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A citizen cannot but be amazed when lawmakers begin to uphold the interests of the business class rather than those of the masses. The rule in politics is that it is always the people of a country whose interests are expected to be upheld, and scrupulously at that. Judging by what went on at a meeting of a parliamentary body on Monday, it becomes quite clear that the discussion on the matter of call charges for mobile phones somehow veered off into an area where perceived economic losses for mobile phone operators took centre stage. That was as unfortunate as it was outrageous, for the simple reason that the meeting should have looked more into a question of what mobile phone users have been demanding in recent times. Briefly, mobile users have long complained that the four mobile operators have been charging call rates which are on the high side, which is Tk. 7 per minute for pre-paid subscribers. The picture in our neighbouring region is absolutely different, for the good reason that operators there have put more emphasis on customer satisfaction than their own profit motive. In contrast, what has been happening here is a blatant move by operators, of an endless kind, to derive as much advantage from subscribers of mobile phones as possible. In plain language, mobile users in Bangladesh have been and are being thoroughly fleeced by mobile operators.
   Given that there is a whole question of morality involved here, it should have been for the parliamentary committee meeting on Monday to reach a viable, acceptable decision through fixing standard call rates for mobile users. In this context, one will note that the suggestion made by a sub-committee of the parliamentary standing committee of the ministry of posts and telecommunications for a fixing of Tk. 3 per minute during peak hours and Tk. 2 per minute at off-peak time makes a whole lot of sense. On the one hand, it allows subscribers to breathe a little easier and, on the other, it still leaves operators with a reasonable level of profit without in any way undermining their business. If now the operators are upset at the fact that such proposed call rates will hamper the free ride they have been having so far, it is their problem. Speaking of the sub-committee again, the unfortunate fact about its suggestion is that it was reportedly overturned by the main committee, which then went into proposing Tk.5 and Tk. 3 respectively for peak and off-peak hours. That is how the issue of call rates came up against a wall. One could now suggest that the inability to reach a decision on the fixing of call rates has now effectively been stonewalled. Worse, the fact that the worries of mobile operators came up in the course of the discussion of the subcommittee is indicative of the intense lobbying the operators have clearly put up in their own defence. That is all right, up to a point. What really matters is whether a discussion or a decision in the end upholds the interests of the general public.
   The upshot of it all is that mobile phone users in the country have raised the very valid argument that they are being compelled to pay a lot more money to the operators than they reasonably should. Given that public sector mobiles are on the way too, it makes sense to expect an acceptable rate to be fixed for those who have so long used mobiles dispensed by private operators. The decision needs to come soon.

Jeddah and thriving terror

The attack on the US consulate in Jeddah on Monday proves rather alarmingly the truth that terror shows no sign of abating as yet. Much as the world, especially President Bush, would like to believe, the fact remains that the level of terror has simply gone up by a good number of notches in the last three years. Part of the reason why terror has become so hard to deal with will perhaps be found in what Pakistani President Musharraf has had to say about it in London. He has asked that the root causes of terrorism be looked into. Coming from a Pakistani leader noted for his wholehearted cooperation with the Americans in the effort to deal with terror, the statement is surprising. And yet it is a good point which General Musharraf makes. He has referred specifically to the Palestinian issue, and aptly too. The very idea that sheer military might, of the kind the United States has employed in Afghanistan and Iraq, is enough to defeat terrorism is false. And it is false because if issues such as Palestinian rights are not taken into account, if men like Ariel Sharon are allowed to get away with all sorts of misdemeanours, there will not be many people happy with the way the war on terror is being waged.
   The attack on the consulate in Jeddah ought not to be played down only because no loss of American life has occurred. The bigger point is that when a terrorist group finds it easy to detonate bombs outside such a secure building and then move inside, it reflects the desperation which America’s enemies, in the form of suicide bombers and the like, have reached. President Bush may convince himself as much as he wishes through suggesting that the Jeddah attack shows the terrorists are losing the war. Are they? The daily ritual of murder and mayhem going on in Iraq, the continuing chaos in Afghanistan and now the attack in Jeddah clearly prove the argument that American policies after 11 September may actually have fuelled an expansion of terrorism worldwide. More dangerously, the alienation which the methods of the Bush administration have caused even among moderate Muslims the world over demonstrates the extent to which support or sympathy for America has been on a slide. The terrorist attack in Jeddah may not have caused much worry in Washington. But the terrorists have made their point. It is simply that their numbers and strategic locations have multiplied; and it is also that they are now ready to embarrass Washington by embarrassing its close allies, among whom Saudi Arabia happens to be one of the foremost.

At long last has come the feeling, where feelings should have earlier been, that changes need to be brought about in the way the United Nations works. A panel set up by Secretary General Kofi Annan has recommended quite a good number of reforms to have the world body assume a more dynamic profile in the times to be. One of the important recommendations that have been made by the panel is for an expansion of the Security Council from its present strength of fifteen members to twenty four. The commonly held view is that global politics has changed to such an extent in the last decade or so that a wholesale restructuring is called for at the UNSC.
   The difficulty with the Security Council is not that it is in need of expansion. One can have twenty four or even a hundred members on the body. But when it is a matter of only five permanent members of the UNSC holding the power of veto over any decision reached, it becomes quite pointless to advocate change without looking at the ways in which the powers of the permanent members may or can be curbed. It is a ridiculous situation when, say, fourteen members of the UNSC adopt a resolution condemning Israeli atrocities in occupied Arab territory and then have the resolution brought to nought through the veto of a single permanent member, usually the United States. In a very effective way, therefore, all the resolutions that the seemingly all-important Security Council may adopt have a very slim chance of being implemented unless all five permanent members vote for it. Therefore, the issue for the UN today is not just a matter of expanding the Security Council or carrying out internal reforms. It is, more importantly, one of rethinking the powers of the Big Five. Lately there have been demands that a few new countries —- Brazil, India, Japan, Germany —- be given permanent status on the UNSC. The fact that the idea has not been enthusiastically received by the present permanent members demonstrates clearly the reluctance of powerful nations to have anyone else break their monopoly at the United Nations.
   So all this question of a reform and restructuring of the United Nations will simply have to wait until the bigger problem of how to curb the powers, almost arbitrary, of the existing permanent members of the Security Council is tackled. Meanwhile, even as Kofi Annan has been coming forth with his brave attempts to revamp the world body, allegations have begun to surface of the corruption he has allegedly been presiding over. As one might have guessed already, the criticisms have largely emanated from American political quarters, which for many is enough to smell a deep-rooted conspiracy in Washington to push the secretary general overboard. Officials of the UN, it is alleged, have been engaged in some sort of conspiracy to skirt around the sanctions on Iraq (in the days when Saddam Hussein was in power) in exchange for corrupt cash. Moreover, there are allegations that Koji Annan, son of the secretary general, has been doing business in Iraq despite the sanctions imposed by the global body. There is, therefore, a huge degree of embarrassment which has come to Kofi Annan. His term in office is expected to last until early 2007. But the sceptics have already begun talking of his exit in months if not weeks. It seems a jockeying to fill the position he might be forced to vacate has already begun, with aspirants from Asia and Latin America already eyeing the job. There have also been rumours that former US president Bill Clinton would have been a prime candidate to succeed Annan if Senator John Kerry had won the presidential election last month.
   Suu Kyi, ASEAN, indifference
   The Myanmar authorities have had Aung San Suu Kyi’s internment extended by one more year. The stranger part of the story is that practically no one in the political world, in Asia or the West, seems to care. Suu Kyi’s story is one of those which over time get to be forgotten by the international community. That should not have happened with her, for Suu Kyi has since the late 1980s been the very symbol of the Myanmar people’s struggle for democracy. Her party, the National League for Democracy, won the general elections of 1990 fair and square and yet the military junta that organised the polls decided in a conspiratorial moment not to hand over power to the elected representatives of the people. Since 1990, therefore, Suu Kyi as well as the rest of Burma has suffered immensely. When politics is commandeered by soldiers or other extra-constitutional forces (and Myanmar has had illegitimate government since 1962 when General Ne Win overthrew the civilian government of Prime Minister U Nu), it is always a whole country which suffers.
   But the agony of Myanmar lies not just in its being repressed by its soldiers. It is to be found as well in the unwillingness of such organisations as the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to question the Myanmar authorities on their doings. A recent summit of the organisation in the Laotian capital of Vientiane saw new Myanmar Prime Minister Soe Win warmly welcomed at the meeting. The ASEAN leaders adopted very energetic resolutions on the situation in such areas as the Middle East and the Korean peninsula, but they said nothing about the problem in their own backyard. Small wonder, then, that such bodies do not have very much of a bright future or are not taken seriously. In the long run, however, the world must start dealing with the issue of what is to be done about Myanmar. It is very much a closed country and has been that way for the last forty two years. In these fourteen years since the elections of 1990, the Myanmar military has systematically sought to weaken the democratic camp through arbitrary arrests and other forms of repression. Not even the fact of Aung San Suu Kyi’s being an internationally respected figure has caused any change in the attitude of the soldiers. A couple of weeks ago, Senior General Than Shwe was in Delhi on a high profile visit to India. Predictably, no one in the Indian capital saw any need to ask the general what he meant to do about setting his country off on a democratic track.
   Pakistan’s soldiers
   Pakistan’s military leader has been having a whale of a time. He has been to Washington and he is now in London, acting every bit of the way as a statesman. Only, General Pervez Musharraf is not a statesman. His importance to the West stems from the loyalty with which he has presented himself before such countries as the United States in light of 11 September. Not surprisingly, Musharraf has only emulated some of his military predecessors in the way he has warmed to the West. One may be quite surprised that there are a whole number of Third World leaders, all elected democratically, who have a tough time getting to meet an American president in the Oval Office or a British prime minister at 10 Downing Street. But when it comes to dictators friendly to the West, there is no such problem. Field Marshal Ayub Khan, having thrown Pakistan’s fledgling democracy out the window in 1958, found himself addressing a joint session of the US Congress in 1961. His successor General Yahya Khan conveniently had the Americans look away from the murder of Bengalis by his army in 1971 only because he was being a good conduit to Washington’s opening to Beijing. General Ziaul Haq, a pariah till 1979, suddenly became an important US ally after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. It has all been part of a pattern.
   It is amazing to think that the two individuals who, despite their manifest flaws of political character, would have made a difference in Pakistan happen to be unable to return home. Benazir Bhutto shuttles between Dubai and London to keep herself going. And Nawaz Sharif, poor man, is in exile with his whole family in Saudi Arabia. With politics in such a straitjacket, there is little that one can expect to see in Pakistan in the near future. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that the kind of committed politicians Pakistan had in the 1960s and 1970s, those who kept military as well as civilian dictators on their toes all the time, is not there any more. The danger arising out of such realities is that Pakistan could be in for many more years of military rule, if not under Musharraf then under some other soldier. What would Muhammad Ali Jinnah make of it?