Rapid Action Battalion, accused of hundreds of extra-judicial killings, received training from UK officers, cables reveal
by Fariha Karim and Ian Cobain
Courtesy: The Guardian, London
Members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) have received training in 'investigative interviewing techniques'. Photograph: Abir Abdullah/EPA
(December 22, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) 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 routinely use torture, have received British training in "investigative interviewing techniques" and "rules of engagement".
Details of the training were 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 makes clear that the US would not offer any assistance other than human rights training to the RAB – and that it would be illegal under US law to do so – because its members commit gross human rights violations with impunity.
Since the RAB was established six years ago, it is estimated by some human 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 the RAB said his men had killed 577 people in "crossfire". In March this year he updated the figure, saying they had killed 622 people.
The RAB's use of torture has also been exhaustively documented by human rights organisations. In addition, officers from the paramilitary force are alleged to have been involved in kidnap and extortion, and are frequently accused of taking large bribes in return for carrying out crossfire killings.
However, the 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 the "RAB enjoys a great deal of respect and admiration from a population scarred by decreasing law and order over the last decade". In one cable, the US ambassador to Dhaka, James Moriarty, expresses the view that the RAB is the "enforcement organisation best positioned to one day become a Bangladeshi version of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation".
In another cable, 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 the RAB, the Foreign Office said the UK government "provides a range of human rights assistance" in the country. However, the 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.
The cables make clear that British training for RAB officers began three years ago under the last Labour government.
However, RAB officials confirmed 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 coalition government. Asked whether ministers had approved the training programme, the Foreign Office said only that William Hague, the foreign secretary, and other ministers, had been briefed on counter-terrorism spending.
The US ambassador explains in the cables that the US government is "constrained by RAB's alleged human rights violations, which have rendered the organisation ineligible to receive training or assistance" under laws which prohibit American funding or training for overseas military units which abuse human rights with impunity.
Human rights organisations say the RAB cannot be reformed, noting that its human rights record has deterioriated still further in the last 12 months. Human Rights Watch has repeatedly described the RAB as a government death squad.
Brad Adams, the organisation's Asia director, said: "RAB is a Latin American-style death squad dressed up as an anti-crime force. The British government has let its desire for a functional counter-terrorism partner in Bangladesh blind it to the risks of working with RAB, and the legitimacy that it gives to RAB inside Bangladesh. Furthermore, it is not clear that the British government has ever made it a priority at the highest levels to tell RAB that if it doesn't change, it will not co-operate with it."
Amnesty International has also repeatedly condemned the RAB, while the Bangladeshi human rights organisation Odhikar has painstakingly documented the RAB's involvement in extra-judicial killings and torture since the creation of the force in March 2004.
Asked to comment on the rights groups' concern about the RAB, the Foreign Office said: "We do not discuss the detail of operational counter-terrorism cooperation. Counter-terrorism assistance is fully in line with our laws and values." At least some of the British training has been conducted by serving British police officers, working under the auspices of the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA), which was established in 2007 to build policing capacity and standards. Recent courses for RAB have been provided by officers from West Mercia and Humberside Police.
Asked whether it believed it was appropriate for British officers to be training members of an organisation condemned as "a government death squad", and whether courses in investigative interviewing techniques might not render torture more effective, an NPIA spokesman said the courses had been approved by the government and by the Association of Chief Police Officers.
"The NPIA has given limited support to the Bangladeshi Police and the RAB in technical areas of policing such as forensic awareness, management of crime scenes and recovery of evidence. Throughout the training we have emphasised the importance of respecting the human rights of witnesses, suspects and victims."The purpose of our sanctioned engagement is to support the development and improvement of professional policing that supports democratic, human rights-based practices linked to the rule of law in countries that may have different laws, faiths and policing practices from our own."
It is understood that there have been disagreements within the Foreign Office about the British government's involvement with the RAB. Some officials have argued that the partnership with the RAB is an essential component of the UK's counter-terrorism strategy in the region, while others have expressed concern that the relationship could prove damaging to Britain's reputation.
Successive Bangladeshi governments have promised to end the RAB's use of murder. The current government promised in its manifesto that it would end all extra-judicial killings, but they have continued following its election two years ago.In October last year, the shipping minister, Shahjahan Khan, speaking in a discussion organised by the BBC, said: "There are incidents of trials that are not possible under the laws of the land. The government will need to continue with extra-judicial killings, commonly called crossfire, until terrorist activities and extortion are uprooted."
In December last year the high court in Dhaka ruled that such killings must be brought to a halt following litigation by victims' familes and human rights groups, but they continue on an almost weekly basis. Most of the victims are young men, some are alleged to be petty criminals or are said to be left-wing activists, and the killings invariably take place in the middle of the night.
In the most recent "crossfire" killings, the RAB reported that it had shot dead Mohammad Mamun, 25, in the town of Tangail, shortly after midnight on Monday, and that 90 minutes later its officers in Dhaka, 50 miles to the south, had shot dead a second man, Taku Alam, 30. Today the 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.
HERE FULL TEXT OF THE CABLE;
US embassy cables: UK police trained Bangladeshi paramilitaries condemned for human rights abuses
Thursday, 14 May 2009, 08:08
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DHAKA 000482
SIPDIS
DEPARTMENT FOR H
EO 12958 DECL: 05/13/2019
TAGS PTER, PGOV, PREL, HYMPSK, MARR, KPAO, UK, BG">BG
SUBJECT: FINDING COMMON GROUND ON COUNTERRORISM WORKING
WITH THE UK
Classified By: Ambassador James F. Moriarty. Reasons: 1.4 (b) and (d)
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SUMMARY
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1. (C) The U.S. and the United Kingdom share common counterterrorism goals in Bangladesh and we have worked together on specific issues in the past. Embassy Dhaka and the British High Commission reviewed our efforts and agreed on several areas of cooperation at an inaugural counterterrorism quarterly meeting. Specifically, we agreed trying to arrange a visit to London and Washington for senior Bangladeshi officials to view both countries' national security systems. The missions also agreed to work closely on human rights training for the paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and on promoting curriculum reform at Bangladesh's unregulated madrassas. The missions identified several other areas in which coordinated action could promote badly needed security sector reform in Bangladesh.
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COMMON CT GOAL: PROMOTE SECURITY SECTOR REFORM
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2. (SBU) British High Commissioner Stephen Evans and Ambassador Moriarty led an inaugural counterterrorism quarterly meeting between our two missions on May 13. Although members of the two missions have met individually to discuss counterterrorism issues and work together on specific projects, this forum provided an opoprtunity to discuss broad goals and develop strategies to work collaboratively. Several common areas of interest quickly emerged, most prominently the desire to promote security sector reform in Bangladesh. Evans said this would be the center of discussion at an inaugural Joint Working Group meeting on counterterrorism between Britain and Bangladesh, led by British Security Minister Lord West, in late June, and promised a quick read-out of the results to the Embassy.
3. (SBU) Perhaps the key element of security sector reform is building a healthier civil-military relationship. The dysfunctional relationship dates from the numerous coups in Bangladesh's early years and was recently exacerbated by the February 25-26 border guard mutiny against army officers. The Ambassador detailed Post's plans to invite senior Bangladeshi officials to participate in an Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies workshop in November to exchange views on civil-military relations and national security systems. The two missions agreed the workshop would be most effective if a Bangladeshi delegation of military, government and Parliament representatives first visited the U.S. and the United Kingdom to learn about our national security structures. The missions will seek a visit in September; Post will work with SCA to ensure the Washington leg includes visits to Capitol Hill, the Department of Defense, the State Department and the National Security Council.
4. (C) We agreed to jointly engage Bangladesh's newly formed National Committee on Militancy Resistance and Prevention, a high-level group led by Home Affairs State Minister Tanjim Ahmad Sohel Taj, who has worked closely with the Embassy on security issues. Local media has reported the committee will focus in part on anti-extremism messaging, an area in which both missions already are actively engaged and can work more cooperatively. The U.S. and United Kingdom also agreed to jointly sound out the Government of Bangladesh on its post-mutiny reorganization plans for the Bangladesh Rifles and then work together to help make it a more effective border patrol force.
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COMMON CT GOAL: PROMOTE HUMAN RIGHTS IN RAB
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5. (SBU) The U.S. and UK representatives reviewed our ongoing training to make the RAB a more transparent, accountable and human-rights compliant paramilitary force. The British have been training RAB for 18 months in areas such as investigative interviewing techniques and rules of engagement. They said that the training had been widely disseminated within RAB and that they were undertaking an assessment of its effectiveness. The Embassy described plans
DHAKA 00000482 002 OF 002
to imbed two U.S. marshals within RAB for three months to help set up internal affairs, use of force and rules of engagement systems. High Commissioner Evans suggested the marshals stop in London on the way to Bangladesh to meet with British police who have delivered human rights training to RAB. He said the visit would ensure maximum coordination between the U.S. and British programs; the Ambassador enthusiastically supported the proposal.
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MARITIME SECURITY, POLICING, AIRPORT SAFETY AND MORE
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6. (C) Evans promised to send the Embassy a "lessons learned" document from a just-concluded combined British-Bangladesh maritime security exercise in which U.S. Department of Defense personnel participated. He noted the U.K. did not expect to have any more Royal Navy ships visit Bangladesh before 2011 and asked whether the United States could take the lead in organizing a follow-up exercise. With the U.S. and Britain both ramping up programs to develop community policing, we agreed to create an informal consultative group led by the British that would include other international missions in Dhaka with policing projects. The two missions also agreed to have their two development agencies, USAID and the U.K. Department for International Development, meet to discuss strategies for supporting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's plan to develop standardized curriculum for thousands of unregulated Islamic madrassa schools. (Note: The Embassy has submitted a 1207 proposal for a madrassa curriculum development program. End note). Finally, noting the horrendous safety gaps at Dhaka's international airport, the Ambassador and High Commissioner agreed to sound out contacts within their respective governments, the international airlines that serve Dhaka, and the Bangladeshi state airline to determine how best to improve security.
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CONCLUSION: NOW WE KNOW
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7. (C) The inaugural U.S.-British quarterly meeting provided each side with a much better understanding of what the other was doing to counter terrorism and extremism in Bangladesh. Not surprisingly, our counterterrorism strategies and goals are closely aligned, allowing ample room for close coordination and, in some cases, joint programs. Given that Sheikh Hasina's new government has made security a top priority, the chances of U.S.-British joint efforts bearing fruit are high indeed. MORIARTY
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