Boycott, now what?
It’s a moot point whether breaking the impasse created by an ‘irresistible’ force (Alliance) meeting an ‘immovable’ object (BNP) can be done by negotiation or requires a more potent instrument. The fast moving developments in the coming days should provide the answer, writes Mumtaz Iqbal
When a team blatantly plays foul football with the referee’s connivance, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the other team after protesting quits the field, giving its opponent a walkover that’s a hollow and Pyrrhic victory lacking legitimacy, especially when both teams’ fans are evenly matched.
This is what the AL-led alliance (Alliance) did on 3 January 2007 and announced a boycott unless the 22 January elections date is shifted, Chief Adviser (CA) Iajuddin resigns and fresh voters’ list prepared and published.
Failing this, it would continue its protests through blockade of Bangabhavan on 7-8 January and thereafter by other unspecified means.
The Alliance acted as it did claiming that the electoral playing field is not level but full of potholes. Empirical and anecdotal evidence supports this contention.
The BNP-led alliance (BNP) has made fiefdoms of the presidency, caretaker government (CG), election commission (EC), and large parts of the bureaucracy, judiciary and police. CA Iajuddin’s performance makes this clear. The AL by acts committed in power is not blameless either for the playing field’s condition.
The Alliance’s stick and carrot policy of demonstrations and accommodation to level the playing field has foundered against the BNP’s iron grip of the state machinery.
Predictably, BNP blasted the boycott attributing this to the Alliance’s fear of losing, vowed to take part in the polls, asked the public to ignore the boycott and vote.
Stage set for strife
The stage is set for a showdown. How prolonged and bitter this is depends upon two factors that incestuously feed on one another.
The first is the potency of the Alliance protests. The second is the quality of the state’s reaction at BNP’s behest.
On both aspects, the evidence seems mixed.
Alliance movement and state response
Supported by about 35-40 % of the electorate, the Alliance can put large numbers of people on the streets to enforce blockades, hartals and similar acts.
Such shock tactics quickly run out of steam because of the adverse effect on people’s livelihood and operation of the law of diminishing returns (each successive hartal yields reduced returns).
Right now, after the boycott decision, Alliance supporters’ enthusiasm and morale is high, though with an undertone of anxiety.
Thus, the blockade of 7-8 January is likely to be a well-organised show of strength, crucial to establish the Alliance’s credibility and bargaining power.
Likewise, the CG will react by using calibrated force to stop the Alliance’s supporters from assembling near Bangabhavan and dispersing them elsewhere. Police arrest of Alliance supporters dubbed ‘criminals’ on 5 January suggests a strategy of preemption.
With their superior resources, the security forces should prevail. The question is how.
The litmus test will be whether or not firing occurs and how many casualties, including deaths, occur.
If only pitched battles happen, then the situation should remain contained and not become inflamed. A draw should satisfy both sides since neither prevailed and both emerged with honour intact, possibly keeping the door open for talks.
But if firing and deaths occur of a magnitude considered unacceptable, then things will become ugly. How will the Alliance react?
It could pause to cool things. This is unlikely. The Alliance most probably will continue and escalate its protests, as its leaders have publicly hinted.
Does the Alliance have the stamina to sustain them for a reasonable duration?
Public sympathy and support is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to enable the Alliance to continue protests.
The example of 1971 shows that, despite mass support, the AL movement collapsed against firepower. Guerrilla warfare supplemented by external help routed the Pakistanis. Starting a movement is the easy part. Maintaining it against superior force is harder.
The possibility of the Alliance’s demonstrations morphing into more violent forms of simultaneous and decentralised actions such as attacking symbols of authority (e.g. official structures), personnel (e.g. civil and security forces) and opponents, either on its own volition or as a reaction to state action, can’t be ruled out.
Even if the Alliance leaders forswear violence, they may not be able to control what its disparate and heterogeneous group of supporters do. The genie can’t be put back in the bottle easily.
This will harden resolve on both sides and set the stage for heightened strife; fracture and polarise society; and could slide the country gradually into conditions approaching ‘civil war.’
Sadly, such a ‘war’ will be between the supporters of two well-matched parties both professing democracy. Thus, it’ll be unlike the ongoing trouble in Iraq (sectarian) or 1930s Spain (fascists vs. republicans).
To contain the Alliance protests, the CG is relying on the army. Already deployed in a limited way, the army will be stationed nationwide from 10 January as a prelude to the 22 January elections, for which EC’s preparations such as allocating symbols are continuing.
Should elections be held and usher in a BNP government, the resulting disturbances suggest that the army’s role in aid of civil power is likely to be both prolonged and substantial.
The big difference: that the civil power emerging after 22 January will be controversial. It’ll have limited legitimacy at home and very little abroad, judging by the foreign diplomats’ statements that a credible election must be competitive.
Position of army
The boycott and its ramifications have placed the position of the army in sharp relief. Some idea of Army Headquarters’ (AHQ) thinking is available from excerpts of informal comments of COAS Lt. Gen. Moeen U Ahmed to Pakistani columnist Maj. ® Ikram Sehgal (both were commissioned in 2 EBR raised by Sehgal’s father in 1949) published in Karachi’s The Independent News , 28 December 2006:
““…despite sleepless night…with many…urging Army to fill the void…I am determined …Army…(will) not violate its oath; will support any civilian authority on the basis of a fair, equitable vote…will continue to give mature advice to all in the electoral process to fulfil the responsibilities of a democracy” (author’s underlining).
These statements show that, like the rest of the country, the COAS is also anxious about the current situation and wants a credible election; is resolved to stay put despite numerous requests to take over; and envisages AHQ as an honest broker already dialoguing with people who matter.
The COAS’s observations are unexceptionable motherhood statements. They reflect the army’s supreme task of being the ultimate defenders and guarantors of national sovereignty and territory.
The army and other services in Bangladesh –– and elsewhere –– cultivate an image of competent professionalism and neutrality to seek and retain public confidence that’s vital for them to do their job properly. This is AHQ’s enduring core corporate interest.
This image transcends—and must be seen to transcend—narrow institutional interests of entities like political parties (author’s underscoring). Sullying this image would cause loss of public confidence, make the services a broken reed and amount to hara kiri.
The Tk.64K question: how will aid to civil power, pre-election and post-election, impact on the army’s image should it become more than casually involved in maintaining security?
Nobody really knows the answer because it’ll depend on how the two factors outlined above play out.
However, the COAS has captured the national mood when he stressed the importance of ‘…a fair, equitable vote.’
This crucial caveat is precisely the point. Ensuring such a voting profile is at the heart of our intractable political problem.
There’s justifiably widespread apprehension about the fairness and equity of the elections process. Thus a backlash against the army should its support of civil power be perceived as ‘partisan’ can’t be ruled out.
The COAS has mentioned about continuing ‘...to give advice.’ Considering the potential for destabilisation, should the AHQ give more mature advice—even gently banging heads together? –– to broker an acceptable compromise that forestalls the slide to quasi-insurrection?
Failing a compromise, AHQ may decide to participate robustly, to the point of direct or indirect intervention, in national affairs to restore some equilibrium in political life.
Such intervention is unlikely to be in the interest of the political parties. They would be consigned to the wilderness for some months, with unpredictable consequences on their fortunes.
By most accounts, the majority of the public is rightly fed-up with the political parties’ antics of winning at all cost using any means
Thus, AHQ’s intervention is likely to elicit broad but somewhat cautious public acceptance, especially if it’s targeted to ensuring a credible vote and is accompanied by a firm time frame for withdrawal.
The danger in AHQ involvement is self-evident. For various reasons, the time table may not be kept. However, strong incentives to do so will be there through external pressure and army’s instinct for self-preservation.
Long exposure to political power usually ends disastrously e.g. Ayub, Ershad, Galtieri, Mobutu, Pinochet, Suharto and Yahya.
By any yardstick, AHQ foray into assuming civil governance would be a retrograde step and should be an absolute last resort.
It’s a moot point whether breaking the impasse created by an ‘irresistible’ force (Alliance) meeting an ‘immovable’ object (BNP) can be done by negotiation or requires a more potent instrument.
The fast moving developments in the coming days should provide the answer.
The author is a free lancer.
Cuba on the threshold of a critical year
Will the 80-year-old leader return to power? If he does, will he do it with full capacities? What will happen if he is no longer around? Would Raúl Castro remain the man he seems to be, or would he surprise Cuba and the world with changes? Would it be possible for the country to experience such crucial times without violence? What would the United States do? The questions arise again and again on the streets of Havana and other cities,
writes Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, Dec 29: After a year marked by great uncertainty as to the future, Cubans are awaiting 2007 with a sense that it will bring major changes to the lives of every one of the 11.2 million people who live under the government of Fidel Castro.
Will the 80-year-old leader return to power? If he does, will he do it with full capacities? What will happen if he is no longer around? Would Raúl Castro remain the man he seems to be, or would he surprise Cuba and the world with changes? Would it be possible for the country to experience such crucial times without violence? What would the United States do?
The questions arise again and again on the streets of Havana and other cities. Academics, labourers, homemakers –– everyone in Cuba, regardless of political orientation, is talking about the same thing as the year comes to a close.
‘I would die if something happened to my sister,’ said a 42-year-old Cuban émigré who returned to Cuba to spend the year-end holidays with her family. ‘Whatever happens, I just hope that peace continues to reign. We have to be able to understand each other, without anyone meddling from outside,’ she told IPS.
There are some who fear a social explosion, with violence in the streets, witchhunts or acts of vengeance, a mass exodus, legal claims from the most radical sectors of the Cuban exile community, or even a military invasion by the United States.
‘I hope nothing perturbs the social coexistence; that the overall situation improves next year; and that well-being grows, so that we can live in tranquillity,’ Cardinal Archbishop Jaime Ortega of Havana said in his Christmas message published December 23 on the web site of the Cuban bishops’ conference.
Ortega said that in the six Catholic celebrations held between September and December this year, ‘a unanimous clamour for peace’ was heard from those attending. ‘How many things are Cubans referring to when they call for peace at this special moment in our national history!’ he added.
On the verge of his 25th anniversary as archbishop of Havana, the cardinal called on Cubans to resist ‘the temptation of anxiety over the future,’ and reflected that violence can be used and even justified with ‘apparently very noble motives.’
Cubans were shaken on July 31 when Castro’s personal secretary Carlos Valenciaga read out a statement by the president ‘to the people of Cuba.’
The statement, signed by Castro, announced that he had undergone emergency surgery and that for the first time since 1959 he would have to temporarily hand over power to his brother Raúl, the defence minister and chief of the armed forces.
Nearly five months after that announcement, which triggered wild celebrations among the Cuban exile community in Miami, Florida and a strange sort of inertia in Cuba, Castro has not yet made any public appearance. And no video images of the president have been aired since October 28.
Rumours that Castro has terminal cancer were refuted this month by a Spanish surgeon who examined him in Havana.
‘President Castro has no malignant inflammation. It’s a benign process in which he has had a series of complications,’ José Luis García Sabrido, head of surgery at the Gregorio Marañón Public Hospital in Madrid, said on December 26. The doctor also said Castro’s ‘intellectual activity (is) intact.’
That news, which made headlines around the world, was not reported by the national media, which is a state monopoly. The same thing has happened with other information: follow-ups on Castro’s health; the controversy over Cuba’s future; the concerns of different sectors; isolated incidents of social tension; and even Ortega’s Christmas message.
Local authorities, the state-controlled media and political propaganda reiterate patriotic messages and the idea that the revolution will outlive Fidel and even his brother Raúl.
At the same time, the government has limited its calls for mass demonstrations, local television has limited the re-broadcasting of political events and ceremonies during prime-time, and especially during the sacred time slots devoted to popular soap operas, and the number of films broadcast at night and into the morning hours has been increased.
Local observers say these changes indicate understanding on the part of the authorities of the need to avoid greater tension or situations of discontent among the populace, and to increase entertainment options available without the need to leave home at night.
Dissidents are divided when it comes to interpreting the current atmosphere in Cuba. Some say repression has been eased and that the army could serve as a guarantee of stability and openness at a time of change, while others say arrests of government opponents have gone up and that a future under the leadership of Raúl Castro would only bring a strong-arm approach to opposition.
Raúl, who does not exercise the absolute leadership of his brother, and whose personality is very different, has emphasised the need for collective leadership, and says that in his last few months as acting president, he has focused on making sure everyone lives up to their responsibilities in running the country.
‘Fidel is irreplaceable, unless we all replace him together, each one in his place,’ the provisional leader said December 20 in a half-hour speech at a congress of the Federation of University Students.
Showing a different face, he had harsh words for shortcomings in the agriculture and transport industries, during a December 23 session of parliament. ‘We are tired of justifications in this revolution,’ he said, analysing the situation in the countryside.
Some analysts say that the status quo could be maintained if the Cuban government, under Raúl’s leadership, is able to make the economy more efficient, curb inflation, upgrade urban transport systems, make some economic regulations more flexible or allow a stronger role for private enterprise.
Others say transformations are also necessary on the political front, in terms of individual liberties like freedom of speech or political association, and the opening up of greater spaces for participation by the entire range of civil society.
‘We believe the construction of participative socialism is both desirable and possible, even if there is a lack of dialogue and participation. United and together we can do it. We do not want to undo what has been done in forty-some years; we just want it to be improved on. But that requires dialogue and participation,’ Baptist preacher Raymundo García commented to IPS.
The director of the Christian Centre for Reflection and Dialogue, located 140 km from Havana, García said he is confident that Raúl Castro will assume with intelligence the responsibility that falls to him, although he recognised that ‘not everyone thinks the same.’
‘Why can’t civil society participate in these issues? Why can’t we reach agreements? And why preserve the verticalism of party and state, one of the biggest flaws in the former Soviet Union, when we are neither enemies nor in favour of the United States?’ he wondered.
Any in-depth change, however, will depend to a large extent on Washington and its Cuba policy. President George W Bush’s plan for a political transition in Cuba, which was released in 2004, is seen as a constant threat of external meddling and influences all internal processes.
Some dissident sectors also reject US aid, which they see as counterproductive, actually strengthening the government’s arguments that all opposition groups are organised and financed by the United States with the aim of overthrowing Fidel Castro.
‘Cuba and the United States should have the capacity to put an end to their cold war at the negotiating table,’ Manuel Cuesta Morúa, spokesman for the moderate dissident coalition Arco Progresista, told IPS.
Dialogue is seen for now as a distant possibility by another leader of the opposition, Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, who wants Cuba’s problems to be resolved ‘by Cubans,’ and who is convinced that the confrontation will continue as long as Bush is in office. And confrontation, he said, ‘does not contribute to the democratisation of Cuba,’ he added.
–– Inter Press Service
US-Venezuela: synergy with the devil
Chávez’s demonisation of the US has had little or no impact on business between the two countries. The US continues to be Venezuela’s most important trading partner… Deep-seated ideological and political hostility between countries is often less of an obstacle to trade than you might think…. Trade does not, as Enlightenment thinkers like Thomas Paine believed, always bring peace in its wake, ‘operating to cordialise mankind.’… But the benefits of trade often excuse even the most grievous of sins. Sometimes, it just makes sense to deal with the devil, writes James Surowiecki
A year ago, progressive activists and policy wonks descended upon Caracas, Venezuela, for the World Social Forum, a kind of Davos conference for the global left. People packed into the Caracas Hilton to listen to panel discussions on the evils of neoliberalism and the threat posed by US hegemony, and Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, gave a speech to a crowd of some ten thousand in which he called for ‘socialism or death.’ It was a striking demonstration of Chávez’s importance as an anti-capitalist symbol. And yet, only six months earlier, in the very same hotel, Chávez’s government had hosted a rather different meeting of international luminaries. The attendees were American businessmen, and the meeting was a trade fair intended to convince American companies that Venezuela was friendly to foreign investment and eager to expand trade with the US.
To people on both the left and the right, Hugo Chávez is a kind of modern-day Castro, a virulently anti-American leader who has positioned himself as the spearhead of Latin America’s ‘Bolivarian revolution.’ He calls for a ‘socialism of the twenty-first century,’ and regularly floats radical economic ideas; during his recent campaign for reëlection, he suggested he might move Venezuela to a barter system. When he spoke in front of the United Nations General Assembly in September, a day after President Bush, he said, ‘The devil came here yesterday.’ And, just last month, after he was overwhelmingly reëlected to the Presidency, he dedicated the victory to Castro and proclaimed it ‘another defeat for the devil who tries to dominate the world.’
Chávez’s rhetoric might not be out of place in ‘The Little Red Book,’ yet everyday life for many Venezuelans today looks more like the Neiman-Marcus catalogue. Thanks to the boom in the price of oil, many Venezuelans have been indulging in rampant consumerism that might give even an American pause. In the past year, auto sales have doubled, property prices have soared (mortgage loans are up three hundred per cent), and, thanks to this buying frenzy, credit-card loans have nearly doubled. And while Chávez has done a good job of redistributing oil revenue to the Venezuelan poor, via so-called ‘misiones’, designed to improve education, health care, and housing, and has forced oil companies to renegotiate contracts, there has been no nationalization of industry, relatively little interference with markets, and only small gestures toward land reform. If this is socialism, it’s the most business-friendly socialism ever devised.
Even stranger, Chávez’s demonisation of the US has had little or no impact on business between the two countries. The US continues to be Venezuela’s most important trading partner. Much of this business is oil: Venezuela is America’s fourth-largest supplier, and the US is Venezuela’s largest customer. But the flow of trade goes both ways and across many sectors. The US is the world’s biggest exporter to Venezuela, responsible for a full third of its imports. The Caracas skyline is decorated with Hewlett-Packard and Citigroup signs, and Ford and G.M. are market leaders there. And, even as Chávez’s rhetoric has become more extreme, the two countries have become more entwined: trade between the US and Venezuela has risen thirty-six per cent in the past year.
Chávez has been the beneficiary of excellent timing: oil prices have quintupled since he took over, allowing him to hand out billions of dollars to the poor. But he has done little to diversify the nation’s industrial base and lessen the economy’s dependence on oil, while his few tepid ventures into state ownership or coöperatives will have no meaningful economic impact. The result is that the ties between the US and Venezuela have actually tightened. And there is only so much Chávez could do to loosen them without wrecking his economy; most Venezuelan oil is heavy with sulphur, and the refineries that are best equipped to handle it are in the US. It’s far easier and cheaper to ship oil from the Orinoco Basin to Corpus Christi than to a refinery in Shanghai. In any case, it’s far from clear that most Venezuelans want those ties loosened at all; Venezuela has traditionally been more America-friendly than other South American countries. Baseball is bigger in Venezuela than soccer, and there are Subway and McDonald’s franchises throughout the country.
The paradox is that Chávez’s anti-Americanism is central to his global appeal, while American consumers and companies are central to the economic performance of his regime. So, while he’s going around the world giving speeches about how the goose should be killed, he relies on the golden eggs to keep himself in power. This may seem like a state of affairs that can’t last, and Chávez’s supporters and detractors alike assume that, soon enough, his deeds will begin to live up to his rhetoric: he’ll cut off oil supplies to the US, or the like. But deep-seated ideological and political hostility between countries is often less of an obstacle to trade than you might think. Japan, for instance, is South Korea’s second-largest trading partner, despite the fact that Korean resentment toward Japan runs very high, thanks to a long history of Japanese imperialism in the region. China, meanwhile, treats Taiwan as a rebel province, and has threatened military action if it attempts to declare independence, but foreign trade between the two countries totals nearly sixty-five billion dollars. Trade does not, as Enlightenment thinkers like Thomas Paine believed, always bring peace in its wake, ‘operating to cordialise mankind.’ (Think, after all, of the First World War.) But the benefits of trade often excuse even the most grievous of sins. Sometimes, it just makes sense to deal with the devil.
The New Yorker/US, January 1, 2007
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