Dozens more bodies found at Bangladesh mutiny site

[David]

AP


DHAKA, Bangladesh – Firefighters on Saturday dug up nine more bodies in two mass graves at the headquarters compound of Bangladesh's border guards, raising the death toll to 75 in the force's two-day mutiny, officials said.

The bodies of dozens of senior officers were hurriedly dumped into shallow graves and sewers. Among the dead was Maj. Gen. Shakil Ahmed, the commander of the guards. Dozens more officers were missing, and an intense search for their bodies was taking place inside and outside the compound.

"We think there are more bodies," said firefighter Sheikh Mohammad Shahjalal. He said nine bodies were dug up in two mass graves. Meanwhile, funeral preparations were being made for 33 officials killed in the mutiny at an army stadium in the capital, Dhaka.

While newly elected Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ended the revolt in two days, persuading the guards to surrender with promises of amnesty coupled with threats of military force, the insurrection raised new questions about stability in this poor South Asian nation.

She said Friday that there would be no amnesty for the killers.

The bloodshed underlined the fragile relationship between Bangladesh's civilian leaders and the military, which has stepped in previously to quell what the generals considered dangerous political instability.

The country only returned to democracy in January, two years after the army ousted the previous government amid rioting over disputed election results.

Hasina has a bitter history with the military. She is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh's independence leader and its first head of state — from 1971 until a 1975 military coup killed him, his wife and three sons.

The government instructed senior military officials to take steps to mollify soldiers angry at the country's army chief for prohibiting them from launching an assault on the border guards.

The rebellion in the Bangladesh Rifles border force paralyzed the capital and unsettled this nation of 150 million people.

"It's a setback for Sheikh Hasina's new government. It's now a test for her how she handles the military," political analyst Ataur Rahman said. "This tragic event will force her to divert her attention from consolidating democracy and boosting the economy to tackling the challenges of national security."

The army chief, Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed, met with Hasina at her home in Dhaka late Friday, apparently to discuss the situation.

"It's a national crisis," Ahmed told reporters. "The military will stand by the government."

His statement followed another by Lt. Gen. Mohammad Abdul Mubin, principal staff officer of the military, late Friday that the government would include representatives from the military on a committee investigating the mutiny so that the army's concerns are not excluded from the process. A special tribunal will try those responsible for the massacre.

Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for calm and the resolution of the situation without further violence.

Following the border guards' surrender Thursday, search teams moved into the sprawling Bangladesh Rifles compound that houses the guards and many of their families. They found the gruesome evidence of the killings the guards had tried to conceal.

One corner of the compound, nestled under the shade of coconut palms, held two mass graves where slain officers had been put into shallow holes and covered with dirt. Firefighters used crowbars to pry off manhole covers and recover more corpses.

Security forces, who set up roadblocks across the country, arrested hundreds of border guards who tried to flee under cover of darkness, many of them wearing civilian clothes. It remained unclear whether the amnesty would apply to those guards who tried to flee.

The insurrection erupted from the guards' longtime frustrations that their pay hasn't kept pace with soldiers in the army — anger aggravated by the rise in food prices that has accompanied the global economic crisis. The guards earn about $100 a month.

The guards also didn't like the practice of appointing army officers to head the Bangladesh Rifles. Border guards also do not participate in U.N. peacekeeping missions, which bring additional pay.

Dozens of families — particularly those related to senior border guard officers — maintained a vigil outside the compound, waiting for news. But with only bodies emerging, their hopes faded.

"Let me talk to my father. Where is my father?" cried 10-year-old Mohammad Rakib, who accompanied his mother to the headquarters.