'Kleptocracy and patriotism'
Abdullah A. Dewan, On e-mail
The comments by Mr. M Haque (DS March 27) under the above caption were misconstrued and off based. My article "Kleptocracy and patriotism" (DS March 20) was not about corruption per se, it was about the corrupt politicians. The examples of Indonesia and Japan were cited to make the point that corrupt officials often work to achieve more growth to deflect their kitschy behaviour to steal more. Mr. Haque deliberately obscured this imperative point for his negative emotion possibly invoked by my call for banning of all foreign travel visas to the corrupt and the money launderers. What I sidetracked though, is asking the Bangladesh government to cancel passports of all corrupt politicians and public officials (retired or active). Somehow, I knew that will not happen. That triggered my instinct to urge all foreign embassies to discontinue issuing visas to the corrupt and the money launderers. According to the definition I quoted, corrupt politicians and terrorists are certainly less than patriots, and I stand by it. Mr. Haque's other comment about the World Bank, IMF and my belief on what Mr. Alawi of Iraq or Mr. Ramsfeld of the US has said or did not say is capriciously off track.
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