Bangladesh, conspiracy theories and unraveling truth

THE BDR carnage has left a scar on the face of the nation that will take a long time to fade off. At the same time, the country's image has taken a battering that will further debilitate its efforts to expand her interests in the international environment that is crucial to her existence and her future. The carnage has been covered by the international media in the context of the abhorrent nature of the atrocities committed. It has also reflected upon our inability in dealing with it in a manner that would help the nation recover from the shame the carnage has given us.

A recent New York Times report, while writing on the BDR carnage, has said that “conspiracy theories are a national sport” in Bangladesh. It was by no means a compliment to us as a nation because this tag has been given for our failure to deal with past political assassinations and acts of terror. In the context of the BDR carnage, the Minister of Commerce who has come before the media on the government's behalf as one responsible to deal with post-carnage responsibilities was quick to suspect a conspiracy and the hands of militants behind the BDR killings only to retract his suspicion days later. Most recently, the Prime Minister has informed the nation that the BDR carnage was a conspiracy by the evil forces who “wanted to foil the December 29th elections and push the country towards civil war by creating anarchy.”

There are three investigations underway. One has been set by the Ministry of Home Affairs and headed by a former bureaucrat Mr. Anisuzzaman. There is another investigation being conducted by the CID. A third is being conducted by the armed forces. Their reports are still awaited. International agencies like the FBI and Scotland Yard are assisting national efforts to unravel the heinous crime. The US Ambassador has said recently that it will take some time for FBI to make its report known. The investigation committee headed by ex-bureaucrat has just been given a month's extension; it was asked initially to submit its report in a week and afterwards given two further extensions, which suggests that this is not going to be an easy investigation. It is therefore surprising that the Prime Minister has gone public in speaking of the February 25th carnage as a conspiracy by the forces that lost the 29th December elections to push the country towards civil war.

The Prime Minister's conspiracy theory has been picked up by her ministers who are using the media to tell the nation that the February 25th carnage has been committed to destabilize the country by the forces who lost the last elections. While the Prime Minister as head of the government may know by the means available to her about the investigations underway (although not the right to reveal it till investigations are complete), the ministers orchestrating the Prime Minister's conspiracy theory have no means or reason of knowing about the investigations. Nevertheless, they are publicly talking about such a conspiracy theory with confidence. The BNP and the Jamat have also come up with their own conspiracy theories conflicting with that of the ruling party. It is just not the political parties that are suggesting conspiracies; the people are also participating in this “national sport”. It would therefore be interesting to quote here relevant part of the NYT story on the conspiracy theories afloat related to the BDR carnage: “Some point to terrorist groups and anti-Indian insurgents. Others say that it was fuelled by intelligence agencies in either India or Pakistan both countries have been alternately friend and foe to Bangladesh. There are those who suggest that it could involve politicians who lost the last election, while others blame people within Mrs. Hasina's party whose goal is to keep the army in check.”

In the midst of these conspiracy theories what is being overlooked is that there has been a massive failure in intelligence. To date, no one responsible has been asked by the government to stand down to facilitate the investigations. The BDR carnage, in the manner it has been carried out by its perpetrators and handled by the government, makes it imperative for the investigations to unravel the chain of events transparently. The perpetrators must be identified, including the masterminds behind it, and punished so that any theory of conspiracy, if there is any, is rested and the families of the victims satisfied that justice has been done. We must not forget that the carnage and its handling has affected civil-military relations adversely like never before in our history. A resolution of this issue will depend squarely upon transparent investigation and punishment of the perpetrators if a conspiracy involving forces external to BDR and/or the country is found in the investigation reports.

There is an event underway to brand Bangladesh: a nation that has stood with its head high before the rest of the world when its people fought and won freedom against the worst forces of oppression; a nation that has sacrificed blood for her mother tongue; a nation that has as rich a historical and civilization roots as the best on earth. It should be an easy nation to brand. Bangladesh has made itself difficult to brand because her politics has stood in the way. Politics dominated by some degree of conflicts, acts of terrorism and killings, disagreeable as these may be, is not unique to Bangladesh. Nations that suffer these unfortunate incidents come together to deal with it like India came together following the Mumbai terrorist attacks last November. What is unique in the case of Bangladesh is that when such killings and conflicts or acts of terror occur in our politics, there is little attempt to unravel the causes to bring the perpetrators to justice. Instead, we divide our nation by accusations and counter accusations by our political parties and our conspiracies almost always succeeds in helping the perpetrators get the benefit. Even the people get caught in this frenzy of conspiracy theories that hinders in dealing with such tragedies. Bangladesh's history is replete with such examples.

February 25th has hit the national psyche at the core as it was hit on March 25th, 1971. The nation needs to get together now as it did then if it wants to heal the scars that the February 25th carnage has left. All quarters should have patience to let the investigating agencies complete their work and then the Government should come forward to take action that should be firm, transparent and should rest all conspiracy theories to rest. Failure to deal with the February 25th carnage could have far-reaching consequences that could be disastrous for the nation. It is time for the Prime Minister to lead the nation just as her father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mijibur Rahman had done in the dark moments of our history: in the days preceding the beginning of the genocide by uniting the nation, not dividing it. It is time for us to give up our “national sport” with conspiracy theories for such indulgence only dilutes the investigations and help the perpetrators. Let the Prime Minister show the way; let her tell us about any conspiracy that there may have been behind the February 25th carnage but only after this has been established as a fact. That can only be established after the investigations are complete.

Medieval Carnage in Modern Times

Published in The Daily Star, January 17, 2009

Bangladesh's Permanent Representative in Geneva described the recent and continuing Israeli military operations in Gaza “medieval carnage in modern times” in a special session of the UN Human Rights Council called to discuss the continued massacre of Gazans, including women and children, by the Israeli armed forces. Voices of condemnation of Israel's actions have resonated round the world but to no avail as Israel seems hell bent to annihilate Hamas' ability in future to launch rocket strikes inside Israeli territory no matter what it takes.

Israel and Hamas had been observing a tenuous six months long cease fire brokered by the Egyptians in July last year. In a debate similar to which came first, the chicken or the egg, Israel and Hamas have accused each other for breaking the cease fire which in any case had ended on December 19th with little hope of being extended. Hamas blamed Israel for not lifting the blockade of Gaza while Israel blamed Hamas for rocket attacks inside Israel. In fact, under the leadership of Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Israel used the lull in fighting since July last year to draw a well thought out plan to take out Hamas' ability to launch rocket attacks on Israeli cities permanently. Two dates were uppermost in the minds of the Israeli leadership in launching its current onslaught on Gaza that has been named Operation Cast Lead. First, Israel needed to complete the task under President Bush's watch, which is ending on January 20th, because during his entire tenure his administration has given Israel a blank cheque to resolve the Palestinian problem militarily. Second, the Israeli Government wanted to take out Hamas' rocket-launching ability for good ahead of elections in Israel scheduled next month.

There is another reason for the Gaza carnage. Hamas has been branded a “terrorist organization“ by Israel as it does not recognize the state of Israel and has been fighting the Israeli occupation by all means available. In accusing Hamas, a pro-Israel international press has not acknowledged the fact that Hamas militants have been fighting for freedom of their motherland from foreign occupation. Furthermore, in 2006, they also won a democratic parliamentary election in Palestine but they have not been allowed a share of power because Israel, supported by the US, made it impossible for Hamas parliamentarians to take their legitimate seats in the Palestinian parliament that forced them to capture power in Gaza. In recent times, Hamas has been signaling that it wanted diplomatic settlement of the conflict along the border June 1967, which has international consensus behind it. This would however mean dismantling of Israeli settlements in occupied lands as well as giving part of Jerusalem to the independent state of Palestine that Israelis do not want under any circumstances. Israel is concerned that a new US administration would find it difficult to reject a PLO/Hamas joint effort for diplomatic solution along the 1967 border and with this apprehension in mind, Operation Cast Lead has been initiated, not for creating “deterrence” to Hamas' rocket launching abilities but for dismantling Hamas for good.

The Israeli carnage in Gaza has been ferocious and inhuman in terms of slaughter of innocent civilians and the worst onslaught on Palestinians on record. In the name of drawing out Hamas militants and their military abilities Israelis have bombed schools, mosques and hospitals that are recognized as safe under all international conventions related to military engagements on the plea that Hamas has used these as “human shields”. Israel has also used white phosphorous on civilians in violation of 1980 Geneva Treaty. The carnage has so far resulted in over 900 deaths on the Palestinian side, including over 200 children. On the Israeli side, only 13 have been killed, including 4 from “friendly fire”.

The Israelis have argued that they have dropped leaflets warning Gazans not to allow Hamas militants use them, their houses, their schools, etc for launching rockets into Israel and to flee to avoid Israeli reprisal in case they cannot help it. Of course, Israel's arguments are extremely weak and do not stand up to any rational analysis. Gaza is a small strip of 360 square miles where 1.5 million people live, surrounded by Israel on all sides except for a small part on the south where it borders Egypt, which too is under strict Israeli surveillance. Gaza has an opening to the sea on the west but that too, including her airspace, is controlled by the Israelis. Hence to say that they have asked Gazans to flee from Hamas is like causing an injury and then spreading salt on it. The Israelis have carried their military attacks in full knowledge that they would be killing innocent people but still they went ahead as their intention is to terrorize Gazans to submission. The conflict can thus only be described as one of David against Goliath and has rightly been condemned all around the world, including from many Jewish groups. The Gaza carnage has graphically highlighted the hell in which 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza and 2.5 million Palestinians in West Bank live as a direct consequence of Israel's occupation. In the West Bank Israelis have built a wall to keep them in conditions worse than jail.

At the UN, the outrage of the world did not have much impact. The Security Council adopted a toothless resolution that has been rejected by Israel with contempt, and by Hamas as it made them appear aggressors whereas they feel they are the victims. President-elect Barak Obama, whom the world has begun to accept as a harbinger of a new era of morality and rationality to international politics after his predecessor had turned the world on its head, has disappointed many by his inability to condemn Israel. Those who had considered his overtly pro-Israel stand in the period leading to the November 4th elections as an act of necessity to appease the Jewish lobby in USA for its stranglehold on media and finance are now concerned and dismayed that his sympathies may be for real. There is also little hope for Palestinians to look towards the next US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose husband President Bill Clinton had shown quite a degree of fairness towards the Palestinians, for some support because her foreign policy adviser is former US Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk who holds extremely pro-Israel views and is among those mentioned as a potential Special Envoy to the Middle East.

President-elect Obama's silence over the Gaza carnage has also sent wrong signals to the Arab world, most importantly to Egypt and Jordan. Countries that have supported rapprochement with Israel to bring the Palestinian problem to a peaceful solution that has the best chance of resolution based on a two-state solution, an independent Palestine co-existing with Israel. Egypt fears that she will be forced to absorb Gazans on her borders while Jordan fears Israel will push Palestinians from West bank to create a similar situation for her that could undermine their peace treaties with Israel with dangerous consequences. The mood of the ordinary folks in the Arab streets has been enraged by the Gaza carnage. Thus when Barak Obama sits in the Oval Office for the first time, the ground reality in the Middle East would be a very difficult one for him to seriously seek a resolution of the Palestinian conflict upon which the success or failure of the war on terror rests to a large extent.

Bangladesh's Permanent Representative has hit the nail in the coffin with his statement at the Council for Human Rights. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also condemned the Israeli atrocities in strong terms. Will those who matter in world politics, the US in particular, pay heed? If not, dark days could be ahead for the way Israel has been allowed to carry out its carnage in Gaza unabated is bound to provide steam to those who look for a cause to carry out acts of terror and militancy in the name of Islam.

Religious Terrorism in Bangladesh

Published in The Daily Star, July 26, 2008

A Bangladeshi journalist working for a foreign radio station warned me recently against being complacent about Islamic fundamentalists in Bangladesh. I argued that despite its overwhelming Muslim population, Bangladesh has historically rejected political parties that have used Islam in elections. Jamaat-e-Islami, the best known among such parties, has never won even a handful of seats in elections, achieving the best of 14 seats in the 2001 elections as a result of its alliance with the BNP. I also argued that despite being predominantly Muslim, Bangladesh is the most liberal South Asian country where Islam has been influenced by Sufism with the least incidence of communal violence that are so endemic in other parts of this sub-continent.

Its liberal traditions notwithstanding, the two mainstream political parties earned for Bangladesh the label of a country that supports Islamic terrorism during the last BNP term. The BNP played the major part by allowing Jamaat-e-Islami indulgence to put a terrorist infrastructure in place as a payback for its votes that helped it win a 2/3 majority in the 2001 elections. The Jamaatul Muhahadeen Bangladesh (JMB) terrorists, who earned the maximum notoriety, was nurtured by BNP top leadership to help its leaders in northern Bangladesh win territorial control over the extreme leftist elements there and also to please Jamaat-e-Islami. The Awami League did its part by publicising abroad this evil nexus, labeling Bangladesh as Taliban that countries and interested groups abroad used to identify Bangladesh as a supporter of Islamic terrorism. The Indian media also played a role in projecting Bangladesh in a bad light, identifying it as a “locus of Islamic terrorism”.

The former US Ambassador Harry Thomas had spared no efforts to warn the Government about the growing Frankenstein. India watched developments with understandable concern and conveyed these to Secretary of State Condalizza Rice on her visit to New Delhi in March 2005. Rice told the press during the visit that Bangladesh could become the next Afghanistan and that India and USA would look after Bangladesh. The BNP Government remained unmoved and termed the concern over the Islamic fundamentalist forces as “media hype”. Encouraged, these forces carried out nearly 500 simultaneous bomb blasts all over the country in August, 2005 that proved that these terrorists had a terrorist infrastructure in place and had also infiltrated the country's intelligence although the blasts caused little damage and just two deaths. Khaleda Zia cut short an official visit to China and returned home but did little to contain these forces except issue arrest warrants against leading JMB terrorists that were not pursued seriously.

The BNP finally acted only after the US Assistant Secretary Christina Rocco visited Dhaka in January 2006 and delivered a harsh ultimatum to the Government to rein in the JMB terrorists. Within weeks, Sheikh Abdur Rahman and Bangla Bhai with 4 others were incarcerated in a make believe manner that left little doubt that they had escaped being arrested earlier due to state sponsorship. In jail, these JMB terrorists were treated as VIPs, leading to speculation that they would be released at an appropriate time. The politics of the country then slipped into anarchy, leading to 1/11 when fate intervened. The JMB terrorists were executed by the Caretaker Government after due legal process but no act of revenge followed that went to prove that AL accusations and Indian media reports that Bangladesh was infested with Al Qaeda and Islamic terrorists was exaggerated and largely untrue. During this period, United States also did not find any evidence that Bangladeshi Islamic fundamentalist parties had Al Qaeda connections. Their concern was to contain the Islamic terrorism at home that was growing due to BNP Government's sponsorship.

Islamic terrorism has become benign with the fall of the BNP Government at a time when internationally Islamic terrorist groups are weakening. Newsweek in its June 9th edition under the caption “New Face of Islam” writes that within the Islamic world, a critique of radicalism is growing. Moderate Islamic scholars who were silent before and after 9/11 are now beginning to speak out against Islamic terrorism. Clerics who had supported Bin Laden are now distancing themselves from him. Countries that have tolerated Islamic radicalism like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are now encouraging moderation. In Saudi Arabia, 10,000 Government paid imams have been asked by King Abdullah to restrain their zealous excesses. A new realisation is now afloat in the Islamic world that the “apocalyptic notion of holy war” that Laden had promoted contradicts the fundamental message of Islam, which is peace. Al Qaeda is now on the run in Iraq, its haven after US invasion of Afghanistan, where the US forces are winning. As a result of worldwide hunt, Al Qaeda is no longer in any position to encourage international terrorism as its finances and infrastructure have been considerably weakened.

These positive developments offer Bangladesh a great opportunity to re-establish its liberal traditions. The mainstream parties have the most critical role to play. The BNP must not repeat its past mistakes and must rein in Jamaat, with whom it is again very likely to form election alliance. It should also not allow Jamaat to nominate anyone for the next general elections with blood on its hands for its role in 1971, knowing how much the people detest the war criminals. The AL must fight Islamic radicalism in the country politically and refrain from giving the international media wrong impression about Bangladesh by talking of our internal politics abroad as it did during the BNP era. It must also be consistent in dealing with Islamic fundamentalist forces. It has not fully explained to the people its election alliance with Khelafat-e-Majlish, a fundamentalist Islamic party that supports the fatwa, just before the postponed 2007 elections as well as its alliance during the first BNP term with the Jamaat to force the BNP out of power. It also needs to explain why during its tenure it did not deal with the war criminals.

The role of the civil societies and sector commanders of our liberation forces is critical here. Those who committed war crimes in 1971 should be tried under law as murderers and rapists, remembering that there is no statute of limitation here.

Those in Jamaat-e-Islami who are war criminals must be brought under the law. Jamaat's opposition to Bangladesh's independence is a political issue and must be dealt politically. Unfortunately, in pursuing the war criminals, these groups have called for banning Jamaat as a political party, only indirectly labeling it as a party of war criminals. They have also used the secularism card in seeking to ban Jamaat because of its belief in Islam, claiming secularism as fundamental to our statehood. In doing so, they have overlooked that democracy gives all political parties the right to address their beliefs to the people directly who as sovereign authority accept or reject them.

They have also insensitively set aside the importance of Islam as a way of life both in literal and spiritual sense to majority of Bangladeshis. Furthermore, the belief in Islam that helps people retain mental sanity in the face of extreme poverty and unbearable natural and manmade calamities that they face regularly has also been over-looked. Islam based parties, particularly Jamaat, may thus be getting the benefit of over-kill with the secular card because a lot of people feel that those attacking the Jamaat are also targeting Islam.

Sadly, the detested war criminals may also be getting the reprieve by moves to ban Islam based parties from politics. The fact that the groups seeking to ban Jamaat are also supporters of the Awami League is also taking the wind out of the sail for trial of the war criminals with which few people differ. Just as the West has made the mistake of putting Islam in the dock, because of Al Qaeda, those seeking trial of war criminals have similarly erred by bringing Islam into the equation. This could eventually lead to sympathy for Islamic parties arising from the perception that Islam is in peril. For tackling Islamic fundamentalism, these groups must therefore ensure that they do not put Islam and secularism in conflict for there is no reason to do so. Because of Bangladesh's liberal traditions and that in case of a conflict, Islam is going to get the majority nod over secularism.

History, internal politics and recent developments in the Islamic world do not therefore place Bangladesh in imminent danger of a takeover by fundamentalist Islamic forces. These notwithstanding, the next elected Government must bear in mind that there are 9000 Government registered madrasas and 15,000 Qawami madrasas and Islamic fundamentalist parties like Jagrato Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), Shahadat-e-al-Hikma, Al-Harakat-ul-Islamia, Harkat-ul-Jehad Islami and Al-Khidmat. These institutions and parties would need strict surveillance by the intelligence agencies to keep them on track which should not be difficult if the next Government is sincere about it.

Whether Bangladesh becomes a haven for international Islamic terrorists and whether Islamic fundamentalism plagues our politics will thus depend largely on the mainstream political parties and the civil societies. The Islamic parties by themselves have the ability to cause disturbances but little possibility of doing much more. It is time that the mainstream parties and the civil societies work together in the interest of the nation and ensure our liberal Islamic heritage. There is no reason for complacency about Islamic terrorism in Bangladesh but no reason to cry wolf either.