Blockade – A documentary by Arif Yousuf
85 Minutes, 2015
The Blockade documentary is a story of how Quaker and Jewish activists along with Bangladeshi expats shed light on the Nixon administration’s covert support of the genocide in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) in 1971. Equipped with just canoes and paddles, the young activists risked everything to stop the shipment of arms and save lives half the way across the world. These activists had worked closely with MLK and have used non-violent resistance in the decades since to bring about change….. And they are still going strong.
Elizabeth D. Herman is a New York based freelance photographer and researcher. Since 2010, she has been working on a photography and oral history project called, ‘A Woman’s War‘ – which documents the lives of women engaged in recent conflicts worldwide, as well as their struggle for justice, rights, and their identity as female fighters. As part of the project, she has travelled five countries and documented stories of 116 women in Egypt, Vietnam, Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Bangladesh. The project is a valuable contribution from historical point of view as well as women’s study.
Elizabeth worked in Bangladesh as a Fulbright Fellow to research on how politics influence the writing of national histories in textbooks. While there, she also kept working on ‘A Woman’s War’. She explored the experiences of Bangladeshi female combatants both during and after war of 1971.
Women’s role and suffering in the Liberation War of Bangladesh is still largely unknown. The women who were raped during the war of 1971 was given the title ‘Birangona’ (heroine) by the then government. Some benefits were given to them, but they were meager and mostly indirect – like, money and land rewards were offered to men who married the women. But in a country where rape is a serious stigma and consider women’s fault, the title ‘Birangona’ turned into a title of shame! Even though thousands of women were raped, tortured, handicapped, and suffered mental and physical abuse by the Pakistani Army, they failed to tell their stories because of social embarrassment. On the other hand, many women actively participated in the war. Some worked as spies, some risked their lives to help and train ‘mukti-joddhas’ (freedom fighters). They want to tell the stories of their struggle honorably. Elizabeth Herman provided some of them that opportunity. Here are six Bangladeshi women’s story:
I have lived with these wounds in both of my legs for my whole life. I got them while fighting with Sector 9 in the Liberation War. But the government does not pay me the Freedom Fighter stipend they pay the men. I get no help from the government. Now, my family has nothing.
I do not know why some are called mukti juddha but we are called birangona…I used to care for and serve food to other freedom fighters when they would come to our house. Why are we not freedom fighters, too?
I sang for the soldiers. Before they would take the field for battle, me and the others girls would gather together and sing to them songs of freedom. Then they would go and fight for our liberation.
During the war, I used to hide weapons underneath my sari and bring them to the Freedom Fighters. I would sometimes have to bury them in the middle of the night to hide them from the West Pakistani army.
Both of my sons and my husband went off to fight during the war. One of my sons never came back. But I am proud. I am proud to be a war mother and a war wife.
As a woman Freedom Fighter I feel proud, all women cannot do what I did; I was not just a housewife or passing my time in India as a refugee. I was fighting for my country.
Elizabeth D. Herman is currently working in the US on American female veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Her work has been exhibited in a number of group shows at Tufts, as well as at a solo show at Shadhona Studios in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, NPR’s All Things Considered, GlobalPost, The Daily Beast/Newsweek, The Independent (Bangladesh), Warscapes, and FotoVisura.
William A.S. Ouderland (1917-2001) was a Dutch-Australian commando officer who actively took part in the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. He was awarded the fourth highest gallantry award, the Bir Protik, by the government of Bangladesh. He is the only foreigner to receive this honorary award.
I was wondering about him for a while…found some information on the internet. Below are my finding. It is not all and enough. Hope someone, someday may be more interested in his life and find more information about him!
In 1936, William Ouderland he was conscripted for National Service shortly after he had started working with the Bata Shoe Company in Netherlands. On the eve of Nazi invasion in 1940, he was called up to serve as a sergeant in the Dutch Royal Signals Corp. During the war, he was taken prisoner by the Nazis, but soon escaped from the POW camp and joined the Dutch underground resistance movement. He spoke fluent German and several Dutch dialects, which helped him to befriend the German high command and was thus able to help the Dutch underground movement as well as the allied forces with the vital information.
After the war, he returned to work for Bata. On the eve of Liberation War of Bangladesh, he came to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) as the General Manager/Production Manager/CEO of Bata Shoe Company. (seems like no one is sure about his exact title)
Repression, occupation and brutality of Pakistan Army on unarmed Bengali people reminded him of Nazi occupation in Europe. He wrote in a letter – ‘I was reliving my experience of my younger days in Europe.’ He felt that the world should be aware of the extent of genocide. As a foreigner and top executive of a multinational company, he used his position to take pictures of atrocities committed by Pakistani regime and passed them to the world press.
He also used his close relationship with higher echelon of the occupation forces including general Tikka Khan and General Niazi, to avail sensitive information and passed them to the Mukti Bahini (Liberation Force).
William Ouderland, Ouderland and General Osmani
He secretly trained and assisted local youths in guerrilla resistance tactic around Tongi. After sending his own family back home (Netherlands?), he made his residence a safe place for freedom fighters (whom he considered as his sons) and gave them food, medicine, shelter and advice – trained the guerrilla in the premises of the Bata shoe factory. He also planned and directed a number of guerilla operations.
Ouderland remained in Bangladesh until 1978. Then he was transferred to Australia to work and eventually settled there. This uncommon, unsung, less known hero of a nation died in Perth, Western Australia on 18 May 2001. He was 84.
In 2010, a road in Gulshan, Dhaka was named after him – ‘Ouderland, Bir Pratik Road’, a Bangla biography was published in 2010. In 2011, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh visited his cemetery and paid homage while she was on a visit to Australia.
I wish I could know more about W.A.S.O. Why did he risk his life AGAIN when he certainly knew that it was extremely dangerous to do so? Who wants to go in front of death – twice! When most of the foreigners left a country what was ravaged by one of the most brutal genocide in human history, why did he remained there and risked his life? What was his reaction after receiving the award of Bir Protik? What his family and friends think of him? What kind of person was he?
He took pictures during the war. I wish some day soon I will be able to see all the photos he took.
History makes us and moves us all – he may not be a hero to others, but for Bangladeshi people he is – at least, he should be.
The Bangladesh Story is an interview based documentary directed by Faris Kermani which tells the story of how Bangladesh was created. It was broadcasted on Channel 4 of UK in January, 1989. The doc is divided in 3 episodes. The total runtime is just over an hour. Here is the short description of the documentary – The Bangladesh Story:
Episode 1 – Under Three Flags: Bengal was the heartland of British India, and in 1947 it became the east wing of Pakistan, after much violence. East Pakistanis felt they still suffered from domination by their west wing, and Pakistan’s first general election in 1970 confirmed this. A second Bengali bid for independence resulted in nationhood.
Episode 2 – The Mujib Years: The East Bengali majority in the 1970 election caused a civil war which shocked the world. The superpowers stayed on the sidelines, but the intervention of the Indian army ensured the existence of Bangladesh. Mujibur Rahman took power, but lost popular support within three years, and a new period of government by the armed forces began.
Episode 3 – Military Rules: 80% of the population has dropped below the poverty line, while rulers come and go, usually through violent coups. The last programme in the series looks at some different people’s attempts to find solutions to their country’s problems.
A theme song that connected all three parts is great! I really enjoyed the doc. It is a simple version but felt kind of nostalgic about the story. Someone uploaded a low-res version of this wonderful doc in YouTube.
If you want to buy the original DVD from the director, please contact Mr. Faris Kermani directly. He is the head of Crescent Films.
This year, Gary J. Bass, professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, wrote a book on Bangladesh’s liberation war and role if US diplomats with the US administration during that time – “The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide”. This book is about how two of the world’s great democracies – the United States and India – faced up to one of the most terrible humanitarian crises of the twentieth century. The slaughter in what is now Bangladesh stands as one of the cardinal moral challenges of recent history, although it is far more familiar to South Asians than to Americans today. It had a monumental impact on India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh – almost a sixth of humanity in 1971. In the dark annals of modern cruelty, it ranks as bloodier than Bosnia and plausibly in the same rough league as Rwanda. It was a defining moment for both the United States and India, where their humane principles were put to the test.
The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide
WNYC’s Brian Lehrer talked with the author about this book on Sept 27, 2013. Hear the conversation here.
Below is the writing by Gary J. Bass about the issue, published in New York Time on September 27, 2013.
The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide by Gary J. Bass
A riveting history—the first full account—of the involvement of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the 1971 atrocities in Bangladesh that led to war between India and Pakistan, shaped the fate of Asia, and left in their wake a host of major strategic consequences for the world today.
Giving an astonishing inside view of how the White House really works in a crisis, The Blood Telegram is an unprecedented chronicle of a pivotal but little-known chapter of the Cold War. Gary J. Bass shows how Nixon and Kissinger supported Pakistan’s military dictatorship as it brutally quashed the results of a historic free election. The Pakistani army launched a crackdown on what was then East Pakistan (today an independent Bangladesh), killing hundreds of thousands of people and sending ten million refugees fleeing to India—one of the worst humanitarian crises of the twentieth century.
Nixon and Kissinger, unswayed by detailed warnings of genocide from American diplomats witnessing the bloodshed, stood behind Pakistan’s military rulers. Driven not just by Cold War realpolitik but by a bitter personal dislike of India and its leader Indira Gandhi, Nixon and Kissinger actively helped the Pakistani government even as it careened toward a devastating war against India. They silenced American officials who dared to speak up, secretly encouraged China to mass troops on the Indian border, and illegally supplied weapons to the Pakistani military—an overlooked scandal that presages Watergate.
Drawing on previously unheard White House tapes, recently declassified documents, and extensive interviews with White House staffers and Indian military leaders, The Blood Telegram tells this thrilling, shadowy story in full. Bringing us into the drama of a crisis exploding into war, Bass follows reporters, consuls, and guerrilla warriors on the ground—from the desperate refugee camps to the most secretive conversations in the Oval Office.
Bass makes clear how the United States’ embrace of the military dictatorship in Islamabad would mold Asia’s destiny for decades, and confronts for the first time Nixon and Kissinger’s hidden role in a tragedy that was far bloodier than Bosnia. This is a revelatory, compulsively readable work of politics, personalities, military confrontation, and Cold War brinksmanship.
The Bangladesh Story is an interview based documentary directed by Faris Kermani which tells the story of how Bangladesh was created. It was broadcasted on Channel 4 of UK in January, 1989. The doc is divided in 3 episodes. The total runtime is just over an hour. Here is the short description of the documentary – The Bangladesh Story:
