MADRAS, India -- Bangladesh is the latest South Asian flash point where democracy stands threatened. Bloody street battles between two rival political parties -- led by two women who hate each other -- and other violence have swept the small country northwest of India in recent weeks. The military is now on the streets of major cities and towns.
Once known as East Pakistan whose Bengali-speaking Muslim majority had an affinity with India's West Bengal state on the border, Bangladesh was born in December 1971 following political developments that had driven a wedge between West and East Pakistan. The two were already divided by language (West Pakistanis spoke Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi), culture and a huge distance.
East Pakistani feelings that the concentration of political power in West Pakistan gave it greater privileges led to the rise of Bengali nationalism, which West Pakistan tried to crush. The military murdered intellectuals and resorted to plunder, looting and rape, trying break the East's morale. Even napalm bombs were used against innocent villagers. It was attempted genocide.