Dr. Ahmed points out that Ms. Griswold's statement: "Most (madrassas) follow a form of the Deobandi Islam taught in the 1950's by the intellectual and activist Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, who was born in India in 1903 and defined Muslim politics in opposition to Indian nationalism" is absolute nonsense. Yet when he himself quotes Karen Armstrong on Mawdudi's ideology as one in which "nothing can claim sovereignty, be it a human being, a family, a class, or a group of people, or even the human race in the world as a whole. God alone is the Sovereign, and His commandments the law of Islam" it only seems natural that Mawdudi would be opposed to any kind of nationalism be that Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi.

Ms. Griswold is blamed for failing to praise Bangladesh "for having two women" leaders for the last fifteen years and accused of telling half-truths for pointing out the "legendary antipathy towards each other". Any sane person will agree that if the whole truth be told, the main reason these two ladies find themselves at the top of the political ladder are Bangladesh's obsession with family names. Neither one of the two major political parties has any semblance of democracy within them; rather they both practice a form of de facto monarchy whereby the party chief rules by decree. And just as in a monarchy, the party leadership seems poised to be passed on by hereditary rights rather than any election process. As for the legendary antipathy between Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina, it is an absolute and indisputable yet extremely sad fact of life in Bangladesh which has time after time been the root cause of so much agonising political instability in the country.

Dr. Ahmed find's Ms. Griswold's comments about the Bangladesh Government's failure to identify the assassins of AL rally in Dhaka on August 21, 2004 "cute" because the Interpol and FBI also failed. However, according to the Daily Star report of January 31st, 2005, US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Christina Rocca said "inaccessibility to evidence had rendered ineffective the FBI's help" in that grenade attack investigation. Ms. Rocca added that the US believes FBI assistance to last Thursday's grenade attack investigation has already been "greatly undermined" as the crime scene has already been contaminated because of inadequate protection. While Dr. Ahmed seems to imply that two failures negate each other, the facts point to the sheer incompetence of the local law enforcement authorities.

I disagree with Dr. Ahmed when he says that the whole NYT Magazine article is predicated on the terror emanating from Bangla Bhai. Ample references were also made to the illegal militant training camps close to Chittagong run by Harkatul Jihad al-Islami (Huji) and Mohammad Selimullah allegedly sponsored by supporters in Libya and Saudi Arabia. Dr. Ahmed's proceeds to negate the logic of Ms. Griswold's entire report for stating that, "Thuggery has been a constant feature of political life (in Bangladesh) since then (1971) and is increasingly so today". Isn't it a simple fact that the very reason the present Bangladesh government instituted various elite divisions of the law enforcement like the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) was to keep these very thugs -- otherwise protected by their godfathers from every corner of the political spectrum -- under some sort of control? I for one absolutely support Khaleda Zia for taking this bold (and regardless of what Sheikh Hasina says) non-partisan action to restore a temporary semblance of law and order.

Ms. Griswold's claim that "foreign journalists in Bangladesh are followed by intelligence agents" is in fact supported by a Daily Star report of March 6, 2004 which states that a delegation of foreign journalist from the Committee to Protect Journalists who spent a week there on a fact finding mission were in fact "under watch in Dhaka of intelligence agencies. Harsono, an Indonesian journalist, said intelligence agents on motorbikes shadowed the delegation almost everywhere".

Finally, Dr. Ahmed says, "Ms. Griswold does make laughable statements when she refers to 'Islamist separatist groups in India's northeast.'" However, it is worthwhile referring to the excerpt in the context of the paragraph (of the NYT Magazine article) which reads: "Last spring in Chittagong 10 truck loads of weapons -- the largest arms seizure in Bangladesh's history -- were captured by the police as they were being unloaded from trawlers. The tip-off most likely came from Indian intelligence, which monitors the arms being sent to Islamist separatist groups in India's northeast. Haroon Habib, a leading journalist in the region, has written that a leader of government's local Islamist coalition was helping to hide the weapons". While Dr. Ahmed is absolutely right in pointing out that there are no "Islamist" separatists in the northeast of India, it is however a fact that the Indian government has sought assistance from not only Bangladesh but also Bhutan and Nepal in keeping (ULFA and Bodo) separatists in Assam and Nagaland under control.

It is also a fact that a cache of 10,000 arms, including submachine-guns, AK 47 rifles, rocket shells and launchers, 2,000 grenades and 3 lakh bullets were seized in Chittagong in April 2004. While opposition AL blamed the BNP for these smuggled arms "with visible patronisation of the government", the BNP retorted by saying it was part of a "big conspiracy" possibly linked to the April 30 opposition deadline for fall of the government. The Communist Party of Bangladesh was quick to point the finger at "Those who want to establish a Taliban-like rule in Bangladesh and return to a Pakistani state". In my opinion, the statement from a retired Bangladesh army general experienced in counter insurgency operations best summarises the reality, minus the political nuances: "The starting and ending points (for these smuggled arms) are not clear, what is clear is that Bangladesh is being used as a transit point for quite some time now because of political instability in the country over the years and its failure to give enough attention to the matter."

With all due respect to Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed, as a Bangladeshi it is far less important for me to understand what motivated Eliza Griswold to write the expose than to come to grips with the disturbing truths in what she says. Nor do I care very much about her lack of academic knowledge on the Deobandi movement and Maududi's ideologies. In the end, it is hard for me to believe that it is "ire" which motivates her to write about as diverse stories as rise of extremism in Bangladesh, Congo's Cannibal Rebels, Kurds in Northern Iraq or Human Rights abuses in Colombia. Furthermore, since Ms. Griswold was expelled from Pakistan in April 2004 for working in their tribal areas, perhaps Bangladesh should have never issued her a visa had we been so concerned about her motives. Is it then fair to say that there are amongst us Bangladeshis who are good at finger pointing than seeking the truth and yet others who would rather "see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil" just to maintain a pristine "image" of a country that in reality could do better?

Shabbir A. Bashar, PhD, resides in California, USA.