Beyond Oct 25: Is the country sliding towards an apocalypse?

October 12, 2013

M. Serajul Islam

Our legislators whom we respectfully refer to as Honourable Members of Parliament have perfected a system where they have rendered the opposition redundant once elections are fought and the winner forms the government. Thus we have a multi-party democracy till the elections.  Once the elections are held, the opposition, partly because of its mindset not to accept defeat and partly because of the arrogance of the winner, stays away from the parliament thus turning our system in reality into a parliamentary democracy without a functional opposition. This time, the AL seems determined to doing away with the “farce” of having any opposition in our parliamentary system for which it has amended the Constitution (15th Amendment) to introduce a “one party democracy” in the country.

As Bangladesh braces for that eventuality, there is widespread concern and apprehension that the AL’s attempt to change the system would not be easy. There is consensus among the people, outside the inner circle of the ruling party, that the only way to save Bangladesh sliding towards the apocalypse is to hold national elections participated by all political parties.  Bangladesh today is staring into the barrel of the gun because of the way the two mainstream parties have played politics over the last two decades ironically, after they had come together and had overthrown the military dictatorship of Hussein Muhammad Ershad with overwhelming popular support to establish democracy in the country. Even more ironic is the fact that the former dictator is now lecturing his former adversaries about democracy and people are listening!

Menacing war of words

At the time of filing this article, the Prime Minister has reiterated her determination to hold elections her way fully aware that under it, the opposition BNP would not participate. The Leader of the Opposition has said that there is no way that she would allow the Prime Minister to hold elections her way. She warned that when the Prime Minister ends her legal tenure of the government as the elected Prime Minister and becomes the Interim Prime Minister on October 26th, her party with its allies would take to the streets to force her to hold “inclusive” national elections under a neutral non-party government. Begum Khaleda Zia has called for resistance committees at the grassroots level to stop the AL led government from holding one-party elections in the country.

As logic would have it, there is no way that both could be right. As to who is right has been debated both publicly and privately. The conclusion is there for all to see. The people have spoken that elections must be held with the participation of all parties with a level playing ground. The people have also spoken that it is the responsibility of the government to discuss with the opposition for finding a way out for holding the “inclusive” elections. They have further spoken that the elections must be within the Constitution that they feel can be done by the ruling party as effortlessly as it amended the Constitution to ensure that the elections would be held under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina because of its ¾ majority in parliament. The people support the BNP’s demand for election under a non-party government because it is the same demand that the AL had made in 1996 and had forced the BNP led government to accept.

The AL led government, however, is showing little interest to talk with the opposition to come to an understanding although the way the Prime Minister is addressing public meetings and identifying the BNP as the opposition gives a faint hope that it is “inclusive” national elections she may have in mind. Nevertheless, no one really can predict what would happen to the country if the AL led government crossed the Red Line drawn by the BNP. When the country gets to that point, one thing would however be certain that Sheikh Hasina stood against pressure from international powers that in the past no Bangladesh leader had even dared to think let alone do. She has done so also when the majority of the country’s people want her to talk with the opposition to find a way out of the dangers towards which she is leading the country. 

Hobson’s choice

Therefore, people are scratching their heads to find out the reasons that are encouraging her to follow such a destructive course. Some are also suggesting that the ruling party has left itself with no alternative but to try and return to power at any cost. Therefore they say that the AL will hold the elections with its allies and hope that the BNP would eventually come to participate under Hasina’s Interim Government because it is impatient to do so. If the BNP stays away, the AL would then argue that the elections have been fair and the BNP should take the blame for not participating. 

Others argue that the ruling party would not do anything before October 25th to make the BNP happy. It will give a date for the elections following the provisions in the 15th Amendment word for word and see what sort of opposition that the BNP would be able to muster in the streets. Therefore, they further argue that eventually whether it would be the Prime Minister who would have her way or the Leader of the Opposition hers would depend on the show of strength in the streets after October 25th. There are still others who argue in favour of yet a different outcome. They agree with those who think that the election issue will go to the streets but do not think it will be decided there. They do not see any chance of the AL led government holding elections under the present Prime Minister and returning back for yet another five-year term. Likewise, they do not see the elections that the BNP wants under a neutral non-party government. They are certain that the street fights would cause civil order to collapse leaving the armed forces with no alternative but to intervene.

Those who see the intervention of the armed forces as certain also believe that such intervention could be nightmarish and more dangerous than the other scenarios that are also dangerous.  They think that in the January, 2007 intervention, the armed forces acted as a unified force and were anxious to step in and capture political power. This time, things are different. The extra-constitutional forces have shown no inclination whatever to step in because there are a number of serious issues concerning the armed forces that have not been satisfactorily resolved. Therefore, those who think that the intervention of the armed forces is unavoidable think that if the forces intervened, it would not be as orderly. They fear that it could lead to a more dangerous situation than the political parties fighting in the streets. 

Lone ranger?

These scenarios together with the consequences of each are also well known to both the parties. The public is deeply concerned why the ruling party is doing nothing when powerful countries/institutions like the United States, the EU, China, the United Nations have all said that the way out is to talk with the opposition to hold elections that would be free, fair, transparent and “inclusive.” This concern is leading many to believe that the AL led government is being backed by some powerful entity in pursuing its policy of “its way or the highway”. Increasingly, they are pointing the finger at India that has so far not joined the international voice for the national demand in Bangladesh for an election that would include both the ruling party and the BNP. Those who point the finger at India do so because they believe that New Delhi needs another term of the Awami League to institutionalize its security concerns and to achieve the land transit on a permanent basis.

They point at sudden interest of India in Bangladesh with the transfer of 250MW of electricity to Bangladesh’s national grid and the foundation laying ceremony of the Ramphal joint venture to establish their point. They consider these Indian initiatives as possible signs that New Delhi is standing behind the AL led government. The sale of electricity has been welcomed; the foundation laying ceremony of Ramphal, not so. It is indeed a matter of regret that the Indians went ahead with Ramphal after witnessing widespread discontent in Bangladesh over it.  It is also a matter of regret that the Indians failed to see the element of obstinacy on part of the AL led Government. Originally, the foundation ceremony date was set for October 21st. The ceremony was brought forward to October 5th after the opponents of the project served the government the October 11th deadline to abandon it.

India’s dilemma

In Bangladesh, almost every body believes that India does not allow any project as close to the Sunderbans as Ramphal. With Ramphal, the Indians have thus added another issue to the LBA/Teesta deals and the border killings to disappoint Bangladesh. Nevertheless, India, without contributing in anyway, finds itself in a position as it did in 1971. By encouraging the AL towards a credible, inclusive national election, it could help Bangladesh overcome its greatest political crisis since 1971 and overcome its disappointment over Teesta and LBA deals and border killings.  By backing it to hold national elections without the BNP, India would help create for Bangladesh a major catastrophe where its concerns with security and land transit would be up for grabs because the AL government that would come to power through such an election would simply be unable to govern. The choice whether Bangladesh would slide towards the apocalypse or come back from the brink thus rests to a large extent on India. India therefore should do the right thing and deal with Bangladesh and not with a political party.

The writer is a retired career Ambassador

The shutdown of US government

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October 6th 2013 M. Serajul Islam

The US Congress has shut down the US federal government by refusing to pass the US federal government budget effective from midnight September 30. US’ financial year is from October 1 to September 30. Explicitly, it is the Republicans in the House of Representatives who hold the majority who have caused the shutdown. Even more explicitly, it is the small caucus or faction in the Republican Party known in Washington as the Tea-Party faction, a group of 70, is responsible for the present unbelievable predicament of the US government. In fact, it is even a smaller group within the Tea Party faction that has caused the shutdown.

The whole political drama has emerged out of the opposition of the Republican Party to a flagship legislation of President Obama on healthcare. Officially called the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the legislation has been the major issue of conflict between the Republicans and the Democrats in recent times. Although the ACA was passed by both Houses of the Congress and signed into law in March 2010, it was nevertheless a major issue upon which the presidential election was fought last year. President Obama won the election convincingly. The Republicans fought the law in the Supreme Court that ruled it as constitutional. Thus, the ACA Act was set to go into execution from October 1.

The Tea Party members of the US House of Representatives fought the ACA at the grassroots in the 2012 House elections. They were elected by their conservative constituents to fight the Act in order to de-legalise it. Of course, they did not have the numbers. They influenced the other members of their Party in the House to join their opposition to the Law. They demanded that the ACA should be scrapped but did not have the majority in Senate to do so. They therefore used the Republican Party’s majority in the House to force the government to defer the ACA for a year and tied such a demand with their approval to fund the government for the next financial year starting from October 1.

The President firmly turned down the demand, stressing that the government would not give in to what he called “blackmail”. He insisted that the ACA has become law and the Supreme Court has declared it as constitutional. He therefore dismissed the demand of the Republican Party as unacceptable. He offered to sit with the Republicans to negotiate with aspects of the Act to improve it but not under threat of shutdown of the government. He insisted, however, that he would not do anything to take away from the average American their right to healthcare that has historically been denied to them, as they were unable to buy costly health insurance. In fact, US is the only developed country where nearly 50 million of its citizens do not have healthcare and have to treat themselves with off the counter medicine by self-doctoring!

The House Republicans have set the United States on course where the outcome would be harmful to the country by every consideration. The President is legally and politically in no position to oblige the Republicans. The Republicans cannot hold defunding the government indefinitely. The last time the Congress did something comparable was 17 years ago when President Clinton was in office and that shutdown had lasted for 21 days. This time, at the time of filing this article, the way out is uncertain. There is however another dangerous conservative agenda coming on October 17 that the GOP would like to bring into play.

October 17 is the deadline for Congress to raise the debt ceiling. The GOP has said that it will not raise the debt ceiling unless the request is tied to cut in government expenditure. The Republicans would like to keep the government on leash on the shutdown till it gets it to act according to its demand on the debt ceiling. The demand on the debt ceiling is even more dangerous in the context of the possible consequences. The denial to pass the budget has placed the government on a course towards peril with 800,000 of three million federal employees sent home on leave without pay, the government has also ceased to provide essential services. Apart to hardships to these federal workers, the shutdown is causing the government US$ 1 billion a week! The refusal to raise the debt ceiling would force the US to default on its international payments and adversely impact on US economy in a manner whose damage would reverberate for years to come.

The irrationality in GOP’s demands on the issue of passing the budget and the debt ceiling was brought home to Americans when President Obama addressed the nation on the first day of the shutdown. On the opposition to the ACA, President Obama explained that it was made into law within the due process of the American Constitution and Americans have backed it when they voted him to power last tine. The Supreme Court also declared it as constitutional. On the debt ceiling, President Obama said since the Reagan administration, the Congress has on more than 40 occasions considered requests from the White House for raising the debt ceiling and has passed such requests each time without a question as a routine matter. He further explained that the request for raising the debt ceiling would not lead to the US tax payer taking even an extra cent of liability and that the government would not be able to spend an extra cent without appropriation of the Congress even after its approval to increase the debt ceiling.

In their frustration, the GOP is restating, or trying to do so, the US system of government. On a CNN talk show, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich defended the action of the Tea Party faction. He said in USA, the legislature and the executive are equal under the Constitution. Therefore the argument that the ACA cannot be scrapped because it is the law and the President had won support for the Act from the people is not good because the legislators who are now trying to bring it down have the right to do so because the people who elected them want it. What the former Speaker failed to bring into his argument is the fact that only a small number of Republicans belonging to Tea Party faction have caused the shutdown.

In fact, according to reports, only 20 or so Tea Party members were actually responsible for the unbelievable shutdown. It is now common knowledge that if Speaker John Boehner puts the issue to vote, it would pass the House easily as many Republicans was ready to do so. Across the country, opinion polls have shown that great majority of the people are opposed to the shutdown and would want it to end immediately. In one poll, 46% have blamed the Republican Party against 36% who blamed the Democrats. While the Republicans have been blamed for their irrational and unreasonable attitude, the Democrats have been faulted for their adamant attitude not to negotiate the ACA by an attitude that the Republicans have described as “my way or the highway.”

Hopefully, the shutdown would end soon and rationality would return in the Congress. Till that happens, the shutdown has come for those who have little knowledge on how the US system operates as something unbelievable. We who lose our sleep over the senselessness of hartals in Bangladesh may take heart that in the country that is the world’s only Super Power, something more inexplicable is happening. A small caucus or faction of, as reports suggest, 20 legislators within one of the major parties of the country that holds the majority in the Congress has brought the government to a standstill and there is little the country’s powerful President, the rest of the Congress, in fact the rest of the country where there is widespread anger and frustration, can do unless and until the Tea party legislators see reason.

The writer is a retired career Ambassador
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On shutdown of the US government

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Post Editorial 

Saturday, 05 October 2013 

Author / Source: M. Serajul Islam 
 

Believe it or not, the US Congress has closed down the US government indefinitely since the 1st of October. The Republican Party controlled House of Representative refused to pass the budget to fund the federal government for the new US financial year that starts on 1st of October. The Republican Party refused to pass the budget to force the President to scrap the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that was scheduled to become effective from the 1st of October. The GOP wanted the President either to scrap the ACA or defer it for another year.

Under pressure to scrap the ACA or defer it, the President remained steadfast. He insisted that he would not give in to what he called blackmail. The President made clear that the ACA is not negotiable for irrefutable reasons. First, it has become the law, passed in both Houses of the Congress and singed into law by the President in March 2010. Second, the ACA was a major issue in the last presidential election. President Obama won that election convincingly and thus also a mandate for the ACA. Third, the Act was taken to the US Supreme Court that ruled it as constitutional. The President wanted the Republican Party to de-link the ACA from the budget and assured that he would sit with the Congress to discuss elements of the Act that were of concern to them.

The President had another major reason to remain steadfast. United States is the only country in the developed world where almost 50 million people are outside the healthcare system. These people have only medicine available across the counter to treat themselves by “self-doctoring.” Under the ACA, every American would have to take health insurance or face a tax penalty. The penalty has been designed to bring every American under the healthcare system. The Act has various slabs of health insurance and has been designed to be affordable to even the poor of the country. A major element of the ACA is that it compels insurance companies to insure individuals with previous healthcare issues and removes the cap that previously allowed insurance companies to stop payment when costs reached a ceiling.

The ACA is by no means the perfect and there could be amendments to improve it. However, the GOP opposes it for reasons that are very difficult to understand unless one looks at it with the mindset of a conservative American. The opposition emerges from the cardinal belief of the conservatives that the less the government involvement in the lives of the people, the better is governance. For that, if America failed to provide healthcare to a huge number of its unfortunate citizens, so be it! It is not just this tragic fact that fails to motivate the conservatives in the United States towards universal healthcare, the fact that under existing system patients are sent home to die because of the ceiling do not encourage them to look favourably at the ACA.

There is another element in the unbelievable political drama in which the US government finds itself. The predicament has been caused not by the Republican Party acting together united and opposed to the ACA. The situation has been caused by a smaller faction within the GOP known in Washington as the Tea Party faction. The Tea Party faction is a group of legislators organized predominantly in the House of Representatives who came together in 2010 to represent extremist views of their constituents who see little or nothing good in the federal government. They therefore oppose almost all rational endeavour of the government that means spending and/or extending the activities of the government or as now is the case with the shut down, even the existing functions of the government. The Tea Party, since it emerged, has created many obstacles to governance but nothing of the scale as in the current shut down.

The Tea Party faction is a group of 70 or so legislators that was established as a faction within the Republican Party in 2010 is trying to force the Party towards extremist position on all issues of governance. It was widely reported that had the House Speaker John Boehner shown the courage to take the budget bill to the floor of the House, it would have been passed with enough Republicans willing to support the House Democrats as they saw the dangers and the irrationality of their Tea party colleagues to force the shut down. The shut down, depending on how long it continues, would have dangerous consequences upon the federal government forcing losses up to many billions of dollars. Nearly 800,000 of the country’s 3 million employees have been sent home on leave without pay and many services of the government have stopped.

America’s standing has thus taken a major beating internationally leading an African leader to call the US “a banana republic.” However, from the standpoint of US’ position internationally, the real threat is still ahead. The Republican Party, urged by the Tea Party, is gearing to deny the President’s request for raising the debt ceiling.
The deadline for a green signal to that White House request is October 17th. In the present uncompromising mood of the Tea Party faction, that request tied to proposals to cut down federal expenditure, is also likely to be turned down. That would be a major catastrophe because that would cause US to default on its overseas payments. If events came down to that, US would lose even its claim to be a “banana republic.”

President Obama addressed the nation the day after the shut down. His explanation of the present shutdown and the possibility of a denial to raise the debt ceiling left many wondering whether the US is really sliding towards a big political black hole. President Obama explained the ACA and why he could not give in to the GOP demands, as it was already the law of the land, a law enacted by the due process and mandated by the people. On the debt ceiling, he explained that since the Reagan administration, over 40 requests for raising debt ceilings were sent to the House and all granted as a routine manner and approved as such. He further explained that the executive branch couldn’t spend a single cent without appropriation of the Congress and hence tying debt ceiling to government expenditure is nothing but a strategy tantamount to blackmailing the administration.

Newt Gingrich, former House Speaker, made a very interesting point on the current impasse in US politics. He argued that in the US system, the executive and the legislature are equally powerful. Therefore, if the President felt that the AH cannot be scrapped because it has the support of the people, the same argument can be made by the legislators to scrap it because they were elected by the people to do so! Clearly, rationality is taking leave of those the rest of the world has been led to believe were the best of legislators! In fact, the legislators who have shut down the government in Washington are politicians who have the same mindset as politicians who support hartal in Bangladesh.

A final point on the incredible drama now unfolding in Washington is the issue of name. The ACA is popularly called the Obamacare. In an interview, respondents were asked whether they supported the ACA. They answered positively but with a few reservations. When they were asked about Obamacare, the response was unconditionally negative. When the interviewer pointed out the two were the same, they replied that they did not know! In fact, many analysts feel that the ACA has run into trouble because of its name and there many see a clear sign of the racial content of the present shut down of the US federal government.

The longer the Republicans delay funding the government, the more the blame will fall on the Party with a Washington Post/ABC poll showing only 26% approving the shut down, with special ire for the Republican Party that could be creating for itself a disaster for the House elections in 2014. A Washington Post editorial on October 2nd has called the House a “House of Embarrassment” out of utter frustration.

The writer is a retired career Ambassador

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Does Delhi want to push Dhaka to the brink?

 

4th October, 2011

HASINA-MANMOHON MEETING

M. Serajul Islam

A New Delhi-based official news agency BSS correspondent has been giving spin in the media more out of some mysterious hand’s direction than reality on the way Bangladesh-India relations are fading out with the terms of the AL led government in Dhaka and the Congress led Government in New Delhi ending soon. In August, report from this source tried to create optimism in Bangladesh with the news that the BJP had come around on the LBA issue and the much-expected LBA agreement bill would be passed in the monsoon session of the Indian parliament.

That did not happen. The same source reported that Mamata Banarjee had conveyed to Manmohon Singh that her party would not oppose the LBA ratification and the Indian Prime Minister would convey this good news to Sheikh Hasina during his meeting with her on the sidelines of the UN. That meeting is now over. Manmohon Singh has not conveyed any good news to Sheikh Hasina from Mamata Banarjee. 

The spins from the New Delhi source notwithstanding, no one really has been surprised that Manmohon Singh did not convey any good news to Sheikh Hasina. Communications Minister Obaidul Qader did not mince words when he criticised New Delhi for its failure to deliver the LBA and the Teesta deals when he said recently: “India must keep in mind that we too are accountable to the people. Friendship is not one-sided. Both sides have to come forward.” Incidentally, the Indian Deputy High Commissioner was present when the Minister expressed his frustrations. Prior to the Manmohon Singh-Sheikh Hasina meeting, Foreign Minister expressed in the media a view diametrically opposite to her cabinet colleague. She said Bangladesh-India relations are now the “best” of all times.” 

Much hyped meeting

Prior to the Sheikh Hasina-Manmohon Singh meeting significant interest was generated among the people of Bangladesh because of the widely held perception in the country that the AL led government is adamant to hold the election its way against national and international opposition because New Delhi is behind it. They thought that in the New York meeting, the Indian Prime Minister would convey to Sheikh Hasina where New Delhi stood over the controversy between the ruling Awami League and the opposition BNP over the way to hold the next election. There were some who thought that the Indian Prime Minister would convey to Sheikh Hasina the need to reconsider holding the election under Interim Government to be headed by her taking into consideration the current reality in Bangladesh’s politics instead of giving her the green signal for a one-party election that would push Bangladesh to the brink. 

The New York meeting did not reveal any clear signs on the critical issue of Bangladesh’s national election. The aides of the Bangladesh Prime Minister and later the Prime Minister herself talked in the media. In these media briefings, it was revealed that the Indian Prime Minister reiterated India’s commitment to deliver the LBA and the Teesta deals. The Indian Prime Minister also congratulated Sheikh Haisna for turning Bangladesh into a terror free country. Sheikh Hasina briefed the Indian Prime Minister about her government’s intention to hold the next election according to the Constitution. She was confident that the EC that had successfully conducted over 5000 local government elections freely and fairly would also be able to hold the national election freely and fairly. Aides of Manmohon Singh did not speak to the media about the meeting. There was also no news from formal and informal sources around the Indian Prime Minister about what really transpired at the meeting, particularly in the 20 minutes exclusive meeting between the two leaders. Manmohon Singh, apparently, did not comment on Sheikh Hasina’s briefing on holding the next election in Bangladesh.

Ended in a failure

The New York meeting thus failed to answer the curiosity of the people of Bangladesh in any manner. Nevertheless, India remains of crucial importance to Bangladesh about what direction politics moves in the course of the next few weeks. In building the international consensus about the way the election issue should be resolved, various countries and world leaders have spoken openly and publicly. The US Secretary of State, the UN Secretary General, the EU, China and Bangladesh’s development partners have urged the AL led government to hold talks with the BNP to ensure a free, fair, transparent and “inclusive” national election. The US Secretary of State and the UN Secretary General have made personal interventions. Side by side, a national consensus outside the ruling party has also emerged for an “inclusive” national election.

The national and international consensus on way to hold the next election in Bangladesh has emerged after the arguments of the Prime Minister and her party have been considered and rejected conclusively outside the ruling party. The case that Sheikh Hasina made with Manmohon Singh that the Election Commission would deliver the country a free and fair election is the weakest. The EC would have to depend entirely on civil bureaucracy and the police for holding the election. 

It is common knowledge in Bangladesh the AL led government has politicized these two vital institutions critical to holding a free and fair election. Further the 15th amendment will allow the AL parliamentarians, some 234 in a total out of 300, to remain as Members of Parliament during the election. With Sheikh Hasina in office, with the civil/police administration heavily politicized, with the speeches of the ruling party leaders and their body language against the opposition, the ruling party has made the perfect case for the non-party government without the BNP’s assistance. A former Minister’s recent threat to the civil bureaucracy/police has extinguished even the feeblest support in the mind of anyone outside the ruling party about elections under a government to be headed by Sheikh Hasina.

For whom the bell tolls

India has its own sources – its High Commission in Dhaka and its independent intelligence in Bangladesh – and thus knows the real situation in Bangladesh; that it is not by a long stretch the way Sheikh Hasina briefed Manmohon Singh. It knows that the AL led government has rendered itself totally immune to any influence, even those from powerful countries and organizations vital to Bangladesh’s development and future, on the issue of election. Of course, it is aware that it has the influence to encourage the AL led government to see the writing on the wall and hold a free, fair, transparent and “inclusive” national election. India thus could bring the country from the brink or push it over the edge by choosing Bangladesh over the interests of a political party that stands alone in what it wants.

There is of course an array of other reasons why India should choose Bangladesh ahead of a political party. India’s own interests are tied with choosing Bangladesh. A one-party election, apart from being un-democratic, would invariably lead to civil disorder where an undemocratically elected AL would just not be able to govern. Such a government would unleash undemocratic forces where terrorists/insurgents and what not would be drawn to Bangladesh like pins to the magnet. That situation would no doubt harm Bangladesh but it would also be a nightmare for India. It would push Bangladesh towards becoming what Condoleezza Rice had in 2005-said “a second Afghanistan” while on a visit to New Delhi.

Then of course there is the fundamental issue of India’s role as the flag bearer of democracy worldwide. That role together with the one as the regional leader should encourage India to use its influence to see a democratic Bangladesh where governments change by participation of all political parties instead of helping a one party election in the country designed to bring a party to power a second term, a party that has itself amended the Constitution with its 3/4th majority designed to keep the major opposition out of the election.

India finds itself in a historic cross road over Bangladesh where the country is looking at New Delhi. The ball has been unwittingly sent to its court. By assisting in ensuring “inclusive” democratic election, India could render itself as a friend of Bangladesh instead of standing behind the Awami League to hold a one-party election that will not help the party to regain and retain power democratically, malign India in Bangladesh and internationally and jeopardize its national interests.

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The writer is a retired career Ambassador.

Dr. Yunus and Grameen Bank An albatross around government's neck

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Published: Wednesday, 02 October 2013

M. Serajul Islam

This government seems to have made a promise to itself that it will continue until the end of its tenure to keep the people guessing on what it would do next with Dr. Yunus and the Grameen Bank (GB). It seems also to have promised, incredible as it may seem, to keep on shooting itself in its own legs over the two issues. Hence, it did not surprise anyone that the Finance Minister has recently served another salvo at the Grameen Bank. He has said that the government has finalized all the formalities to bring the bank under the control of the Bangladesh Bank (BB). While announcing this decision, the Minister expressed his usual disgust with Dr. Mohammad Yunus for a writ his followers in the GB have filed for which the government has been unable so far to appoint a Managing Director.

It is a mystery why the Finance Minister would come out with such an announcement at such a critical time when the ruling party is facing a wide array of serious obstacles in its way of returning to power a second time with elections knocking at the door. The immediate public reaction was that after failing to control public sector banks that have run away with millions of public money, the last thing that the government should have done was to take responsibility of any new financial institution.

In a recent talk show on the issue, a former Awami League minister had something interesting to say while expressing critical view about the Finance Minister's latest statement on the Grameen Bank. He said that Kautilya had written in his famous book Arthasastra, that a government should not put its hand on any financial institution that was working well to change it in anyway. With such institutions, the government should take steps to strengthen it. It seems like no one flagged for our Finance Minister this immortal advice of Kautilya. If this government had known about this advice from Kautilya and acted on it, it could have saved itself from the mess it has created for itself over the GB.

One of the many questions that the people have with the Awami League government is that it, for strange and unknown reasons, has not applied common sense while dealing with the Nobel Laureate and the Grameen Bank. When the government picked up the fight with Dr. Yunus over the Grameen Bank, there were some who were not unhappy because they had reservations about the GB based on economic logic. However, it did not take them long to realize that the government was pursuing the Nobel Laureate and the Grameen Bank not on sound reasons of economics or business but more on matters of personal nature. Soon these people switched sides.

Today, apart from a few people surrounding the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister, there are no two opinions that the government has humiliated Dr. Yunus and the GB in a vindictive way. The people see no sense in the way the government is pursuing the two relentlessly. They also fail to understand why the government would annoy powerful nations and world leaders who have literally pleaded with the government not to pursue the two. To humiliate Dr. Yunus, the government has gone to the extent of accusing him of plainly unlawful actions only to find that while its pursuit to harass him has proceeded in arithmetic progression, his fame and recognition, internationally, has increased in geometric fashion!

For a country that has huge image problem, Dr. Yunus appeared before this government - literally heaven sent - as the priceless playing card for pursing its foreign policy goals with countries that have the power to make or break Bangladesh. He could have opened the government's door in any world capital, taken Bangladesh's case to any world leader, and could have been worth billions of dollars in lobbying value. He could have been the best to happen to Bangladesh for branding. If the government, for reasons that it alone knew, decided not to benefit from what Dr. Yunus had to offer, so be it. It, however, defies logic that the government would go after him with an array of charges, not one of which it was able to prove, with full knowledge that such pursuit would upset and annoy powerful world leaders and Bangladesh's development partners.

This is a political government. The Awami League is the country's oldest political party with glorious traditions. It understands the value of political issues better than most parties in the country's politics. Thus, even if we accept the government's arguments that Dr. Yunus' achievement in winning the Nobel Peace Prize was a very ordinary feat and that his feat of winning almost all prestigious awards available to an international statesman was nothing exceptional, it does not explain how a party with such laudable democratic history could fail to acknowledge what a Director of Grameen Bank said recently in a press meeting.

The Director had said over the government's efforts to break the Grameen Bank down into 19 units that there are 8.4 million Grameen Bank subscribers like her who are all voters. She reminded the government that they and their families would be forced to vote against the ruling party in protest against the way it has humiliated Dr. Mohammad Yunus and tried to bring the bank under its control. That a party that believes in constitutional politics would ignore such a threat or go into denial over it, is simply unbelievable. That the Finance Minister would choose to go out of the way to tell the media that it would bring the Grameen Bank under the control of the Bangladesh Bank just before the elections when the ruling party's chances in the elections are poor, is tantamount to political suicide.

In any case, the government has already taken the GB by the neck and it now has a stranglehold over it. In fact, when Dr. Yunus was removed from the bank as its Managing Director, it was done on the ground that as the GB was under the control of the BB and as BB regulations require MDs of private banks to retire at 65, Dr. Yunus had to go. So why would the Finance Minister tell the media about the government's intentions to bring the GB under the control of the BB now when the latter had already achieved the objective?

The statement of the Finance Minister would only strengthen the resolve of the 8.4 Grameen Bank shareholders to go against the ruling party in the national elections. It would also frustrate many independent voters who have not yet made up their minds.

The writer is a retired career Ambassador. serajul7@gmail.com

Hassan Rouhani heralds thawing of Iran-US relations

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September 29, 2013
M. Serajul Islam

President Hassan Rouhani came to the United Nations at New York for his first interaction with world leaders last week since succeeding Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran’s new President. Ahead of the visit he had written on September 19 a post editorial in The Washington Post that these days is emerging as a new form of diplomacy at the highest level where world leaders use the media to reach audience in another country directly. His Post article, statement at the UN and media engagements in New York have hinted that for the first time since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, serious efforts are underway for thawing of Iran-US relations.

Iran is a major foreign policy occupation of the Obama administration. To his credit, President Obama has been successful in taking the United States away from a military conflict with Iran by deflecting domestic and international pressure arising from the fact that Iran had provided enough evidence of crossing the Red Line in the process of manufacturing the nuclear bomb. He allowed diplomacy a chance and has used sanctions to tighten the noose around the Iranian government on the nuclear issue. It has not been easy doing that as long as Ahmadinejad was the President. He was too provocative to allow the diplomatic option but President Obama was able to withstand his provocations and domestic and international pressure.

President Hassan Rouhani was elected in Iranian elections in June by a landslide winning in the first round with 50.88 percent of votes beating his nearest rival Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf who polled 16.46 percent of the votes. He brings to his august office a number of positive traits for Iran’s rapprochement with the USA and the West. He is already accepted in Iran and abroad as the second reformist to become Iran’s President after Mohammad Khatami who was elected Iran’s first reformist President in 1999 but failed to leave his imprint because of the system of politics in Iran. In the Iranian system, the leader of the clergy is the Supreme Leader and the head of state and the highest-ranking political and religious leader of the country.

What fate awaits Hassan Rouhani is anybody’s guess. The new President however is well endowed intellectually and politically to see Iran through its present crisis where he would need to interact with the West diplomatically in order to meet and overcome the challenges and problems at home a great deal of which has emerged because of the sanctions. He was born into a religious family and earned a degree in law from the university before fall of the Shah’s regime in 1977. He earned a Ph.D. in Islamic Law from the University of Caledonia, Scotland and returned home after Shah’s downfall while he was contemplating going to Harvard. His stay abroad exposed him to the West in a positive way. In Iran, he worked his way in the clergy and became Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, becoming the first cleric to hold that post when he assumed it in 2003. The same year he successfully suspended his country’s clandestine nuclear programme. In addition to his exposure to the West, Hassan Rouhani has a few other plusses in Iran’s politics. He left the country in 1977 in the company of Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. He has also known Iran’s present supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei for 40 years. He has also sat for 25 years in the country’s powerful Supreme National Council.

Hassan Rouhani attracted the attention of the US and the West for campaigning on a promise of “constructive engagement with the USA” during Iran’s presidential elections. In his Washington Post article, Hassan Rouhani reiterated Iran’s desire for thawing of Iran-US relations. Of particular interest to the White House were President Rouhani’s offer for “constructive engagement” and the context in which he explained the offer. Hassan Rouhani wrote: “The world has changed. International politics is no longer a zero-sum game but a multi-dimensional arena where cooperation and competition often occur simultaneously. Gone is the age of blood feuds. World leaders are expected to lead in turning threats into opportunities.”

President Rouhani touched on the core issue of discord with some refreshing and courageous words. He wrote that on the issue both sides have said in the “10 years of back and forth” what “we don’t want rather than what we want” and the time had come when the need was for both the sides to say what they want. President Rouhani further wrote that it needed courage to come out from the position of the hard rock and the sea that the two sides had hit over negotiations. He expressed Iran’s intention to state what it wanted and urged President Obama to do the same.

The Post article, the President Rouhani’s promising words during his campaign that have become mandate following his landslide victory, and importantly, his statement at the United Nations for “constructive engagement with other countries based on mutual respect and common interests, and within the same framework does not seek to increase tensions with the United States” generated a great deal of positive vibes in the United States. Thus there were expectations that President Obama and the Iranian President would meet, albeit informally, at the UN. Unfortunately that did not happen because the Iranian side backed out. No reasons were given officially but uninformed sources indicated that as red wine was on the cards to be served at the venue of the proposed meeting, President Rouhani had to back out for understandable reasons.

A more serous explanation why the Iranian President backed out was he had to be cautious for domestic compulsions. In the Revolutionary Guards, he still has many who are deadly opposed to thawing of relations with the USA and would allow the country to move that way only after they saw that the US was willing to make concrete concessions, perhaps on the issue of sanctions. Nevertheless, there have been enough positives in Iran-USA relations after President Hassan Rouhani assumed office leading to his trip to New York for analysts to expect that a “rare diplomatic opening” is emerging in these relations after serious concerns in the recent past that a US led military intervention in Iran on the nuclear issue was possible.

At the time of writing this article, the Foreign Minister of Iran Mohammad Zarif is scheduled to sit over the next 3 weeks with his counterparts from USA, Britain, France, China and Russia in New York. President Obama paved the way for the meeting when he said: “We are encouraged that President Rouhani received from the Iranian people a mandate to pursue a more moderate course. Given President Rouhani’s stated commitment to reach an agreement, I am directing John Kerry to pursue this effort with the Iranian government, in close coordination with the European Union, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and China. The roadblocks may prove to be too great, but I firmly believe the diplomatic path must be tested.” The outcome of the meeting would determine the roadmap for the positive direction in Iran-USA relations that the Iranian President has charted that President Obama has seconded.

There are detractors to the thawing of US-Iran relations. In the country, the opposition is coming from the Conservatives who want unconditional end to Iran’s pursuit of the nuclear option before the talks for thawing of relations could start. Israel has articulated, expectedly, the case of the opponents most conclusively. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned President Obama and called President Rouhani a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The detractors argue that President Rouhani is making the positive moves because his country is close to economic peril as a consequence of the sanctions. In 2011, Iran earned US 95 billion from oil exports; in 2012, only US$ 65 billion, a 27% fall. They are convinced that he is buying time to come out of the stranglehold of the sanctions and has no intention of giving up the nuclear option.

The writer is a retired

The wages issues in the RMG sector

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Saturday, 28 September 2013

Author / Source: M. Serajul Islam

The RMG sector is the success story of Bangladesh. The sector earned in exports US$ 19.3 billon for 11 months ending in May this year. It employs close to 4 million workers, mostly women that have played a major role in the country’s women empowerment. The RMG sector has placed Bangladesh on the world map as a leading producer of ready-made garments. Thus the recent disturbances over unbelievably low wages does not augur at all well for Bangladesh because it shows the potentials of destroying the sector. If that happens, the domino effect on the economy would be just too difficult for any government to handle. The result would be a major slide for the country towards becoming a failed state. 

The wages issue is the major reason of regular disturbances and unrest in the RMG sector that past governments, including the present one, and RMG owners have never treated seriously. The government and RMG owners preferred to go into denial about the reason for the unrests. They also preferred to see conspiracies and foreign hands behind these disturbances. Another favourite ploy of the government has been to put the blame on the opposition. The government and garment owners have avoided acknowledging what to the outsider is as clear as daylight that with such poor wages, the sector should have already fallen flat on its face. 

The BNP government while in power saw foreign conspiracies more than the present one when the disturbances occurred leaving no one in doubt where the finger was pointed. This government has avoided blaming foreign hands for the disturbances. It however made up for that by shifting the responsibility for the disturbances entirely upon the opposition and thought that the real problem that is over wages would wither away. Thus all previous governments, this one included, avoided treating the disease and dealt with the symptoms.  They talk about the poor wages but only as a lip service without doing what is needed. In fact the governments and RMG workers never made any attempt to relate the minimum wage in the RMG sector with the price line in the market. 

In a recent talk show the issue was brought to the surface in an ugly manner. A well-known and well-respected labour leader explained to viewers that the minimum pay of the RMG worker receives is not even the absurdly and unbelievably low Taka 3000 a month. He said it is Taka 2000 and the additional Taka 1000 is for house rent and medical allowance! He also said that most RMG factories flout with contempt the labour law that allow employers to employ workers for maximum of 8 hours a day and an additional 2 hours subject to strict conditions. He added that employers are making workers work for much longer hours and a BBC documentary documented a video showing RMG workers at work for 19 hours a day!

A RMG owner called in on the phone to take the labour leader apart. He called him a liar and abused him in a manner that was offensive to say the least. He said that as RMG workers are only 35% productive, RMG owners have to make them work for longer hours! He added that for the longer hours, his company arranges food and gives incentives. The RMG owner in fact left viewers without any doubt that the main problem in the RMG rests squarely on the owners with the governments a willing ally. 

The RMG owner by his rude intervention made the following points abundantly clear. First, the owners do not follow the labour law on limitation of hours of daily work. Second, they decide on the productivity of workers. If they consider their productivity is less than expected, they decided to make them work as long as they want to make up for their lack of productivity! The person conducting the programme failed to stop this person’s rudeness. Instead he allowed him airtime to humiliate the guest. It appeared as if he allowed this RMG owner phone access to the programme as part of a pre-arranged deal.

If it was otherwise, he should have asked or encouraged his guest to ask a few pertinent questions that the garment owner exposed by his intervention. The owner did not contest the fact that the RMG sector is paying Taka 3000 as minimum pay out of which Taka 1000 is for house rent and medical expenses. It is unbelievable that in this age and in present economic conditions in Bangladesh someone would publicly defend Taka 3000 as enough for workers in a sector that is earning close to US$ 20 billion a year! 

One of the participants on the programme, a very soft-spoken intellectual, more out of frustration and disgust over the ugly incident caused by the rude intervention said something that is the hard truth about the novae riche of Bangladesh; that they have failed to become the bourgeoisie represented in Marx’s interpretation of the capitalist society. The novae riche of Bangladesh enjoy all the facilities to become rich in the name of free market economy, but unlike their counterparts in free market economies, do not take responsibilities for the welfare of the workers!

The hard truth about the RMG sector is that it simply cannot carry on with the present wage structure and hope that the workers will accept it anymore. With politics becoming fragile in the days ahead, the RMG owners can expect things to get worse. The Centre for Policy Dialogue has recommended a minimum pay of Taka 8200, which is almost 3 times the present minimum pay. Even a three times recommended increase might not make the workers happy because of the hard economic realities of current times that exposes explicitly the hardship that workers of the RMG sector have borne so far and still helped turn it into the main foundation of Bangladesh’s economic prosperity. Literally, the sector has grown over the sweat of their brow for which the benefits have all gone to the owners many of whom have become fabulously rich. That situation must change for it cannot be tenable any longer. The owners would need to accept the minimum wage recommended by the CPD if they want to save the RMG sector from destruction and the government must put its weight behind it. Incredibly, the garment owners have “agreed” to increase minimum pay by Taka 600 to taka 3,600!

Unfortunately, the action of a Minister not connected either with the RMG sector or with labourers suggests that the Government is not serious. He brought the owners and representatives of the workers into a meeting and declared that he had succeeded in reaching a happy ending to the danger over the wages issue. Only, the “agreement” faded as soon as the groups left the meeting. It later transpired that he had coerced the workers’ leaders to attend the meeting to show the Prime Minister his “magic” powers over labourers. He also arranged a workers’ rally to prove his worth. He thought that if the RMG workers were happy, they would become a big vote bank for the ruling party in the elections. He neither bothered that a promise to almost triple wages could be announced only through serious negotiations nor the fact he had no authority to do any of the things he did. He simply assumed the authority of his colleagues to conjure political magic!

The Minister’s blatant political stunts aimed at luring workers for votes with false promises have boomeranged.  He has now accused the opposition parties for the continuing disturbances and unrest. At the time of filing this article, the right of the workers on wage, unfortunately, seems to be sliding into the black hole of politics with ominous prospect for the country. 

The writer is a retired career Ambassador