Editorial
Let an elected political govt
handle looming crisis
ECONOMISTS and politicians sounded an even stronger warning on Tuesday than the one issued by the Asian Development Bank a day earlier. They apprehended a silent famine around the corner given a massive shortfall of food grain, which would be to the tune of some three million tonnes. This, as we have stated before, echoes the apprehensions that we have stated in these columns.
The immediate requirement of the government is to ensure that sufficient food grain is stocked in the country. Apparently there have been a number of letters of credit opened recently for grain imports while the government has urged certain agencies for about 500,000 tonnes of grain as emergency food aid. We must point out that this is not enough to meet the looming crisis and further stress that the government must take immediate measures to ensure timely imports of food grain. The incumbents could import the grain of its own accord through its own mechanism or make adequate arrangements and send appropriate signals to the market so that the private sector is able and willing to import the grain.
Importing food grain would merely be one problem resolved. There remains the concern that this stock of grain, presumably sufficient in quantity, has to reach the hungry. As has been reported in the media, a large number of people, especially the rural poor, have lost their assets and investment due to the two floods and the recent cyclone. It would be the responsibility of the government to ensure that these teeming millions have access to the food. Towards that end, there should be provisions of interest write-off while the loan repayment schedule is deferred till later. There should be fresh interest-free loans from the government so people can begin afresh with such funds.
In this regard we would like press upon the incumbents the import of swift and concentrated implementation of the annual development programme, as it will not only improve infrastructure and other capacities but the projects would also mean increased employment and earnings for thousands of people who might not find a job elsewhere. This development programme may very well be used as a mechanism to partially revive the economy through increased government expenditure.
Through its flood rehabilitation efforts and relief distribution in the wake of cyclone Sidr, the military-driven interim government has proved its ineptitude and inefficiency in handling disasters of large scale. Political and elected regimes, despite their limitations, have shown that they are better able to cope with such crises and have done so with reasonable success in the 15 years preceding the assumption of office by the current administration. We, therefore, urge the incumbents that if they really mean genuine welfare of the country, they should make arrangements to lift the state of emergency, hold elections and hand over power to elected representatives of the people as soon as possible.
A dangerous security lapse
THE attempted jailbreak by operatives of the banned terrorist outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh who were being held in Comilla jail has bared too many skeletons in the cupboard of national security. The state of security in Comilla prison (and perhaps in other prisons of the country as well) look incredibly lax which makes possible an elaborately planned escape even by prisoners who are supposed to be very closely guarded. On Sunday night, according to newspaper reports, five operatives JMB tried to escape from their cell in Comilla jail. Two of the escapees who included Nabil Rahman, son of the executed JMB chief Shaikh Abdur Rahman, were even able to scale the high prison wall and land on the street outside but were apprehended with the cooperation of the people of the locality. Three prison guards have been suspended for neglect of duty and two enquiry committees have been formed to look into the security situation of the prison and fix responsibility.
We have no intention to anticipate the results of the enquiry committees but the questions we would like to raise here are those which none with common intelligence can overlook. A Bangla daily of Dhaka has published the photograph of the lock with which the door of the cell was fastened. Going by the photograph, the lock is of a kind that one would hesitate to use on one’s trunk or valise – an apparently frail and cheap lock that will snap open after a few minutes’ manoeuvring. Is this kind of lock being used in a prison? Secondly, does only one lock bar a prisoner’s movement from his cell to the outer wall? Was there no security device placed in the passage or corridor and the compound? If there was no closed-circuit camera, it is understandable but how is it that vigilance was so lax as to enable the prisoners to reach the base of the prison wall and to scale it before alarm was raised? There are conflicting stories on how they got hold of the key. According to one story, they fashioned the key by cutting a strip off the tin plate on which food was served to them; another report says that the key was a skilfully finished duplicate supplied from outside. Meanwhile, at least one of the probe committees, headed by a joint secretary of the home ministry, has reportedly completed its investigation. We trust the probe is thorough and all the weak links in the security apparatus has been identified.
About seven hundred ‘dangerous prisoners’ are lodged in the different jails of the country, of whom about 500 are JMB cadres. Some of them have already been convicted. Weak security is due to weak prison administration. It is well-known that with pliant prison guards and employees a prisoner has no difficulty obtaining drug or alcohol and operating mobile phone. A complete overhaul of prison administration seems called for.
World of terror, Sidr and US ‘help’
Whenever the US says peace we need to read it as war, whenever it says democracy we need to think of repression. History shows us again and again that whenever the US extended ‘help’, it ended with new chains, occupation and human suffering,
writes Anu Muhammad
‘We levelled it. There was nobody left, just dirt and dust.’
A US general in an occupied land after destruction of three villages in 2002
THE world has entered into a permanent system of war, militarisation, destruction and dehumanisation. After the Second World War, for whatever reasons, the United States has emerged as the centre of this global system. The survival of the US as a superpower, expansion of its hegemony and the function of global capitalism now mostly depend upon war machine and militarism. That gives birth to a new phase of imperialism and becomes a threat to not only people and nations in the periphery but also the whole human civilisation.
In fact, global military and business tyrants led by the US terrorist power now occupy our world. As a result of this irrational system, deprivation and insecurity has increased with growing resources. While global defence budget has crossed $900 billion, in which the US share is more than half, only $10 billion is needed to solve drinking water problem for the entire global population. While official development ‘aid’ figures less than $60 billion for the third world countries, their debt service has raised to nearly $500 billion. Five hundred million people were going hungry every night 25 years ago, today more than 800 million are going hungry while 125 million children are underweight and 325 million children do not attend school. Moreover, 32,000 children, 10 times more than the people killed in the Twin Tower attack, die every day in the third world of curable illness; 2 million girls are forced into prostitution every year.
The countries representing the centre of this system have 20 per cent of the global population, control 83 per cent of the world’s income, use 70 per cent of its energy, 75 per cent of its metals, 85 per cent of its wood and 60 per cent of its food. These countries contribute 75 per cent of global pollution that raises global warming, changes global climate and makes the nature erratic. Suffering befalls the people who are not responsible for that. Cyclone and tidal bore like Sidr that hit Bangladesh on November 15 was an expression of that. People in coastal area in Bangladesh have become a victim of tyranny of this global and local system that is hostile to nature and people and is in favour of profit.
World without imperialism, world without occupation
Although Bangladesh did not ask for it, US navy ships, USS Essex and USS Kearsarge, started moving towards Bangladesh immediately after Sidr hit the Bangladesh coast with devastating effects, killing more than 3,000 people, hundreds of thousands of cattle and other animals, destroyed crops, forests and houses. USS Kearsarge entered the Bangladesh waters ‘to help’ the cyclone-affected people early November 24. Each of these ships carries 20 or more helicopters. The US Department of Defence is supervising their activities. According to their version of the story, the US embassy in Bangladesh asked for their help.
Report on November 25 says, ‘The 22nd MEU (SOC) consists of aviation combat element, a marine medium helicopter squadron, ground combat element, battalion landing team, 3rd battalion, 8th marine regiment, logistics combat element and combat logistics battalion 22. Elements of the unit remain afloat on USS Gunston Hall and USS Ponce in US central command’s area of responsibility. The unit is on a scheduled six-month deployment.’
On November 21, when the ships were on the move towards Bangladesh, Mainul Hosein, the law and information adviser, ‘dismissed any ulterior motive behind the United States’ sending two amphibian assault ships to Bangladesh.’ Reports further stated that ‘the adviser made the remarks when he was asked whether the government was aware of what the Bangladesh-bound US navy vessels were equipped with, and how long they would stay here.’ His understanding of the present world was expressed in his utterances on the occasion. He said, ‘Imperialism is an outdated concept and it does not exist anywhere on earth.’ The gentleman did not stop with this theoretical discovery rather continued to assert on practicality. He concluded, ‘It is impractical to think in the present day world that a country will occupy another (New Age, November 22, 2007).’
I do not know how to react to this practicality and the extraordinary capacity to see day as night or night as day in a practical way. We know these things happen with the US, whenever they say peace we need to read that as war, whenever they say democracy we need to think of repression. History shows us again and again, whenever the US extended ‘help’, it ended with new chains, occupation and human suffering.
Today no two US army personnel can meet in Iraq without there lying between them a corpse. What happened there? Does Iraq exist in the world map anymore? Does Afghanistan exist? What is happening there? Peace rally by US forces after occupying the countries and killing innocent people every day?
If we look at the status of the peripheral countries in determining their own destiny we may conclude that not only Iraq most of the world is now under imperialist occupation. Iraq has come under occupation by military invasion because it did not go by the instructions coming from the US.
Whole world is at war and threat
William Blum, a US researcher and author, has concluded that the US is the biggest terrorist in the present day world, provided biggest occupying force in the world and has become the biggest threat for humanity. He said, ‘From 1945 to 2003, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements fighting against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US bombed some 25 countries, caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair.’ And in 2003 the US invaded Iraq, occupied it, and started killing people naming them terrorists.
War is also a private business. In occupied Iraq the second to the US army is the private companies. After occupation of Iraq, writer-activist Naomi Klein said, ‘After all, negotiations with sovereign nations can be hard. Far easier to just tear up the country, occupy it, then rebuild it the way you want.’ She also looked into the issues like ‘how long before they meld into long-term contracts for privatised water services, transit systems, roads, schools and phones? When does reconstruction turn into privatisation in disguise?’
Since 1945, to ensure global supremacy the US has used atomic bombs on the people of Japan, carried out carpet bombing on Korea to take back it to the Stone Age, had the Vietnamese engulfed by napalm and pesticides, and so far dropped ‘177 million pounds of bombs on the people of Iraq in the most concentrated aerial onslaught in the history of the world.’ This is the real face of the US power; it has come to Bangladesh ‘to help’ people with blood in its hands.
There is a United Nations, which is supposed to play the role of a global institution but has virtually been transformed into an extension of the US administration. Nevertheless, Jesse Helms (chairman, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee) does not accept even its formal role. He categorically stated: ‘The American people will never accept the Secretary General’s claim that the United Nations is the ‘‘sole source of legitimacy on the use of force’’ in the world. True the US Senate ratified the UN charter fifty years ago, yet in so doing, America did not cede one syllable of it’s sovereignty to the United Nations.’
‘The Court’s (UN International Criminal Court) supporters argue that Americans shall be willing to sacrifice some of their sovereignty for the noble cause of international justice. This, frankly, is laughable,’ he continued. ‘No UN institution... is competent to judge the foreign policy and national security decisions of the United States.’
That arrogance is typical of a colonial power.
Who rules Bangladesh?
When US army personnel are in Bangladesh we need to note that there are a number of agreements signed between Bangladesh and the US governments that are still not fully disclosed to the people. In March 2003 an agreement was signed that gave US blank cheque to bring anything necessary for the development of ‘science and technology.’ It also allowed the US to bring anything for ‘security purpose.’ In August 2003 an agreement was signed in Washington DC which made Bangladesh bound to allow US military and civilian officials to commit any crime they wish in this country. Detail of the agreement is still secret. According to press reports, ‘under this agreement no US soldier or officer charged with criminal offences can be tried in Bangladesh or be extradited to the International Criminal Court for prosecution. The agreement stipulates that if any American soldier or officer is charged with criminal offence in Bangladesh, or is prosecuted in another country and takes shelter here, he cannot be handed over to the International Criminal Court.’ On May 19, 2004, an agreement was signed that would make ‘binding on the government to take care of every single US interest including protection of US citizens and installations.’ The report further said that to protect American interests in the country and extend full cooperation to the US in identifying individuals or groups suspected of working against US interests. It is important to note that the draft agreement, like other ones, was not prepared by the Bangladesh government but by the US administration in Dhaka.
I don’t know, in this context, what does independence or sovereignty mean? Or what does occupation mean? Mainul may be in a better position to explain this with ‘practical’ sense. I can only say a slave is really slave when s/he does not realise the enslavement; the people become really defeated when they forget their defeats.
Anu Muhammad is professor, Jahangirnagar University
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