Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Re: Political Crisis in Bangladesh


How could the NYTimes get this so wrong? Perhaps because you don't have a reporter resident in Bangladesh. Perhaps because Jamaat-e-Islami lobbyists have been paying you regular visits. Most of the general strikes this year were called by Jamaat in response to the on going war crimes tribunal. Some procedural short comings notwithstanding, the trials have been transparent and fair. Sheikh Hasina's government cannot be held accountable for the strikes. On the other hand, law enforcement agencies have had the responsibility to ensure that private and public property and human lives were not at risk from the violence that Jamaat thugs had unleashed during the strikes.

Bangladesh is well within her right to disallow Jamaat from participating in future polls due to latter's terrorist activities during the strikes. Plus, Jamaat's constitution violates Bangladesh's where people are the source of power and not God Himself. Also, majority of Bangladeshis do not wish to see Jamaat in Bangladesh's politics because of its role during 1971 war of separation from Pakistan where leaders of that party assisted the Pakistani army to conduct genocide and rape, and took part in them unabashedly all in the name of preserving a united Pakistan for the sake of Islam.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League made a worthwhile academic point of doing away with the caretaker government system of holding elections and holding them under the elected government of the time as is done in most other democracies. To this end she has amended the constitution to allow for this. While many Bangladeshis are right to suspect that elections under the current government will be rigged to its benefit, the current government has a record of holding thousands of local elections with impeccable fairness where members of the opposition BNP have won landslides. Moreover, a democracy illuminates its maturity when such elections can be held in a free and fair manner even under the current democratically elected government.

This is where Khaleda Zia of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has shown utter obstinacy in demanding restoration of the caretaker system. Little does she care that such an outcome goes against the grains of democratic continuity. She is right to scream about electoral fairness and hold the government accountable during elections. But her current stance is tantamount to treason. She has rebuffed the Prime Minister's offer for talks to resolve the crisis. Sheikh Hasina's formula for an all party interim government overseeing polls was a constitutionally valid compromise and yet Khaleda refuses to budge and has been calling for devastating strikes where her party men burn and kill innocent human lives (not to mention wreck havoc on the overall economy of the country).

Before you call for international sanctions against Bangladesh, I strongly urge you to send a reporter to be stationed in Dhaka to get the overall picture. The local media may educate him or her about a thing or two. And I strongly urge that instead of writing such hollow editorials, you learn to do your job properly.