UK trained Bangladesh's controversial paramilitary: WikiLeaks

Britain trained a controversial paramilitary in Bangladesh, which has been repeatedly accused of large-scale human rights abuses, leaked United States diplomatic cables show. The cables, published by WikiLeaks, also show that Western governments were aware of the human rights abuses.
"The British have been training RAB (Rapid Action Battalion) for 18 months in areas such as investigative interviewing techniques and rules of engagement," wrote James F Moriarty, the US ambassador to Dhaka, in a confidential cable from May 2009. The London-based Guardian newspaper noted that the RAB, established six years ago, has been accused by groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International of committing kidnappings, torture and hundreds of extra-judicial killings, among other grave offences.
"The (US) 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," one cable from 2008 read.
But the cable noted that parts of the population, including women, did feel more secure under the RAB, when compared with other Bangladesh law enforcement agencies. This was likely because citizens were "scarred by decreasing law and order in the last decade."
Britain's training for the RAB, which began three years ago, was being conducted in co-ordination with Washington, three separate cables show. The embassy cable from August 2008 noted "that our ability to offer training or assistance is currently constrained by the RAB's alleged human rights violations, which have rendered the organisation ineligible to receive training and assistance" under US law.
However, that same cable also said that the RAB "seeks a broad engagement with (Washington) including human rights and counterterrorism training and recognises the need to address allegations of past abuses." The desire to train the paramilitary forces stemmed from the US belief that the RAB was the "enforcement organisation best positioned to one day become a Bangladeshi version of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation," commonly known as the FBI.