Photo: Star Archive

2011- A tour d' horizon of Bangladesh

Brig Gen Shahedul Anam Khan, ndc, psc (Retd)

There were several things in 2011 that one could look back to with satisfaction. It was no mean task to attain near self-sufficiency in food production, with the prospect of food autarky by 2013. The agricultural sector is a good example where planning and pursuing the plans without let-up can achieve the intended results.

It was also a matter of satisfaction that the trial of the war criminals got fully underway with charge sheets issued against some of them and with court proceedings in full gear against one. However, the International Crimes Tribunal returned the charges brought against Prof. Ghulam Azam for his involvement in crimes against humanity, on 26 December, on the grounds that the prosecution did not follow proper procedures in submitting the charges.

The most redeeming feature of the year was the holding of local elections starting with the 259 municipalities in January of the year, and rounded off with the Narayanganj City Council election in October where the “official” ruling party candidate was defeated by a “renegade” belonging to the same party, which in certain ways toppled the ruling party's political applecart. The local government elections were held relatively peacefully. The opposition candidates came out with a strong showing which was seen as a verdict of sorts on the performance of the government. The Rapid Action Battalion kept up its good work against the religious extremists. During the year, apart from recovering huge quantities of grenades, explosives, bomb making equipments and leaflets, it managed to nab 122 religious extremists including 22 JMB cadres.

The year 2011 ended with the Capital being split up in two, ostensibly for the purpose of giving better service to the Dhakaiites, but the public in general and the opposition saw ulterior motives of the government in the move. It was neither in the AL election manifesto nor a demand of the people of Dhaka.

The 15th Amendment to the constitution was legislated in June. Among other things, it partly restored the original preamble, abolished the caretaker system but retained Islam as state religion and Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim.

The government also appointed administrators to the district councils, an action that went against the spirit of democratic governance. This move in particular flew in the face of the government rationale for doing away with the Caretaker Government that no unelected person should head a democratic institution.

The societal flux was disconcerting to see. A good part of the year was hogged by news of unnatural deaths, of female students preferring to end their lives to escape blackmailing, and of a student of a reputed school in Dhaka violated by her teacher, and of "mobocracy" perpetrated against students alleged to be dacoits, and of women being mercilessly flogged in public with nobody picking up the courage to protest the barbarism, and of a hijacker lynched by a mob.

We bade goodbye to a year that started rather sedentarily but ended with a bang, literally. At the very fag end of December a BNP move to mobilize its supporters and stage a 'showdown' floundered due to preemptive police action, but not before taking several lives, victims of bomb blast, and destruction of a large number of private and public vehicles. And of course there was the mutual recrimination and blame game by the government and the opposition.

The parliament remained without the opposition, the BNP and its allies choosing the streets rather than the floor of the house to air their views for the third successive year. The prognosis of the outcome of the political standoff is certainly upsetting. The situation was compounded by the AL declaring its intention to counter BNP's street agitation on the street.

The BNP did not find much political space in the parliament; nor was it accorded much more space on the streets either. “We have only 18 inches of democracy” was the rueful comment of a senior BNP leader, expressed while being hemmed in inside the party office during one of the many hartals they had called. And that has been the general manner of things every time the BNP led opposition wanted to bring out a procession or hold a public meeting. And the shrinking of political space of the opposition has been viewed with a great degree of anxiety by the public who feel that this and the continuing acrimony between the two major parties do not auger a peaceful 2012.

When the BNP chose 'long march' in place of hartal people had heaved a sigh of relief, the former being a far less troublesome expedient than hartal. However, the relief was short lived as the BNP resorted to hartal from the latter part of the year, all ostensibly as protest against what they termed government failings in various fields. That was not bought by the AL and the main feature of its riposte was that the opposition was resorting to hartal only to prevent and derail the trial of the war criminals. That was not bought by the public either.

The year was dominated by the Caretaker Government (CTG) issue, with the AL initially holding out the olive branch to the BNP but later, with the backing of the HC ruling on the issue, decided to do away with it entirely. The volte-face of the two parties on the CTG was incredible. One couldn't have been more surprised by the passionate way the two major parties were vying for a cause that they only a decade ago had so passionately opposed. In the end, the AL had its way.

But the judiciary was in the limelight too particularly because of two landmark judgments. The first was the High Court verdict on the case of Col. Taher's trial that ruled his trial by the military tribunal in 1976, and his sentence of death, illegal. It also ordered that Col. Taher and his co-accused be treated as patriots, not traitors.

In the second the High Court ruled against Prof. Yunus' writ against the government order to remove him as the MD of Grameen Bank. This was the culmination of a very unpalatable episode between Prof. Yunus and the government. Apart from leaving a bad taste in everyone's mouth and misgivings about the government's acuity in handling sensitive issues, it was one of the reasons of standoff between Bangladesh and the US.

In another landmark judgement the Appellate Division overturned the High Court verdict and declared the 13th Amendment through the Constitution Amendment Act 1996, prospectively void and ultra-vires of the constitution. The verdict created confusion on many counts, particularly because the Court had recommended in the same judgment that the next two elections could be held under a caretaker government.

The full judgement, reportedly, has not been written as yet, and neither was the observation that the next two elections may be held under the CTG taken into cognizance by the AL. And herein lies the recipe of future political instability, the BNP having made it the main rationale for political agitation. In fact this is the only issue that caused public concern and will continue to do so because of its potential to disrupt normalcy in the country.

In another interesting development the President took the initiative to hold dialogue with the political parties on the appointment of the CEC and election commissioners. After vacillating on the issue the BNP ultimately decided to honour the presidents invitation.

It was embarrassing for the government to find its plans for Padma Bridge virtually scuttled by the sudden decision of the donors, led by the WB, to withhold funds on the grounds of alleged corruption by the then Communications Minster. And, in spite of the zeal of the new Communications Minister, little seems to have moved positively in that direction. Even worse, the WB had threatened to cut funds unless the speed of project implementation was improved, particularly those with large procurement component.

There was little improvement in the law despite claims by ministers and head of police. There were some very serious allegations of human rights violation where innocent people were implicated by the law enforcing agencies. A very unsettling matter was people taking law in their own hands in several instances where alleged thieves and dacoits succumbed to public fury. Police inaction was alleged in some instances.

Although instances of crossfire reduced in the latter half of the year, we were confronted with a new phenomenon of enforced disappearances and dead bodies turning up at odd places. Reportedly, in the last one year 22 people have disappeared, and the police have no clue about them. In some of these instances fingers were pointed at the law enforcing agencies, although the PM blamed the opposition for the disappearances and secret killings- motive - to give the government a bad name. The matter did not escape the notice of the international human rights bodies who expressed deep concern.

While one was happy to note that Bangladesh had fared better in 2011 compared to its performance in curbing corruption the previous year, according Transparency International report released on December1, one was disheartened by another TIB report appearing in late December that indicated that one out of every three persons in Bangladesh had to pay bribe to get service, and the police has been singled out as the most corrupt.

Deaths in road accidents continued to take heavy toll of lives. In one such accident 46 school students were killed in Mirsarai, and in another, two very distinguished media and film personalities of the country, Tariq Masud and Mishuk Munier, lost their lives.

People continued to suffer the burdens of inflation, which hovered around the 12 percent mark, and the rising cost of essentials. Improvement in the power sector was offset by increase in fuel prices. Prices of petrol, gas and diesel were raised thrice in the year and that of electricity for private consumers twice, more than 20 percent in the latest increase. This was attributed to the huge import bill on account of fuel for the rental power stations that are being run entirely on liquid fuel. The government decision not to go for any more rental power plants came a little bit too late perhaps. While the rental power plants added about 2500 MW to the national grid we lost around 1000 MW due to the shutting down of some of the old power generation plants because of technical faults and shortage of gas.

The stock market debacle was more than an aberration for the government. And yet the government failed to take action against the manipulators despite being identified in the inquiry report that it constituted. On the contrary it was the committee that was pilloried by the vested quarters.

The economic forecast was bleak, and despite the mid-year enthusiasm, that corresponds to the start of the economic calendar, of the government, and repeated denials of the finance minister about the economy running out of steam, he had to acknowledge at the very fag end of the year that the growth target of 7 percent might not be met. How the economy looks in 2012 depends on what and how quickly the corrective measures are employed.

On the diplomatic front our single-country focus continued as last year, although our peripatetic foreign minister had made dozens of bilateral and multilateral visits, reportedly, without really any tangible or significant benefits to the country.

The three Ts continued to dominate Indo-BD relationship - Transit, Teesta and Trade, with very little progress on the Ts that were of Bangladesh's concern. The most significant bilateral event was the visit of the Indian prime minister to Bangladesh in September. However, in spite of the 65 paragraph declaration at the end of the visit, the people of Bangladesh not only felt disappointed but severely let down too because of the failure to get a deal on Teesta. Mamata's recalcitrance embarrassed India and Manmohan, and it seems that, in spite of the assurances by India that there would be a deal soon on Teesta, we are in for a long haul on Teesta.

In the same vein developments on the Tipai front, with the Indian PM expressing India's definite intention to go ahead with the construction of the dam at Tipaimukh in November, created deep anguish among the public in Bangladesh, and perhaps it has done the same in equal measure in the North East Indian states, particularly Manipur and Assam. The Indian assurances, the latest of which was carried by two of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Advisors in December, did not wash well with the public.

On the plus side, the demarcation of the 6.5 kilometers of the border between the countries were completed and the Teen Bigha corridor was opened to Bangladesh for 24 hours of the day; it was to have been given in perpetuity according to the Mujib-Indira Agreement of 1974. One issue that proved vexing was the continued killings of Bangladeshis by BSF despite Indian assurances that it would not happen.

India was virtually granted transit very soon after Manmohan Singh's visit. The movement of Indian goods that started with trial run of two lots has continued and that too without fees, since as of now, the details have not been worked out. The hurry and the haste to provide transit to India had surprised most observers, particularly when Bangladesh was not ready with its infrastructure to do so. The makeshift arrangements to allow movement of heavy Indian transports to Agartala have caused severe damage to the ecology of the adjacent areas of the Brahmanbria - Akhaura road due to the makeshift arrangements.

At the regional level the Annual SAARC summit in Addu in the Maldives was as usual an annual get together with several important declarations

The climate issue continued to occupy our interest, it being one of the most significant issues of national security. The Climate Vulnerable' Summit in Dhaka was held in mid November with the aim of reaching consensus on various climate issues and working together at COP-17 in Durban. The UN Secretary General, who attended the meeting called upon governments to reach a compromise on the Kyoto Protocol at Durban climate conference and to make a broader comprehensive climate agreement possible in the future. Apparently, there has been a paradigm shift with a move away from Kyoto and emphasis on global negotiations for a global treaty to national level actions.

One looks back at the year gone by with mixed feelings. It certainly provides a motivation to look forward with hope of better days to come and despair perhaps for what was left not done.

One hopes that 2012 will see the two major parties shun their mutual animus for the benefit of the country, that they will abjure rigid positions. One would also hope for improved governance and a better law and order environment. And for certain people would want to know what the Capital of Bangladesh is.


Brig Gen Shahedul Anam Khan, ndc, psc (Retd) is Editor, Defence & Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.