Editorial
Election Commission in a tangle
of its own making
The report, front-paged in New Age on December 18, that the Election Commission looks set to miss the deadline it has set for itself to complete dialogues with political parties on reforms in the electoral laws because of delays in resolving the legal tangle related to the representation of the Bangladesh National Party at the talks should spring little surprise for anyone who has closely watched the commission’s actions since its reconstitution on February 4. So far, the chief election commissioner and his two colleagues have talked tall but delivered very little. Disappointingly still, the commission has dragged itself into avoidable controversies time and again and, in the process, touched off what appears to be an irretrievable loss of credibility.
It is needless to say that the problem the commission currently faces is of its own making. While the chief election commissioner had promised earlier that the commission would decide on which faction of the BNP to invite to the dialogue upon a close scrutiny of the party’s constitution, he reneged on the promise, violated the BNP constitution and recognised the faction led by Saifur Rahman and M Hafizuddin Ahmed, who were made acting chairman and secretary general respectively at a dubious standing committee meeting of the party. Such an action understandably reinforced the public suspicion that the commission may be working as an extension of the military-controlled interim government. Now, its failure to respond to the November 18 ruling of the High Court over a writ petition filed by detained BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia despite its repeated assertions in the past few weeks that it will request the High Court for an expeditious hearing and disposal of the petition could further reinforce such suspicion. After all, the BNP is currently in a state of limbo and will continue to be so the longer the legal process drags on, which seemingly fits perfectly with the interim government’s strategy to split the party.
Crucially still, the proposal for reforms in the electoral laws is intrinsically related to democratic reforms within the political parties in terms of inter- and intra-party conduct, transparency in fundraising and expenditure, etc. The abeyance in the reforms process also puts on hold the possibility of return to a healthy political environment. Overall, the lingering political limbo will only intensify the suffocating environment on the social and political fronts, the consequence of which may not prove pleasant for either the government or the commission or the country as a whole.
Therefore, the government and the commission would be well-advised to untangle the political limbo that they themselves have given rise to so that the country can be back on the path to democratic order as soon as possible.
RMG workers continue to be deprived
Our apprehensions that labour rights and privileges and working conditions at many readymade garment factories are far below what is expected have been justified by the findings of a survey that a rights group conducted on 1,000 factories across the country. The survey report, released in Dhaka on Tuesday, says only 28 per cent of the factories pay their workers minimum wages as fixed by the government in October 2006. Significantly, the survey was conducted after the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association had claimed that 90 per cent of its member factories paid their workers wages according to the government-fixed pay structure. The survey puts a big question mark over the commitment of the garment factory owners to the welfare of the workers who toil day and night, and help the country earn billions of dollars in foreign exchange.
Although the military-controlled interim government has repeatedly asked the factory owners to streamline payment structure and warned them with legal action, the warning has not been followed up with any prohibitive actions. Neither have there been significantly visible efforts on the part of the owners to ensure that their workers are indeed provided the minimum wages of Tk 1,662.50 per month even over a year after they had agreed to the new wage structure. Since May last year when garment workers rose in violent protests in Dhaka and surrounding industrial districts, there have been several protests and demonstrations by workers of garment factories in demand of arrears and minimum wages that they allege the factory owners refuse to pay them. Two spots in Gazipur also witnessed similar demonstrations on Monday where workers vandalised factories in demand of festival allowances and pending wages that their employers had refused to pay with barely a week to go before Eid-ul-Azha. It is appalling that the owners of these factories have the audacity to question the legality of the workers’ demands when the recent survey, as well as several others by labour rights groups, proves beyond doubt that the owners are the ones who are on the wrong side of the law and not the workers.
The recent survey has also found that most factories do not pay overtime properly or provide appointment letters to the workers, which is the most basic and trivial of all the requirements set forth by a tripartite agreement among the workers, owners and the government after the workers’ unrest in 2006.
We urge the government to ensure justice for the workers and help them get their dues and rights instead of filing lawsuits against hundreds of demonstrators for violating the emergency rules since it is clear that they are the ones who are repressed and must not be repressed further by the state which should uphold their rights in the first place. There should also be immediate provisions to initiate workers union at the garment factories since such unions are only conducive to better industrial relations which are indispensable for the sustainability and healthy growth of this promising sector.
War crimes trials: political will missing
The problem is that social pressure cannot be sustained over a long period of time if the political leadership does not play its part. Public sentiment for trying the criminals was built up to a high pitch during 1991-92 and mock trials were also organised to raise public morale. But the political leadership of the day wasted the patriotic spirit displayed and nothing concrete followed. Curiously, those who demanded in earnest the trial and punishment of war criminals did little or nothing to expedite the process when they were in power, writes Zakeria Shirazi
THE pledges of the country’s liberation have not been redeemed in many vital areas of life, a fact which few will deny. Similarly, one of the most conspicuous failings of the country lay in not holding trial of the war criminals even in 36 years. Misplaced mercy has never produced any desirable effect. And it was not a declared mercy either, since the war criminals do not see themselves as reprieved convicts but are hyperactive in pursuing their own anti-liberation agenda. Any country which seeks to guard its freedom has to treat issues of treason seriously. The British government, in the midst of its victory in the war, did not forget to try and execute William Joyce, better known to radio listeners of the day as ‘Lord Haw Haw’. William Joyce had not committed, or abetted in the commission of, any rape or murder but while the war against England was on he was, despite being an English citizen (a fact which his defence lawyers tried to dispute), broadcasting propaganda against England in favour of the enemy Germany in the English language service of German radio. Surmounting all the legal hurdles Joyce was executed on January 3, 1946 on the charge that the accused ‘being a person owing allegiance to our Lord the King and while a war was being carried on by the German Realm against our King, did treacherously adhere to the King’s enemies in Germany by broadcasting propaganda.’ Ezra Pound could escape trial for treason on the plea of insanity. He too was only a propagandist for Fascist Italy and had neither perpetrated nor collaborated in any rape or killing.
Legal hurdles to trying the ‘razakars’ and war criminals can be overcome given the political will and pressure of the public. Mere rhetoric can help to keep the issue alive but will achieve no further. The consequence of not bringing to justice the war criminals has resulted in growing audacity of those war crime perpetrators. Every now and then they are wont to engage in activities with intent to subvert the country’s sovereignty and make public statements which are not only historically false but go to undermine the country’s freedom and dignity and even bring aspersion to the hallowed names of the heroes of our liberation war. As they are in possession of some publicity organs their doings cannot be dismissed as antics; these can inflict damage of a durable though invisible kind, especially by eroding patriotic values. Benefiting from official inaction in this regard they are dealing fresh shocks every day. One of them had the temerity to say that in 1971 no liberation war but only a civil war took place. Another worthy said our war heroes went to India to satisfy their lustful desires. We owe it to the blood of the martyrs not to put up with this open defilement of our liberation war and its glorious legacy.
These war criminals are not foolhardy people. They calculate their risks carefully. They feel secure that no harm will come to them by resuming their activities of seditious import. Either they are enjoying very strong protection and defence from some powerful quarters or have become contemptuous of the nation’s capacity to react. Perhaps, they are finding an opportunity in the fact that the nation’s chief attention is now engrossed in pursuing the post-liberation terrorists of the JMB types and the drive against anti-liberation forces is losing steam. True, the rise of Islamist terrorists poses a new challenge before the nation but the war criminals must not be allowed to turn the nation’s preoccupation in this direction to their own advantage. And indeed the two groups are related despite the generational divide. Many war criminals are known to be patrons and protectors of the Islamist militants. If these war criminals were firmly dealt with in the right time, that is thirty-six years ago, they would have no opportunity to help foster a new generation of the enemies of the democratic and secular values of our liberation. Just because we have shown a remarkable inaction over three-and-half decades there is no reason we should let off the criminals permanently. It is never too late although obviously the more the matter is delayed the more difficult will it be to prosecute the accused ones. Much valuable evidence must already have been lost but this should not deter us from our purpose. The hunt for Nazi war criminals is still on. The International Military Tribunal formed at Nuremberg to try war criminals of World War II defined crimes against humanity as ‘murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation … or prosecution on political, racial or religious grounds’. There are ample precedents from the Nuremberg trial and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) which awarded 33 years’ imprisonment to Milosevic for war crimes.
Happily the nation is waking up again. The entire society is being mobilised to isolate and punish the criminals. Demand is being raised by different quarters not to show indulgence any more to the enemies of liberation. Saboteurs exist in many countries who try to secretly undermine the state system but in our case the enemies of the state are not underground or invisible; the irony of ironies is that some of them have held high positions of the state. The initial laxity shown in dealing with them proved to be the thin end of the wedge.
The social pressure is once again building up. This is a positive gain. The problem is that social pressure cannot be sustained over a long period of time if the political leadership does not play its part. Public sentiment for trying the criminals was built up to a high pitch during 1991-92 and mock trials were also organised to raise public morale. But the political leadership of the day wasted the patriotic spirit displayed and nothing concrete followed. Curiously, those who demanded in earnest the trial and punishment of war criminals did little or nothing to expedite the process when they were in power. Even Ghulam Azam’s citizenship could not be cancelled because some legal technicalities were cited in his favour. However, we are not sanguine that the case was pressed against Ghulam Azam very sincerely by the government of the day. It is not only that the political leadership did not act with the required sincerity and vigour but in their zeal of vote gathering they even sometimes tried to strike a deal with these very about-to-be-proved traitors.
The prime factors here are political will and social pressure. Legal technicalities will not stand in the way if the rulers clearly spell out their position and society remains steadfast in its commitment instead of showing a see-saw of mood swing with high pitch of excitement alternating with inaction and apathy. The Victory Day this year brought forth the finest patriotic fervour on the question of holding war crimes trial. Major political parties seemed to be making some amends for their past inaction. They boycotted the Victory Day reception hosted by president Iajuddin Ahmed in protest against invitation to Jamaat-e-Islami which opposed the war of independence. The sector commanders similarly boycotted the reception. Social boycott is both necessary and desirable; it can go together with trial and punishment but it is not a substitute for the latter. Till trial is held social boycott should be carried on with greater rigour.
The Sector Commanders’ Forum has taken steps to form a legal committee for the trial. Demand for trial is coming from other quarters. The liberation war is a well-documented event. Even if too many eyewitnesses may not be available after so many years, there was extensive day-by-day coverage of the war by the world press and many books have been written, some even by Pakistani military officers. The one by Pakistani military officer Major Siddik Salik (Witness to Surrender), for example, records much of the misdeeds of the anti-liberation elements. Documents will not be wanting.
Since the crucial factor is the will of the government, the cause receives a boost from the fact that both the chief adviser and the army chief have come out in favour of holding the trial. One of the advisers has expressed reservation but we would like to think that his statement reflects minority view. The process of trial should start immediately. By the time we celebrate our Independence Day on March 26 next, we hope some demonstrable progress will have been achieved.
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