 to 3 million people face poverty and all of them live unde...

Author: Wali-ur Rahman Publisher: Bangladesh Heritage Foundation Place: Dhaka, Bangladesh Year: 2011 181 pages If someone ever asks me how to understand Bangladesh better, my advice is: start by studying its International Crimes Tribunal. I would say this is perhaps the best way to know about Bangladesh contemporary history and politics. That is what happened with me. The International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh tells us a lot about the country’s past and present; about its independence; about its cultural, ethnic and political tensions; and about its struggle to find justice, peace and prosperity. The book “Forgotten War: Forgotten Genocide” was written in 2011 by my good friend H.E. Ambassador Wali-ur Rahman and it is an ideal tool to understand everything about these issues. From 1947 to 1971 Bangladesh was part of Pakistan and before it was under the British Raj. Bangladesh, or East Pakistan, had a very different culture and language than West Pakistan, whic...

International Crimes Tribunal of Dhaka Yesterday, one of the worse criminals of the XXI century was condemned to life imprisonment. His name is Delwar Hossain Sayedee , he is 74 years old and he was one of the leaders of the extremist party Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh. During the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971, he committed brutal crimes against humanity. Being now accused of at least 20 crimes, the case went to Supreme Court and there he was proven guilty of:     torture a leader of the Awami League, Mr Nurul Islam, and arson attack on his house;     killing one and torching house in the village of Chitholia;     killing one and torching 25 houses in the village of Umedpur;     abduction and rape of 3 sisters of Parerhat Bazar;      forcing 100 to 150 Hindus to convert to Islam in Parerhat and other villages. Delwar Hossain Sayedee, a Razakar Besides that, he was accused of many other crimes, as killing m...

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 will...

Deixo aqui o último editorial que escrevi na revista Think South Asia enquanto Editor. As próximas edições da revista ficam muito bem entregues ao alemão Djan Sauerborn, da Universidade de Heidelberg: --- Think South Asia #09 As this is a summer special edition of Think South Asia, we suggest a travel by some of the South Asian countries, as the Maldives, India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. As I am moving to new projects, this is also my last edition as editor but, before I get there, let me call your attention for the contents you can find in the next pages: an article about the rising religious extremism in the Maldives by the future editor of Think South Asia, Mr Djan Sauerborn; a very good business profile of the Indian building market, by the civil engineer Mr Pedro Baptista Pinto; and an informative update of the situation in Nepal, by Mr Narayan Guimire. Then, we have an outstanding article about the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh “Our conscience in an Iron Ca...

Editorial que escrevi no oitavo número da revista Think South Asia : --- The King of Bhutan - Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck It is now time for us to look at Bhutan. Bhutan is a mountainous country comparable to the size of Switzerland, but with around 730 thousand inhabitants and landlocked between India and Tibet, which as we know is ruled by the Chinese. On the date of this edition we are between 2 rounds of parliamentary elections in Bhutan, being a special moment to analyse this fascinating country. Also another issue for which Bhutan is well known is the Gross National Happiness index (GNH), and we are thinking about it as well. In this issue of Think South Asia magazine we have very prestigious contributions indeed. First of all, a detailed country profile of Bhutan done by the South Asia Democratic Forum fellow Mr Marian Gallenkamp, who is a knowledgeable expert on this country. Dr Siegfried O. Wolf from the University of Heidelberg dedicates his usual...

Editorial que escrevi no sétimo número da revista Think South Asia: --- In this edition we will put the focus on Pakistan , a country with more than 180 million people, being the 6 th most populous country in the world. We could roughly say that the story of Pakistan was marked by two partitions: the partition of India in 1947 and its own partition in 1971. But as History is more complex than that, we are dedicating this edition of Think South Asia magazine to Pakistan . In the case of this country, etymology says a lot of its early history. The word “ Pakistan ” did not exist before 1933, when it was coined by the Muslim nationalist Mr Choudhry Rahmat Ali who, with other intellectuals, wanted to create a separate Muslim homeland in South Asia . According to scholars, the name has its origins in the acronym PAKSTAN, which results from P unjab + A fghani territories + K ashmir + S indh + Baluchi stan . An “i” was introduced amidst for reasons of pronunciation an...