Bangladesh blocking free expression
By Rater Zonaki
Source: UPI Asia Online
March 26, 2009
Hong Kong, China — Freedom of expression and freedom of the media have become key issues around the world, especially with the advent of the Internet, which has broadened the opportunities for innumerable individuals, institutions and communities to express their views without restriction.
Bangladesh has not yet been able to connect the majority of its population with the Internet, however, because of outdated policies and practices. Corporations, non-government organizations and private institutions are more advanced in the use of information technologies than are public institutions.
Public officials are too lazy to check their email regularly. Sending an email to an official address is unlikely to get a response. On most occasions emails are bounced back to the sender.
There are three reasons that Internet communication is ineffective. First, a serious shortage of electricity means that local Internet servers cannot be maintained without interruption in many places. Secondly, the lack of computers with Internet access in many parts of the country means the habit of online communication has not taken hold in Bangladesh. Thirdly, an email does not carry a bribe to a public official, so there is no incentive to respond through this medium.
Moreover, many people who do have Internet access are not yet accustomed to checking their email even once a day. The sender of the message must inform the recipient by telephone to check the email if it is important.
At the same time, there is also a small group of people who cannot think of passing the day without checking their email.
During her election campaign Sheikh Hasina, who is now prime minister, pledged to build up a "digital Bangladesh." She has followed through on this by holding Internet conferences with activists of her party and selected citizens. But so far, the majority of the people can only hope that access to this modern technology with its ease of communication will be expanded to the whole nation, instead of only to politically chosen persons.
Journalists and the print and electronic media always come to the forefront to raise their voices on behalf of the voiceless persons everywhere in the world. The standard of freedom of expression in a country can be judged by its press and the protections afforded to journalists.
Since colonial times Bangladesh had been nourishing freedom of expression as a right belonging to its people. The media contributed immensely to the country’s independence movement and its quest for sovereignty. There were a number of journalists among the 3 million liberation martyrs.
In theory, according to the Constitution of Bangladesh, freedom of expression is enshrined as a fundamental right. However, in reality the opposite is true. Under every regime journalists have faced threats and intimidation and media have been subject to censorship. The atmosphere created in the country compels the media to practice self-censorship when it comes to reporting abuses of power by the armed forces and leaders of the ruling political parties.
In the past decade, a number of journalists who have failed to practice self-censorship have been victims of assassination. The families of these journalists are still waiting for justice; there are allegations that respective governments have provided impunity to the perpetrators of these crimes.
Prior to the parliamentary election in December, 2008, the Bangladeshis expected that an elected government would realize the importance of freedom of expression and protect those in the media. The Bangladesh Awami League also made its pledges in this regard. Ironically, after the election the government has been found reluctant to respect the rights of the press.
For example, the editor of an English national daily newspaper has been under threat for weeks for being too outspoken. His car was chased by six gunmen on two motorbikes in Dhaka on the evening of March 5. Luckily he was not in the car at the time; his driver escaped with his life by speeding off.
A complaint was registered with the local police concerning this incident, but the authorities have not been able to arrest any of the gunmen nor have they taken any initiative to protect the journalist. On the other hand, a politically powerful person reportedly suggested that the journalist "control" his views.
Bangladesh should be facilitating freedom of speech and encouraging its people to express their views independently, without fear or favor. If the conscientious segment of the country's population is held at gunpoint, the future is bleak for the nation and the aspirations of its people.
The government should not fail to protect the journalists who speak out for the ordinary voiceless people. It should extend to the people affordable information technology of the current century, and encourage its active use by public officials.
If the nation wants to achieve progress in terms of democracy and infrastructure, it needs more than just election pledges.
______________________________________
(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in Hong Kong, working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a Bangladeshi national who has worked as a journalist and human rights activist in his country for more than a decade, and as editor of publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues.)
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Bangladesh: Investigate Torture Allegations
Bangladesh: Investigate Torture Allegations
Source: Human Rights Watch
March 25, 2009
(New York) - The government of Bangladesh should take urgent steps to ensure that those detained in connection with the massacre of 74 people at the Dhaka headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), the country's paramilitary border guards, on February 25, 2009, are not subjected to retribution, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and other mistreatment, Human Rights Watch said today.
An apparent mutiny by members of the border guards against their army officers left 55 senior army officers and 19 others dead, including the director general of the border guards and his wife. The government, police, and army have begun parallel investigations into the incident. As of March 24, 693 border guard personnel had been taken into custody.
Human Rights Watch urged the government to conduct a transparent and swift enquiry to identify those responsible for the killings and to prosecute them in civilian courts.
"The massacre has shocked Bangladeshis and deserves the condemnation of the entire world," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "But the government should resist demands and threats from the army for summary justice and ensure that all those detained are treated properly."
At least five border guard members and an Islamic imam have died in custody. According to press reports, the authorities claim that the men either committed suicide or died of heart attacks.
Relatives of Mobarak Hossain, one of the detained guards, have publicly alleged that he was tortured to death. Sources at the Dhaka Medical College morgue have told the media that his wrists, arms, knees, and shoulders were swollen and badly bruised. Human Rights Watch has received credible information that several other border guard members in custody have been brought to hospital with signs of torture.
At least 1,800 guard personnel who escaped from the headquarters during the 33-hour standoff are said to be in hiding. While some may have been involved in the attacks, others could well be important witnesses, too afraid to come forward.
"Bangladesh's security forces regularly use torture to obtain confessions," said Adams. "The government should ensure that there is a prompt and independent investigation of these deaths and all other allegations of torture."
While those responsible for the massacre should be brought to justice as soon as possible, Human Rights Watch said that the government should respect its international human rights obligations by ensuring that all suspects are treated properly, detained only in official places of detention, have access to lawyers and family members, and are tried in a judicial process that meets international fair trial standards.
The border guards are not members of the army, and the organization reports to the Home Ministry instead of the Defense Ministry. But Law Minister Shafique Ahmed has stated that those accused of involvement in the massacre may be tried by a military court martial. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has said that the jurisdiction of military courts, if used at all, should be restricted to offenses of a strictly military nature, only when committed by military personnel, and only when the military courts provide full guarantees of a fair trial. The committee oversees the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Bangladesh is a party.
"After this massacre and as angry as senior army officials are, there is little or no chance that those accused will get a fair trial in Bangladesh's military justice system," Adams said.
Source: Human Rights Watch
March 25, 2009
(New York) - The government of Bangladesh should take urgent steps to ensure that those detained in connection with the massacre of 74 people at the Dhaka headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), the country's paramilitary border guards, on February 25, 2009, are not subjected to retribution, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and other mistreatment, Human Rights Watch said today.
An apparent mutiny by members of the border guards against their army officers left 55 senior army officers and 19 others dead, including the director general of the border guards and his wife. The government, police, and army have begun parallel investigations into the incident. As of March 24, 693 border guard personnel had been taken into custody.
Human Rights Watch urged the government to conduct a transparent and swift enquiry to identify those responsible for the killings and to prosecute them in civilian courts.
"The massacre has shocked Bangladeshis and deserves the condemnation of the entire world," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "But the government should resist demands and threats from the army for summary justice and ensure that all those detained are treated properly."
At least five border guard members and an Islamic imam have died in custody. According to press reports, the authorities claim that the men either committed suicide or died of heart attacks.
Relatives of Mobarak Hossain, one of the detained guards, have publicly alleged that he was tortured to death. Sources at the Dhaka Medical College morgue have told the media that his wrists, arms, knees, and shoulders were swollen and badly bruised. Human Rights Watch has received credible information that several other border guard members in custody have been brought to hospital with signs of torture.
At least 1,800 guard personnel who escaped from the headquarters during the 33-hour standoff are said to be in hiding. While some may have been involved in the attacks, others could well be important witnesses, too afraid to come forward.
"Bangladesh's security forces regularly use torture to obtain confessions," said Adams. "The government should ensure that there is a prompt and independent investigation of these deaths and all other allegations of torture."
While those responsible for the massacre should be brought to justice as soon as possible, Human Rights Watch said that the government should respect its international human rights obligations by ensuring that all suspects are treated properly, detained only in official places of detention, have access to lawyers and family members, and are tried in a judicial process that meets international fair trial standards.
The border guards are not members of the army, and the organization reports to the Home Ministry instead of the Defense Ministry. But Law Minister Shafique Ahmed has stated that those accused of involvement in the massacre may be tried by a military court martial. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has said that the jurisdiction of military courts, if used at all, should be restricted to offenses of a strictly military nature, only when committed by military personnel, and only when the military courts provide full guarantees of a fair trial. The committee oversees the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Bangladesh is a party.
"After this massacre and as angry as senior army officials are, there is little or no chance that those accused will get a fair trial in Bangladesh's military justice system," Adams said.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Look back at 1971
This is an hour-long documentary on the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971 presented by the ATN Bangla. Watch it here:
Bangladesh to set up war crimes tribunals
Bangladesh to set up war crimes tribunals
By Parveen Ahmed
Source: Indpendent on-line
Dhaka, Bangladesh - Bangladesh is setting up war crimes tribunals for long-delayed trials of people accused of murder, torture, rape and arson during its 1971 independence war, with the death penalty possible in some cases, officials said Wednesday.
Bangladesh began war crimes trials in 1973, but they were halted in 1975 when the nation's independence leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated in a military coup. Subsequent governments failed to address the issue, despite repeated calls for justice from war heroes and families of those slain.
Rahman's daughter, current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, pledged during her election campaign to prosecute war criminals. In January, Parliament passed a resolution for their quick trial.
Speaking ahead of the nation's 39th Independence Day, Law Minister Shafique Ahmed said the process of holding the trials has already started. One or more tribunals would be set up for quick trials under a 1973 act outlining prosecution and punishment for people accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other crimes under international law.
Last week, the government issued an order barring war crimes suspects from leaving the country.
An inter-ministerial meeting Wednesday discussed the formation of tribunals and appointments of prosecutors and investigation agencies, State Minister for Home Affairs Sohel Taj said.
"The investigation process has begun. The trials will begin soon," Taj said.
On March 26, 1971, Bangladesh - then East Pakistan - declared its independence from West Pakistan, following years of perceived political and economic discrimination.
Official figures say Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed an estimated 3 million people, raped about 200 000 women and forced millions more to flee their homes during a bloody nine-month guerrilla war. With help from neighbor India, Bangladesh emerged as an independent nation on December 16, 1971, with the surrender of the Pakistani army in Dhaka.
A general amnesty was declared after the war for collaborators who were not directly involved in heinous crimes. It did not cover those who had specific charges or evidence of crimes against them. - Sapa-AP
By Parveen Ahmed
Source: Indpendent on-line
Dhaka, Bangladesh - Bangladesh is setting up war crimes tribunals for long-delayed trials of people accused of murder, torture, rape and arson during its 1971 independence war, with the death penalty possible in some cases, officials said Wednesday.
Bangladesh began war crimes trials in 1973, but they were halted in 1975 when the nation's independence leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated in a military coup. Subsequent governments failed to address the issue, despite repeated calls for justice from war heroes and families of those slain.
Rahman's daughter, current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, pledged during her election campaign to prosecute war criminals. In January, Parliament passed a resolution for their quick trial.
Speaking ahead of the nation's 39th Independence Day, Law Minister Shafique Ahmed said the process of holding the trials has already started. One or more tribunals would be set up for quick trials under a 1973 act outlining prosecution and punishment for people accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other crimes under international law.
Last week, the government issued an order barring war crimes suspects from leaving the country.
An inter-ministerial meeting Wednesday discussed the formation of tribunals and appointments of prosecutors and investigation agencies, State Minister for Home Affairs Sohel Taj said.
"The investigation process has begun. The trials will begin soon," Taj said.
On March 26, 1971, Bangladesh - then East Pakistan - declared its independence from West Pakistan, following years of perceived political and economic discrimination.
Official figures say Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed an estimated 3 million people, raped about 200 000 women and forced millions more to flee their homes during a bloody nine-month guerrilla war. With help from neighbor India, Bangladesh emerged as an independent nation on December 16, 1971, with the surrender of the Pakistani army in Dhaka.
A general amnesty was declared after the war for collaborators who were not directly involved in heinous crimes. It did not cover those who had specific charges or evidence of crimes against them. - Sapa-AP
Hunted in Bangladesh, Suspect in Britain
Hunted in Bangladesh... the terror suspect freed twice by courts in Britain
By Fay Schlesinger
Source: Mail On-line
March 26, 2009
Faisal Mostafa, pictured in 2002, is facing allegations that his orphanage was in fact an arms factory and terrorist training camp
A British charity worker twice cleared of terror charges in this country is being hunted in Bangladesh after explosives were seized at an orphanage he founded.
Security forces there claimed last night that the orphanage set up by Dr Faisal Mostafa, from Stockport, was in fact an arms factory and terrorist training camp.
Mostafa ran Green Crescent, a charity that provided humanitarian aid to families in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
The Charity Commission, which awarded it charity status in 2004, last night launched an inquiry. Its chief executive, Andrew Hind, said: 'The matter is of serious concern to us.'
Mostafa, who has a PhD in chemistry from Manchester Polytechnic, was known to security forces in Britain, having been cleared of conspiracy to cause explosions with intent to endanger life at Birmingham Crown Court in 2002.
Six years earlier, he had been cleared at Manchester Crown Court of involvement in a bomb plot campaign.
In July last year he was caught at Manchester Airport trying to board a plane to Bangladesh with a pistol and bullet parts in his luggage.
The father-of-three was given a suspended sentence. On Monday Bangladeshi security forces raided the orphanage Mostafa set up and the attached Muslim school on the remote island of Bhola in South Bangladesh.
Lieutenant Colonel Munir Haque, from the Rapid Action Battalion, said: 'We found small arms - about nine or 10 in total - plus equipment to make small arms, about 3,000 rounds of ammunition, two walkie-talkies, two remote control devices and four sets of army uniforms.
'We also found enough explosives and other equipment to make several hundred grenades. We found some ordinary Islamic books, but others that are in line with extremists like Bin Laden.'
He said there were 11 children between the ages of 7 and 8 at the compound.
A teacher and three caretakers were arrested but Mostafa, who is in his mid-40s, was not there.
Police in Bangladesh said they were searching for him.
K M Mamunur Rashid, another officer in the raid, said: 'It is a big Madrassa and we have so far gathered that this whole compound is being used for militant training.'
Mostafa's father, speaking from his home in Stockport, last night strongly denied that his son had any involvement in terrorism. The 73-year-old, who did not want to be named, said: 'This is all an exaggeration.
'He just wants to help children. He is a British citizen and has been in this country since 1969.'
Green Crescent, set up in 1998, last year had an income of £63,000 for 'long-term educational and health projects'.
Saeed Mahmood, of Stockport-based charity Human Appeal International, said: 'Faisal comes in every few months about mainland projects in Bangladesh. We only work with organisations that are registered with the Charity Commission so we had no idea about these allegations.'
A spokesman for counter-terrorism think-tank Quilliam Foundation said: 'If Green Crescent has been involved in militant activity, this will reflect very poorly on the Charity Commission, particularly given that Mostafa, the head of the charity, had previously been put on trial twice for terrorist offences.
'Ineffectiveness by the Charity Commission in identifying and tackling extremist charities leads to the British taxpayer directly subsiding militancy.'
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Militants' 'ammo factory' busted
Source: Daily Star
March 25, 2009
In a chilling reminder of how the militants are still alive and kicking, the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) yesterday unearthed a mini-ammunition factory inside a madrasa-cum-orphanage in a remote village of Bhola.
During the bust, they recovered a huge cache of firearms and ammunition, explosive substances, four pairs of German-made uniforms and booklets on jihad, Moulana Moududi and al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden.
Besides, the elite crime-busters arrested four suspected militants--Abul Kalam, Abdul Halim, Jasim and Moulana Mohammad Russell.
The raid was still on as of filing this report at 1:00am.
Earlier at night, the coastal district's Superintendent of Police Azizur Rahman told The Daily Star that the arrestees did not yet disclose their organisational identity. But the materials seized suggest they are lined to a banned Islamist group like Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
Following up leads, a team of Barisal Rab-8 had been keeping a close watch on Green Crescent Madrasa in Ramkeshob village under Borhanuddin for the last one week.
Then at around 11:00am yesterday, they stormed the building that stands on a four-acre land.
The seizure list includes nine firearms, 2,500 bullets, 3,000 grenade splinters, an explosives blaster, 200 gram gunpowder, bullet-making components and equipment, two walkie-talkies, two bows, two remote control devices, binoculars and a book on how to operate firearms.
Pretty well furnished, the seminary has no signboard. It drew attention of the neighbourhood, but few knew it was a militants' den capable of making improvised explosive devices (IED) and assembling ammunition.
Rab officials said they suspect it might have been used for training militants.
Lt Commander Mamunur Rashid who led the operation told The Daly Star that the madrasa, launched recently, is circled by a trench-like canal to keep off the locals.
In the daytime, the occupants would use a hanging bridge over the canal to get in and out. But they would remove it at night-time so no-one could gain access to the premises.
Referring to the items recovered, Mamun said, "We've found materials needed to assemble bullets. They include percussion caps, cartridge cases and bullet heads. And all these are made in the UK.”
About the blasting machine, Mamun said it is a military item that can detonate wired-up explosive devices planted in the distance. It is usually used in training on how to explode bombs.
"The recovery also indicates they [the militants] have all equipment necessary to make IEDs," he continued.
In primary interrogations, the arrestees told the Rab officials that they were recruited by one Moulana Mohiuddin.
They also said Faisal Mostafa, a Bangladeshi expatriate in London, has been financing the madrasa.
He is nephew of former BNP minister and ex-lawmaker from Bhola-3 Major (retd) Hafizuddin Ahmed.
Faisal, who has been living abroad for over two decades, often comes to Bangladesh. Now he is on a visit to Chittagong.
His father Golam Mostafa, Major (retd) Hafizuddin's cousin, too is settled in London.
Contacted, Faisal's father-in-law Shahidul Haque Naquib Chowdhury, who was the founder president of Bhola BNP, said they are shocked to know of the arms haul.
As far as he is concerned, he continued, Faisal and a few of his friends have been running an NGO named Green Crescent. Their organisation is headquartered in Doulatkha of Bhola.
He said the building has been constructed on a piece of land that he sold to Faisal. He was told it would be used as a vocational training school for orphan children.
The Rab team hauled in 11 students of the madrasa for questioning. But they could not capture Kajal, caretaker of the building, as he has gone to Chittagong with Faisal.
The students told the Rab officials that the madrasa is only a month old.
Those involved in the operation said they can tell from the interior and exterior and tile floors that a handsome amount of money had been spent on construction of the building.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Travel ban on Bangladesh suspects
Travel ban on Bangladesh suspects
By Mark Dummett
Source: BBC News, Dhaka
The government of Bangladesh has banned people suspected of war crimes during the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan from travelling abroad. It says these people, who are accused of collaborating with Pakistani troops, will face war crime trials.
Among them are leaders of the largest religious party Jamaat-i-Islami - the main rival of the ruling Awami League. Critics say it is a ploy to destroy Jamaat-i-Islami, none of whose leaders has been charged with any crimes.
But two party leaders have already been prevented from leaving Bangladesh.
One of them told the BBC he had not been given any reason for this, and that the government was violating his fundamental rights.
'Last chance'
The Awami League came to power in December, promising to tackle the issue which has haunted and divided Bangladesh since independence.
The new government says it wants to punish those who helped the Pakistan army's brutal attempt to hang on to what was then Pakistan's eastern province.
The government says some three million civilians died and 200,000 women were raped.
The Pakistan army was blamed for most atrocities. But local militias, some allegedly linked to the religious party, Jamaat-i-islami, were accused of helping them.
Many collaborators were jailed, but the issue was quietly dropped as consecutive governments preferred not to reopen old wounds.
Awami League supporters say the government's pledge is the last chance for the generation which lived through the war to see justice.
By Mark Dummett
Source: BBC News, Dhaka
The government of Bangladesh has banned people suspected of war crimes during the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan from travelling abroad. It says these people, who are accused of collaborating with Pakistani troops, will face war crime trials.
Among them are leaders of the largest religious party Jamaat-i-Islami - the main rival of the ruling Awami League. Critics say it is a ploy to destroy Jamaat-i-Islami, none of whose leaders has been charged with any crimes.
But two party leaders have already been prevented from leaving Bangladesh.
One of them told the BBC he had not been given any reason for this, and that the government was violating his fundamental rights.
'Last chance'
The Awami League came to power in December, promising to tackle the issue which has haunted and divided Bangladesh since independence.
The new government says it wants to punish those who helped the Pakistan army's brutal attempt to hang on to what was then Pakistan's eastern province.
The government says some three million civilians died and 200,000 women were raped.
The Pakistan army was blamed for most atrocities. But local militias, some allegedly linked to the religious party, Jamaat-i-islami, were accused of helping them.
Many collaborators were jailed, but the issue was quietly dropped as consecutive governments preferred not to reopen old wounds.
Awami League supporters say the government's pledge is the last chance for the generation which lived through the war to see justice.
Friday, March 20, 2009
NGOs under scanner for 'funding militancy'
NGOs under scanner for 'funding militancy'
Govt to scrutinise activities of NGOs okayed during Mojahid's stint
Source: Daily Star
March 19, 2009
The government will scrutinise activities of the NGOs that got approval during the rule of the BNP-led four-party alliance government to see if those have any involvement with funding militant activities.
"When Mr Mujahid [Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojahid, Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general and former social welfare minister] was in charge a number of new NGOs popped up," Finance Minister AMA Muhith told reporters at his secretariat office yesterday. "If we look into these NGOs, we might get to know something new," he added.
"There are some investments in the country that patronise militant activities," Muhith noted but did not identify such investors.
He said the NGO Bureau scrutinises the sources of foreign funds of the NGOs and from now on the scrutiny would be made more intense. "The government will also see if there are other sources behind these foreign financing sources," he said.
"There is an international network against terror financing. Bangladesh has not completely become a part of that network, but the government is trying," Muhith said.
Bangladesh Bank is trying to get membership of the Egmond Group, which deals with international financing and money laundering.
"The caretaker government initiated some moves to stop terror funding. This will be strengthened further," Muhith added.
During the rule of the four-party alliance government the NGO Bureau listed 473 local and 25 foreign NGOs. Since 1990 it has approved 2,367 local and foreign NGOs that run on foreign funding.
Following the 2005 countrywide bomb attacks by Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), the then BNP-Jamaat alliance government took up drives against Islamist militants.
Intelligence agencies had already reported that certain Middle East-based NGOs were funding terrorism, but the government did not take any action against those.
Intelligence reports categorically recommended banning the Kuwait-based Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS) and taking action against a number of other Middle Eastern organisations found to have links with Islamist extremists.
In 2002, the US Department of State blacklisted some RIHS offices, citing their support to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
But the alliance government used to entertain RIHS top leaders.
The RIHS chief was on a visit to Dhaka during the August bomb attack of JMB and he met three cabinet members.
Intelligence had also reported that militant group Ahle Hadith Andolon Bangladesh (Ahab) also receive such funding. Ahab chief Asadullah Al Galib himself talked about receiving funds from NGO Ar-Rib.
The banned Harkatul Jihad, responsible for a number of gruesome killings and grenade attacks, also receive foreign funding. Intelligence reports said the JMB spent roughly Tk 60 lakh a year for maintaining its fulltime leaders and cadres, and Tk 1-5 crore for buying explosives and firearms and executing attacks.
Other suspected NGOs include Rabita Al-Alam Al-Islami, Al-Muntada Al-Islami, Society of Social Reforms, Qatar Charitable Society, Islamic Relief Agency, Al-Forkan Foundation, International Relief Organisation, Kuwait Joint Relief Committee, Muslim Aid Bangladesh, Dar Al-Khair, Hayatul Igachha and Tawheed-e-Noor.
These NGOs have been operating in the country since the 1990s.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Bank Governor Salehuddin Ahmed yesterday said the central bank has intensified monitoring at commercial banks to find if there is any link between suspicious transactions and militants, reports UNB.
"We are examining the transactions afresh," he told reporters after attending a workshop styled "Micro-insurance and Poverty" at Palli Karma Shahayak Foundation Bhaban at Agargaon.
The central bank is also exchanging information with institutions like the Anti-Corruption Commission to identify the suspicious transactions, the governor added.
Govt to scrutinise activities of NGOs okayed during Mojahid's stint
Source: Daily Star
March 19, 2009
The government will scrutinise activities of the NGOs that got approval during the rule of the BNP-led four-party alliance government to see if those have any involvement with funding militant activities.
"When Mr Mujahid [Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojahid, Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general and former social welfare minister] was in charge a number of new NGOs popped up," Finance Minister AMA Muhith told reporters at his secretariat office yesterday. "If we look into these NGOs, we might get to know something new," he added.
"There are some investments in the country that patronise militant activities," Muhith noted but did not identify such investors.
He said the NGO Bureau scrutinises the sources of foreign funds of the NGOs and from now on the scrutiny would be made more intense. "The government will also see if there are other sources behind these foreign financing sources," he said.
"There is an international network against terror financing. Bangladesh has not completely become a part of that network, but the government is trying," Muhith said.
Bangladesh Bank is trying to get membership of the Egmond Group, which deals with international financing and money laundering.
"The caretaker government initiated some moves to stop terror funding. This will be strengthened further," Muhith added.
During the rule of the four-party alliance government the NGO Bureau listed 473 local and 25 foreign NGOs. Since 1990 it has approved 2,367 local and foreign NGOs that run on foreign funding.
Following the 2005 countrywide bomb attacks by Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), the then BNP-Jamaat alliance government took up drives against Islamist militants.
Intelligence agencies had already reported that certain Middle East-based NGOs were funding terrorism, but the government did not take any action against those.
Intelligence reports categorically recommended banning the Kuwait-based Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS) and taking action against a number of other Middle Eastern organisations found to have links with Islamist extremists.
In 2002, the US Department of State blacklisted some RIHS offices, citing their support to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
But the alliance government used to entertain RIHS top leaders.
The RIHS chief was on a visit to Dhaka during the August bomb attack of JMB and he met three cabinet members.
Intelligence had also reported that militant group Ahle Hadith Andolon Bangladesh (Ahab) also receive such funding. Ahab chief Asadullah Al Galib himself talked about receiving funds from NGO Ar-Rib.
The banned Harkatul Jihad, responsible for a number of gruesome killings and grenade attacks, also receive foreign funding. Intelligence reports said the JMB spent roughly Tk 60 lakh a year for maintaining its fulltime leaders and cadres, and Tk 1-5 crore for buying explosives and firearms and executing attacks.
Other suspected NGOs include Rabita Al-Alam Al-Islami, Al-Muntada Al-Islami, Society of Social Reforms, Qatar Charitable Society, Islamic Relief Agency, Al-Forkan Foundation, International Relief Organisation, Kuwait Joint Relief Committee, Muslim Aid Bangladesh, Dar Al-Khair, Hayatul Igachha and Tawheed-e-Noor.
These NGOs have been operating in the country since the 1990s.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Bank Governor Salehuddin Ahmed yesterday said the central bank has intensified monitoring at commercial banks to find if there is any link between suspicious transactions and militants, reports UNB.
"We are examining the transactions afresh," he told reporters after attending a workshop styled "Micro-insurance and Poverty" at Palli Karma Shahayak Foundation Bhaban at Agargaon.
The central bank is also exchanging information with institutions like the Anti-Corruption Commission to identify the suspicious transactions, the governor added.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Bangladesh army: victims and victimizers
Bangladesh army: victims and victimizers
By Rater Zonaki
March 18, 2009
Source: UPI Asia
Hong Kong, China — The bloodshed at the headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles, who protect the country’s borders, on Feb. 25 and 26 was initially labeled a mutiny. Since then more information has unfolded, and the media have termed it a massacre and a mass assassination. The BDR soldiers killed around 60 army officers, from the rank of captain to major general.
The death toll is reportedly 73, which includes six soldiers of the BDR, three pedestrians, the wife of the director general of the force, and a retired colonel along with his wife. The rest of the victims were officers, and one soldier, of the Bangladesh army. Four officers are still missing since the incident.
Separate civilian, police and army investigations are ongoing, some including experts from the United States and the United Kingdom. At the same time the nation is busy commenting and analyzing the reasons behind the killings. As political parties debate the causes and consequences, measuring the success and failure of the authorities in accordance with their own interests, the government has launched “Operation Rebel Hunt” to catch the culprits.
The public image of the armed forces has been very mixed. Whenever there are floods, cyclones or other devastating natural disasters, the government calls on the army to conduct relief work and engage in disaster management. During such times soldiers and officers are perceived as diligent and brave, helping to restore calm and hope.
The people have applauded the army’s humanitarian efforts for decades, because they have helped the common man. Other than that, as the day-to-day functions of the armed forces are not directly related to the public, people do not see the army at close quarters.
However, many Bangladeshis have experienced the bitter side of the army, which is far different. People have witnessed their crackdowns on political opponents, social activists and human rights defenders and read of their arbitrary arrests, detentions, torture and extrajudicial killings. They have also observed that such offences have not been thoroughly investigated and that the perpetrators have not been brought to justice.
For example, on Oct. 16, 2002, the government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia deployed the army across the country in the name of "Operation Clean Heart," which continued until Jan. 9, 2003, to crack down on illegal arms and criminals.
During the 86-day crackdown, around 11,200 people were officially arrested and detained in custody; 2,500 people were listed as criminals and about 300 as suspects by the police. Around 2,000 different types of arms and 29,700 rounds of ammunition were recovered. Although more than 50 people died in the custody of the armed forces, their deaths were officially termed as "heart attacks."
In reality, an additional 8,000 people were arrested and detained, and all who were detained were seriously tortured. Who was responsible for such illegal actions, which affected the ordinary people financially, socially and physically? What kind of affinity could people have with the army in the light of their brutal actions?
The past two years under emergency rule have created new records of brutality at the hands of the armed forces, which have illegally arrested, detained and tortured thousands of people. Officers of the Bangladeshi army were the dominant perpetrators in almost all cases.
Allegations of extortion by the army have also surfaced where businessmen and industrialists were kidnapped and ransoms demanded. Such people were allegedly detained on fabricated corruption charges, intimidated and tortured in custody till the ransoms were paid.
Compared to the army, the BDR soldiers are more closely in touch with the public, at least in the cities they protect along the more than 4,000-kilometer-long border, under the leadership of the army.
Still there are corrupt BDR soldiers who allegedly allow smugglers to transport goods in and out of Bangladesh for personal benefit. While the beneficiaries of such illegal trade appreciate the soldiers' “supportive" role, the majority of the common people believe that the BDR protects the territory well.
Following the tragic killings on Feb. 25 and 26, the government immediately announced it would give one million takas (US$14,620) as compensation to each of the families of the army officers that were killed. Yet it completely ignored the civilians that died, for more than a week.
Only after the media reported the slip-up did the authorities announce they would give 200,000 takas (US$2,924) to the families of the civilian victims. Such discrimination, which has prevailed for decades, makes people wonder why civilians are considered less human than the armed forces.
The government must reconsider the fairness of such decisions. The armed forces should also rethink their actions during "Operation Clean Heart” and similar crackdowns, when politicians provided them impunity at the cost of huge grievances to the people.
The army officers should also reflect on their image as brutal giants during the state of emergency. The military should understand and accept that the Parliament has the right and responsibility to discuss such issues openly. They should accept that they are not above the laws of the land.
It is easy to vilify the BDR soldiers for the violence of the February killings. But one must not forget that this force represents at least 67,000 Bangladeshi families. It is important for the nation to look beyond political games and find the truth behind the February massacre.
___________________________________
(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in Hong Kong, working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a Bangladeshi national who has worked as a journalist and human rights activist in his country for more than a decade, and as editor of publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues.)
By Rater Zonaki
March 18, 2009
Source: UPI Asia
Hong Kong, China — The bloodshed at the headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles, who protect the country’s borders, on Feb. 25 and 26 was initially labeled a mutiny. Since then more information has unfolded, and the media have termed it a massacre and a mass assassination. The BDR soldiers killed around 60 army officers, from the rank of captain to major general.
The death toll is reportedly 73, which includes six soldiers of the BDR, three pedestrians, the wife of the director general of the force, and a retired colonel along with his wife. The rest of the victims were officers, and one soldier, of the Bangladesh army. Four officers are still missing since the incident.
Separate civilian, police and army investigations are ongoing, some including experts from the United States and the United Kingdom. At the same time the nation is busy commenting and analyzing the reasons behind the killings. As political parties debate the causes and consequences, measuring the success and failure of the authorities in accordance with their own interests, the government has launched “Operation Rebel Hunt” to catch the culprits.
The public image of the armed forces has been very mixed. Whenever there are floods, cyclones or other devastating natural disasters, the government calls on the army to conduct relief work and engage in disaster management. During such times soldiers and officers are perceived as diligent and brave, helping to restore calm and hope.
The people have applauded the army’s humanitarian efforts for decades, because they have helped the common man. Other than that, as the day-to-day functions of the armed forces are not directly related to the public, people do not see the army at close quarters.
However, many Bangladeshis have experienced the bitter side of the army, which is far different. People have witnessed their crackdowns on political opponents, social activists and human rights defenders and read of their arbitrary arrests, detentions, torture and extrajudicial killings. They have also observed that such offences have not been thoroughly investigated and that the perpetrators have not been brought to justice.
For example, on Oct. 16, 2002, the government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia deployed the army across the country in the name of "Operation Clean Heart," which continued until Jan. 9, 2003, to crack down on illegal arms and criminals.
During the 86-day crackdown, around 11,200 people were officially arrested and detained in custody; 2,500 people were listed as criminals and about 300 as suspects by the police. Around 2,000 different types of arms and 29,700 rounds of ammunition were recovered. Although more than 50 people died in the custody of the armed forces, their deaths were officially termed as "heart attacks."
In reality, an additional 8,000 people were arrested and detained, and all who were detained were seriously tortured. Who was responsible for such illegal actions, which affected the ordinary people financially, socially and physically? What kind of affinity could people have with the army in the light of their brutal actions?
The past two years under emergency rule have created new records of brutality at the hands of the armed forces, which have illegally arrested, detained and tortured thousands of people. Officers of the Bangladeshi army were the dominant perpetrators in almost all cases.
Allegations of extortion by the army have also surfaced where businessmen and industrialists were kidnapped and ransoms demanded. Such people were allegedly detained on fabricated corruption charges, intimidated and tortured in custody till the ransoms were paid.
Compared to the army, the BDR soldiers are more closely in touch with the public, at least in the cities they protect along the more than 4,000-kilometer-long border, under the leadership of the army.
Still there are corrupt BDR soldiers who allegedly allow smugglers to transport goods in and out of Bangladesh for personal benefit. While the beneficiaries of such illegal trade appreciate the soldiers' “supportive" role, the majority of the common people believe that the BDR protects the territory well.
Following the tragic killings on Feb. 25 and 26, the government immediately announced it would give one million takas (US$14,620) as compensation to each of the families of the army officers that were killed. Yet it completely ignored the civilians that died, for more than a week.
Only after the media reported the slip-up did the authorities announce they would give 200,000 takas (US$2,924) to the families of the civilian victims. Such discrimination, which has prevailed for decades, makes people wonder why civilians are considered less human than the armed forces.
The government must reconsider the fairness of such decisions. The armed forces should also rethink their actions during "Operation Clean Heart” and similar crackdowns, when politicians provided them impunity at the cost of huge grievances to the people.
The army officers should also reflect on their image as brutal giants during the state of emergency. The military should understand and accept that the Parliament has the right and responsibility to discuss such issues openly. They should accept that they are not above the laws of the land.
It is easy to vilify the BDR soldiers for the violence of the February killings. But one must not forget that this force represents at least 67,000 Bangladeshi families. It is important for the nation to look beyond political games and find the truth behind the February massacre.
___________________________________
(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in Hong Kong, working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a Bangladeshi national who has worked as a journalist and human rights activist in his country for more than a decade, and as editor of publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues.)
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Terrorism in eastern South Asia
Book review: Terrorism in eastern South Asia —by Khaled Ahmed
Armed Conflict in South Asia 2008: Growing Violence
Edited by D Suba Chandran & PR Chari
Routledge 2008
Source: Daily Times
The book deals with the unpleasant side of the significance of South Asia. It has two articles on Pakistan, one on sectarian violence, the other on violence in the Tribal Areas. It has one article on Afghanistan and its luckless population who has been given to understand they have never been conquered, while, looking at their suffering, one would have wished they had been.
There are two articles on India’s internal movements gone haywire and one on Bangladesh’s vulnerability to Islamic terror. Nepal nurses its communist violence and Sri Lanka struggles with its long-gestation ethnic war.
In the northeast of India, a cluster of small states (Manipur, Assam, Nagaland, Tripura, Meghalaya) have been convulsed with ‘freedom movements’ become violent. Out of the five, the first three are giving trouble still and violence there has actually increased after a ceasefire agreed by the Indian army in 1997.
If Pakistan had been watching, it would have learned that ceasefires with terrorists only give them time to regroup and form bigger armies. Also there are some other lessons that Pakistan and Afghanistan should have learned from India’s experience with terrorism since the 1950s.
One big lesson is not to glamorise the misfortunes of tribal nations gone wrong after suppression. One myth that Pakistanis are guilty of fabricating is that the Pakhtun never give up fighting and have never been conquered. They mouth this obscenity while standing in front of camps where Pakhtun women and children go through history’s worst brutalisation.
Listen to what the article Northeast: Island of Peace and Ocean of Conflict by Bibhu Prasad Routray says: ‘The Naga separatist movement, which had begun before Independence, is based on the premise that Nagas have been historically independent, unconquered by anyone and, therefore, India has no right to subjugate them’ (p.153). The rest of India should be grateful that it has been conquered.
The British had kept the tribes in the northeast as areas under special dispensation, but that arrangement became the trigger for Naga National Council (NNC) in 1947 asking for independence, greatly encouraged by a referendum in 1951 that had 99 percent of the Naga population saying that wanted to be independent under their leader AZ Phizo. New Delhi jibbed and sent in the army. Phizo fled to London never to return. After much fighting, in 1975, the Shillong Accord got the Nagas of NNC to accept the Constitution of India, but the NNC split and formed Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) to continue fighting. Later this too split and the splinters became even more radical.
Insurgency in Assam, the source of much of India’s oil and gas, began in 1979 under United Liberation Front (ULFA) demanding a sovereign socialist Assam that would stop refugees from Bangladesh from coming in and upsetting the population balance in favour of the Bodos in Assam.
After ULFA went terrorist it liaised with the Naga terrorists nextdoor, but the Indian army hit back and the ULFA leaders fled into Bangladesh where they fell under the spell of ISI and DGFI of Bangladesh and ULFA got itself well supplied materially and financially (p.155). (India got RAW to meddle in a similar ‘liberation’ movement in Balochistan as a tit for tat ‘signalling’ to Islamabad.) The Bodos too are struggling since the 1980s for Bodoland in Assam and often become nasty.
Manipur is also convulsed because the centre delayed making Manipur a state in 1947. The terrorist outfits here, including an Islamic one protecting Muslims, pose as liberators and have joined up with the rest of the north-eastern rebels. Manipur is a bad case with 20 such outfits operating. The state of Tripura, not so violent, is a victim of migration from unstable Bangladesh; and Meghalaya would be called peaceful if it wasn’t a conduit for terrorists to-ing and fro-ing into Bangladesh.
It is shocking how like Pakistan Bangladesh is when it comes to Islamic terrorism. Smruti Pattanaik in her paper “Bangladesh: Islamic Militancy and the Rise of religious Right” reveals the pattern in events that flowed from the August 17, 2007 bombings in the country. Terrorism was the work of Banglabhai in the north who wanted to create a Taliban-like state under Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) and Sheikh Abdur Rehman of Jamiat Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), both erstwhile members of the student wing of Jama’at-e Islami. The Bangladesh National party (BNP) of Begum Zia took the Jamaat-produced radicals under its wing and denied they existed.
JMB’s Rehman visited Pakistan in 1999 to take training in Azad Kashmir. Banglabhai was already said to be a veteran of Afghan jihad wanting to recreate it in Bangladesh. When they began killing people, as in the case of poet Shamsur Rehman in 1995, the BNP denied it vociferously, blaming the killings on India and America. This BNP did despite the fact that Jama’at warriors had rebelled against the Jama’at acceptance of women as leaders. The other spinoff from Afghan jihad was Harkatul Mujahideen Islami (HUJI) which was funded by the Arabs whom the state allowed to have linkages with the two above rising stars of Islamic violence.
The BNP just wouldn’t own up to terrorism in the country till foreign pressure got it to catch and prosecute Banglabhai and Rehman, only to see them condemned to death by a court. Then neither of the two mainstream parties would support the call for their execution. This was somewhat like Pakistan’s parties who don’t want to even acknowledge the reality of Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorism in Pakistan. It was the caretaker government, supported by the army in 2001, that finally executed the two mass killers of Bangladesh.
BNP leader Begum Zia’s son Tariq Rehman was running his own shadow government in Dhaka and gave protection to the killers. Needless to say, the Islamic killers hated Awami League and India with equal fervour. Later some BNP leaders, including a minister Aminul Haq, were put under trial and got long sentences in jail for killing opponents through Islamists.
The money for Islamic terror comes from the Arabs in the Gulf. There are 15 local Islamic NGOs and 34 foreign Islamic NGOs in Bangladesh. They give no one any accounts, receive their money through hundi and are supposed to dispose of 200 crore takas (p.196).
London Muslim terrorists gave JMB £10,000 for killing innocent people back home; and terrorist Rehman got big money from Rabita al-Islam, Kuwait, for doing the same job (p.200). Religious leaders who run these dangerous organisations regularly visit the Middle East for Zakat and collect huge sums which they often embezzle, but their Arab benefactors don’t seem to mind that too much.
Bangladesh has actually completed the transition from being a moderate Islamic state with strong local cultural tinge of tolerance and is now more like Pakistan, strongly Deobandi and Wahhabi in its new intolerant and violent character. Like Pakistan its politicians don’t want to mess with the madrassas and mullahs and risk their lives.
Pitifully, when the people at large were asked who was doing terrorism in a country crawling with 12,000 active killers, the survey showed 80 percent saying it was an unnamed ‘neighbouring country’ (read India); and, just like Pakistan, responded unreliably according to their politically divided civil society credentials.
Armed Conflict in South Asia 2008: Growing Violence
Edited by D Suba Chandran & PR Chari
Routledge 2008
Source: Daily Times
The book deals with the unpleasant side of the significance of South Asia. It has two articles on Pakistan, one on sectarian violence, the other on violence in the Tribal Areas. It has one article on Afghanistan and its luckless population who has been given to understand they have never been conquered, while, looking at their suffering, one would have wished they had been.
There are two articles on India’s internal movements gone haywire and one on Bangladesh’s vulnerability to Islamic terror. Nepal nurses its communist violence and Sri Lanka struggles with its long-gestation ethnic war.
In the northeast of India, a cluster of small states (Manipur, Assam, Nagaland, Tripura, Meghalaya) have been convulsed with ‘freedom movements’ become violent. Out of the five, the first three are giving trouble still and violence there has actually increased after a ceasefire agreed by the Indian army in 1997.
If Pakistan had been watching, it would have learned that ceasefires with terrorists only give them time to regroup and form bigger armies. Also there are some other lessons that Pakistan and Afghanistan should have learned from India’s experience with terrorism since the 1950s.
One big lesson is not to glamorise the misfortunes of tribal nations gone wrong after suppression. One myth that Pakistanis are guilty of fabricating is that the Pakhtun never give up fighting and have never been conquered. They mouth this obscenity while standing in front of camps where Pakhtun women and children go through history’s worst brutalisation.
Listen to what the article Northeast: Island of Peace and Ocean of Conflict by Bibhu Prasad Routray says: ‘The Naga separatist movement, which had begun before Independence, is based on the premise that Nagas have been historically independent, unconquered by anyone and, therefore, India has no right to subjugate them’ (p.153). The rest of India should be grateful that it has been conquered.
The British had kept the tribes in the northeast as areas under special dispensation, but that arrangement became the trigger for Naga National Council (NNC) in 1947 asking for independence, greatly encouraged by a referendum in 1951 that had 99 percent of the Naga population saying that wanted to be independent under their leader AZ Phizo. New Delhi jibbed and sent in the army. Phizo fled to London never to return. After much fighting, in 1975, the Shillong Accord got the Nagas of NNC to accept the Constitution of India, but the NNC split and formed Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) to continue fighting. Later this too split and the splinters became even more radical.
Insurgency in Assam, the source of much of India’s oil and gas, began in 1979 under United Liberation Front (ULFA) demanding a sovereign socialist Assam that would stop refugees from Bangladesh from coming in and upsetting the population balance in favour of the Bodos in Assam.
After ULFA went terrorist it liaised with the Naga terrorists nextdoor, but the Indian army hit back and the ULFA leaders fled into Bangladesh where they fell under the spell of ISI and DGFI of Bangladesh and ULFA got itself well supplied materially and financially (p.155). (India got RAW to meddle in a similar ‘liberation’ movement in Balochistan as a tit for tat ‘signalling’ to Islamabad.) The Bodos too are struggling since the 1980s for Bodoland in Assam and often become nasty.
Manipur is also convulsed because the centre delayed making Manipur a state in 1947. The terrorist outfits here, including an Islamic one protecting Muslims, pose as liberators and have joined up with the rest of the north-eastern rebels. Manipur is a bad case with 20 such outfits operating. The state of Tripura, not so violent, is a victim of migration from unstable Bangladesh; and Meghalaya would be called peaceful if it wasn’t a conduit for terrorists to-ing and fro-ing into Bangladesh.
It is shocking how like Pakistan Bangladesh is when it comes to Islamic terrorism. Smruti Pattanaik in her paper “Bangladesh: Islamic Militancy and the Rise of religious Right” reveals the pattern in events that flowed from the August 17, 2007 bombings in the country. Terrorism was the work of Banglabhai in the north who wanted to create a Taliban-like state under Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) and Sheikh Abdur Rehman of Jamiat Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), both erstwhile members of the student wing of Jama’at-e Islami. The Bangladesh National party (BNP) of Begum Zia took the Jamaat-produced radicals under its wing and denied they existed.
JMB’s Rehman visited Pakistan in 1999 to take training in Azad Kashmir. Banglabhai was already said to be a veteran of Afghan jihad wanting to recreate it in Bangladesh. When they began killing people, as in the case of poet Shamsur Rehman in 1995, the BNP denied it vociferously, blaming the killings on India and America. This BNP did despite the fact that Jama’at warriors had rebelled against the Jama’at acceptance of women as leaders. The other spinoff from Afghan jihad was Harkatul Mujahideen Islami (HUJI) which was funded by the Arabs whom the state allowed to have linkages with the two above rising stars of Islamic violence.
The BNP just wouldn’t own up to terrorism in the country till foreign pressure got it to catch and prosecute Banglabhai and Rehman, only to see them condemned to death by a court. Then neither of the two mainstream parties would support the call for their execution. This was somewhat like Pakistan’s parties who don’t want to even acknowledge the reality of Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorism in Pakistan. It was the caretaker government, supported by the army in 2001, that finally executed the two mass killers of Bangladesh.
BNP leader Begum Zia’s son Tariq Rehman was running his own shadow government in Dhaka and gave protection to the killers. Needless to say, the Islamic killers hated Awami League and India with equal fervour. Later some BNP leaders, including a minister Aminul Haq, were put under trial and got long sentences in jail for killing opponents through Islamists.
The money for Islamic terror comes from the Arabs in the Gulf. There are 15 local Islamic NGOs and 34 foreign Islamic NGOs in Bangladesh. They give no one any accounts, receive their money through hundi and are supposed to dispose of 200 crore takas (p.196).
London Muslim terrorists gave JMB £10,000 for killing innocent people back home; and terrorist Rehman got big money from Rabita al-Islam, Kuwait, for doing the same job (p.200). Religious leaders who run these dangerous organisations regularly visit the Middle East for Zakat and collect huge sums which they often embezzle, but their Arab benefactors don’t seem to mind that too much.
Bangladesh has actually completed the transition from being a moderate Islamic state with strong local cultural tinge of tolerance and is now more like Pakistan, strongly Deobandi and Wahhabi in its new intolerant and violent character. Like Pakistan its politicians don’t want to mess with the madrassas and mullahs and risk their lives.
Pitifully, when the people at large were asked who was doing terrorism in a country crawling with 12,000 active killers, the survey showed 80 percent saying it was an unnamed ‘neighbouring country’ (read India); and, just like Pakistan, responded unreliably according to their politically divided civil society credentials.
Friday, March 13, 2009
More than a mutiny
More than a mutiny
Saurabh Shukla
March 7, 2009
Source: India Today
The plot of senseless blood letting in Dhaka is thickening. And as the two-month-old Government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina battles to bring stability to the country following the barbaric killing of over 140 top Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) officers along with their family members in Dhaka on February 25, reports of a Pakistan-sponsored plot to assassinate her are gaining credence.
Increasingly intelligence is uncovering that the original plan was to assassinate Hasina and army chief Moeen U. Ahmed on February 24, but due to lack of coordination, the required ammunition couldn’t be smuggled into the Durbar area at the BDR headquarters where Hasina had gone a day before the mutiny. The plan was reportedly hatched at the behest of the ISI which is concerned with Hasina’s moderate outlook.
On February 25, a group of BDR junior commissioned officers, lined up the top brass of Bangladesh’s border guards and killed them. The brutality of the killing was shocking as the bodies of the officers and their families were dumped into manholes and mass graves. While some of the ringleaders of the coup and their accomplices have been arrested, over 1,000 BDR personnel have been charged by the Hasina Government.
A confidential report prepared by South Block suggests that Pakistani intelligence was behind the mutiny. The report claims “both Indian and some international intelligence agencies have received indisputable proof of the involvement of Salauddin Chowdhury—an influential BNP MP and a long standing Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agent of influence in Bangladesh with a strong criminal mafia nexus—in the entire episode”.
Chowdhury, a prominent shipping magnate, was a close associate and parliamentary secretary to former premier Khaleda Zia. His name also figured in the Chittagong arms haul in 2004, in which a lethal cargo of arms was unloaded for terrorist activities in India. But Chowdhury has denied such charges.
However, exclusive details available with India Today suggest that intelligence agencies had intercepted a telephone call from Pakistan’s defence attaché in Dhaka, Sajaad Rasool, to a contact in the Pakistani consulate in Dubai. Another intercept revealed Rasool was in contact with Chowdhury.
According to sources, the Pakistani defence attaché monitored the situation from the Gulshan area of Dhaka and was in constant touch with his handlers in Pakistan.
In fact, on February 25 he knew the precise details about the plot unfolding inside the BDR headquarters in Pilkhana. At 12.30 pm, Rasool made a call to the ISI headquarters in Islamabad reporting that DG BDR Major-General Shakeel Ahmed had been killed.
The big question is, how the Pakistani defence attaché knew what was happening inside when even senior officers of the Bangladesh Army and the Government were in the dark. Other intercepts that confirm the involvement of the ISI, include a series of phone calls made by some key Jamaat-e- Islami (JeI) leaders to their ISI contacts in Dubai, London and Islamabad updating them on the operation.
According to the report, the BDR was used by the plotters because resentment has been brewing in the lower ranks. Besides, the aim was to ensure a takeover by pro-Pakistan elements in the Bangladesh Army. So smooth was the planning that no intelligence agency got a whiff of the plot. Chowdhury allegedly used a former DG of BDR, Major-General Fazlur Rehman, as a frontman to instigate the troops.
Chowdhury is suspected to have paid Taka 40 crore (Rs 30 crore) to Fazlur Rahman, who in turn is said to have paid Taka 5 crore to four deputy assistant directors of BDR. While almost 400 sepoys were paid Taka 5 lakh, the key among them were paid Taka 50 lakh each, according to the report.
For India that has a vital stake in the stability of a moderate regime in Dhaka, the developments were worrying. In fact, on February 28, India had begun preparations to evacuate Hasina. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee was in touch with Hasina and assured her of Indian support. Sources say New Delhi alerted Dhaka.
Following this, Hasina was taken to a Bangladesh Army safehouse. Two teams of commandos were kept ready at a forward air force base in Tripura and another one in Kolkata. But when the situation turned around with the Bangladesh Army backing Hasina and the mutiny quelled, the plan was shelved.
But the big question is why the ISI plotted to destabilise the Government. The reason is, compared to the fundamentalist regime of Khaleda Zia, Hasina’s government is considered to be moderate and has cracked down on Islamists. Sources say Pakistani intelligence fanned the conspiracy as it feared that many of its key assets could be tried for war crimes committed in 1971.
The Hasina Government had moved a resolution in Parliament last month to punish criminals of the 1971 war, something her party had promised in its election manifesto. Sources say JEI leaders Amir Rahman Nizami and Ali Ahsan Mujahid, who are alleged war criminals, provided logistical support to the mutiny.
The ISI plotted to kill Hasina as Islamabad has been uneasy with the Hasina regime’s policies and it’s perceived proximity to India. In fact the crisis in Dhaka should be another reason why India and Bangladesh should work together closely, especially on security issues. Besides, India has to align with the international community to ensure the stability of Hasina’s regime which is pivotal for India’s security concerns.
Experts say that New Delhi and Dhaka should use this opportunity to sensitise the world that Pakistan is the fulcrum of terrorism, and till its agencies, like the ISI, are neutralised, the world, beginning with our neighbourhood, cannot be free of terrorism.
Saurabh Shukla
March 7, 2009
Source: India Today
The plot of senseless blood letting in Dhaka is thickening. And as the two-month-old Government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina battles to bring stability to the country following the barbaric killing of over 140 top Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) officers along with their family members in Dhaka on February 25, reports of a Pakistan-sponsored plot to assassinate her are gaining credence.
Increasingly intelligence is uncovering that the original plan was to assassinate Hasina and army chief Moeen U. Ahmed on February 24, but due to lack of coordination, the required ammunition couldn’t be smuggled into the Durbar area at the BDR headquarters where Hasina had gone a day before the mutiny. The plan was reportedly hatched at the behest of the ISI which is concerned with Hasina’s moderate outlook.
On February 25, a group of BDR junior commissioned officers, lined up the top brass of Bangladesh’s border guards and killed them. The brutality of the killing was shocking as the bodies of the officers and their families were dumped into manholes and mass graves. While some of the ringleaders of the coup and their accomplices have been arrested, over 1,000 BDR personnel have been charged by the Hasina Government.
A confidential report prepared by South Block suggests that Pakistani intelligence was behind the mutiny. The report claims “both Indian and some international intelligence agencies have received indisputable proof of the involvement of Salauddin Chowdhury—an influential BNP MP and a long standing Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agent of influence in Bangladesh with a strong criminal mafia nexus—in the entire episode”.
Chowdhury, a prominent shipping magnate, was a close associate and parliamentary secretary to former premier Khaleda Zia. His name also figured in the Chittagong arms haul in 2004, in which a lethal cargo of arms was unloaded for terrorist activities in India. But Chowdhury has denied such charges.
However, exclusive details available with India Today suggest that intelligence agencies had intercepted a telephone call from Pakistan’s defence attaché in Dhaka, Sajaad Rasool, to a contact in the Pakistani consulate in Dubai. Another intercept revealed Rasool was in contact with Chowdhury.
According to sources, the Pakistani defence attaché monitored the situation from the Gulshan area of Dhaka and was in constant touch with his handlers in Pakistan.
In fact, on February 25 he knew the precise details about the plot unfolding inside the BDR headquarters in Pilkhana. At 12.30 pm, Rasool made a call to the ISI headquarters in Islamabad reporting that DG BDR Major-General Shakeel Ahmed had been killed.
The big question is, how the Pakistani defence attaché knew what was happening inside when even senior officers of the Bangladesh Army and the Government were in the dark. Other intercepts that confirm the involvement of the ISI, include a series of phone calls made by some key Jamaat-e- Islami (JeI) leaders to their ISI contacts in Dubai, London and Islamabad updating them on the operation.
According to the report, the BDR was used by the plotters because resentment has been brewing in the lower ranks. Besides, the aim was to ensure a takeover by pro-Pakistan elements in the Bangladesh Army. So smooth was the planning that no intelligence agency got a whiff of the plot. Chowdhury allegedly used a former DG of BDR, Major-General Fazlur Rehman, as a frontman to instigate the troops.
Chowdhury is suspected to have paid Taka 40 crore (Rs 30 crore) to Fazlur Rahman, who in turn is said to have paid Taka 5 crore to four deputy assistant directors of BDR. While almost 400 sepoys were paid Taka 5 lakh, the key among them were paid Taka 50 lakh each, according to the report.
For India that has a vital stake in the stability of a moderate regime in Dhaka, the developments were worrying. In fact, on February 28, India had begun preparations to evacuate Hasina. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee was in touch with Hasina and assured her of Indian support. Sources say New Delhi alerted Dhaka.
Following this, Hasina was taken to a Bangladesh Army safehouse. Two teams of commandos were kept ready at a forward air force base in Tripura and another one in Kolkata. But when the situation turned around with the Bangladesh Army backing Hasina and the mutiny quelled, the plan was shelved.
But the big question is why the ISI plotted to destabilise the Government. The reason is, compared to the fundamentalist regime of Khaleda Zia, Hasina’s government is considered to be moderate and has cracked down on Islamists. Sources say Pakistani intelligence fanned the conspiracy as it feared that many of its key assets could be tried for war crimes committed in 1971.
The Hasina Government had moved a resolution in Parliament last month to punish criminals of the 1971 war, something her party had promised in its election manifesto. Sources say JEI leaders Amir Rahman Nizami and Ali Ahsan Mujahid, who are alleged war criminals, provided logistical support to the mutiny.
The ISI plotted to kill Hasina as Islamabad has been uneasy with the Hasina regime’s policies and it’s perceived proximity to India. In fact the crisis in Dhaka should be another reason why India and Bangladesh should work together closely, especially on security issues. Besides, India has to align with the international community to ensure the stability of Hasina’s regime which is pivotal for India’s security concerns.
Experts say that New Delhi and Dhaka should use this opportunity to sensitise the world that Pakistan is the fulcrum of terrorism, and till its agencies, like the ISI, are neutralised, the world, beginning with our neighbourhood, cannot be free of terrorism.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Sinister designs to portray Bangladesh as a “Failed State”
The recent events that left in its wake a trail of death, destruction and irrefutable damage to the reputation of the Armed Forces in Bangladesh, has instigated my nether senses. The diabolical conspiracy by pitting the country’s 200 year old paramilitary forces, the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), against the ranks of the professional military unit, Bangladesh Army who embodied their command structure, once again points clearly to an attempt by the Fifth Columnists to destabilize the security apparatus of the country and to prove beyond any reasonable doubts the tendentious attempts of a group of subservient local clique to tarnish the image of our Armed Forces. Or is it a greater international conspiracy by agent provocateurs hatched to create a bloodbath in a disciplined, well organized state supported forces that have long been the cornerstone of our defense and security? A long drawn out plan and intense preparation must have been in place. Who started it? Who funded it? Who directed it? The preliminary diagnosis showed a possible external link which was trying to drive a wedge between the Bangladesh Army and BDR. The command structure of BDR is entirely manned by the Army officers and by destroying it the BDR will become dysfunctional. This will weaken Bangladesh Armed Forces as being the sole line of defense and also deprive trained border guards manning country’s porous borders through which extremists encroach into the mainland.
From the morning of 25th February, 2009, when the durbar was in session, armed people entered the hall brandishing heavy combat weapons – a phenomenon not seen in any of the armed forces informal gatherings. As if on cue, four gunmen accounted for the Director General Major General Shakil Ahmed, and the mayhem began. Soon a core of fifty to hundred gunmen started rounding up officers, young and old, and summarily executed them. The senior officers did not have the time to react, aghast at seeing own soldiers resorting to such a cowardly and dastardly act. Out of 179 officers of all ranks only 32 managed to survive, and that too, because their orderlies had hidden them and found it difficult to kill them in cold blood. The carnage did not end here. Afterwards, these brutal, murderous rag tags slowly walked up to the Officer’s quarters and brought out the inmates – men and women, children and old and set their quarters to fire. Before that, many of these animals pounced on whatever expensive items they could find and looted gold, ornaments, jewelries, money.
In a revelry befitting the medieval bloodthirsty marauders, these armed miscreants then arrogantly got on top of the towers of the main gates and sporting red bandannas over their heads proclaimed in a nebulous fashion why they have revolted on the megaphone to the passerby people, waiting journalists and administrative officials. Many of them had their face covered but they would only be very happy to have their presence felt in the electronic media, “Mama, see I am on the Television.”Not to show off their murderous intent, they would scorn at all the Army officers and tell the public to remain at a distance or else, we shoot off again. They couldn’t say who their leader was, but the fact that the DG, DDG and the Project Director of the Daal Bhaat programme had siphoned off enormous amount of funds that was to be their benefit money and so on and so forth. Also important was their oft repeated pejoratives about all Army officers and that they should not be in the command structure of the BDR. Rather, BCS officers should be appointed for the running of BDR. The cruelty, the deprivation, the poor ration, the insufficient pay, the rankdowns on flimsy pretext was getting a bit too much for them. Their backs were pinned to the wall. They had no other alternative.
At first, the local media played up the rebel tune. So effective was that pitch for their propaganda that soon it was reverberating in the supportive slogans of the general public in Gates 1 and 2. It seemed like an old history of deprivation, privation and humiliation and the class problem of officers and jawans, the have and the have-nots etc., the dialectics of the state and the people that rack our inner souls from time to time. The practical issues of wages, perks and budget, rewards and benefits, promotion, pension and last if not the least: the behaviour of ranked senior officers towards their junior or non ranked subalterns, especially in the context of 21st Century.
Had all these been the issues for a aggrieved hopelessly poor all rank formations who had revolted for fairness, justice, good behaviour and a few certain rewards for their hard work, how are the attacks on innocent women and children and non officers justified? Nay, the mutinous rebels got more audacious. After all, they got more than they desired. They won prime time TV spot, public adulation and sympathy, “motherly love” from the Home Minister and even a private “durbar” with the Prime Minister who granted them an instant “General Amnesty”. The conspirers must have been tearing their hairs for such a colossal faux pas. Had the officers not been killed and incarcerated, it could have easily been the greatest hostage taking of all times and a total humiliation and inefficiency of the BDR management, or should I say, a “command failure”.
The Government of Bangladesh, who had just taken over power 50 days backs, was initially reacting to damage limitation. It had more time later to find out the causes but for now, they had to talk to the rebels and heel them down. The Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also tried brinkmanship. So the tough option of a military strike first was ruled out. The Home Minister, Sahara Khatun, was an active livewire, trying to fan up the flickering light of hope through negotiations and building a buffer between the rebels and the hostages. The chief Whip, Mirza Azam and Jahangir Kabir Nanak, MP did commendable jobs in engaging the rebels and not let them take potshots at passing pedestrians. The political dialoging got more wind in its sails and drew out throughout the night, but it did not make the rebels surrender.
By the next morning, two bodies were found in the sluice gates of the sewarage outfall of the Hazaribagh area. It was that of a Colonel Mujibul Huq and a Lieutenant Colonel Enayet of the BDR. Both of these officers were at the forefront of the “Daal Bhaat” programme last year and according to some disgruntled jawans, were responsible for misappropriating huge funds from the programme along with DG. People and the reporters were now asking all sorts of questions to the rebels: How many prisoners do you have? Where are they? Are they alive or dead? Where is DG Shakil? The answers weren’t unequivocal; and by the afternoon time, many of the BDR jawans abandoned their posts and started telling the truths. They talked about a possible massacre and shooting down of most of the Army officers in the Durbar Hall and then burying them in unknown spots. This had happened all in the first day and that they were forced to join the rebels or face certain death. A few officers and their families were also released after talks with rebels and they narrated of harrowing times in the last 24 hours. The PM then came on the Television and declared no harm would come to those who are willing to lay down arms. On the other hand, if the rebels fail to do will be dealt with severely.
The speech worked like a tonic. Thousands of incendiary soldiers surrendered their arms expressing full confidence in the PM. Thousand other fled through the back doors with the evacuating public. By this time, the Home Minister, IG Police, DG, RAB had all entered the premises of BDR and saw the first glimpses of the wasteland followed by a bevy of newsmen, servicemen, medical personnel, Fire Brigade and curious onlookers. All night long, worried relatives of the Army Officers kept an all night vigil against all dying hopes.
At the end of all this, we have nearly a hundred and a quarter of the best professionally trained Army officers dead; some as highly ranked as Generals and Colonels. It cannot be just over petty increase in salaries or better working conditions or rationing or what have you. It wasn’t as if 10,000 soldiers mutinied at the same time but a band of just a few trouble mongers who set the forest on fire. This was indeed challenging times for the newly elected democratic government.
The government did not delve in strategic risk analysis but crisis management through political tools. It did not call on international terror experts and hopelesslessly compromised intelligence which was already on the anvil. The Prime Minister should not have met the rebels in person. However, it did defuse some of the tensions when the equanimity and firm resolve of the daughter of Bangabandhu puzzled the mutineers. For the first 24 hours the government was vulnerable. Non state actors were having their ways; their powers may have been quite consolidated because BDR units were rebelling all over the country. The international borders were left insecure. It looked that the final objective was going to be met beyond their expectations. A head on confrontation between the Army and the BDR was in the offing, the heavy air of suspicion was tearing the nation apart, Dhaka and the whole country was filled with rumours of an impending military take-over. The Prime Minister’s office with the Press Secretary, the Home Ministry, parliament members were passing sleepless nights in anxiety.
However, things started turning on its head from day 2. Many of the rebels were recanting now. Some of them started fleeing. The so called leaders of the revolt were busy in their negotiations to have their demands met (mainly to seek government protection from a military assault). The government machinery grinded unabated with a humongous task of co-ordination from the PM’s office with the press, Armed Forces Directorate (the PM is also the Defense Minister and Commander in chief of Armed Forces in Bangladesh), PID (civilian information cell that gives govt. press releases and communiqués), Home Ministry, Foreign Ministry, Law Ministry and all the other related organizations – Police, Fire Service, Ansar-VDP (civilian defense). The opposition also participated and expressed solidarity and unity with govt. and line agencies. All this dealt a further blow to the militant BDR mutineers. As the clock ticked by, the ultimatum to strike was very much on the cards. The government started mobilizing the Army. The Army had taken position from Day 1 in the vicinity with its field guns, mortars and machine gun batteries but kept its measurable distance and restraint awaiting higher authority orders. Now the tanks were coming in and encircling the Peelkhana sprawling complex in all directions. This had unnerved the mutineers even more. A clash with the Armed Forces would mean inevitable death.
While this entire whirlwind was blowing, the international observers were also watching developments in the BDR intensely over the channel transmissions. The Indian and Pakistani media were particularly keen observers, especially India with which Bangladesh shares a 2000 km border, much of it being barbed wired and cordoned off to prevent cross state infiltration. Two of the TV channels and the largest publishing house in Kolkata, the AnandaBazar Publications Ltd. came out with a connection of the BDR attack with the latest Mumbai terrorist strikes. It believes that the planning had taken place from cells in Pakistan and transmitted to their sister organization in Bangladesh, mainly the Harkatul Jamia Islamia or HUJI with training cells conducted by ISI operatives. Many such speculations of an international link had been rife and the presence of a grey van laden with 20 crates of arms and clips in front of the BDR Durbar Hall is a growing testament to it.
Some instigators who were supporting the rebels from outside Gate 3 and conducting processions until Thursday afternoon on Day 2 were also under the microscope. Who are these people? Where did they come from? Why weren’t the rebel soldiers shooting at them? Right now, all these answers remain unsolved.
The immediate task would be to restore confidence and take charge. Already some of the peripheral mutiny has died down and the mutineers returned back to their border outpost. Once the border is secure, the HQ will have to get back its command structure which was decimated in the February 25 rebellion. A new Director General (DG) has already been appointed. A strong investigation committee has been constituted to find out the reasons for this mutiny headed by the Home Minister and this committee will submit its report in 7 days time. The escapees and the plotters and their ringleaders will be brought in and interrogated to see if any international connection with terrorism exists. The perpetrators of this heinous crime will then subject to the sternest punishment according to the law of the land. At least that may bring some peace and justice to the near and dear ones of the slain innocent officers.
There are so many lessons that need to be learnt here. The security apparatus need to remodeled and revamped. The securities of VIPs have to be strengthened. Institutional security and defense mechanisms need to be understood and personal safety has to be beefed up. Now the state level activities will have to be pro-active with the help of national and international defense analysts and strategists. The counter terrorism aspect will also have to be strengthened and finally, intelligence gathering nationally, regionally and internationally will have to be co-existent and co-ordinated. An overall policy that is commensurate with international policies in the “War on Terror”, UN charters and regional counter terrorism laws and regulations will have to be chalked up by local and international experts. Care must be given so that constitutional provisions of this country is not over stepped and no clause that compromises our sovereignty as an independent nation is breached.
From the morning of 25th February, 2009, when the durbar was in session, armed people entered the hall brandishing heavy combat weapons – a phenomenon not seen in any of the armed forces informal gatherings. As if on cue, four gunmen accounted for the Director General Major General Shakil Ahmed, and the mayhem began. Soon a core of fifty to hundred gunmen started rounding up officers, young and old, and summarily executed them. The senior officers did not have the time to react, aghast at seeing own soldiers resorting to such a cowardly and dastardly act. Out of 179 officers of all ranks only 32 managed to survive, and that too, because their orderlies had hidden them and found it difficult to kill them in cold blood. The carnage did not end here. Afterwards, these brutal, murderous rag tags slowly walked up to the Officer’s quarters and brought out the inmates – men and women, children and old and set their quarters to fire. Before that, many of these animals pounced on whatever expensive items they could find and looted gold, ornaments, jewelries, money.
In a revelry befitting the medieval bloodthirsty marauders, these armed miscreants then arrogantly got on top of the towers of the main gates and sporting red bandannas over their heads proclaimed in a nebulous fashion why they have revolted on the megaphone to the passerby people, waiting journalists and administrative officials. Many of them had their face covered but they would only be very happy to have their presence felt in the electronic media, “Mama, see I am on the Television.”Not to show off their murderous intent, they would scorn at all the Army officers and tell the public to remain at a distance or else, we shoot off again. They couldn’t say who their leader was, but the fact that the DG, DDG and the Project Director of the Daal Bhaat programme had siphoned off enormous amount of funds that was to be their benefit money and so on and so forth. Also important was their oft repeated pejoratives about all Army officers and that they should not be in the command structure of the BDR. Rather, BCS officers should be appointed for the running of BDR. The cruelty, the deprivation, the poor ration, the insufficient pay, the rankdowns on flimsy pretext was getting a bit too much for them. Their backs were pinned to the wall. They had no other alternative.
At first, the local media played up the rebel tune. So effective was that pitch for their propaganda that soon it was reverberating in the supportive slogans of the general public in Gates 1 and 2. It seemed like an old history of deprivation, privation and humiliation and the class problem of officers and jawans, the have and the have-nots etc., the dialectics of the state and the people that rack our inner souls from time to time. The practical issues of wages, perks and budget, rewards and benefits, promotion, pension and last if not the least: the behaviour of ranked senior officers towards their junior or non ranked subalterns, especially in the context of 21st Century.
Had all these been the issues for a aggrieved hopelessly poor all rank formations who had revolted for fairness, justice, good behaviour and a few certain rewards for their hard work, how are the attacks on innocent women and children and non officers justified? Nay, the mutinous rebels got more audacious. After all, they got more than they desired. They won prime time TV spot, public adulation and sympathy, “motherly love” from the Home Minister and even a private “durbar” with the Prime Minister who granted them an instant “General Amnesty”. The conspirers must have been tearing their hairs for such a colossal faux pas. Had the officers not been killed and incarcerated, it could have easily been the greatest hostage taking of all times and a total humiliation and inefficiency of the BDR management, or should I say, a “command failure”.
The Government of Bangladesh, who had just taken over power 50 days backs, was initially reacting to damage limitation. It had more time later to find out the causes but for now, they had to talk to the rebels and heel them down. The Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also tried brinkmanship. So the tough option of a military strike first was ruled out. The Home Minister, Sahara Khatun, was an active livewire, trying to fan up the flickering light of hope through negotiations and building a buffer between the rebels and the hostages. The chief Whip, Mirza Azam and Jahangir Kabir Nanak, MP did commendable jobs in engaging the rebels and not let them take potshots at passing pedestrians. The political dialoging got more wind in its sails and drew out throughout the night, but it did not make the rebels surrender.
By the next morning, two bodies were found in the sluice gates of the sewarage outfall of the Hazaribagh area. It was that of a Colonel Mujibul Huq and a Lieutenant Colonel Enayet of the BDR. Both of these officers were at the forefront of the “Daal Bhaat” programme last year and according to some disgruntled jawans, were responsible for misappropriating huge funds from the programme along with DG. People and the reporters were now asking all sorts of questions to the rebels: How many prisoners do you have? Where are they? Are they alive or dead? Where is DG Shakil? The answers weren’t unequivocal; and by the afternoon time, many of the BDR jawans abandoned their posts and started telling the truths. They talked about a possible massacre and shooting down of most of the Army officers in the Durbar Hall and then burying them in unknown spots. This had happened all in the first day and that they were forced to join the rebels or face certain death. A few officers and their families were also released after talks with rebels and they narrated of harrowing times in the last 24 hours. The PM then came on the Television and declared no harm would come to those who are willing to lay down arms. On the other hand, if the rebels fail to do will be dealt with severely.
The speech worked like a tonic. Thousands of incendiary soldiers surrendered their arms expressing full confidence in the PM. Thousand other fled through the back doors with the evacuating public. By this time, the Home Minister, IG Police, DG, RAB had all entered the premises of BDR and saw the first glimpses of the wasteland followed by a bevy of newsmen, servicemen, medical personnel, Fire Brigade and curious onlookers. All night long, worried relatives of the Army Officers kept an all night vigil against all dying hopes.
At the end of all this, we have nearly a hundred and a quarter of the best professionally trained Army officers dead; some as highly ranked as Generals and Colonels. It cannot be just over petty increase in salaries or better working conditions or rationing or what have you. It wasn’t as if 10,000 soldiers mutinied at the same time but a band of just a few trouble mongers who set the forest on fire. This was indeed challenging times for the newly elected democratic government.
The government did not delve in strategic risk analysis but crisis management through political tools. It did not call on international terror experts and hopelesslessly compromised intelligence which was already on the anvil. The Prime Minister should not have met the rebels in person. However, it did defuse some of the tensions when the equanimity and firm resolve of the daughter of Bangabandhu puzzled the mutineers. For the first 24 hours the government was vulnerable. Non state actors were having their ways; their powers may have been quite consolidated because BDR units were rebelling all over the country. The international borders were left insecure. It looked that the final objective was going to be met beyond their expectations. A head on confrontation between the Army and the BDR was in the offing, the heavy air of suspicion was tearing the nation apart, Dhaka and the whole country was filled with rumours of an impending military take-over. The Prime Minister’s office with the Press Secretary, the Home Ministry, parliament members were passing sleepless nights in anxiety.
However, things started turning on its head from day 2. Many of the rebels were recanting now. Some of them started fleeing. The so called leaders of the revolt were busy in their negotiations to have their demands met (mainly to seek government protection from a military assault). The government machinery grinded unabated with a humongous task of co-ordination from the PM’s office with the press, Armed Forces Directorate (the PM is also the Defense Minister and Commander in chief of Armed Forces in Bangladesh), PID (civilian information cell that gives govt. press releases and communiqués), Home Ministry, Foreign Ministry, Law Ministry and all the other related organizations – Police, Fire Service, Ansar-VDP (civilian defense). The opposition also participated and expressed solidarity and unity with govt. and line agencies. All this dealt a further blow to the militant BDR mutineers. As the clock ticked by, the ultimatum to strike was very much on the cards. The government started mobilizing the Army. The Army had taken position from Day 1 in the vicinity with its field guns, mortars and machine gun batteries but kept its measurable distance and restraint awaiting higher authority orders. Now the tanks were coming in and encircling the Peelkhana sprawling complex in all directions. This had unnerved the mutineers even more. A clash with the Armed Forces would mean inevitable death.
While this entire whirlwind was blowing, the international observers were also watching developments in the BDR intensely over the channel transmissions. The Indian and Pakistani media were particularly keen observers, especially India with which Bangladesh shares a 2000 km border, much of it being barbed wired and cordoned off to prevent cross state infiltration. Two of the TV channels and the largest publishing house in Kolkata, the AnandaBazar Publications Ltd. came out with a connection of the BDR attack with the latest Mumbai terrorist strikes. It believes that the planning had taken place from cells in Pakistan and transmitted to their sister organization in Bangladesh, mainly the Harkatul Jamia Islamia or HUJI with training cells conducted by ISI operatives. Many such speculations of an international link had been rife and the presence of a grey van laden with 20 crates of arms and clips in front of the BDR Durbar Hall is a growing testament to it.
Some instigators who were supporting the rebels from outside Gate 3 and conducting processions until Thursday afternoon on Day 2 were also under the microscope. Who are these people? Where did they come from? Why weren’t the rebel soldiers shooting at them? Right now, all these answers remain unsolved.
The immediate task would be to restore confidence and take charge. Already some of the peripheral mutiny has died down and the mutineers returned back to their border outpost. Once the border is secure, the HQ will have to get back its command structure which was decimated in the February 25 rebellion. A new Director General (DG) has already been appointed. A strong investigation committee has been constituted to find out the reasons for this mutiny headed by the Home Minister and this committee will submit its report in 7 days time. The escapees and the plotters and their ringleaders will be brought in and interrogated to see if any international connection with terrorism exists. The perpetrators of this heinous crime will then subject to the sternest punishment according to the law of the land. At least that may bring some peace and justice to the near and dear ones of the slain innocent officers.
There are so many lessons that need to be learnt here. The security apparatus need to remodeled and revamped. The securities of VIPs have to be strengthened. Institutional security and defense mechanisms need to be understood and personal safety has to be beefed up. Now the state level activities will have to be pro-active with the help of national and international defense analysts and strategists. The counter terrorism aspect will also have to be strengthened and finally, intelligence gathering nationally, regionally and internationally will have to be co-existent and co-ordinated. An overall policy that is commensurate with international policies in the “War on Terror”, UN charters and regional counter terrorism laws and regulations will have to be chalked up by local and international experts. Care must be given so that constitutional provisions of this country is not over stepped and no clause that compromises our sovereignty as an independent nation is breached.
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