Tag Archives: communists

1976: Lt. Col. Abu Taher

Posted on by

At 4 a.m. this date in Dhaka Central Prison, Lt. Col. Abu Taher was hanged for treason.

A series of coups in the mirrored-sunglasses era of military governance shook the young state of Bangladesh:

  • The autocratic Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was toppled by a revolt of junior officers on August 15, 1975;
  • Senior brass in turn felled the ruling junta on November 3, 1975, jailing powerful officer Ziaur Rahman;
  • A quick counter-coup of junior officers — also remembered as the “sepoy mutiny”* — mounted by leftist war hero Abu Taher on November 7 put Ziaur Rahman’s hand back on the helm of state.

While November 7 is still marked in Bangladesh as National Revolution and Solidarity Day, its author got short shrift from its beneficiary.**

Abu Taher, a retired officer and a hero of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War that had detached the former East Pakistan from Islamabad, had visions of social revolution. But three coups in as many months is the sort of thing to rattle the new big man, and Zia consolidated his own power by eliminating threats to both left and right political flanks.

A mere 17 days after doing that National Revolution and Solidarity thing, the guy with the mass movement (pdf) of armed men was arrested for treason. He faced a military tribunal the following year.

Taher scorned the charges against him, but of course the fix was in.

* An allusion to colonial history.

** However, Taher’s own date of martyrdom is also still marked by his posthumous partisans.

On this day..

2008: Anandrao Sainu Koram, Naxalite informer

Posted on by

Last year on this date, India’s Maoist “Naxalites” publicly beheaded a former comrade who had surrendered and collaborated with police.

Naxalites.

The incident that occurred in village Murgaon of Dhanora sub district has the entire Maoist-affected region in the grip of tension because of the manner in which the reprisal has been carried out.

A group of 40 to 50 Maoists went to the village Saturday night, called out Anandrao Sainu Koram from his house, tied him to a tree and beheaded him in full view of the villagers who had gathered at the spot, deputy superintendent of police Anant Rokde said Sunday.

“They also warned Anandrao’s colleague Shantaram Gawde, who too had surrendered to the police in April this year along with three others, that he would meet the same fate if he did not desist from acting as an informer,” Rokde told IANS on the basis of the complaint lodged by Anandrao’s wife.

The 23-year-old Koram was reportedly the fourth surrendered Naxalite slain by insurgents in as many months of the long-running and escalating conflict … which, needless to say, has been dire for civilians.

On this day..

1952: Nikos Beloyannis, the man with the carnation

Posted on by

Before dawn on this date in 1952, four Greek Communists were shot outside Athens for treason.

Nikos (Nicholas) Beloyannis (or Mpeloyannis), the most prominent among them, spent a goodly portion of his adult life in prison for his subversive opinions — first at the hands of the interwar Greek nationalist government, then the Nazi occupation, then the British.

His many years’ service to communism was, unbeknownst to him, even then being horse-traded away as Stalin and Churchill carved up post-World War II spheres of influence.

Uncle Joe ceded Greece to the West — so the reds were left dangling during the Greek Civil War, and guys like Nikos got fitted for left martyrology.


The Execution of Beloyannis, by Peter de Francia.

“The man with the carnation” — it was his signature prop at the mass show trial where he drew a death sentence for “conspiring to overthrow by force the present regime in Greece.”

The trial, and the outcry that greeted its swift and questionable resolution, helped establish an enduring international reputation among fellow-travelers.

(From The Man With The Carnation, released after the fall of the Papadapoulos dictatorship.)

On this day..