LONDON: The British government has been training a Bangladeshi paramilitary force condemned by human rights organisations as a ‘government death squad’, leaked US embassy cables have revealed.
Members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) – which has been held responsible for hundreds of extra-judicial killings in recent years and is said to use torture – have received British training in ‘investigative interviewing techniques’ and ‘rules of engagement’.
Details of the training have been revealed in a number of cables, released by WikiLeaks, which address the counter-terrorism objectives of the US and UK governments in Bangladesh.
One cable says the US will not offer any assistance other than human rights training to RAB – and that it will be illegal under the US law to do so – because RAB’s members commit gross human rights violations with impunity.
Since RAB was established six years ago, it is estimated by some rights activists to have been responsible for more than 1,000 extra-judicial killings, described euphemistically as ‘crossfire deaths’.
In September last year, the director-general of RAB said his men had killed 577 people in ‘crossfire’. In March this year he updated the figure to 622. RAB’s use of torture has also been documented by rights organisations. RAB officers are also alleged to have been involved in acts of kidnapping and extortion, and accused of taking large bribes in return for carrying out crossfire killings.
However, cables reveal that both the British and the Americans, in their determination to strengthen counter-terrorism operations in Bangladesh, are in favour of bolstering the force, arguing that “RAB enjoys a great deal of respect and admiration” in a population scarred by decreasing law and order over the last decade.
In one cable, US Ambassador in Dhaka James Moriarty expresses the view that RAB is the “enforcement organisation best positioned to one day become a Bangladeshi version of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation”.
In another cable, Mr Moriarty quotes British officials as saying they have been “training RAB for 18 months in areas such as investigative interviewing techniques and rules of engagement”.
Asked about the training assistance for RAB, the UK Foreign Office said the British government “provides a range of human rights assistance” in the country.
However, RAB’s head of training, Mejbah Uddin, told the Guardian that he was unaware of any human rights training since he was appointed last summer.
According to the cables, the British training for RAB began three years ago under the Labour government. However, RAB officials said independently of the cables that they had taken part in a series of courses and workshops as recently as October – five months after the formation of the present coalition government.
The current Bangladeshi government promised in its manifesto that it would end extra-judicial killings, but these have continued following its election two years ago.
On Dec 21, RAB announced it had shot dead a 45-year-old man, Anisur Rahman, said to be a member of the Communist party in the west of the country.—Dawn/ Guardian News Service
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