Full disclosure: David Bergman is married to my cousin, and I have known him for over 25 years.
Over the past few years David has earned a great deal of notoriety and some enmity inside the country for his blog on the war crimes trials, which includes trenchant criticism of the processes, rule-making, and decisions that he believes do not rise to the level required of such a seminal legal proceeding.
Now, it is certainly possible to disagree with his analysis and conclusions.
It is possible to believe that he is holding the ICT to an impossible standard that does not take into account the difficulties posed by the fact that the defendants are influential men who have been close to power for 40 years, and that, contrary to his assessment, the trials are proceeding as fairly and judiciously as can be expected given the realities.
It is possible to be exasperated by the fact that criticisms from his blog provide succor to those who have no interest in justice, and provide intellectual ballast for those whose sole aim is to discredit the entire proceedings, either for political reasons, or even worse, because they believe that the actions of the defendants were justified and nothing to condemn.
There are a lot of enemies of the ICT out there. There are paid propagandists, lobbyists, and spin doctors. There are those who fought tooth and nail against our Liberation War and believe that those in the dock are heroes who did nothing wrong.
There are those who might admit in the dark recesses of their own minds that the defendants are guilty of atrocities but not think that such crimes merit any kind of legal action, as they sympathise with their cause and secretly (or not so secretly) believe that those who fought for Bangladeshi independence got what they had coming.
There are those with no sympathy at all for the countless victims of 1971 and the pain and suffering of their families. There are those who do not care that to allow the war criminals to walk free mocks the memory of the dead and shames us all, or even worse, oppose justice for 1971 for precisely this reason.
Bangladesh and the war crimes trials have enough enemies. But David Bergman is not one of them.
It is important for us to be able to distinguish between someone who is an enemy of the war crimes trials out of political reasons or sympathy for the crimes committed, and someone who believes in bringing the war criminals to justice – who believes that terrible atrocities were committed in 1971 and that the perpetrators must be held to account, who believes that war crimes trials are necessary to give both individuals and the nation the justice and closure that is needed – but is also concerned that the trial process should live up to the highest standards.
I feel that somewhere over the past five years, that sense of nuance has been lost. To voice criticism or concern or misgivings about any aspect of the trial process is to run the risk of being denounced as a Jamaat sympathiser or to be harboring anti-trial if not anti-liberation sentiments.
I wish we could all step back for a moment and accept that it is possible to disagree in good faith about how the trials have unfolded.
David has done more to bring the war criminals to justice than most of those denouncing him. It was he who back in 1994 produced a documentary, the War Crimes File, which remains a seminal document and helped keep the fire behind the war crimes trial campaign burning. His blog is also a valuable historical record of the process as it has unfolded.
When I read his blog, I see someone who believes the war crimes trials are necessary, but feels that they could and should have been conducted in a better manner.
Sanctimonious and frustrating? Sure. Doing more harm than good? Quite possibly. Misguided and prone to being manipulated? Not unlikely.
But hostile to Bangladesh and the Liberation War and to bringing the war criminals of 1971 to justice? No. David Bergman is acting in good faith, with what he sees as the best interests of Bangladesh and the victims of 1971 and of justice at heart.
We need to be able to differentiate between a Toby Cadman and a David Bergman, between someone who opposes the trials and someone who is critical of the trials. We need to be able to accept that it is possible to be in favor of the war crimes trials while at the same time be critical of how they have been conducted.
We need to accept that there are many people of good conscience and unimpeachable fidelity to the Liberation War who nonetheless feel that the trial process has not been up to the mark that such a momentous proceeding in our history merits.
I believe that the ICT’s tolerance so far for David’s criticism shows the court in its finest light. The credibility of the trials will not be enhanced by the appearance that voices critical of the trial process are being stifled.
The best way for the court to counter criticism is the way it has been doing so – to let the public decide which critiques are justified and which are not, and to make up its own mind. A recent Dhaka Tribune poll suggests that fully 74% of the public are satisfied or very satisfied with the war crimes trials.