The Father Figure

Sheikh Hasina, the current prime minister of Bangladesh, was charged with murder under the caretaker government (2007 - 2008). The charge was entirely justified: the workers of her party killed several opposition activists in broad daylight during a riot witnessed by the entire nation. Of course, she never killed anyone with her own hands: neither, presumably, did Al Capone. But the authorities couldn't get her even for tax evasion, although several cases of extortion were lodged against here. The dirty nature of politics in Bangladesh was underscored by the release of Sheikh Hasina from a makeshift jail - to become the prime minister once again. And this wasn't the first time that her henchmen had committed murder. Yet the loyalty of her supporters - which included my parents and my wider family - never diminished, never wavered.

Why?

Her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first member of the dynasty, was a murderer on an even greater scale. He is also known as the father of the nation, and it is true that his demagoguery created the conditions for a civil war that led to the creation of Bangladesh. A detailed record of the murders and the deliberate famine that led to his killing by the army appears here.

The paradox that needs to be explained is the continuing loyalty towards the dead monster on the part of a section of the educated of Bangladesh (the uneducated never count in this country: as a writer put it, Bangladesh never represents Bangladeshis). That immoral loyalty has been transferred to his living daughter, as we saw above.

How do we explain this phenomenon?

I was baffled by this question for years until I began to study anthropological psychology, especially the role of anxiety in national culture.

What is the biggest anxiety of middle class persons? That they would cease to be middle class, and fall below their station - or, more accurately, that their children will. For the parents have struggled towards a certain elevation, and can see their way clear for some distance in time. Still, even they might slip....But they don't want their children to struggle...and slip.

Now, the working classes have their ability to labour, as Marx astutely pointed out, so their dread is of a different calibre - the dread of illness, and injury. In fact, anthropological studies have revealed that in Bangladesh, the working class define health in terms of the ability to work. This has unnerving implications: infections like HYV would not be regarded as a threat so long as full-blown AIDS did not occur. Also, doctors know that the poor suffer from chronic depression and ulcers through worry.

But the middle class is a class-unto-itself. They are highly articulate, clubby and ambitious. They can make and break nations. When Bangladesh was East Pakistan, the eastern wing of Pakistan, with the western king a thousand miles away, known as West Pakistan, the middle classes had just emerged from two hundred years of British rule. They had seen what the Indian middle class achieved - independence for India, and the devil take the poor. Today, 800 million Indians labour for a minority of 200 million of the middle class. This was to be their paradigm for Bangladesh.

A full-blown mythology was created - that the West Pakistanis spoke Urdu, and the East Pakistanis Bengali, when in fact Urdu was the language of a minuscule minority of the polyglot West Pakistanis. But the trick worked: the Urdu-speakers were exploiting the Bengali-speakers.

And the man who delivered the message on behalf of the middle class was Sheikh Mujib, rabble-rouser extraordinaire. His speeches remind one a great deal of the speeches of Hitler, the leader who led a ruined middle-class to horror.


Thus, the Bengali-speaking intelligentsia identified completely with Sheikh Mujib, who was to relieve them of their anxiety. Psychiatrists have long known that patients tend to identify them as father figures: indeed, Freud spoke of the need to transfer feeling to the pseudo-father figure to cure neurosis.

Freud observed: "It is clearly not easy for men to give up the satisfaction of this inclination to aggression. They do not feel comfortable without it. The advantage which a comparatively small cultural group offers of allowing this instinct an outlet in the form of hostility against outsiders is not to be despised. It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestation of their aggressiveness (Civilisation and Its Discontents,tr. James Strachey, W.W.Norton & Co: New York, p 61). Recent research has confirmed this to be true of chimpanzees as well.


What Freud has to say about the father in the same book is most illuminating: "In my Future of an Illusion" I was concerned much less with the deepest sources of the religious feeling than with what the common man understands by his religion - with the systems of doctrines and promises which on the one hand explains to him the riddles of this world with enviable completeness, and, on the other, assures him that a careful Providence will watch over his life and will compensate him in a future existence for any frustrations he suffers here. The common man cannot imagine this Providence otherwise than in the figure of an enormously exalted father." One doesn't have to agree with Freud here: current research has shown that identification with a father figure is important for a child's emotional well-being. Infantile powerlessness clearly has a great deal to do with it.

However, Freud is completely wrong in his definition of religion: there are religions which have no transcendent father figure, such as Confucianism (Confucius was an earthly father figure). And that modern religion - nationalism - needs no father figure at all. Nevertheless, Sheikh Mujib was a father figure of the Mosaic type: he led the chosen people - the Bengalis - against the West Pakistanis, the Canaanite equivalent, promising the former a land of milk and honey. Sheikh Mujib was the prophet of Bengali Nationalism - perhaps even the God. There are many young kids among the foot-soldiers of the Awami League, the party he led, who reject their own fathers for Sheikh Mujib: I have done a systematic study of the subject.


Hence, Sheikh Mujib's infallibility: he assuaged a terrible anxiety, delivered the land of milk and honey for narrow, corrupt elite, and drove out the Canaanites. His lineage must equally be infallible: hence the idolatry of the Mujib family against Islam, the religion of Pakistan. Awami Leaguers favourite - intramural - pastime is ridiculing the Prophet Mohammed

Naturally, the middle class are a bookish people, like all scribes: their only source of success was through education. These were the people Mujib led. Consequently, the Awami League's biggest supporters are to be found among the university teachers, and the intelligentsia. They are in a position to refute history and sanction murder.

reverse circumcision

Sheikh Hasina has trumpeted the banning of jihad – Islam's sixth pillar. She has boasted that she'll never permit anybody to wage jihad from Bangladeshi soil, thereby violating one of the six major precepts of Islam.

But there's more.

And it has been recently leaked to the press (who are shy of publishing the information) that she plans gradually to prohibit – circumcision.

But there's more.

She'll not only prohibit circumcision, she'll even reverse it in the next few years.

Since the doctors all belong to her party, she'll have no trouble making sure no circumcisions are carried out in hospitals.

That leaves the informal sector: how to snip the snipping there? Cabinet ministers have been discussing the subject with bureaucrats and the police. So far, no solution has been reached, but a model inspired by Indira Gandhi is emerging.

The plan is this: men will be picked up at random and then REVERSE circumcision will be performed on them.

What is reverse circumcision? It's a technique perfected in Zimbabwe for those men who regret losing their foreskin. Quite simply, a surgeon takes a foreskin from a donor and grafts it on the dick of the recipient. Drugs are then administered to prevent organ-rejection (but this is only for rich patients; poor patients simply have to tolerate rejection and kick the bucket).

A few married women murmured disapproval, saying that it would reduce sexual pleasure; since Sheikh Hasina is a widow, the dissentients were quietly ignored. Besides, it is believed that many staunch party members have had foreskin-implantation as a symbol of rejection of Islam.

At one such high-level meeting, it was queried where so many foreskins would come from if circumcision is banned in the country.

Pat came the answer.

From Israel.

attacking the sixth pillar

http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/21302.asp

The present government has illegalised the sixth pillar of Islam - jihad. Which pillar will be banned next: namaaz, zakat, hajj...?

You cannot prohibit jihad in a Muslim country: there will always be intrepid and pious souls ready to come to the rescue of their coreligionists in other parts of the world.

What will happen is foreseeable: a government that tries to reward treachery, and punish loyalty, will end up on the jihadis' list of people to attack. So far, Bangladesh - and the Awami League - has attracted the least well-trained of the jihadis from the Muslim diaspora.

That is about to change.

The next lot will be more thorough, better-skilled, better-armed...they will be inspired by the sight of a supposedly Muslim prime minister holding hands with a member of a Hindu dynasty.

If the Taliban can fight the world's most powerful military machine, think how easily similar groups can take on the Bangladesh armed forces. Pakistan has one of the most highly-trained armies, and yet the Taliban and al-Quaeda have been inflicting heavy casualties.

The Bangladesh armed forces will have no choice but to join hands with the jihadis. Even if the present government bribes and politicizes the upper ranks of the armed forces, the lower ranks will not be bought or coerced.

Just think about this simple truism: you can't bribe everyone, and you can't kill everyone, and you can't intimidate everyone.

This is going to be one long, bloody year.

To Dance Upon The Air

http://www.opednews.com/articles/To-Dance-Upon-The-Air-by-Iftekhar-Sayeed-091231-260.html

(click above for article)

Five former army officers will hang within the next few weeks in Bangladesh, raising deep questions about a people's right to protection from a tyrannical executive in the context of John Locke's political philosophy.

Excerpt:



"Seven High Court judges refused to hear the lower court's verdict: they declared themselves 'embarrassed' without explaining why. The names of these High Court judges should be engraved in gold – not golden – letters in the premises of the High Court. To any student of law, the reason for their refusal was transparently obvious – they did not wish to embroil the judiciary in a moral issue that had no legal redress without, at the same time, politicizing the judiciary. The distinction between law and morality has been clearly drawn by Immanuel Kant. The best illustration of the discrepancy was provided by Chief Justice Taney. A devout Catholic, he had emancipated all his slaves; yet, when the Dred Scott case came up, he had to assert that 'a black man has no rights'. This decision undermined the prestige of the Supreme Court: yet Taney was merely stating the law, keeping his deeply held belief that slavery was an evil to himself. The seven judges of the Bangladesh Supreme Court similarly, no doubt, wished to draw a line between morality and the law: this, they felt, was a moral issue, not a legal one, certainly not an open and shut case of murder. "

The seven sages, and Caesar's wife

Seven High Court judges refused to hear the lower court's verdict in the Sheikh Mujib killing case. They were intimidated by Sheikh Hasina's followers, with ministers taking to the streets with sticks.

The names of these High Court judges should be engraved in gold – not golden – letters in the premises of the High Court. The reason they were embarrassed was obvious to any student of law: they did not wish the judiciary to be involved in a moral, not a legal, issue, and thereby become politicized, and a branch of the executive.

The other day, I attended a dinner party where the host was in agreement with the Supreme Court affirmation of the earlier High Court ruling of guilty.
However, what was truly interesting was his view of the judiciary: "This government would never have allowed the convicts to be acquitted". That is to say, the judiciary was simply carrying out the wishes of the executive.

This view of the judiciary will be permanent: no one will ever again believe that the judiciary is independent.

The late Justice B.B.Roy Chowdhury told me that General Ershad had never interfered with the judiciary: he was highly critical of the fact, indeed furious, that Chief Justice Shahabuddin had become president after Ershad resigned, thereby violating the constitution.

Now, no judge can ever claim that the executive does not influence (to use a mild expression) the judiciary. Caesar's wife has lost her credibility. She will always be suspect.

Vendetta in Bangladesh

15 August, 1975 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and part of his family killed



June, 1996 His daughter Sheikh Hasina comes to power after western donors restore democracy


April, 2001 High Court confirms death sentences for 12 of the accused

October, 2001 Shaikh Hasina loses election and Khaleda Zia becomes prime minister


December, 2008 Sheikh Hasina reelected

August, 2009 Final appeal hearing begins


November 19 2009 Appellate division confirms judgment of death by hanging



Thus, we see that the case had lain dormant, under the protective mantel of an Indemnity Ordnance, promulgated by President Khandker Moshtaque Ahmed, and later ratified by General Zia as Indemnity Act of 1979.

The "assassins" were rewarded with lucrative posts and given heroes' status by every subsequent government until the election of 1996 produced Sheikh Hasina, daughter of Mujib. She had survived the killing becasue she had been out of the country in 1975.


Therefore, the pattern that emerges is this: killers are hailed as heroes till 1996, the dynasty acquires state power in that year, loses it in the election of 2001, when proceedings against the killers stop, and are resumed again after Hasina, the daughter, returns to power in December, 2008.

A personal vendetta? A lynching? Victors justice? All three.




I remember the day as if it were yesterday. I was fourteen, and I lived in Dhanmandi, very near the scene of the killing. At dawn, I heard the booming of guns, and woke up in fear. Later, we learned that Mujib and his family had been killed: there was rejoicing throughout the land!

Against this background, what are we to make of the Supreme Court verdict? Well, to put it mildly, it opens up an enormous gap between law and morality. The law must posit that every killing in peacetime is murder; but a moment’s consideration will show that morality can never posit that every killing in peacetime is immoral. Was the killing of Caligula murder? Certainly. But was it immoral? Certainly not.

Furthermore, we cannot consent to the proposition that the law, and the legal process, is always just.



Take Chief Justice Taney. A devout Catholic, he had emancipated all his slaves; yet, when the Dred Scott case came up, he had to assert that 'a black man has no rights'. When the Bengal terrorists were gunning down British officers and, after due process, were being carted off to the Andamans, Bengalis hated the English for that: now, several streets in Calcutta are named after 'terrorists'.


Moreover, the Supreme Court, respect for which must be implanted in the heart of every citizen if we are to live in peace and with a clear conscience, has been sullied by a case that was basically moral, not legal. Now, no one, except the narrow band of fanatics devoted to the House of Mujib, who reck with neither morality nor logic, will regard the ‘due process’ as little more than an elaborate charade. The Supreme Court came into bad odour the day democracy was introduced: December 6, 1990. On that day, after General Ershad resigned, the Chief Justice became president, instead of the vice-president per constitution; later, he had this illegality legalized when parliament sat and passed two amendments. Since then, no one has ever believed that the Supreme Court is above politics.

Now, they will say, there goes the last institution to the democratic dog.

The Prophet Motive

When I was at university, a friend of mine wrote inside her book: "There is no God, and Marx is His prophet'.

She didn't know much about Marxism, of course, but she sure hated Islam. Back in the early and mid-80s, if you weren't a Marxist, you weren't respected at Dhaka University, or any university in Bangladesh for that matter (there were no private universities then).

Consequently, universities were hotbeds of communist hotheads. One can imagine the hatred inspired by General Zia and General Ershad's privatization policies, reversing the property-grab of the Sheikh Mujib era. However, we were never immune to the blandishments of money.

My friend – a staunch feminist – received an offer of marriage from a rich Bangladeshi expatriate resident in the USA (yes, the devil's lair). Moreover, this man was a devout Muslim. He would wake up and recite the Koran every day!

Did she agree to such a marriage? In an eye-blink.

I remember how senior students, seemingly addicted to Marxism, would suddenly disappear. On inquiry, it would be learned that he had taken off for some university in America. Ah well! Nothing wrong with acquiring knowledge. Then, after some time, one would learn that he had joined the IMF!

Today, public university teachers routinely moonlight at the (more lucrative) private universities, against the regulations.

You see, there's one thing we can't resist: money.

Marxism brought prestige, which was good for an undergraduate, when your father footed your bills; but the moment you graduated and found yourself in the international labour market, and realized your potential, well, money determined everything. Without a murmur, university teachers went over to democracy and capitalism after the Berlin Wall came crashing down.

Now, there's one idea that pays no earthly dividends: Islam in particular, and religion in general. The old hatred for Islam (that ideological state apparatus, remember?) has, therefore, remained on the campuses. Teachers take every opportunity to instill it into their students. If 90% of American university teachers are democrats (according to The Economist), then 90% of Bangladeshi teachers are supporters of the dynasty of Sheikh Mujib, the apostle of secularism (for which read anti-Islamism).

Hence, when a member of the dynasty was arrested by the army, the teachers incited their indoctrinated students (and paid goons) to burn cars, lorries, restaurants…anything that could be broken and torched.

The intelligentsia squarely blamed the military rulers for raising prices: even though the international media made it abundantly clear that the blame lay on the wrongheaded policy of oil-substitution through ethanol and the planting of maize. From 2007, a chart in The Economist showed a steady rise in international food prices – and January 2007 was when the army took over from the psychopaths

(For international food prices - including Bangladesh's - see http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=7933596&story_id=13886235 Conveniently for our intellectuals, international food prices began to fall just when their psychopathic leader came to power in a rigged election!)

A teacher at a local university blankly accused a bureaucrat of raising food prices – and she was a teacher of (you won't believe this) economics! A banker brazenly asked my wife, "What have international prices got to do with us?"
This year, prices, especially of sugar and ahead of Eid, have risen again – but not a whisper has been heard from the "secular" intellectuals because the dynasty is now in power.

For sugar prices, see http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=7933596&story_id=14209265

Crimes of Finance

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4830.shtml

(click above for article)

I remember how, on the saree-tails of Sheikh Hasina, the Beximco Group allegedly rigged the stockmarket in 1996, soon after the petticoat came to power; today, again, on the same garmented ladder of the same woman, and again as soon as she came to power, the Beximco Group appear to be treating other people's money as their own.


Excerpt:

"The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, appeared on television in a question-and-answer session on every subject conceivable. It was a charade of 'transparency'. Among the three interviewees was one Debapriya Bhattacharya, well-known to the author since his childhood days, and well-known among the elite today (indeed, he is currently president of the Trade and Development Board of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD). He questioned the prime minister how it was that 50 million takas had been siphoned out of the country and the alleged masterminds incorrectly charged. He noted that it was regrettable, and the subject, of such enormous moment, was quietly shelved. But Bhattacharya had earned his fifteen minutes.

It so happened that Bhattacharya's mother, Mrs. Chitra Bhattacharya, was an MP of the ruling party, and the whole family was tight with the PM. This was what allowed young Bhattacharya to appear to be questioning the executive: a very well-choreographed family affair."

The felis domesticus of Bangladesh

There is an article in today's (24th May) Bangladesh Observer, lifted, it says, from the internet, on Sheikh Hasina as a sort of felis domesticus – a cat. How so? For repeatedly surviving attempts to kill her.


Apparently this female feline is on an international terrorist hit list. And the reason?

According to Messrs. Samuel T. Smith and Tony Shahabarat, her crime in the eyes of the jihadis is that she is a female ruler in a Muslim country. This, apparently, was why Bhutto was killed in Pakistan. Not for being pro-western or pro-Indian, mind you, but for being – female.


It would then have to follow that Khaleda Zia, twice prime minister of Bangladesh, is not on the hit list for being female because – unbeknown to all but the jihadis – she has undergone a sex change. However, she still looks and sounds female.


Then there's Indonesia's Megawati Sukarnoputri – surely she looks female to most of us? Then it is a gross oversight on the part of the jihadis not to honour her with a place on the list.

The answer to the feline's problems is simple of course – she must speedily undergo a sex change, and sport a beard and a moustache. But then one wonders how the unmodern jihadis will react to this modern procedure. (I have had several cats spayed, but a sex change…well, why not?)

Let the she-male prime minister come, and test our hypothesis!


(NB I have not been able to find the article anywhere on the net; if some kind soul would discover it, could he/she please let me know?)

The great BDR cover-up

Gray car in BDR Massacre

This just in, the gray car of the BDR massacre has been identified. Information is below:

Registration number : ঢাকা মেট চ ৫১-৪৪৫৪
Model: Nissan Urvan, Third generation E24

If you know about this vehicle, please call :
Army Headquarters Control Room:

Land line : (02) 8712197,

Cellphone : 0171 3333 256.





Article by Sunita Paul

http://www.modernghana.com/newsp/208860/1/pagenum/bangladesh-manipulation-of-bdr-massacre-probe.html#continue

Barrister Abdur Razzak, a leader of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami received written notice from Investigation Officer with Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Abdul Kahar Akhand asking Razzak to appear before the investigation officer for interrogation in connection to Bangladesh Riffles (BDR) massacre case.

It may be mentioned here that, Kahar Akhand is known in Bangladesh as he was the investigation officer of Bangabandhu murder case and Jail killing case. He was warned by the highest judiciary in the country for his lack of experience in investigating the cases.

Kahar, basically a loyalist of the ruling party was brought back to service on contract basis from retirement. He has 'high reputation' of twisting various investigations to meet the taste of the ruling party. He is one of the very few officers in Bangladesh Police, who has direct access via cell phone to both the Prime Minister and the Home Minister. For such 'high connection', Kahar shows damn-care attitude towards his senior officers while continues to misbehave with all the junior officers in the police department as well in CID.

The present rulers in Dhaka especially assigned their own man like Kahar Akhand as the chief investigator of the BDR massacre case, as they knew, this officer will do everything in finally setting out all the names of Awami League men behind this notorious crime, thus putting several opposition leaders and figures as the accused. Since his appointment as the chief investigator of the case, Kahar Akhand is in constant contact with the Home Minister and several influential leaders in the ruling party.

Top level in the government has reportedly given repeated instructions to Kahar Akhand in entangling some leaders from Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Jamaat and some Islamist forces like Hizb Ut Tahrir etc. He also has been suggested to 'discover' militant connection to this sensitive case.

When Awami League leader Torab Ali Akhand was arrested in connection to this case and was interrogated by several intelligence agencies, including CID, it was crystal clear to the investigators that the ruling party and some opposition leaders played dirty role in giving instigation and patronization to the bloody massacre. Such message was secretly communicated to the high-ups in the government. Hearing such information from Abdul Kahar Akhand, high-command in the ruling Grand Alliance has strongly instructed him to 'do something in turning the matter to another direction or face severe consequence'.

CID officer Abdul Kahar Akhand already knows the case of Muhidul Islam Muhit, who is the plaintiff of Bangabandhu murder case. Muhit was the Assistant Personal Secretary to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and was on duly at the residence of the founding father of Bangladesh during the black night of brutal assassination of him and other members of Bangabandhu's family.

Muhit was found in a poor economic condition in Jessore after Awami League formed government in 1996. He was picked up by the government and was encouraged to lodge the case. Abdul Kahar Akhand was introduced to Muhit from the very first hour, for preparing the First Information Report (FIR) as well as statement for the investigation into this case.

Muhit received more than 3 residential plots and substantial amount of money from Awami League for agreeing to become the plaintiff of the case. This case changed the life of this poor man, who ultimately sold out all the plots, which were secretly allocated in his name to the owners of Akij Group of Companies in Bangladesh.

Abdul Kahar Akhand knows that, if he will be able to serve the purpose of the ruling party, his next few years in the contract-based job in police service will be extremely bright. He will be compensated in diversified ways. But, if he will ignore instructions from the high-command of the ruling party, he not only will lose the job, but his life will also be in extreme danger.

With such tendency in mind, Akhand has successfully saved Torab Ali from making confessional statement to the Metropolitan Magistrate under section 164. It is even claimed that, Torab Ali, instead of being interrogated, is enjoying comfortable time inside the CID headquarters in Dhaka. At the instruction of influential figures in the government, Abdul Kahar Akhand in ensuring all possible comfort to this confirmed collaborator of the BDR massacre.

And, according to latest news, the 'Walkie-Talkie' minister in the present government in Dhaka, Lt. Col. (Retired) Faruk Khan told reporters that the probe report shall be made public “within a week”. This is the fifth extension of the time limit set for the report.

According to various scoops, the investigators have so far identified a number of points and questions in identifying culprits behind the massacre. These points or questions are:

What was the intelligence report sent to the Prime Minister on February 25 in the early morning as acknowledged by the PM in the parliament,

What was the last conversation between Major General Shakil Ahmed and the Prime Minister on February 25,

Why the PM regretted her attendance to the dinner on February 26,

Who instructed announcement from the nearby mosques on February 25 and 26 asking local residents near BDR headquarters to move to a safe distance,

Why Lt. Col. Mukit sent fax messages from the BDR headquarters on February 25 evening against army and the BDR's director general,

Why members of police and RAB were not deployed within gate number 5, through which the mutineers fled,

Why the PM assigned Nanak and Azam at 1:00 pm., after 4 hours of she heard about the mutiny,

Why names and identities of the delegation of mutineers, who met the PM were not registered at the entrance of the PM's residence,

Mutiny leader DAD Towhid told the PM about the murder of director general of BDR and some other officers when he met her with his team. But, why this matter was kept secret by the government till February 26 evening,

Why Bangladesh TV was not showing anything about the mutiny or even news scroll, although the issue was being covered by all private channels,

Why the mutineers were terming the PM as “amader netri” (our leader),

Why some mutineers were chanting Awami League's party slogan 'Joy Bangla' while they were talking to the press,

There had been several overseas incoming calls inside the BDR headquarters during the massacre. Investigators are trying to find the callers,

Why Prime Minister's son Sajib Wajed Joy came to Dubai on February 27 to meet some of the fleeing mutineers,

Why Joy handed over thick envelops to each of the fleeing mutineers at the Dubai airport,

Why Joy made critical remarks on Bangladesh Army and made army liable for the mutiny during interview with various international media,

Why Sajib Wajed Joy has been instructed by her mother not to come to Bangladesh before the investigation issue is over,

Why influential members of the government phoned certain foreign government asking help in case Bangladesh Army revolts against the ruling party,

Why Awami League leader Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir tried to flee the country on February 27,

Why minister Faruk Khan said, militants have penetrated in law enforcing and disciplined forces in Bangladesh,

Why the government is trying to keep the Inspector General of Police, whose son-in-law was murdered during the mutiny and daughter held hostage, is kept aloof from the investigation process,

Why the newly appointed commissioner of police warned the English medium and missionary schools and educational institutions of possible militant attack without any reason,

Why the PM did not allow the army to storm in to the BDR headquarters to rescue the officers and their family members,

What the CID team were removing from the BDR headquarters in the name of collecting 'evidence',

What type of evidences were removed by the members of police when they were assigned to guard the BDR headquarters almost for more than 30 hours,

Why the Home Minister and other members of the ruling Alliance were visiting the BDR headquarters during dark hours of February 26, much after the surrender,

Why Awami League student wing leader Liakat Sikder is hiding since the massacre,

Why Awami League and its activists are continuing to demand trial of killers and their collaborators in civil courts instead of Court Martial,

Why a section of pro-Awami League journalists are continuing indirect campaign against army as well demanding trial in civil court,

Why the ruling party is echoing the voice of Indian media and especially the editorial commentary in The Statesman.

Reply to all these questions will surely help investigators in finding the truth and identifying the culprits. But, it is a big question as to whether the ruling party is willing to let a neutral investigation continue, which may go ultimately against many of the heavy-weights within their home.

Bangladeshi people are getting united with the demand of proper investigation and exemplary punishment to the perpetrators and collaborators of this extreme heinous crime. Anger within the armed forces is boiling like eruptive volcano. Members of the armed forces and those bereaved families can never forgive the killers and the collaborators.

People in power in Dhaka should understand this clearly!

Sunita Paul is a Senior journalist and experts on South Asian affairs



http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2009/04/01/news0634.htm

CID investigation : Awami big shots found talking to BDR rebels

Mamunur Rashid



The law enforcement agencies found some ruling party leaders' direct conversations with the BDR mutineers over mobile phone after examining the mobile phone call lists of the detained BDR jawans on February 25-26 at Peeklkhana.

The law enforcement agencies identified the names which are Home Minister Sahara Khatun, State Minister for Local Government and Rural Development (LGRD) and Cooperatives Jahangir Kabir Nanak, Awami League leader Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, Dhamnondi-Hazaribagh MP Barrister Fazlee Noor Taposh and Mirza Azam.

The BDR mutineers held talks several times with the local MP Taposh.

The mutineers reportedly held talks with the leaders between 11:00 am to 3:00pm on February 25.

At least 820 BDR personnel and five civilians have been shown arrested to date for their alleged involvement in the mutiny.

Law enforcement agencies investigated the mobile numbers of more than 35 BDR personnel.

At least 10 BDR personnel had talked to the ruling party leaders over mobile phone. And 5 detained BDR personnel confessed to the law enforcement agencies that they held talks to one MP and another former MP about their demands.

Law enforcement agencies found that that DAD Touhid, Jawan Salim, Jawan Mofiz, Havilder Obaidul with other 10 BDR jawans held talks with the AL leaders.

Source said BDR Jawan Salim reportedly talked to MP Taposh at about 11: 00 am on the day of occurrence.

Investigation team found Nanak and Taposh mobile numbers from the Cell phone of Jawan Salim.

From 2:00 pm to 2:30 pm on 25 February DAD Touhid talks with the Home Minister Sahara Khatun. Touhid had also talk with Nanak, Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir and Mirza Azam over cell phone.

DAD Touhid also had talks with the Home Minister and the state minister for LGRD minister 20 to 25 times on 25 February at about 10 pm to 3pm.

Investigation officers of the BDR preferring mutiny anonymity told the New Nation that they found names of the AL leaders and BDR personnel after verification from the mobile phone operators.

But the AL leaders did not talk before the 25 February, he added.

Jawan Salim told the investigation officers that they took the Taposh's Mobile phone number from the detrained Torab Ali.

Earlier on Monday Criminal Investigation Department (CID) questioned Jamaat-e-Islami leader Barrister Abdur Razzak for more than three hours in connection with the February 25-26 massacre at BDR headquarters.

Nesarul Arif, police superintendent of the CID and in charge of the case, said yesterday that more people might be required to be questioned in the interest of the case.

A lot of big guns we may need to quiz as the case unfolds," Nesarul told reporters after grilling Jama'at-e-Islami leader Abdur Razzak at the CID headquarters.

Meanwhile, The CID again took 8 suspect BDR personnel to remand yesterday.

Party Loyalty Trumps Politeness – Friend Hurls Abuse, Makes No Statement

Dear Nadeem,

I was delighted to receive the string of abuse that you have thought worthy of flinging my way – I really didn't know you cared.

But first, the preliminaries: you have not made any statements. Let's go over your four sentences.

1) "Are these info the product of your deranged mind, Ifti?" This is a question: questions, as any logician will tell you, are neither true nor false, and so make no statements;
2) " Take a break;" : this is an imperative, and imperatives too make no statement, being neither true nor false;
3) "go back to your literary practices;" : another imperative
4) "stop being a paranoid conspiracy theorist!!" : yet another imperative (although this one conjoins several adjectives, so it is not clear whether you want me to continue to be a conspiracy theorist so long as I am not paranoid; or to continue to be paranoid so long as I am not a conspiracy theorist).

Therefore, you have not said anything, made no statement; forgive me if I do not return abuse for abuse: the dearth of gentlemen in Bangladesh seems to imply that we should all descend into the same cesspit – but I see no reason to follow where others lead.

You enjoin me to "go back to your literary practices": shouldn't that be "go forward to your literary practices"? Isn't literature a higher calling than blogging and reportage? I see you hold literary practices in less esteem than these more recent pastimes. De gustibus non disputandum.

So I have decided to take your advice (command is too harsh a word) and have just started to read a poem by Geoffrey Hill, who enjoins me to

"strive/To recognize the damned among your friends."

Yours truly,

Iftekhar


Are these info the product of your deranged mind, Ifti? Take a break; go back to your literary practices; stop being a paranoid conspiracy theorist!!

Nadeem


On 4/1/09, Iftekhar Sayeed wrote:
Iftekhar Sayeed has sent you a link to a blog:

The tanks arrived 32 hours too late because the prime minister would not give her assent - finally General Moeen ordered them sent anyway, and, to appease the PM, 'punished' the Savar cantonment commanding officer by sending him to a lesser post. PLEASE FORWARD

Blog: Iftekhar Sayeed
Post: Why the tanks arrived 32 hours late
Link: http://isayeed.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-tanks-arrived-32-hours-late.html

PSYCHO

The prime minister again defends her record on the ground that, had the army been sent in, there would have been "civil war".

Suppose that's true – the cure would then have been worse than the disease. Let us concede Hasina her point. Then the question arises: could not the whole diabolical episode have been prevented?

For as Colonel Kamruzzaman (who is suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder) relates (and Hasina never refutes) the PM had been apprised long before any violence began – by the BDR chief himself. She said help was on its way – if help had arrived in the next thirty minutes, none of the murders and rapes would have occurred.

Why didn't she send assistance?

In these recordings, we have the testimony of Dr. Kabir, who was saved because he was on leave but nonetheless inside the compound with his family. The jawans came for his family, and called them "sons and daughters of whores" repeatedly.

Later, when the families had been gathered together, Dr. Karim says, the jawans came to the women and said, "The Punjabis impregnated you with Punjabi babies, we will impregnate you with BDR babies." At this point, the file breaks off...leaving the horror of the next moments unsaid yet described in detail.

Sahara Khatun, the home minister, did not even bother to inquire about the families, but left with a few arms.

Hasina delivers a sob story about how her family had been killed in 1975 (what relevance that has here escapes me); and she adds that the killers were rewarded for their deed; indeed, I was fifteen at the time, and I remember the nationwide jubilation at the murder of the Mujib family. These are facts.

She complains that she and her sister were not allowed into the country for six years – because, no doubt, she was deemed a menace to the nation, which she has indeed proven to be (the army didn't lock her up, with the other banshee, for two years for traffic violation).

This time, the nation was not delighted – only Awami Leaguers are delighted. They cannot forget that the army had held their "beloved leader" in jail for the past two years.

This sort of personality cult, so redolent of North Korea, passes for democracy in Bangladesh.

Indeed, it is absurd to expect Sheikh Hasina to handle a situation like that – or even to value human life – when young student politicians belonging to her party are dropping like flies, and she – just doesn't care. Yesterday, a student politician was thrown off the second floor of a building, and he died a painful death. With so much murder in the ranks of the ruling party, why should it spare a thought for human life or dignity?


"Hasina, in fact, has been the biggest disappointment for even AL supporters. Throughout her term she showed incredible tolerance to her party-men, who virtually unleashed a reign of terror all over the country. She did not ask any of her cabinet members to resign even after knowing about their criminal activities. The student wing of AL the Chhatra League carried on the legacy of their predecessors, the Chhatra Dal, with equal zeal, occupying the university halls, controlling tenders and spreading crime across the country. One group became famous for their serial rape spree in Jahangirnagar University where a Chhatra League (interestingly former Chhatra Dal) leader celebrated his 100th rape on campus. Again Hasina remained silent." http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2004/03/04/coverstory.htm (As usual, the Daily Star is wrong: Hasina never ever disappointed her supporters: no matter what the crime, she receives blind support from her devotees: like a queen, she is never wrong.In the 2001 election, despite a horrendous spate of violent crime like the one described above, her party still won 40% of the vote, and would have won if the election had not been rigged.)

How can a sane nation expect that a psychopath would try and save officers and their families? Only a person who has an atom of respect for human life would begin to make an attempt to bring succour to the distressed. I am amazed that the nation can even believe that this woman tried to save lives...to her, lives are as drops of water. This alone answers the query raised above: why didn't she send assistance right away?

As for the nation itself, this is not the first time such heinous acts have been perpetrated since 1990– we have forgotten the rapes at Jahangirnagar University, the rape and suicide of Mahima, the rape and death of Tahura Begum, the decapitated bodies, the disarticulated remains....This time, the unspeakable has occurred in one place over a compressed period of time.

We lost our humanity a long time ago. Al-Ghazali would have blamed us for our rebellion in 1990, for, defending autocracy wholeheartedly, he said, "Sixty years of tyranny are better than an hour of civil strife".

These new audio files shed further light on evil - if that's possible

A Tale of Two Psychos

Several years ago, I spent an unfortunate evening with a very – very – senior police officer. I say unfortunate because anyone who has spent a few minutes with a police officer comes to regret the experience – for some reason, their ranks are not chosen from those of gentlemen.

Nevertheless, tolerating the chap paid off.

We got around to discussing our two banshees – otherwise known as our two begums. Now, he was, as I observed, a very – very – senior officer; yet something made him voluble that evening (no, we weren't boozing).

He said that our two leaders were insane.

He didn't exactly use that word; the words he used were "not normal". And why were they not normal?

"They have both lost someone close in bloody murders," he explained. "That has affected them. We know: we have to deal with them, and there are things they do that we cannot communicate to anyone else."

He certainly didn't communicate them to me.

But it stands to reason. Sheikh Hasina lost almost her entire family in a hail of bullets, and Khaleda Zia's husband was gunned down in machine-gun fire.


Now, most politicians are abnormal to start with (no one in his or her right mind would choose such a profession: "all political careers end in failure" observed a failed politician; and some, fortunately, end in assassination).

Therefore, we are ruled alternately by two psychopaths. During the resent massacre at BDR, neither psycho evinced the slightest sense of regret at the loss of lives and, in the case of some ladies, of honour as well.

They are unable to empathise with human sorrow (maybe they have soft spots, like Europeans, for lower forms of life, but none for humans). Yet we are at their mercy: at the mercy of psychopaths.

Many of us have seen the films SAW I, II, III, IV, V....Imagine yourself locked up in a tiny cell and Hasina or Khaleda looking on to see how painfully you are going to die or hurt yourself. Well, Bangladesh is that cell, and each of us is alone, and anything may befall us at anytime.

Unlike a psycho, they have a major advantage: they cannot be held accountable. They are irreplaceable; one is the daughter, the other the wife, of national heroes. And they know that they can never be replaced, and are above all law and all morality.

Could any despotism be worse than our predicament?

It wasn't the butler...

Well, it wasn't the butler - ie, the JMB.

Suppose the JMB did it: why then didn't the prime minister send the army right after the first call from General Shakil, when he sensed a mutiny in the ranks?

Second, why did it take the tanks 32 hours to get from Savar to Dhaka?

Third, how did 7,000 people escape the precincts of the BDR?

Fourth, who turned off the lights so they could escape?

Fifth, when the officers grilled the PM, they said nothing about the JMB - they are not fools, you know.

They blamed only one person - the prime minister (and General Moeen the previous day).

Sixth, Director General of RAB, Hasan Mahmud Khondoker, when asked about possible militant involvement firmly dismissed the idea: "Religious militancy in Bangladesh is under control of law-enforcing agencies at the moment (Bangladesh Observer, 12 March 2008, p 8).

However, a Daily Star report of the same day, by its journalist Anwar Ali ("back from Bagmara, Rajshahi") says: "At least four of the mutineers of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) are believed to have been active members of Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) before they joined the paramilitary force."

And according to the Hindustan Times, Commerce Minister Lt Col (Retd) Faruq Khan said: "...some JMB connections have been found.(http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=HomePage&id=e9430d03-4297-4b5f-a48a-27e547872d91&Headline=Dhaka+sees+terror+link+in+BDR+mutiny)"

And the Daily Star, in the same issue, was quick to confirm the militant's hand in the article: "Terror struck back at its buster" (the Star covers up its poor syntax and grammar with exuberantly mysterious headlines). Translation: Colonel Gulzar, who had been instrumental in subjugating the JMB, was among the officers dead and so mutilated that it took a DNA test to identify his body; ergo, the JMB did it.

Yet in the 4th March issue, the Star had already said: " 4 more bodies identified
3 others await DNA test; 5 army officers still missing; investigators rummage through BDR HQ for evidence."

Indeed, in the 12th March issue, after describing how Colonel Gulzar's father had been killed in 1971 by the Pakistan army, the report goes on to say: " There were five unidentified bodies rescued from mass graves or sewers. These bodies bear the marks of severe brutality. Only a DNA test could confirm who is who. Gulzar's family could not say if one of those bodies was his.

"Organic samples from these bodies were collected and close relatives of the missing army officers also gave blood samples for the DNA testing. Samples were cross-checked with Gulzar's 14-year-old daughter Zahin Tasnia's genetic imprint.

"On Tuesday, two of the DNA test results popped up, one identifying Lt Col Elahi Monjur Chowdhury and the other Gulzar."

Therefore, Colonel Gulzar's body wasn't the only mutilated body found – therefore, the killers did not single him out for special mutilation.


To sum up: we have the DG Rapid Action Battalion categorically denying any militant involvement (Observer, March 12, p8); the Daily Star observed: " When asked about the involvement of Islamist militant outfits and the United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa) in the mutiny Rab DG averted the query and said the Islamist militants are now under complete control of the law-enforcement agencies.(12th March, p1)."

But, the Commerce Minister insinuates that there were "some" JMB links. Why was he speaking about a pending investigation in the first place?

As to intelligence failure, that's no surprise. A few years ago I was speaking to a government officer, and I was told that the intelligence branches were now totally occupied in assessing the loyalty, not only of army officers but even junior level government officers, to the two political parties.

"When would they get the time to do any intelligence work?" he asked me, rhetorically.

Many of the army's top brass are Awami League loyalists: they are leaning hard on the investigators to cover things up and lead the inquiry into another direction. Like every institution, the army is highly politicized: those loyal to Sheikh Hasina will never allow an open investigation, so it is alleged. Hence the JMB red herring, which, in fact, started off in the Indian newspapers.

"The Jamaat-e-Islami, which would suffer the most in any 1971 war crimes trial, is believed to be the main conspirator with the shadow of Pakistan, whose president has appealed to Hasina to defer the trials, lurking. ...


"If Jamaat's role in the massacre is conclusively established, Islamic radicals will risk the army's wrath. That's not bad for Hasina. Hopefully, the mutiny won't make her back out on the war crimes trials and cases related to the Sheikh Mujib murder and Chittagong arms seizure. If she doesn't go all out to decimate her Islamist rivals politically, she could be looking at another conspiracy." This was published in – of all papers – the Times of India (TOP ARTICLE Clear and Present Danger, 10 March 2009 http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=HomePage&id=e9430d03-4297-4b5f-a48a-27e547872d91&Headline=Dhaka+sees+terror+link+in+BDR+mutiny

So, the JMB-militant-Jamaat theory emanated from – where else? – India, and that's the direction the Awami League, aided by its generals and newspapers like the Daily Star, in turn backed by the western donor community, will take us – up the garden path (or is it down?).

Meanwhile, the army so despises General Moeen that even majors are reluctant to salute him. If he resigns in the next few days, he will retire with a modicum of honour. Otherwise he'll go down in ignominy in the sorry annals of this sorry nation.

It wasn't the butler that did it, though – it was the maidservant.

The Dual Dictatorship

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Dual-Dictatorship-by-Iftekhar-Sayeed-090309-281.html

(click link above for article)

Western donor governments, especially America, have created civil wars in several Muslim countries by imposing democracy: in the next few months, Bangladesh will probably be added to the list.


Excerpt:

" But the unholy alliance between the army and the two politicians has been forged under the watchful eyes of the western donors. They saw it happening: true, they tried to get rid of the two 'begums' (banshees, rather) in a minus-two formula (exile or jail), but such was the tenacious loyalty of the followers (especially of Hasina's), that it proved impossible. Where, prior to 1991, we had one dictator, now we were destined to be blessed with two."

The army and the prime minister of Bangladesh

For background, visit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7911524.stm


[For those who know Bengali, it is strongly recommended that you visit this site:

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=58213462185&topic=6839]




Even 10-year-old girls were raped, murdered and interred. The BDR jawans stripped the officers' wives and kicked them in the back and legs, and forced them to walk in this condition. The officers were pierced with bayonets into mincemeat.


When, on the night of the 26th, Mrs. Moeen, the army chief's wife, came to Mirpur Cantonment to see the female victims, she got an icy reception. Usually, the docile and respectful wives of the officers would rise, greet her and go towards her – not on this occasion. She left the premises silently.

What was it that prevented General Moeen U. Ahmed from sending tanks to their rescue post haste?

After the incident, the American ambassador has again and again lauded him for supporting the recently democratically elected government of Sheikh Hasina. Why?

Were these, then, his alternatives, his choices: (a) either to back the civilian government of Sheikh Hasina and abandon the officers to their fate or (b) to bypass the civilian government (that is, take over state power) and help his officers?

It is becoming more and more evident that the the events of 25th and 26th February at Pilkhana has the ruling party's signature all over it. As well as the army's – that is, a part of it.

Over the last sixteen years of two-party politics, every institution has been politicized: the bureaucracy was the first to go to the dogs, then the judiairy and the army. The most egregious example of the latter was when Sheikh Hasina took General Mustafiz out – yes, out – of retirement (he was on LPR – leave preparatory to retirement) and made him army chief again for his loyalty to the dynasty (he was, in fact, related to Hasina, and the whole family are rabid supporters of the League). Apparently, the General was only 'slightly retired', as in 'slightly dead' or 'slightly pregnant'. The other leader – Khaleda Zia of the BNP – did exactly the same in office.


So, when democracy was restored after a two-year military interregnum spearheaded by General Moeen and backed by the western donor governments, the army was more or less evenly divided between those loyal to Hasina and those loyal to Khaleda.

Now, Hasina has a greater following: she is regarded as a continuation of her father, Sheikh Mujib, the demagogue who inadvertently created Bangladesh. Her followers regard her incarceration under military rule as an unpardonable act of lese-majeste. They were baying for blood.

And, it seems, they got it.

But the unholy alliance between the army and the two politicians has been forged under the watchful eyes of the western donors. They saw it happening: true, they tried to get rid of the two 'begums' in a minus-two formula, but such was the tenacious loyalty of the followers (especially of Hasina), that it proved impossible.

Instead of drawing the ineluctable conclusion, as the late Samuel Huntington would have done, that democracy here is a no-go, the west insisted on elections.

In the process, they have ruined every institution that stands between civilisation and barbarism.

*************************************************************************************





[the material below is unedited, and is a first draft...more later]



[On 25th February, 2009, a section of paramilitary forces apparently mutinied against their army officers and killed over 150 of them, raping girls and women, and killing many of them as well]



The prime minister of Bangladesh was supposed to attend a dinner party at the Bangladesh Rifles Headquarters on the fateful day of the 26th of February, 2009. She declined to attend, and instead supervised the march past the previous afternoon. Apparently, she was warned on the 22nd not to accept the offer of dinner at the BDR HQ, but nobody at the BDR HQ knew for sure whether she was coming or not. She was sent the invitation card on the 23nd after 3:00 pm...and then her staff decided that instead of the PM, the Home Minster would attend. But the BDR HQ was nit informed.

Naturally, the PM totally refuses to acknowledge this as true – but the officers insist that this was true.

One officer maintained that the Home Minister left the officers in the hand of the rebels and walked out with only 25 weapons! How could she have done that?

In fact, if the army had been sent to succour them, those who were wounded but still alive would not have died, many women would not have been violated....

The PM's excuse is that the HQ is very big....and it was dark. The Home Minister rescued the families that she could.


Half an hour before the shooting began, General Shakil spoke with Sheikh Hasina, saying that, probably a section, the 54th battalion, of the BDR personnel had rebelled. Shakil was assured by the Prime Minister that the army was on its way.

They were told that forces were on their way from the 46th brigade ... if she had sent in forces then, the officers would not have died.

The rebels entered the Durbar Hall, where the officers were assembled, half an hour after the assurance was given that forces were en route. They started killing after 10:45 / 11:00 am. Everybody was told "They're coming! They're coming!" But nobody came.

At first only 20 to 25 soldiers were circling the Durbar Hall with rifles...They had no live ammunition, but were firing blanks. Ten to fifteen minutes later they broke into the armory and, before of the officers, started shooting inside. They still did not dare to enter the building, even though the officers were unarmed. .

Who put it into her (the PM's) head, that this had to be solved politically?

If the army chief had sent just one talk, or one platoon of commandos, they would have run like ants! [In fact, this is precisely what they did when the tanks turned up on Stamasjid Road, a couple of hundred yards from the scene – but the tanks arrived after 32 hours!]

The rebels had only one desire – to kill army officers. And this hatred for the army had been engendered by the politicians.

Parliamentary sessions broadcast on TV show that the ruling party MPs keep preaching hatred against the army. [Is a fact that both Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina had been kept in a makeshift jail for two years by the army. Every person loyal to the Awami League – like everyone in my family, for instance – hates the army for this reason. Yet the army was merely carrying out the instructions of western powers!]


After General Shakil spoke with the prime minister, the army chief, the director general of the Rapid Action Battalion...they waited, in vain.

There were 2,200 soldiers who were involved in the tattoo show and they comprised the initial group of rebels [remember that on the 26th, the BDR officers were still expecting the PM to come: hence the arrangements for the tattoo]. And who encouraged them? Outside the New Market gate, civilians were shouting through megaphones "Don't worry! The people are with us!" Who were these civilians?


Shakil told the officer the troops were on their way: but they never came.

A few jawans fired blanks – they weren't even armed. It was half an hour later that they broke into the armory and, in front of the officers in the Durbar Hall, armed themselves.

The officers were forced to march in single file, and the moment General Shakil stepped outside the door, four people came from outside and shot the General four times in the chest.

They not only killed the officers, they pierced them with bayonets - after killing them. If the PM had sent in troops, they wouldn't have dared to do this. They had no leadership till 1:00 pm...and then they started becoming organized.

There were around 7,500 to 9,000 soldiers – plus their families – in the BDR HQ – and they all escaped overnight. How?

The strength of a battalion is 840; there were 4 battalions; that makes it roughly 3200 soldiers; there were over 1,200 in HQ; 2,225 soldiers came with various attachments; signal personnel....altogether 9,000 to 10,000 soldiers were posted there – and their families of the same number. Now, the question is: how did so many people creep ant-like out of the HQ...who allowed this to happen?

MP Golam Reza was able to take out 10 army officers and certain families. He warned one of them not to say anything against the BDR because then many officers and their families were still inside the BDR.


If you ask a second lieutenant which Generals will lose their jobs when the Awami League loses power and the BNP form a government....the army has been thoroughly politicized over the last 18 years of political rule.

A certain colonel had not been given promotion by the senior officers, for whatever reason, after Sheikh Hasina became PM he became deputy commander of her regiment! He had not received his comeuppance because he 'smelt' of the Awami League under BNP rule!

Why should a general be promoted on the instructions of the PM?

If it was found that the son of the paternal sister of the maternal uncle was a BNP man, then the officer so (unfortunately) related would not get a promotion!



The PM insists that the army had been immediately deployed. One soldier died and another even received a bullet wound to his head. "If it'll take a long time to send the army, then tell the air force to send a helicopter so they'll be scared and won't do anything further."

The PM maintains that she had worked with the army, and if it hadn't been made a civilian affair then many more people might have been killed. [This claim sits oddly with the fact that the mere sight of the tanks sent the rebels – indeed the entire force inside HQ – running for cover.]

"As for the soldiers escaping, gate number 5 was totally open." Why was it open? And how did thousands leave through that aperture? "

"As for the civilian processions, I asked the police why they were allowing people to come near the gate?" [It would e incredible if ordinary people were coming near the gate; they – all of us – were terrified out of our wits, and the place was devoid of people.] "There are videos of the processions; why don't you, officers, have a look at the videos and see who was involved?"

On the question of intelligence failure, the PM was heard asking somebody "How many kinds of intelligence branches do we have? What kind of branches?" [She had no idea!]



At Senakunja, officers nearly begged her to issue an immediate order to hunt down the rebels.


"The defence forces have certain rules. We have given them 24 hours to surrender; and we have to wait. We have to give them this time. Search will begin right after 24 hours" This was the prime minister's reply.

Meaning: give them 24 hours to escape?

a diabolic editor - how newspapers back criminal governments in Bangladesh

"we praise the sagacity of the present leadership...."

http://thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=77589


I'm curious; but tell me, Mahfuz Anam, just how many dead bodies would it take for you to CEASE to praise the sagacity of the present political leadership? 200? 500? 1,000?

And how many would it take for you to begin to QUESTION the sagacity of the present political leadership? 10,000?

And how many would it take for you to IMPUGN the sagacity of the present political leadership? 100,000?



"It would have been a most satisfactory ending but for the fact that" - there were just too many dead bodies around, right?

What kind of an editor are you: can you distinguish between sagacity and stupidity? Honesty from mendacity? A mission accomplished from a bungled and botched operation?



"some unseen quarters with an ill motive..."

http://thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=77743

Well, they got all the help they needed from our government, didn't they?

They got away scot-free, with the lights turned off, after getting more than enough time to go on an orgy of killing, looting, burning, and more - from inside the city, under the gaze of the entire nation, with the military only a few blocks away!

With friends like these....


"Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina showed tremendous sagacity, farsightedness and patience in handling the crisis."

http://thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=77746

Does that include waiting 32 hours before deploying tanks, Mahfuz Anam?


"PRIME Minister Sheikh Hasina's stern call hs had the desired effect, and has led to the surrender of the rebel BDR troops. This brought to a peaceful end in Dhaka to what can be termed as the most serious...."

http://thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=77589


That giant sucking sound was that of the lips of the Daily Star editor coming off the backside of the prime minister.

It wasn't the prime minister's speech that ended the mutiny: it was the tanks.

It took 32 hours for tanks to be deployed: incredible!

The entire affair could have been ended in at most 10 minutes if the army had been allowed by the prime minister to act in its professional capacity. The army's arsenal was several thousand times that of the BDR personnel with their peashooters.

But for the amnesty and the shocking delay, the wives of the officers would have been spared the indignity they suffered. For once, Khaleda Zia has spoken the truth and put the blame where it belongs: why were the lights turned off, why were the soldiers withdrawn...?

This was not a civilian issue, but an issue for the military: yet civilians went in waving white flags and claiming to be 'like the mothers of the jawans'. There was absolutely no sense of urgency, as though a picnic had gone wrong

Die Nasty: The Sins of the Fathers

The sins of the parents visit the child.

Consider the fate of Benazir Bhutto. She was warned not to come to Pakistan. It was almost like a Greek chorus hissing disapproval, yet powerless to do anything. She was destined to death.

For the sins of her father.

At an Oxford debate, an opponent described her father's calling as that of “a tradesman of some description. A butcher, I gather.” She looked like she had been slapped across her mug.

The speaker was referring to the genocide of 1971 for which half the blame must rest with her father.

The other half must rest with the other demagogue elected from East Pakistan – Sheikh Mujib. Together, they destroyed the lives of hundreds and thousands of people. And both men died violent, unnatural deaths. I was fifteen when Sheikh Mujib was killed – and I still remember the nationwide jubilation at his passing.

When there's no other way to remove a dynasty –the ballot cannot do that – there remains only one way: the bullet.

Sheikh Hasina has received intelligence report that she is on an international terrorist hit list. They say there have been 21 attempts on her life – which if true, reflects very badly on the military prowess of the jihadis. Kidding aside, how long does Sheikh Hasina have – a year, two years?

I'm not a betting man, but if I were to wager a significant amount, I would take a punt on 1 year – that is, 2009. Before the year's out, she'll be out. Of course I could be wrong about the timing, but it's a foregone conclusion. Just a matter of time.

And then? The dynasty will renew itself, and there will be more assassinations...nemesis, like evil, never tires.

US Ambassador Votes in Bangladesh Election

Why did the US Ambassador to Bangladesh, James Moriarty, want the nationalist (described fallaciously as 'secularist') Awami League to win the election of 2008 – which they did, with a two-thirds majority?

This is not the first time that an election has been rigged on the sly – the last election of 2001 was rigged in favour of the BNP and its cronies, according to a reliable bureaucratic source (as well as mathematical analysis, see http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_RSPPSQS) .

After all, it was the United States (plus Europe) that wanted the two banshees – I mean, begums – out of power, permanently. This was the famous "minus-two formula", backed by the western donors and the army (itself backed by the donors). After all, these two women – Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia – were giving democracy a bad name and creating another failed, Muslim state: the last thing the west needed.

But the minus-two plan backfired: there can be no alternative leaders in Bangladesh because there can be no democracy in Bangladesh. The old dynasties were destined to remain, as in India and Pakistan.

So, Plan B, it seems, was to allow elections, but make sure the anti-mullah Awami League won a landslide (like the pro-mullah BNP did in 2001): the world can still be shown that Islam and democracy are not oil and water.

The 2001 experiment – allowing the pro-mullah party and indeed quite a few mullahs to win – had not worked. The idea then was to co-opt the mullahs into the democratic process: but the best-laid plans....

Now what?

Militants have sworn to assassinate Sheikh Hasina. Perhaps the west will allow that to happen, and then ask the army to take over (again). That would be a Machiavellian minus-one policy.

At any rate, westerners know that democracy will never work so long as these two women are there, with their blindly loyal followers. Not that George Bush is out, will Barack Obama continue to try and spread democracy? Or is he pragmatic enough to realise that some things just aren't possible? After all, it was under Bill Clinton that Pervez Musharraf took over power in Pakistan. His team is back in Washington, and they do not appear to have an evangelical passion for the worldwide expansion of democracy.


At any rate, it all depends on Washington – not the people of Bangladesh.

changing the diapers

Politicians, like diapers, need to be changed, and for the same reason.

Our politicians stink to high heaven – they've been around for smelly decades. Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia are walking stink-bombs, yet we don't even hold our noses.

It took a suicidal attack to remove the awful pong of Benazir Bhutto. But her husband is still there, mal-odoriferous.

Then there's Nawaz Sharif, twice flushed down the commode, run into the sewer, and back, all soiled and dirty and covered in faeces.

India twice removed the diapers – and very violently too. The first time they got rid of Indira, and the second time they unbundled her son.

In Bangladesh we nearly removed the nappies on one occasion, but Sheikh Hasina survived.

Why don't we change the diapers? It seems we love ordure and odour, the messier and smellier, the better. That, or our olfactory nerve (and cerebral cortex) is severely damaged.