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It was recently reported in the Bangladeshi press that a US security delegation that visited Bangladesh in March had asked President George W Bush to give Bangladesh ‘high priority’ as a strategic partner in US foreign and national security policies. Naturally, it raised some alarm bells among the concerned citizens. However, upon further investigations some interesting facts about Weldon and his interests have emerged and questions remain concerning his recent visit.
   The US security delegation, it was reported, included ‘US Congressman Curt Weldon’. Weldon, however, is no longer a United States congressman. He was defeated in the November 2006 US congressional elections by the Democratic Party candidate Joe Sestak. According to press reports in the US, Weldon is currently under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for alleged corruption.
   Weldon is currently the chief strategic officer of Defence Solutions Incorporated, a small privately-owned company headquartered in Pennsylvania that does defence-related contracting. Weldon began working for Defence Solutions in February 2007. Other members of the delegation that visited Bangladesh in March 2007 included Timothy Ringgold, chief executive officer of Defence Solutions, and Michael Kearney, a programme manager at Defence Solutions.
   Defence Solutions is one of many small businesses that vie for contracts from the US government. Although the company was established in 2001, public federal procurement records show that it started to generate revenue from federal contracts in 2005. In the past two years, Defence Solutions has generated less than $1.9 million from US federal government contracts, mostly from the defence department. Defence Solutions also has offices in Israel and Hungary. According to the company’s website, from its Israeli office, Defence Solutions aims to introduce Israeli technologies and solutions to the US defence market. From its Hungary office, the company supports contracts related to the Iraq War. In 2005 Defence Solutions refurbished and delivered to the Iraqi Army seventy seven Soviet-made T-72 main battle tanks donated by Hungary. The Washington Times newspaper has referred to Defence Solutions as an international arms dealer.
   Weldon did not visit Bangladesh as a US government official, but rather as a private citizen apparently lobbying to acquire business for his company. It was also reported in the Bangladeshi press that Weldon and his delegation belonged to the Global Alliance for Homeland Security. Information on GAHS is difficult to come by in the United States. What is known is that GAHS is a private organisation with ties to Bangladesh. While researching Weldon’s visit to Bangladesh, a writer at the American political blog TPMCafe.com located the company registration information for the organisation. It was registered as a non-profit organisation with New York State in late September of 2006.
   GAHS gives as its mailing address an apartment in Woodside, Queens, New York. The same apartment is the mailing address for two other non-profit organizations called the American Bangladesh Friendship Society Incorporated and the American Bangladesh Friendship Club Incorporated. This apartment is also the mailing address of the Bangladeshi businessman listed in US government records as the president of the American Bangladesh Friendship Society. This Bangladeshi businessman, using the Woodside apartment as a mailing address, is also listed as the president of an organisation called World Human Rights and Development Incorporated which is registered in New York State. This last organisation, which boasts three members on its website, lists Weldon as a co-chairman.
   Weldon is a controversial figure in the US. While he hailed Bangladesh government’s anti-corruption drive at Jatiya Press Club in March, Weldon himself remains under investigation in the US for alleged corruption. In October 2006 the Washington Post reported that a federal grand jury had been impanelled in Washington DC to determine whether Weldon had illegally used his political influence when he was Congressman to win lucrative contracts and favours for his family members. Weldon is under investigation for allegedly steering a lucrative contract from a Serbian businessman to his daughter. The Serbian businessman is barred from visiting or doing business with the United States because of his ties to former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. Weldon was allegedly trying to get the Serbian businessman off the US blacklist in the same year Weldon’s daughter received the lucrative business from the Serbian businessman’s family. Weldon is also under investigation for a consulting contract his daughter received from a Russian company, Itera, worth $170,000 in start up fee and $300,000 more in monthly retainer fees. Weldon has taken trips paid for by Itera and has advocated for Itera’s interests. As part of the investigation into alleged corruption by Weldon, FBI agents raided the homes of his daughter and one of his closest political supporters.
   It is unclear how much influence Weldon still carries in Washington, given the ongoing investigation. He is also barred by ethics rules from directly lobbying the US Congress for one year after leaving office. It is also unclear who Weldon is lobbying for when, in his letter to President Bush, he calls for ‘enhanced military-to-military’ and ‘civilian-to-military’ programmes and visits. In his current capacity as the chief strategic officer of Defence Solutions Incorporated his primary responsibility is to lobby for and acquire business for his company.
   Questions remain about the timing of Weldon’s visit, the motives of Defence Solutions and the nature of its relationship with the Global Alliance for Homeland Security. However, it should be clear that the delegation that visited Bangladesh in March did not represent the US government. Rather, it consisted primarily of senior management of the private company called Defence Solutions. The company, it seems, is interested in securing contracts from Bangladesh as well as the US. Defence Solutions does not represent the US government — it is one of thousands of companies that seek to do business with the government. Similarly, Weldon does not represent the US Congress. He is a former congressman who is now a private citizen working for a private company. Any other representation would be a misrepresentation of the facts.
   Mashuqur Rahman is a Virginia-based blogger. Tazreena Sajjad is a PhD candidate at American University, Washington D.C. They are both members of the Drishtipat Writers’ Collective.

DURING a trial till declaring judgment a prudent judge of a court of law refrains himself from reading newspapers if his court is trying a sensational case newspaper readers are avidly following. Newsmen try their best to present the case in a relishing manner to the general readers and may tailor the headlines, pictures and wording that best tunes to the readers’ wavelength. But the judge — lest his mind bias excessively towards the victim and against the accused — cannot afford to fill his eyes with tears reading in newspapers the sad stories of the victim who, along with the accused in the dock, is praying justice from his court.
   Miss Valerie Taylor is synonymous with the Centre for Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP). Of late we have been crying reading news about how this saintly lady who came to Bangladesh to serve the helpless has been marginalised by the centre that she sweated blood to found, nurture and grow.
   We, the newspaper readers, sometimes don’t want to know the full story as we mostly love to side with the underdogs; we would immediately stop subscribing to a newspaper if it now publishes a big story depicting the Saint Valerie as a worthless manager and the CEO of the CRP as a saviour.
   Maybe, Miss Valerie is a great philanthropist and a dexterous physiotherapist and played her role excellently in founding and nurturing a hospital like the CRP till a stage when the organisation now needs a little science more than philosophy and a little commerciality more than philanthropy to streamline its colossal management and fine-tune its intricate cost accountancy. This stage is very delicate and critical when some human demons, like vultures eying at newly-fledged chicks, will try to kick the mother and grab her offspring. An offspring of Valerie, the CRP now needs a round-the-clock vigil from us all.
   In our lifetime we come across some people who are quite different; we can’t really reconcile with them as they are unpredictably capricious and unreasonably demanding. They bare their fangs and claw at your face at the slightest indication of your ignoring any of their demands. A review of their childhood, family backgrounds, professional exposures and especially their genetic makeup will transpire that they are victims of what Alfred Adler termed ‘inferiority complex’.
   Genetically afflicted with such Adlerian predicaments a person, for example, retiring from a powerful or prestigious position all on a sudden gets confused with his/her new world devoid of power and glamour. They disagree to enjoy retired life in spite of their facing no financial hardship; they look around to kill soft targets like the CRP to overcompensate their sense of decay; they frivolously feign to be as young and powerful as they were before retirement; they exhibit extreme antisocial behaviour or spectacular achievement or both. They are in some —though rare — cases sadists and kleptomaniacs.
   The present Trustee Board in collusion with a vested group of people is reportedly trying to deactivate the most revered founder of the CRP Miss Valerie Taylor who chose celibacy to invest her whole life in aiding the crippled of a poor country like Bangladesh far away from her home. Her heart ached for those who couldn’t afford money for a chance to better stand on their feet, to better erect their spines, to better sit on their hips, to better speak by their mouths and to better smile with their faces overcoming their full or partial paralysis.
   By abolishing the post of the chief coordinator of the CRP and offering Miss Taylor a sitting-duck position of an advisor the authorities have in fact showed her the exit door to leave Bangladesh; the CRP authorities’ such decision is perhaps laced with an ulterior motive to turn the philanthropic organisation into a profit churning venture; resultantly a patient who used to pay Tk 10 has now to pay Tk 50, just five times! Paying no heed to Miss Taylor’s vehement protest against increasing indoor and outdoor medical fees the present CRP authorities have introduced a price structure of treatment that is tantamount to closing the door to the very poor.
   Valerie embarked upon her saintly mission on our soil back in 1969 while working in Chittagong Hill Tracts and her heart bled when she found herself helpless in mitigating pains of some patients suffering from spinal injuries. Like Mother Teresa, Valerie that moment perhaps heard a whisper of ‘a call within the call’ and decided to spend her life away at our service. With only one local physiotherapist, one occupational therapist and one volunteer this crazy lady embarked upon her perilous journey inside an abandoned warehouse of Shahid Suhrawardi Hospital in Dhaka back in 1979 and had since nursed the institution almost single-handed which is now a reputed and full-fledged infirmary on a sprawling area of 14 acres of land in Savar, Dhaka with a plethora of departments successfully rehabilitating the paralyzed physically, psychologically and occupationally since 1990. More than 400 medical and therapeutic professionals and many vocational trainers and instructors from home and abroad are dispensing their voluntary and scantily-salaried services to about 500 paralysis patients everyday.
   Like a passionate missionary dedicated to help heal a leper in a leprosy hospital Valerie cohabited with the paralysed to empathise with their pains and resorted even to begging for food and supplies at home and abroad to help the CRP grow to its present height. Anybody who ever met her or saw her serene face or listened to her kind and avuncular words will not believe that she can afford to be an inefficient administrator, an allegation brought by the CRP management as an excuse to get rid of her.
   Given her age and health she could be relieved of some of her drudge jobs like balancing her chequebooks or whipping the night guards or preparing a balance sheet at the end of the year by appointing an NGO veteran with versatile experience as her deputy, a retired ‘havildar’ to shepherd the security guards and a qualified chartered accountant to balance the books of accounts. The CRP does not need a veteran banker like present CEO of Agrani Bank (who is heftily paid is dollars by the World Bank) or a retired bureaucrat who gained experience in diplomacy or fishery.
   We may have been biased too in favour of Valerie and too against her villains reading news reports and comments of readers who are usually easily carried away by emotive news. It is hard to believe that a retired Secretary of the government with his illustrious background can stoop so low as to jettison the owner of an aircraft immediately after occupying the pilot’s seat. A clear and loud explanation from the CRP backed by valid documents could dissipate tons of misunderstandings, if any, the readers have been fed by news reports. But till today the comments of those villains don’t really validate their actions against the founder as necessary measures to better the future of the CRP.
   My head reels thinking of and visualising the sadistic faces of those persons who did draw pay and perks more than what was paid to Miss Valerie Taylor. Nobody — no matter s/he is an angel sent by God or a graduate from the Harvard — working in the CRP has any right to draw salary or remuneration more than Tk 7,500, a monthly salary Valerie draws from her beloved CRP.
   God welcomes the sinners who repent! The CRP which seems to have been made paralysed by a coterie of one or a few greedy persons may still be rehabilitated if those ladies/gentlemen voluntarily refund their salaries deemed more than what they deserve or what the CRP should afford. If they have no money left to spare they should volunteer to take positions directly under Valerie as supervisors or any suitable positions without any pay until the excess amount drawn by them is fully adjusted from the CRP’s account of salary and remuneration.
   All who have learned about those leeches conspiring to sideline our Mother Teresa first and then transform her sweat-soaked CRP into a commercial brute as an easy fountain to draw their abnormally high pay and perks from are fuming in anger. If the authorities concerned fail to reinstate Valerie Taylor in her earlier position of captaincy in the CRP and compel those to refund money they drew as remunerations exceeding Valerie’s, people’s fuming of anger, we are afraid, may soon turn into a tornado of protest.

’UNIFORM is part of my skin’, is the latest pronouncement of Pakistan’s ageing commander-in-chief. ‘How can I take it off?’ Which almost sounds like an invitation to the nation to learn the art of skinning before this wretched thing can be taken off his back.
   Never famous for reticence or brevity, the C-in-C, even by his own standards, has begun to outdo himself in terms of speaking at great length and often, alas, to little purpose. The wisdom of experience or new-born panic? Make your choice.
   De Gaulle’s dictum, ‘Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence’, has been turned on its head. The current rule in Pakistan seems to be, ‘Nothing strengthens authority so much as incessant volubility’.
   Pakistan’s soldier-president is not the only one who loves to talk. So does his closest ally, the Don of Edgeware Road. At the time of the earthquake in October 2005 I wrote, no doubt in a moment of weakness, that I was impressed by the MQM’s relief camp in Muzaffarabad. Soon after that I got a call from the Don which lasted a modest 25 minutes. A few days later I got another call which lasted a prize-winning 45 minutes. The soldier-president and the undisputed king of long-distance talk, birds of a feather, I suppose.
   As Pakistanis we are no strangers to naked ambition; and from our experience with military rule, no strangers to military folly. But this uniform refrain is beginning to sound tiresome and downright embarrassing.
   Ageing chiefs are not exactly an asset for any fighting force. It becomes worse when lame and specious excuses are trotted out to justify their desperation to cling to the top. A pity that the Pakistan army, once so proud of itself — and justly so, I may add — should be reduced to this.
   Yahya versus Manekshaw in 1971 was patently unfair to Yahya because after three years of merry roistering at the top he was fit only to joust, and give a good account of himself, with the fair companions brought to him by ‘General’ Rani, high masseuse to his relaxation-needing limbs.
   A good thing that the Pakistan army is no longer in the business of war, at least not in the eastern theatre, because I shudder to think of the outcome if our ageing military leadership was ever pushed into any kind of serious fighting in that direction.
   Who are we dealing with? Napoleon, General Giap, Che Guevara or the masterminds of two of the worst operations in the annals of the Pakistan army, Kargil and Wana? But I suppose we shouldn’t expect modesty or becoming silence in today’s Pakistan.
   The waters are rising and everyone can see that this ship, if not sinking, is not making much of a voyage, but the soldier-president, like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, is transfixed by only one image: his re-anointing as president by the present soon-to-expire assemblies.
   This is an election the mechanics or outlines of which only he seems to understand. The rest of Pakistan, save of course for the King of Edgeware Road and the Daughter of the East (still keen on a deal with this sinking ship) sees it as a joke, or a mirage shimmering in the distance.
   A presidential election before general elections, and from these assemblies, amounts to fixing the electoral terrain. This would have been possible before but not after March 9 when the judicial crisis erupted and certainly not after May 12 when Karachi was abandoned by the authorities and given over to MQM-directed mayhem. Matters have gone far beyond that. This is plain to everyone except our mariners on deck. Even the Q League is sensing the end. Its march into the next elections was predicated on the C-in-C holding the fort and ensuring his ‘election’ first. But with the lawyers’ movement and the Karachi killings everything has been thrown into doubt. That is why the growing glumness and unease in Q League ranks.
   Nor is the MQM happy because its ascendancy in Karachi is tied to the C-in-C’s fortunes. Anything that happens to Musharraf rubs off on the MQM.
   Karachi politics is now more like gang warfare than normal politics. The MQM cannot afford to slip because if it does the Haqiqis, who have reason to feel betrayed by the authorities, will be tempted to stage a comeback. In Karachi’s milieu that can only mean street warfare and more bloodshed.
   The MQM has badly miscalculated. It should not have flexed its muscles so openly on May 12, an act of folly which has rekindled memories of what it used to be like in Karachi during the early nineties when the MQM’s word was law.
   Those were the days when any statement faxed from Azizabad, MQM headquarters, had to be prominently displayed by every newspaper — including, I might add, supposedly the very best — without a word being changed or edited.
   That golden period of undisputed mastery came to an end only with Naseerullah Babar, Benazir Bhutto’s interior minister, whose police operation broke the MQM’s back. Babar was the MQM’s true nemesis. Even now cheeks blanch when his name is taken.
   But if the MQM was down and out then, its return to power was facilitated when Musharraf took over. The Haqiqis, comprising a breakaway faction, were patronised by the intelligence agencies. But not after Musharraf’s coming when they were ousted from their strongholds in Landhi and Korangi. Almost like a ‘qabza’ changing hands, those areas were then handed over, so to speak, to the MQM. The MQM thus has ample reason to be beholden to the C-in-C. Small wonder they have stood by him as he is now standing by them, even when no one else is willing to do so. More than a marriage of convenience, this is a marriage of conviction.
   But when the C-in-C starts applying the skin metaphor to his uniform, it is a sign from on high that the sun has crossed the meridian and evening is close at hand. Consider also that in the Supreme Court he has to fall back upon the likes of Justice (rtd) Malik Qayyum for his defence.
   Qayyum was a judge of the Lahore High Court and had to leave under a cloud when secret tapes revealed that he had been taking instructions from Nawaz Sharif’s government on how to expedite Benazir Bhutto’s trial which he was conducting.
   To be reduced to Malik Qayyum: a sad enough commentary on the C-in-C’s troubled fortunes. Truly, when it rains it pours. It seems to be pouring time for this dispensation.
   Musharraf can still extricate himself from his troubles if only he can bring himself to say that he is quitting as army chief. Trawl through all the world’s military almanacs, no safer successor can be found than the army vice-chief, General Ahsan Hayat who would have a hard time striking terror into the heart of a dormouse. But don’t expect Musharraf to do this because he is just not programmed this way. He wants all even though in the process he risks being left with nothing.
   This wouldn’t matter if only his future was involved. But the country’s interest is at stake too. What Pakistan needs above all is an orderly transition from Musharraf to a democratic order underpinned by the will of the people. If Musharraf has his way we can forget about an orderly transition.
   But let us not despair. The bench headed by My Lord Ramday (more power to his wisdom and judgment) has important decisions to take, which will have a profound bearing on the country’s future. The present movement gives the nation hope. Let us hope from its turmoil something good emerges.
   Tailpiece One: As if we didn’t have enough on our plates already, we must contend with another phenomenon: Casanova Shaukat. A newly-minted biography of Dr Rice, the US secretary of state, tells us that on her first visit to Pakistan in 2005 Shaukat (Shortcut to his fans) tried to bowl her over with his ‘gigolo’ charm. When she stared him down he collapsed into confusion and started ‘blabbing’. Some ladies’ man and he fancies himself next president of Pakistan.
   Tailpiece Two: And we hear Chaudhry Shujaat is thinking of writing a book. Miracles, I suppose, will never cease.

Why this arrest?

Why is the caretaker government arresting politicians without any reason? It is also unacceptable to arrest a high-profile politician just because he had a few bottles of alcohol in his house. If all the politicians are behind bars without any justifiable warrant, then how can the political parties restructure themselves? None of this is making any sense.
   Tonmoy Islam
   On e-mail

Bangladesh is a poor country where most of the people are poor. So the government whether it is elected or not should give topmost priority in controlling prices of the essentials. It is good to know that Fakhruddin Ahmed’s government at least admits its failure in arresting prices of the essentials. But instead of blaming the international market price, he should take some concrete steps to arrest prices of necessary commodities.
   Soumya Rauth
   Mymensingh

The EC is obviously treading new grounds in preparation of the electoral roll and voter ID cards and develop a system which is particularly suitable to the polity of Bangladesh. They also carry the burden of ensuring that the developed system and mechanisms will be voluntarily and wholeheartedly welcomed by the majority of the general public.
   Therefore much experimentation, trial, revision of ideas etc are involved without which a proper system cannot be developed.
   I therefore do not see anything alarming or abnormal in the EC changing its mind at this planning stage.
   I also note many opinions about not accepting help of donor countries for this purpose, which I unfortunately cannot concur with at the moment.
   I am all for not accepting any foreign help or donation for any purpose (except perhaps charitable help during natural calamities), as soon as we are ready for it. But unfortunately we still have a long way to travel to this desired destination.
   Engineer Shafi Ahmed
   London, UK

Corruption racket of the forest chief Osman Ghani must be unearthed and all his properties confiscated.
   MT Hussain
   Dhaka

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