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There is a clear and present danger to the state, posed by men who have patently taken it upon themselves to define religion for the country. The more worrying part of the story is that some elements of the administration, especially sections of the police, appear to be involved in the process. The outrageous manner in which some policemen appeased a band of fanatics in Bogra on Friday by agreeing to put up a sign designed by the bigots on an Ahmadiyya mosque speaks of something sinister that may be at work. It should have been the job of the law enforcers to do what they were supposed to do, which is to enforce the law. Instead, what they were doing in Bogra was to add fuel to the fire by clearly violating the rights of the Ahmadiyya community. The question here is not one of who is or is not a Muslim. It is one of a silent, peaceful body of worshippers being made the target of unprovoked attacks by religious fanatics whose motives are obviously the creation of a law and order situation in the country. It is such motives which have been condoned by the Bogra police. It should now be for the government, here in Dhaka, to come forth with an explanation of why the police in Bogra chose to act in a way that was a clear demonstration of partisanship in favour of a frenzied band of men.
   And that surely is not the end of the story. Here in the capital itself, a concerted campaign appears to be going on under the aegis of the self-styled Khatme Nabuwat Movement. It has all along been known that the outfit has been whipping up communal sentiment against the Ahmadiyyas all over the country in the last few months. But what occurred in Dhaka on Friday is clearly a portent of danger. The khatib of Baitul Mukarram, the national mosque, has now made his position clear. He has opined that the Ahmadiyyas be declared non-Muslims. Under what law and by what right he has chosen to act the way he did remains unclear. But for the country as a whole, it is a clear provocation on his and his followers’ part. It is morally indefensible that men who seek, publicly, to plunge the country into religious or communal disorder should be at the helm of such significant organisations or places of worship as Baitul Mukarram. In effect, what the khatib has done is to send out the very bad message that a mosque, a place where the glory of the Almighty is praised and His blessings sought, can at the whims of individuals be turned into a platform for religious and political chaos. The khatib and his friends went even further by making it clear that they will not abide by any ruling by the highest judiciary of the land on the issue of the Ahmadiyyas. That is not only outrageous but a plain and clear threat to the authority of the state and the supremacy of the law. No government with even a minimum of self-esteem can afford to look away from such manifestly bad behaviour on the part of individuals, no matter how well-placed or influential these individuals might be. We therefore ask that the authorities, particularly at the ministry of home, deal swiftly with the matter.
   In a country already gasping for breath because of the endless convulsions caused by its disorderly politics, it should not be expected that we can shield ourselves from new trouble. But to prevent such a situation, it is important that those who are fishing in troubled waters — and right now these are all people clamouring for action against the Ahmadiyyas — are dealt with sternly, in that exemplary sort of way. Anyone in the administration seen to be condoning the actions of these bigots ought to be penalised in the larger interest of the country’s future.

Africa’s poverty

British Prime Minister Tony Blair launched, with much fanfare, the Africa Commission report in London on Friday. A host of people, ranging from Bob Geldof to a United Nations under secretary general, took part in deliberations the whole day. In truth, it was a moment when Mr. Blair must have felt thrilled at the fact that his concerns about Africa were finally being noticed. After all, Geldof was noticeably effusive in his praise of the 400-page document. Along the way, the singer made it a point to ask Robert Mugabe to go away and Yoweri Museveni to stop trying to be president for life. His points are well taken.
   There is little question that Africa has been the only continent which has slipped badly even as the others have moved onward. Together with the ravages of political corruption, the continent has in recent decades been laid low by disease and pestilence. The number of countries caught in the throes of civil war or guerrilla activities has never been as high as it is in Africa at this point. Places like Congo have been trying to find a foothold for themselves, with precious few good results. In Sudan’s Darfur region, the activities of the Khartoum military and Janjaweed marauders have led to tens of thousands of people being displaced. The fact is that anywhere you look in Africa, you are liable to spot huge sores which have kept festering. It is thus in the fitness of things that Tony Blair’s efforts to get Africa moving again, through a massive infusion of aid and all it takes to rebuild a continent, are appreciable. But let there be no illusion that the predicament Africa is in today has merely have to do with the mess Africa’s politicians have made of things. Part of the problem has been the continent’s colonial legacy. Let no one forget that.
   Overall, the Africa Commission report should get things moving. It will be a tragedy if the report turns out to have been a new pile of documents to add to bureaucratic paperwork.

It is old hat and does not involve a brilliant intellectual pyrotechnics to say that America’s strategic and geo-political interests in the middle-east are dictated by two main considerations. One is to secure the uninterrupted production and supply of oil from the oil producing countries there and the other is to ensure the security of Israel, its most trusted ally in the region and soul-brother by virtue of the Zionists lobby active in the country’s politics. The foreign policy of America in the middle-east has long used these two motives as the catalyst and lynchpin.
   America’s success in protecting its oil interest in the middle-east has been nothing short of spectacular. It has exerted influence over the oil producing Arab countries since oil started gushing out from the desert land of Bedouins. Libya and Iraq dared to challenge the hegemony for sometime but that is now history. One has capitulated unconditionally to America’s military threat and the other has been ruthlessly occupied after a brutal war of aggression in spite of having no support from other countries and the UN. The occupation of Iraq war has served as a double entendre, serving both its oil interests and the security concerns of Israel. The war of aggression can be said to have been jointly planned and carried out by America and Israel in so far as there was sharing of intelligence and using the strategy of the ‘big fist’.
   Even while the Iraq was in full throttle, many predicted that Iraq and Syria were in America’s sight and the two countries were part of America’s greater strategy of regime change. In the event, America could not take on Iraq or Syria because of the ground swell of world public opinion against the imperialistic war and the unforeseen emergence of a ferocious and sustained insurgency inside Iraq soon after the fall of Baghdad. The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was not only a great embarrassment and a public relations debacle but also a moral defeat for Bush administration which forced America to rein in.
   America, however, did not give up its hostility and belligerence towards Iran and Syria. It carried on a relentless propaganda offensive against the two countries for allegedly giving sanctuary to the fugitive leaders of the Saddam regime and for fomenting trouble inside Iraq by sending foreign insurgents. No convincing evidence could be produced in support of this diatribe and so America and its minion Israel bided for time to justify the demonization of Iran and Syria. The nuclear power plant being built by Iran at Busheyr with Russian and other European countries’ support proved handy to be used as the cudgel. Suddenly, America started a vigorous campaign for the discontinuance of Iraq’s nuclear energy programme alleging that it was clandestinely carrying out a nuclear weapons programme or was about to do so in order to make nuclear bombs. Possible recovery of plutonium from heavy water reactor that Iron was installing was also pointed out to buttress the suspicion. Iranian authorities repeatedly assured that their country had no nuclear weapons programme and allowed the international nuclear watchdog IAEA, to carry out necessary inspection on regular basis. But it strongly refused to abandon the nuclear energy programme, considering it their national right. Vice President Cheyney mentioned in a speech that if Iran did not stop its nuclear programme Israel might attack the installation. President Bush, on his part, has refused to declare that no attack against Iran is in the cards, further bolstering the suspicion that if Iran sticks to its decision to continue with the nuclear energy programme there will be military attack against the country either directly by America or by Israel. This will be both for regime change and to destroy the nuclear facilities that have been built so far. According to recent news reports American commandos are already operating inside Iran, preparing for the attack or gathering intelligence.
   Taking lessons from the ‘People Power’ phenomenon in the Philippines that toppled American lackey Marcos, America has stage managed street demonstrations in quite a few countries in recent years to force the incumbent governments, that if did not like, to resign. This tactics was used in Georgia and Ukraine and now can be seen in Lebanon. Similar attempt in Iran at igniting civil unrest, particularly using the youth, failed. There is little doubt that behind all these so called popular demonstrations there was America’s hand. In every country certain groups are always anti-establishment and with money and planning they can be easily encouraged to put up anti govt. demonstrations. America’s past record in overt and covert activities aimed at destabilising and overthrowing regimes through uprisings and invasion by “liberators” and saboteurs is too well known to require recounting.
   While Iran is bracing for the attack, Syria has come under a different form of aggression, a diplomatic offensive this time, from America’s side. Having failed to change the regime there at one go along with that in Iraq, a conspiracy was hatched to put the country in a corner, isolating it in such a way that if not a regime change, at least its power to threaten Israel is curbed once for all. It is most unconvincing that Syria would arrange for the assassination of the popular former Prime Minister of Lebanon because of his recent anti-Syrian postures. No country is foolish enough to commit this type of blunder when it knows that thereby it will be in a most vulnerable position and expose to external criticisms, even attack. If a criminal knows that he/she will become the immediate suspect, commission of a crime will be furthest from his/her mind. Knowing that the murder of the popular and anti-Syrian prime minister would automatically point the finger at her, why would Syria take this suicidal action? It does not require a conspiracy theory to argue that Mossad and CIA were behind the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister. This was the means to the end of branding Syria as a terrorist state and make it appear as an international pariah. The fact that Syria maintains 15000 members of its army and some intelligence agents were highlighted in the propaganda blitz to further isolate Syria in the world and besmirch her image in world opinion. Along with the propaganda and diplomatic offensives, America also used the ‘people’s power in Beirut to the hilt.
   As if following a carefully written script thousands of Lebanese took to the streets in Beirut demanding the withdrawal of Syrian troop from Lebanon. It is most unusual that an assassination of a politician should be linked with such an issue as the presence of foreign troops. The Syrian troops have not been stationed there recently, their presence having appeared in the seventies at the beginning of the civil war in Lebanon. There is also an agreement between Lebanon and Syria known as Taif Accord that ended the civil war and which calls for troops withdrawal through mutual arrangement. The Syrians have not reneged on this but may have dragged their feet for reasons of their own which are not difficult to see and to sympathize with. The reasons why Syria has dithered is because of the state of war that prevails between Syria and Israel. Last September a Resolution (1559) was passed in the Security Council at the initiative of America for foreign troops to quit Lebanon completely. Syria did not oppose this Resolution but has only delayed its implementation for strategic reasons and perhaps also as a bargaining counter in a peace negotiation with Israel. The UN and the big powers should give more emphasis on the implementation of Resolution 244 and 245, asking Israel to go back to the pre 1967 border. If these Resolutions are complied with then their would be no reason for Syria to keep its troops in Lebanon. It is strange that in all the talks about peace in the middle-east involving Israel and Palestine and the ‘road map’ prepared for the same, Syria has not been involved at all. It has been conveniently forgotten that she is also an aggrieved party, with its territory in Golan Heights being under Israeli occupation since 1967. Unless Syria is made a part of the peace process and her land is returned by Israel, merely asking Syria to remove its troops from Lebanon is not going to bring lasting peace in the area. Syria has shown its interest in such a process on many occasions in the past but this has fallen on deaf ears of America and others.
   American foreign policy makers are now gloating over their success in humiliating and cornering Syria as a state that refuses to live by international laws and meet such obligations as are expected under the same. They think that their attempt to paint Syria as a pariah state has been proved now beyond any shadow of a doubt. But the American policy makers do not realise that as long as Israel is in illegal occupation of land beyond its pre-1967 border, it is Israel that will be regarded as the pariah state. Ken Livingstone, London’s Mayor, almost said this recently when he branded the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a war criminal for his role in the brutal killing of thousands of Palestine refugees in Shabra and Shattila camps in Lebanon during the civil war there.
   By forcing Syria to withdraw troops from Lebanon, America and Israel have at the most won a Pyrrhic victory. Israeli territory and interests will continue to be under attack as long as it remains an illegal occupier of land. It will also bear the burden of opprobrium as being a pariah state. If some of this slur rubs off on America there should be little surprise.