Bangladesh must lay the ghosts of its past to rest

Bangladesh, that most beautiful and tragic of countries, today risks tearing itself apart in renewed vicious squabbles over its violent creation. It is as if the tormented ghosts of the country's bloody past are rising to seek revenge.

It is time for Bangladeshi and international leaders to set up a truth and reconciliation commission to exorcise the ghosts and try to heal the deep wounds before it is too late.

A twist in the tragedy is that it had begun to look as if - in spite of recent terrible disasters in garment factories - Bangladesh was finally going to justify the golden dreams of its founding fathers and give the lie to Henry Kissinger's description of the country as an eternal basket case.

Thanks to economic growth of 6 to 7 per cent a year, Bangladesh has joined a new elite of fast-growing nations, along with Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines and Turkey.

Now all this is at risk because of political stalemate, plus strikes and demonstrations and widespread anger over death penalties imposed on some Muslim leaders for their part in the 1971 war that led to Bangladesh being created from the former East Pakistan.

The country's origins are a testament to the cruel, sometimes criminal, cynicism of so-called leaders of the world. It had a long colonial history as part of British India. When India and Pakistan were created in 1947, East Pakistan was separated from West Pakistan by 1,600 kilometres of India.