Is a war crimes tribunal being used to settle political scores? If so, it may unleash social chaos, reports Sebastian Strangio.

Published in The Diplomat, July 22, 2010

DHAKA – BANGLADESH’S Liberation War Museum sits on a quiet street in central Dhaka, shaded by trees and fronted by an austere barbed wire fence. The small building commemorates the country’s 1971 liberation struggle, a fierce war of independence from Pakistan that cost an estimated 3 million lives. An eternal flame in the museum’s courtyard marks it out as a site of martyrdom—a reminder of the bloody star under which the country was born. Almost fittingly, dozens of small Bangladeshi flags are intertwined on the rusting barbs of the museum’s front fence.

Last week, Bangladesh’s government arrested two leading politicians from the country’s main Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, on charges of committing mass murder during the liberation struggle. The arrests, which followed the detention of the party’s president, Motiur Rahman Nizami, and other top Jamaat officials in late June, mark the first stage of a tribunal established in March to address war crimes committed during the 1971 conflict.

A nationalist mural in Motijheel, the commercial heart of Dhaka. (Photo: Sebastian Strangio)

But even though the tribunal has no scheduled start date, it has already whipped up controversy in Muslim-majority Bangladesh. The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, which was elected in a landslide in 2008 in part on promises of a trial, says it has evidence proving the involvement of senior Jamaat members in the 1971 atrocities. Critics, however, say the tribunal is being used to settle domestic political disputes and runs the risk of unleashing social chaos and compromising Dhaka’s relationship with Muslim allies in the Middle East.

The tribunal comes after nearly four decades of inaction in Bangladesh. The 1971 conflagration, which erupted when Pakistan attempted to prevent the secession of its eastern wing, included the systematic execution of leading Bengali intellectuals and the rape of by some estimates 200,000 women. Although the process of putting collaborators on trial began after the defeat of the Pakistani army on December 16, 1971, the tribunal process was derailed after the assassination of independence icon Sheik Mujibur Rahman in August 1975. Ahmed Ziauddin, an advisor to Bangladeshi rights group Odhikar, says that for the following three decades, a succession of military administrations has swept aside all attempts at justice, fearing it could implicate many within their own ranks.

‘The current process is, if you like, unfinished business that started in 1972,’ he says.

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This seems to be becoming something of a trend. Unhappy with depictions of the Prophet Mohammad posted on Facebook, Bangladesh has followed Pakistan in banning access to the site and protesters have taken to the street with flags and Zippo lighters. The target of ire? International Draw Mohammad Day (May 20), which encouraged web denizens to pull out their pen and paper and engage in their right poke fun at the Prophet. It seems to me that some Muslim-majority countries are taking Quit Facebook Day all too seriously, although I don’t think the  protestors are too concerned with user privacy issues.

Below, Muslim protesters shout slogans and torch a Swedish flag during an anti-Facebook protest in Dhaka on May 28. Swedish artist Lars Vilks, known for his (shall we say) piquant Mohammad caricatures, is apparently the catalyst of this recent round of flag-burning. Apparently some students in Bangladesh are now protesting the ban, saying the government is “interfering in the business of expressing opinions”. It’s good to see something pushing back against the instincts of the mob.

UPDATE: Bangladesh has now restored access to Facebook, after the site “apologised” and promised to remove the Draw Mohammad Day page from the site. I’m not sure this can really be described as a victory, especially now that Turkey has also jumped on the bandwagon, banning access to YouTube for hosting clips “insulting” national icon Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Phnom Penh’s small Caodai temple, the Cambodian outpost of a curious southern Vietnamese religious sect, continues to attract local converts, attracted by its all-inclusive religious doctrine

By Sebastian Strangio & Sam Rith

Published in the Phnom Penh Post, July 13, 2009

A GONG rings out over the city, swallowed by the noise of the morning traffic, as the devotees arrive in their Sunday best – flowing white robes and small black caps for the men – and gather in the main prayer hall. Incense chokes the air as three priests, clad in gold and red, lead the congregation in chants under the unblinking gaze of the Divine Eye, suspended in a sky-blue frame above the altar. For adherents of Caodaism, a religious sect native to southern Vietnam, the ceremony is a fortnightly ritual that emphasises universal peace and the oneness of man, God and the universe.

“Since I started participating in Caodaism, my family is happier because I stopped using violence against my wife, stopped drinking wine and stopped having a mistress,” says Phan Van Quang, 64, who started going to the temple when he was 25 to “understand the dharma” and gain good fortune.

Phnom Penh’s Caodai temple, a shaded citadel down an alley off Mao Tse Toung Boulevard, has been the Cambodian home of Caodaism since 1934, and temple elders say that before the Khmer Rouge, it boasted a congregation of over 10,000. Though that number has dwindled to around 2,000 today, the temple continues to find eager converts among the city’s Vietnamese community.

“Day after day, more and more people are respecting Caodai,” said Tran Van Ngoan, the head of temple security. “We do not force people to participate in this religion. People respect it by themselves voluntarily.” Today, he said, there are over 1,300 Caodai temples in southern Vietnam, and over 5 million adherents, spread as widely as Japan, North America, Europe, and Australia.

Caodaism – more properly known as Cao Dai Dam Ky Pho Do, or the “Third Great Universal Religious Amnesty” – was born in southern Vietnam in the early 1920s, when Vietnamese civil servant Ngo Van Chieu claims to have made contact with spirits who communicated to him a symbol – the “all-seeing eye” – and a new creed reconciling the great religious philosophies of East and West.

In an attempt to create the ultimate religious synthesis, Chieu poured everything but the kitchen sink into Caodaism, which counts Sun Yat-sen and French author Victor Hugo amongst its saints. Although the doctrine itself is a melange of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, it also incorporates arcane aspects of 19th-century French spiritism, including seances, Ouija-boards, and the bizarre practice of pneumotographie, in which pieces of paper are placed in envelopes and suspended above the altar, where they are supposedly inscribed with messages from God.

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Cambodia’s relative religious freedoms have encouraged Christian groups to set up shop in the Kingdom, but they risk creating ‘rice Christians’ when they preach to the poor

By Sebastian Strangio

Published in the Phnom Penh Post, September 3, 2008

ELDERS Jones and Henderson cycle calmly through Phnom Penh’s rush-hour traffic, Bible-bags strapped to their backs, white cotton shirts snapping in the breeze. It is becoming a familiar sight in Cambodia: clean-cut young missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – better known as the Mormon Church – taking to the streets to spread the word of God and the doctrines of Mormonism.

“I made a decision to come here because of my belief and my desire to serve the Saviour,” said Elder Henderson, originally from Hawaii. As Mormon missionaries, Jones and Henderson are awake at five and proselytise until eight in the evening, seven days a week. Both are nearing the end of their gruelling two-year stints in Phnom Penh, but look back on their time here with no regrets. “My purpose is to welcome others to come into the Word of Christ,” Henderson said. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t love it.”

In the church’s plush new mission centre on Street 63, they sit with three Cambodian students in a small circle, reading excerpts from dog-eared copies of the Book of Mormon and answering questions posed by the students. The entire lesson is conducted in fluent Khmer, helped further by what Jones and Henderson describe as the natural curiosity of their Cambodian students. “There’s a lot of curiosity. There’s a great number of people who are willing to hear the message that we are sharing,” Henderson said.

Elder Jones, originally from Idaho, said the friendliness of the locals was an advantage for the Mormon church, which was founded in the United States in 1830 and has since grown into a global religion with over 13 million adherents, according to Utah’s Salt Lake Tribune. “We just go and talk to [Cambodians] while they’re here,” he said. “The Lord is in charge, and he’s taking care of things.”

With a growing membership of more than 8,000, Mormonism has lead a significant demographic shift towards Christianity in Cambodia since the early 1990s. According to the US State Department’s 2007 International Religious Freedom Report, Christians make up around two percent of Cambodia’s population (approximately 282,000 people), dispersed amongst 100 organisations and denominations.

Compared to more restrictive neighbouring countries like Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar, Cambodia also has a relatively open climate for missionary work. The law requires all religious groups to register with the Ministry of Cults and Religious Affairs if they wish to build places of worship or conduct religious activities. But according to the Religious Freedom report, “there is no penalty for failing to register, and in practice some groups do not.” As a result, only 900 of Cambodia’s 2,400 churches are officially registered with the government.

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