Monday, 11 August 2008, 08:10

C O N F I D E N T I A L DHAKA 000856

SUBJECT: ENGAGING BANGLADESH'S RAPID ACTION

BATTALION: VISIT BY USG INTERAGENCY ASSESSMENT
TEAM

REF: STATE 61983

Classified By: Ambassador James F. Moriarty.
Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

Summary =======

1. (C) The leadership of Bangladesh's Rapid

Action Battalion (RAB) has pledged to provide
additional information about alleged human
rights violations committed by members of the
force since its inception in 2004. This pledge
came during two days of intensive fact-finding
and discussions with members of an interagency
USG team that visited Bangladesh to assess both
the RAB's current operating procedures regarding
human rights violations as well as possibilities
for engagement. The RAB seeks a broad engagement
with the USG including human rights and
counterterrorism training and recognizes the
need to address allegations of past abuses.
While there are lingering concerns about the
RAB's human rights record, there is a widespread
belief within civil society that the RAB has
succeeded in reducing crime and fighting
terrorism, making it in many ways Bangladesh's
most respected police unit. A possible stumbling
block moving forward is inertia within some
levels of the government bureaucracy, primarily
within Bangladesh's Home Ministry, which we are
trying to overcome through repeated high-level
interventions with Bangladeshi government
decision-makers.

RAB Pledges Full Support After Meetings with USG

Team
=============================================
========

2. (C) A USG interagency team from the

Departments of State, Defense, and Justice
visited Dhaka July 12 - 16 to conduct an
assessment of Bangladesh's Rapid Action
Battalion (RAB), focusing on whether and how the
USG might engage with the force. During the
visit, the team met with the RAB senior
leadership, visited the training academy outside
of Dhaka, and visited two of the RAB's
operational battalions (in Narayangang and
Sirajgang). In addition to the meetings with the
RAB, the team met with representatives from
civil society, including journalists, human
rights groups, and business leaders, in both
Dhaka and the field. On their final day, the
team met with officials from the Ministries of
Foreign and Home Affairs. Representatives of the
Embassy's inter-agency Counter Terrorism Working
Group also participated in the assessment team's
meetings.

3. (C) The assessment team's visit followed

several months of intensive discussions between
the RAB and the Embassy, as well as meetings
with senior visiting officials, including DRL
DAS Barks-Ruggles and S/CT Coordinator
Ambassador Dailey. In these previous meetings,
USG officials informed the RAB of our desire to
help improve its human rights record and build
its counter terrorism and law enforcement
capacity but underscored the need for greater
transparency and accountability. The officials
explained that our ability to offer training or
assistance is currently constrained by the RAB's
alleged human rights violations, which have
rendered the organization ineligible to receive
training and assistance according to the Leahy
legislation.
4. (C) The two days of meetings with the RAB,
therefore, focused on gaining a better
understanding of the RAB's past human rights
record and the procedures in place to prevent,
investigate and adjudicate abuses. The team was
briefed on the RAB's efforts to incorporate
human rights training into the curriculum at the
training academy and at the unit level. This
training, some of which is conducted by a local
human rights group, is given to all new
personnel transferring into the RAB. (Note:
Although it shares our concerns, the British
High Commission has already started a pilot
round of Human Rights training with the RAB; the
British will closely monitor program impact
before launching a second round, which will
require Ministerial approval.) According to RAB
officials, allegations of abuses are handled
both through internal disciplinary measures as
well as through an administrative investigation
by magistrates and the local court system. In
response to repeated requests from the team for
greater information about the magistrates'
reports, the RAB's senior leadership pledged to
explore providing this information to the USG.

5. (C) The discussions with the RAB also

provided the assessment team with insight into
the areas in which USG assistance, at both the
tactical and operational level, could be most
effective. The RAB also provided additional
information about its organizational structure
and personnel policies, which will help us
determine how individuals and units might be
held accountable for past abuses.

Meetings with Civil Society Provide Nuanced View

=============================================
===

6. (C) In order to provide the assessment team

with a balanced view of the RAB, we arranged
meetings with members of civil society in Dhaka
and during field visits. As a result, team
members were able to hear from journalists,
academics, human rights advocates, and business
leaders, and informally through people
requesting assistance from the RAB, about
perceptions of the RAB's past and current
conduct. There were reports of abuses and a
pattern of misrepresentation by the RAB
regarding so-called "encounter/crossfire
killings." The Assessment Team interviewed NGOs,
media personnel, and members of civil society
who reported that members of the RAB, possibly
on instruction from senior government officials,
have unlawfully used lethal force to eliminate
their targets. All we talked with agreed,
however, that the RAB's human rights performance
had improved during the current Caretaker
Government and under the leadership of the
current Director General (a career police
officer and DS/ATA graduate).

7. (C) A strong message from many civil society

interlocutors was that the RAB enjoys a great
deal of respect and admiration from a population
scarred by decreasing law and order in the last
decade. Moreover, given the persistent
corruption and ineffectiveness of other elements
of the police, the RAB has come to be seen by
many as a preferred alternative. According to
some NGO sources, people in remote areas,
particularly women, feel more comfortable coming
forward to the RAB because they think their
complaints will be dealt with in a more
effective and honest manner. The team noted that
the RAB and many civil society representatives
seem prepared to accept that some notorious
individuals will die in encounters with the RAB,
and they seem to prefer that outcome as opposed
to the chance of the currently ineffective and
backlogged court system acquitting the guilty.
What this highlights is that our desire to
improve respect for human rights will require
not only engagement with the RAB, but efforts to
help improve other elements of the Bangladeshi
judicial systems and police. Our recently
approved 1210 proposal would establish a
community policing program that could assist
such effort.

Bureaucracy is Potential Stumbling Block

=======================================

8. (C) The team's final meetings with

representatives of the Foreign Ministry and Home
Ministry indicated that some levels of the
government bureaucracy may still be reluctant to
share information about past alleged human
rights abuses. In 2007, an inter-agency Embassy
team met with GOB counterparts to develop a
mechanism for investigating allegations of human
rights violations by the security forces,
including RAB. This responsibility was given to
a Deputy Secretary at the Ministry of Home
Affairs, but despite some positive initial
meetings there has been little tangible outcome
from these sessions. During the Assessment
Team's meeting with the Acting Home Secretary,
he displayed little enthusiasm for taking the
steps needed to move ahead with an engagement
program. The team underscored that it needed
information from the Home Ministry regarding
abuses by the RAB in order to effectively vet
candidates in accordance with Leahy legislation.
Fortunately, this meeting coincided with Home
Secretary Abdul Karim's visit to Washington,
which provided senior officials in SCA, DRL and
DOD to reinforce the importance of GOB
information-sharing about past abuses.

Comment =======

9. (C) Embassy Dhaka greatly appreciates the

efforts of State, DoD, and Justice to send the
assessment team to Bangladesh to interact with
the RAB. Post looks forward to receiving the
results of the assessment team's analysis of the
RAB. Our multi-agency and multi-disciplinary
team signaled the seriousness with which the USG
views potential RAB engagement. We were clear in
our meetings with the GOB that we are eager to
engage, but committed to doing so in a manner
consistent with Leahy legislation. We expect
that the Bangladeshi Government will reciprocate
by providing us with some of the additional
information we need to move forward. At the same
time, we may need to ensure that a few
unenthusiastic bureaucrats do not foil plans for
further cooperation that are strongly supported
by the RAB and at least some senior government
officials. Embassy Dhaka looks forward to
working with the inter-agency team in Washington
as we consider next steps in this process.
10. (U) The inter-agency assessment team has
cleared this message. Moriarty

(Edited and reformatted by Andres for ease of

reading.)