EACH time an Awami League government comes to power in Bangladesh demands are made for bringing to justice the collaborators in the violence unleashed during the 1971 crackdown by Pakistani forces on Bengali nationalists. This is understandable because Awami League supporters had borne the brunt of the violence in which innocent civilians were targeted by the security forces; many rights abuses and killings were alleged to have taken place, some well documented. While in office Gen Pervez Musharraf had fittingly offered regrets to Sheikh Hasina's last government in a bid to put the sordid past behind. But that has not sufficed as demands keep resurfacing to bring to justice the collaborators who are still residing in Bangladesh. To the Bangladeshis' credit, however, rights activists there have also raised the question of bringing to justice certain groups of Bengali nationalists who committed similar atrocities against Urdu-speaking civilians at the height of the 1971 crisis. The healing process, they argue, has to be a two-way process that at the very least owns and condemns the violence committed by both sides.

It is indeed for Bangladesh to decide what needs to be done. But given that the debate over the issue refuses to die down after all these years, perhaps the formulation of an independent 'truth and reconciliation commission' modelled after the one constituted in post-apartheid South Africa may be in order. This will help the survivors of the violence and the families of those who lost their lives come to terms with a bloody past and begin to heal. The sprawling refugee camps inhabited by Biharis in Dhaka, who still hope to be repatriated to Pakistan one day, also remain the unfinished business that needs to be addressed by both countries in order to move on.