Our Pride

Our Pride: The earth we stand on today, the sky we see when we look up, and the air in our lungs when we take breath; we owe it all to our freedom fighters. this is debt we will never be able to repay, but the Bengalis have been given the oppurtunity to express their gratitude through the honors of valiance. Of the people who have received these awards the highest honor of Birshrestho has been given posthumously to seven freedom fighters. They are Capt. Mohiuddin Jahangir, Flight Lieutenant Matiur Rahman, Sepay Hamidur Rahman, Sepay Mostafa Kamal, Engine Room Artifser Ruhul Amin, Lans Nayek Munshi Abdur Rouf and Lans Nayek Nur Mohammed Sheikh. Untill recently, Birshrestho Flight Lieutenant Matiur Rahman's body was in Pakistan and Birshrestho Sepay Hamidur Rahman's body was in India. They both now have been brought back in Bangladesh. They are now kept with a deep love in our country with the other Birshresthos and countless martyrs of war.
Of those given theshonors on the 15th of December,1973, Female freedom fighters were also included. These women not only provided shelter and assistance to the freedom fighters, but fought by their side too.

Surrender

Surrender: The freedom fighters and Indian soldiers surrounded Dhaka and demmanded that the Pakistani army surrender. Because the Governor House had been bombed, Governor Malik and his ministers took refuge at Hotel Intercontinental (today's Sheraton). The Indian air forces dropped thousands of leaflets: "Surrender to us before the freedom fighters are get you". Dhaka's powerful and mighty(!) Pakistan army then decided to surrender. When he saw that the surrender documents had something surrendering to the joint leadership of 'Bangladesh' and India, a Pakistani general weakly tried to suggest that the name 'Bangladesh' be removed from the document, but nobody paid attention to him; there was no way to deny the truth of history!
On the 16th of December in front of thousands and thousands of people at the Racecource Maidan, General Niazi signed the surrender document that forced him to bow his head and leave a free Bangladesh. The victory that the 70 million people of the country had been awating for nine long months was finally came to them who lot their loved ones during the war.
It was the 22nd December by the time the rest of the Pakistani soldiers had surrendered all over Bangladesh.

Joint Forces

Joint Forces: Around July the freedom fighters began to fight back in an organized manner, and by October they had become strong and confident. They began to systematically attack take over the Pakistan army border outposts. The guerilla battles also began to be more and more daring. The Pakistan army situation in Bangladesh to get so bad that, not being able to find any other solution, they attacked India on 3rd December. The intent was to attack suddenly, and destroy the Indian air force, but this did not work at all. India immediately announced war aganist Pakistan, joined the Bangadeshi forces, and entered Bangladesh with their army. The fighting lasted only thirteen days. At very beginnig and the after bombing all the airports, the Pakistani pilots to fled to Pakistan. After the few ships left in the ocean had been sunk, only their ground forces are remained. The Pakistani army was very skilled at killing innocent people - the freedom fighters and Indian army were eager to see if they were equally skilled when it came to actual fighting.

Countries For and Aganist

Countries For and Aganist: When the world began to find out about the Pakistan army's genocide, most countries' sentiments were for Bangladesh, but two very important countries - the United States of America and China - worked for Pakistan's side, aganist Bangladesh's freedom. In 1971 even though Muslims were being killed in the name of Islam, almost all of the Muslim countries sided with Pakistan to try and stop our movement for freedom. Near the end of war, America sent warship of their Seventh Naval Fleet and Soviet Union sent their nuclear armed naval fleet to the Bay of Bengal. As hard to believe as it may be, because Bangladesh freedom movement, two of the world largest superpowers came up aganist each other with their nuclear weapons. After India recognized Bangladesh as a country, they joined forces with freedom fighter. One and half thousands Indian fighters died in this war.

Fighting Outside the Country

Fighting Outside the Country: During the freedom movement Bengalis who lived the outside the country were of an immense help. They raised money for the freedom fighters and the Bangladeshi government, alerted the world about Pakistan's genocide and formed public opinion in favour of Bangladesh's freedom. Especially noteworthy Justice Abu Sayeed Chowdhury, Architect F.R Khan, Professor Muhammad Yunus, and Professor Rehman Sobhan. It was not only Bangladeshis that helped - on the 1st of August in New York's Madison Square Garden, Pandit Ravi Shankar, George Harrison and many other artists conducted one of the largest concerts of that time, that captured the attention of entire world. The American Poet Allen Ginsberg wrote a beautiful poem about the refugee's suffering, "September on Jessore Road", that still moves people tp this day.

Traitors

Traitors: The Pakistan army had no friends in Bangladesh - expect for a few traitors. The people of Bangladesh rejected these traitors completely during the election; the Council Muslim League's Khwaja Khairuddin, the Convention Muslim League's Fazlul Qader Chowdhury, the Qayyum Muslim League's Khan A. Sobur Khan, the Jamaat-e Islami's Golam Azam and the izam-e Islami's Moulovi Farid Ahmed. Out of these the Jamaat-e Islami political party is worth special mention. To help the Pakistan army, these traitors created the team of rajakars - which was mainly made of the armed cadres of Jamaat-e Islamis. In September a political delegation from West Pakistan complained to General Niazi that the entire rajakar group consisted of Jamaat-e Islamis. General Niazi then ordered that the rajakars be called Al-Badr and Al-Shams. These rajakars/Al-Badr/Al-Shams had neither the strength nor the courage to face the freedom fighters directly, but as puppets of the Pakistan army they carried out unspeakable torture and oppression on the Bangladeshi people. The Pakistani army did not know the people of this country, it was the Al-Badr, Al-Shams and the Rajakars who helped identify them. Whatever the word Razakar might mean literally, there is no phrase that is hated more by the Bangladeshi people.

Bangladesh Government

Bangladesh Government: Bngabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had given the people hope for a sovereign nation, but at the time of the liberation war he was imprisoned in Pakistan. The person who took charge of this movement for freedom was Tajuddin Ahmed. He left his family to fend for themselves and crossed the border to India on the 30th of March. There were no others leaders with him at the time; he contacted everyone later to form the government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. On the 10th of April the historical proclamation morally and legally established Bangladesh as an independent country. In this new country Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was the president and Syed Nazrul Islam was the vice president and acting president in Bangabandhu's absence, and Tazuddin Ahmed was the prime minister. On the 17th of April in Mujibnagar (Meherpur's Baidyanathtala) Bangladesh's first government was sworn in before national and international journalists and ceremonially started it's journey. Their first responsibility was to lead the armed struggle against the Pakistan army and drive them out of Bangladesh.