A process of accountability has begun
Brigadier General Shamsuddin Ahmed (Retd)
They say that a wise man is one who learns from others' mistakes and corrects himself. And not so wise is one who waits until he himself commits mistakes and then corrects himself. There is yet more -- the self-conceited, the megalomaniac, the duffer, the idiot who do not take lesson even from their own mistakes because they think that they are always right and it is the others across the divide who are wrong. Our rulers over the last 36 years without exception have made mistakes, nay blunders which is why we have the Bangladesh of today, a very badly battered and bruised nation still trying to stand on its own feet. A nation born in 1971 is still a baby because it has not been allowed to grow into adulthood. Why? Because the rulers in charge of the baby nation robbed it of all the nourishment it needed and nourished themselves instead. But none of them have had the good sense to say that they made a mistake, let alone a blunder.Democracy is still a far cry and so is the minimum basic infrastructure required for a nation's growth in terms of material and moral uplift and social justice. We have very successfully become a nation of beggars, robbers, looters, plunderers, killers, cheats and liars. Yes this is true. Go through the newspapers. The staple news is that the nation has been cheated and robbed of its wealth and its morality by the same very people who ruled us and lectured us on probity, honesty, morality and hard work while they themselves were plundering and grabbing wealth all these years and all in the name of democracy and nation building. We humans are prone to make mistake. But our political leaders, have never said that they made any mistake perhaps because they think they are super humans. They seem to be past masters in lying in public. They lie with such aplomb and with such dexterity without batting an eye lid that truth seems to be a lie and lie a truth. They never say they ever made a mistake. They never ever uttered a word of apology to the people of this country for having robbed them of their minimum basic right to eke out an existence as a human being, let alone a citizen. Pseudo democrats and autocrats alike these rulers have not only misgoverned but also torn asunder the fabric of national unity and cohesion by pursuing a policy of stifling all political dissenting voice through violence by trying to make the political opposition an effete entity, the sole motive being that the rulers alone should pillage and plunder and make fortunes for themselves. You dare criticise them only at the peril of your life and honour. Ask Gen Ershad about being the chief wrecker of democratic institutions and the chief promoter of autocratic rule and all its concomitant evils. Most unabashedly he would say that he was a better administrator than both Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia and that his was the golden period of development in this country. He would further say that he was as honest a man as one can think of. True, in the last sixteen years of rule by the elected governments of AL and BNP we had no clue of how much money this man has made and where he has kept it while we are made to know it for sure that he is the very epitome of corruption and profligacy. Ask Sheikh Hasina if she as prime minister knew about Hazari terrorizing the people of Feni and about her ministers indulging in corruption. She would perhaps flatly deny everything. Ask Khaleda Zia if she knew of her sons making money right and left and of her ministers and lawmakers having amassed vast wealth and property as revealed in the media. She would most probably say as she has already said that it is all rubbish. This interim and non elected government with the backing of the armed forces is now on a mission to do what an elected and pro-people and pro-democracy government should have done before--- to build a process of accountability of people holding public office and misusing their power and authority for their personal benefit and for the benefit of their families and cronies. Very powerful people who have allegedly plundered public funds and property and built fortunes for themselves have already been rounded up by the government and a due process of investigation and trial has begun. The Chief Adviser has firmly asserted in his public address on more than one occasion that no one is above the law and anybody found corrupt or having been a law breaker regardless of who he or she may be will be brought to justice. This is indeed what ought to be the declared policy of any democratic government. Let there be no let up in the government's efforts to clean up the mess created by our rulers over the years. And let the educated people, the intelligentsia, the civil society be behind the government in their resolve to usher in a truly democratic system of governance, a system which will work to ameliorate the lot of the teeming millions and not the handful of the privileged and the socially advantaged. A word of counsel for the government: Please do not be guided at any stage by any animosity or grudge towards any person or a group of persons. Brigadier General Shamsuddin Ahmed (Retd) is a former Military Secretary to the President.
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