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America must have its own reasons for grouping Bangladesh with faraway Pakistan and Afghanistan –– bypassing contiguous India –– in the bureau of the State Department’s South Asian Affairs. A common factor, however, links Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan at this particular point of time. The common factor is America’s War on Terror –– its crusade against so-called Islamic fundamentalism.
   Afghanistan is now practically occupied by America and its allies and run by the puppet government of Hamid Karzai. America saw to it that Karzai gets ‘elected’. After all, democracy must be spread in countries which America designates as ‘Muslim’ countries, and leaders and parties which they consider to be upholding ‘moderate Islam’ must be brought into power in those countries through elections that are certified as free and fair, credible and acceptable.
   Afghanistan is the first theatre of war in America’s War on Terror. America’s stake in Afghanistan is analogous to its involvement in occupied South Vietnam of the 1960s and 1970s.
   America has been meddling in the affairs of Pakistan for half-a-century. Pakistan is a field laboratory for America to experiment with martial democracy and at present, is a frontier state in its War on Terror. The sole nuclear ‘Muslim’ country, Pakistan is in a class by itself.
   Bangladesh, compared to Afghanistan and Pakistan, is of lesser strategic importance to the global overlord America. Hence it took as many as eight months, since the January 11 emergency, for the US State Department to send a high-ranking officer to Dhaka, though the caretaker government of Fakhruddin Ahmed, the origin as well as modus operandi of governance of which is of questionable constitutional legitimacy, despatched a special emissary to Washington to lobby for it in May. This was done despite the fact that the emergency had not come outside the knowledge of the US.
   John A Gastright, US deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs, came calling to Dhaka last week (September 18-20). He bestowed his blessings to the government: ‘The US government fully supports the electoral roadmap of the Election Commission (EC) and the reform steps taken by the government.’ In his meeting with the army chief, General Moeen U Ahmed, Gastright ‘congratulated the chief of army staff on the important role the joint forces are playing in support of the caretaker government.’
   Not as smooth as silk: With a fresh new check of US support in his pocket, the chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, flew to New York yesterday (September 22) to project the ruling coterie, globally, at the United Nations forum. Things seem to be as smooth as silk. But is it really so?
   The ultimate test for the Fakhruddin government will not be in winning foreign support, nor in carrying out reforms. It has no scope to perpetuate itself in power even if the political parties are smothered under the stream roller of emergency rules.
   If it fails to bring the train of constitution back on track, a constitutional void looms large. The first casualty of such an eventuality will be the Fakhruddin government itself as its predecessor, the Iajuddin government, fell victim to the emergency of January 11.
   If anything, the Fakhruddin government needed political parties as partners if there has to be any worthwhile elections leading to its honourable exit and establishment of an elected government as required by the constitution. But since the proclamation of emergency, the relationship between this government and the political parties is inimical, if not antagonistic.
   The Fakhruddin government and the Election Commission have arbitrarily –– and without any reference to constitutional provisions or any consultations with the political parties –– decided on a so-called electoral roadmap.
   The political parties have apparently taken a pragmatic view of the government’s election plans and not questioned the roadmap. The onus will be on the government and the Election Commission to traverse the whole course of the roadmap.
   The Chaos Theory: One needs a telescope to fathom the distance of the roadmap. This makes the Chaos Theory relevant. Chaos theory is applied in many disciplines like mathematics, physics, biology, computer science, robotics, engineering, economics, finance, philosophy, psychology, population dynamics and politics.
   ‘Chaos theory attempts to explain the fact that complex and unpredictable results can and will occur in systems that are sensitive to their initial conditions… In other words, it is possible that a very small occurrence can produce unpredictable and sometimes drastic results by triggering a series of increasingly significant events.’
   Explaining the theory, Ian Stewart in his book, ‘Does God Play Dice? The Mathematic of Chaos’, writes: ‘The flapping of a single butterfly’s wing [Butterfly Effect] today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month’s time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn’t happen. Or maybe one that wasn’t going to happen, does.’
   The factors which may produce a Butterfly Effect are inconceivable and the outcome of a Butterfly Effect is imponderable. The powers that be had once presumed that Sheikh Hasina, the Awami League president, and Khaleda Zia, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, were ideal candidates for the Benazir Bhutto-Nawaz Sharif treatment of self-exile, and this produced the ill-fated ‘minus-two’ formula. The civil society and their patrons abroad were more than certain that Bangladesh was waiting eagerly to receive a ‘clean’ leader and this resulted in embarrassing, at home and abroad, the most famous living citizen of the country, Dr Mohammad Yunus. Who could have predicted the August 20-22 campus upheaval or can grasp fully the grim implications of the army chief’s claim that the government had successfully foiled a conspiracy to destabilise the society?
   Kader Siddiq, president of Krishak-Sramik Janata League, has demanded during his formal meeting with the Election Commission that the Jamaat and war criminals be banned from doing politics and elections. He has set a ball rolling. Many parties, including the Awami League-led 14-party alliance, have supported this demand. What will the government and the Election Commission do? And how will the Jamaat and its allies react?
   The Awami League has taken the lead in regrouping the 14-party alliance and the BNP is talking about revitalising their four-party alliance. This indicates revival of the pre-emergency political polarisation and with it, the relevance of the pre-emergency political establishment. How will the powers that be respond to this?
   The Election Commission is already confronted with a Hobson’s choice. Will it uphold the right the BNP constitution grants to its chairperson Khaleda Zia to expel her secretary-general, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan? If it does, this will be a fatal blow to the leaders of any party who have been collaborating with the powers that be in the name of reforming their parties. If not, the Election Commission will be perceived to be intervening in the internal matters of the political parties, provoking Khaleda Zia to take drastic measures to protect the interest of her party.
   The Fakhruddin government has been taking the help of the military in establishing law and order, fighting against corruption, controlling price, conducting flood relief and rehabilitation, and preparing seed beds. But if a possible EPR (Emergency Powers Rules) deluge washes away the pre-emergency political leadership, what will be the Butterfly Effect of trying to prepare the seed beds of elections?
   ‘A secret plan’: In his unbelievable frankness, the chief election commissioner said on September 18: ‘We have a secret plan. We are not going to say how we are going to get the laptops. There are many people who might try to foil the plan.’
   The chief election commissioner has thus confessed that his roadmap of election is very fragile and prone to failures. What if someone asks: does the Election Commission have a ‘secret plan’ for election?
   NM Harun is contributing editor of New Age. He can be reached at: badrun123@dhaka.net

The inter-Palestinian war of words and the mutual violations of the freedom of press and expression by the Hamas-led government of Ismael Haniyyeh in the Gaza Strip and the Fatah-led government of Salam Fayyad in the West Bank have presented Israel with its biggest propaganda prize that is overshadowing the violations of human rights committed by the Israeli occupation forces in the occupied Palestinian territories.
   The Palestinian Centre for Press Development and Freedom ‘Mada’ had this to say on Palestinian media during August this year: There were ‘more violations of media freedom in the Palestinian territories particularly by the Executive Force (of Hamas) in the Gaza Strip and the (Fatah-led) Palestinian security agencies (of the Palestinian Authority) in the West Bank, in addition to the Israeli Occupation Forces. Nothing changed in the status of the media that was closed by both sides, or prevented from distribution, whether in the West Bank or in Gaza Strip.’
   On July 14 ‘Mada’ described the violations of press freedom during the preceding month of June as a ‘massacre of Palestinian media’ committed by Palestinians themselves, including Palestinian armed groups; media institutions were attacked, burned, ransacked and destroyed, printing and distributing of newspapers were banned, and journalists were arrested, threatened and shot at. The violations led to a ‘serious compromise of press freedom;’ Palestinian journalists had become too scared to cover the events and disseminate information, which ‘reinforced self-censorship by journalists and independent media.’ Objective reporting was absent and ‘few local media maintained impartiality.’
   On September 10, the plight of Palestinian media caught international attention when The New York Times reported that Fatah in the West Bank has closed Hamas-affiliated media outlets and prevented Hamas-supported newspapers from circulating or Hamas television from broadcasting; equipment has been confiscated or destroyed, six Hamas journalists have been arrested and 12 more beaten. In Gaza Hamas has done the same to Fatah and the Palestinian Authority-controlled media. At least eight outlets were closed, including three newspapers.
   The next day a group of intellectuals in Gaza demanded in a statement that the Palestinian media not be crushed between ‘the hammer of Ramallah and the anvil of Gaza.’ Some journalists, like Saifuddin Shaeen, correspondent of Al-Arabia satellite TV station, and Majdi Al-Arabeed, director and owner of the ‘Voice of Liberty,’ fled Gaza while Mohammad Shteiwi, director of al-Aqsa satellite TV station in the West Bank, went into hiding. Seven hundred employees of the Palestine Broadcasting Corporation are now staying home because they could not do their work. Independent journalists and media outlets have resorted to self-censoring, a practice they mastered long before Hamas came into power.
   The Gaza-based Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights called on the Palestinian Authority and ‘the political powers in the OPT to take all the necessary measures to guarantee that journalists are kept outside the political struggle.’ The Foreign Press Association, which represents the foreign media in Israel and the Palestinian territories, condemned ‘this kind of dangerous infringement of professional journalists.’ On August 28 the Paris-based World Association of Newspapers – which represents 18,000 newspapers with a membership including 76 national newspaper associations, newspaper companies and individual newspaper executives in 102 countries, 12 news agencies and 10 regional and worldwide press groups – condemned the increasing harassment of journalists and the deterioration of working conditions for Palestinian journalists in the occupied Palestinian territories.
   Fayyad’s government found itself obliged recently to apologise to Reuters for violations during a suppressed Hamas-led protest by university students in the southern West Bank city of Hebron. Hanniyeh’s government had to admit and apologise publicly for similar violations in the Gaza Strip. One could review their mutual records on the violations of the other side as well as the reports they selectively quote from international organisations of human rights to condemn each other to have an overall idea of their serious disregard of the recognised standards of free press and expression.
   
   Defunct press law activated
   Hamas, trying to contain the drive towards partisan propaganda away from professional journalism, dug out of the PA archives what was in practice a defunct Palestinian press law designed to silence dissident journalists, ban the publication of information likely to ‘endanger national unity, incite crimes or hatred, division and religious dissent’ and publication of ‘secret information’ about the police and security forces. This law was practically not in force because the public official media network as well as the private sector media were overwhelmingly controlled or owned by the ruling Fatah movement; their self-censorship made up for enforcing the law.
   Fatah’s 40-year old monopoly of power first within the Palestine Liberation Organisation then later within the Palestinian Authority, which was created as a limited self-rule authority after the Oslo Palestinian-Israeli peace accords of 1993, has led to monopoly of media. In 1999, Article 19, a human rights organisation to defend and promote freedom of expression and information worldwide, criticised in a memorandum to the Palestinian Authority the Palestinian press law for including articles that contradict with the international standards of press freedom and freedom of free flow of information.
   The law institutes a number of restrictions on the content of what may be published, many of which are unacceptable, broad and/or vague. For example, publications must not ‘contradict the principles of … national responsibility’ or publish material that is ‘inconsistent with morals’ or which may ‘shake belief in the national currency.’ (Ironically Palestinians have yet to have a national currency). These restrictions are backed up with censorship powers as publications must deposit copies with the government prior to distribution. The law also provides for harsh sanctions for breach of its provisions, in many cases extending to jail terms.
   However, ‘We are all bound by this 1995 press law, and its articles carry the force of the law,’ said a statement from Hamas’ ‘information ministry’ in Gaza. Referring to a newly-created governmental committee to oversee media, the statement said this committee had the right to conduct raids against media premises and bureaux and ‘to summon their members over issues relating to their work. We will not deal with organizations which do not have authorisation or do not respect the rules.’ Hamas spokesman Tahar al-Nunu, who heads the committee, said: ‘We cannot change this law, it is the only one we have.’
   Moreover, Hamas for the first time ever cracked down on internet websites. The Open Net Initiative has studied the status of internet censorship in 40 countries including the occupied Palestinian territories. Its researchers found no filtering at all in Russia, Israel or the Palestinian territories despite political conflicts there (2007). This finding tells that the cyber freedom is aught to be absolute in the West Bank and Gaza contrary to all Arab countries without exception. This has now to change.
   Internet plays a vital role as a means of communication between the more than 3.5 million Palestinians under the Israeli military occupation since 1967 and the outside world; it also serves as a vital means of communication among the Palestinians themselves, whether between those besieged in the Gaza Strip and their compatriots in the West Bank as there is no territorial linkage between the two areas, or between both areas and the Palestinian Diaspora, or among the cantons of Palestinian population in the West Bank, where more than 550 Israeli military roadblocks and a longer than 700km Apartheid Wall (called a security fence or barrier by the Israeli occupation forces) isolate the urban centres from each other as well as from the countryside villages and towns which they serve.
   However, the journalists are not helping to ease their work. More than 14 years of Fatah’s monopoly of power have created a Fatah-led media network with Fatah-affiliated journalists who in the current crisis could not resist taking sides; neither could the new emerging Hamas-led media journalists. Both are giving each of the two rival governments reason to harass them on security grounds. Journalists in their majority on both sides are compromising their professionalism with biased reporting, giving priority to political loyalty.
   
   Killer language
   The ‘language of force’ has overtaken the media’s supposed language of truth and propaganda has replaced professional journalism in the mainstream coverage of events. Professional standards, rule of laws governing journalism, the civil right ‘to know,’ media outlets and journalists themselves have fallen victim to the rule of force. No wonder, when media becomes the major battle ground as well as the main tool of the infighting where none is sacred anymore, even the Muslim Friday prayers.
   The still escalating war of words comprises mutual accusations of ‘collaboration’ with or ‘serving’ the Israeli occupying power, staging ‘coup d’etat,’ ‘fascism,’ ‘treachery and treason’ killings, ‘assassination in cold blood,’ committing ‘organised crimes’ and ‘war crimes’ by ‘mercenaries’ and ‘outlaws,’ mutual calls for ‘national’ trials, etc. Readers may check out statements by the chief of the PA intelligence Tawfiq al-Tirawi and the speaker of the Hamas parliamentary group Saeed Siyam on September 17 for samples of the language used in this inter-Palestinian media war.
   It is a killer language. The mutual smearing of images is almost tantamount to a political assassination of the foes that could justify later their physical liquidation. What can the Israeli ‘enemy’ say more about both of them? Now Israel could quote both sides to justify her extrajudicial liquidation of their leaders and anti-occupation activists.
   Both sides of the internal conflict are using religion to serve their war of words. In order to politically outmanoeuvre Hamas, which dominates the mosques, the secular Fatah and her ‘leftist’ and liberal PLO coalition partners ironically called for Friday prayers in public spaces, creating a religious controversy over whether this conforms to Islamic law or not, with their secular spokesmen turning into experts in religious law and quoting religious text to support their politically-motivated call.
   The high tension led, for example, a veteran media expert like Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary general of the PLO executive committee who was once responsible for the PLO’s media and former cabinet minister of information and culture, to lose temper with a BBC interviewer, Mahmoud Murad, last month when he asked whom exactly the Palestinian Authority considers as their enemy, Israel or Hamas. Abed Rabbo hit back live on the air with ‘you are impolite, rude …’ Murad threatened to sue.
   When Confucius was asked: ‘What is the first thing you would do if elected as the country’s leader?’ he answered: ‘To correct the use of language, of course. We have to use words right. If not, speech will not be in order, and if speech is not in order, then nothing can be accomplished. If nothing is accomplished, morals and art decline. If morals and art decline, justice has no direction. If justice has no direction, people will stay confused and helpless. So you have to be very careful what you say. (Quoted by Sirikit Syah in the Brunei Times on September 10, 2007)’
   Two codes of honour to protect the Palestinian freedom of press have become indispensable to neutralise the besieged media in the raging war of words, one between the rival governments in Gaza and Ramallah, led by Hamas and Fatah respectively, and another code among journalists themselves to adopt professional standards in their coverage irrespective of political affiliation and sympathies.
   Intervention by international and local human rights organisations is also indispensable to bring both the authorities and the media community to respect impartial, neutral and independent reporting because the heat of the conflict in the occupied Palestinian territories is unlikely to convince either side of the crisis to voluntarily abstain from harassing both the few remaining independent media outlets and the media channels of the rival political foe.
   
   ‘Official’ war of words
   Media has become the most important vehicle for the Palestinian Authority in confronting Hamas, PA information minister Riyad al-Malki told a group of Israeli and Palestinian journalists in Ramallah on August 14 that ‘80 percent of the battle is focused on media information.’ Ironically al-Malki suggested that Israelis could think of ways to help the PA information ministry achieve its goals. ‘At the end of the day, this government wants to reach peace with Israel,’ he said.
   Prior to the meeting with al-Malki, Basem Abu Sumaya, chairman of the PBC, which was bombed by the Israelis in 2002, led the journalists in a tour of his premises. During the meeting nothing was said about an Israeli ban on deliveries of paper to Gaza, where print press could hardly manage with the shortage of paper, power and fuel due to Israel’s tight siege. Moreover, and even days before Hamas’ control of Gaza, Israel prevented the three West Bank dailies from entering Gaza until June 29.
   The inter-Palestinian war of words has given the Israeli occupying power a propaganda prize to push into oblivion her own fatal violations of Palestinian press freedom. For example, who remembers now the shooting twice by the Israeli soldiers of Palestinian news cameraman, Imad Ghanem, 21, on July 5, which a Reuters video showed bullets hitting his body as he lay injured on the ground, a crime that was condemned by The International Federation of Journalists as ‘a vicious and brutal example of deliberate targeting of a journalist!’ Ghanem was one of the leaders of the demonstrations to demand the release of the British journalist Alan Johnston during his kidnap ordeal in Gaza months ago.
   Or, seven years on, who remembers now the Palestinian media breakthrough of the 27-minute video film which was aired on TV screens all over the world showing live the Palestinian child Mohammad al-Durrah as he was shot dead by the Israeli occupation forces while trying to seek the protection of his father’s embrace?
   A BBC ad recruiting a ‘Project Director, Palestinian Territories’ to advise Palestinian journalists sounded timely enough: ‘The Project Director will be responsible for managing and coordinating delivery of the Trust’s EIDHR-Dutch co-funded project in Palestine titled: “Support for the Palestinian Media Sector with Focus on Building Sustainable Mechanisms for Professional Development of Journalists and Media Professionals.” The project aims to increase the level of networking and dialogue between media professionals in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.’
   Outside Israeli, US and European intervention has created and is sustaining the current inter-Palestinian political crisis, leading to the raging war of words. Should outside intervention and anti-Hamas incitement stop the crisis would relieve the pressure on media to allow for national reconciliation, which in turn would give space for the war of words to subside, leaving behind bitter national memories.
   Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist in Kuwait, Jordan, UAE and Palestine; he is based in Bir Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied territories.

In the run-up to Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's visit to the United Nations in New York next week, the Iran-bashing sentiment in the US media has escalated to new, unprecedented levels, with presidential hopefuls such as former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, adding fuel to the fire with their increasingly incendiary rhetoric against Iran.
   Thus, whereas Romney has written to the UN requesting Ahmadinejad's arrest on arriving on US soil, citing the Geneva Conventions, Giuliani has used his European tour to second the warmongering sentiment of French leaders, promising to set Iran back 'five to 10 years' if it refuses to comply with demands that it suspend uranium-enrichment activities.
   And as for the US media, in their seemingly stiff competition on who will win the Iran-bashing trophy, New York's Daily News was the winner, with its full-front-page photo of Ahmadinejad circled in red with the accompanying write-up that he should 'go to hell' for daring to request a visit to the former site of the World Trade Centre's Twin Towers in New York known as Ground Zero. Another New York daily, Newsday, has been equally venomous, referring to Ahmadinejad as a 'madman'.
   Such vicious, unbounded personal attacks on Iran's president recall earlier manifestations of US jingoism perpetrated against, among others, Cuba's Fidel Castro, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and, during the Cold War, various Soviet and Eastern European leaders.
   With such a long and rather unsavoury tradition, the US media have once again fallen victim to an orchestration of 'enemy image' that aims to vilify, intimidate, deface and demonise a Middle Eastern leader who, ironically, has been unusually forthcoming in his expressions of warm feelings toward the American people (though not the US government and its policies).
   Never mind that Ahmadinejad has released a few Iranian-Americans who were suspected of instigating a 'velvet revolution', or that he has broken the ice of diplomatic non-dialogue with the US by consenting to direct meetings between Iranian and US ambassadors in Iraq, or that he has made the most far-reaching Iranian cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to date.
   None of this matters the least to frenzied pundits and politicians who want to cash in on the feverish anti-Iran mood in the US, whose government has done nothing to quell this Iranophobic frenzy and, instead, is fanning the flames by escalating accusations against Tehran.
   The latest was the arrest of an Iranian 'officer' by US forces at a hotel in Baghdad who is identified by Iraq's government as part of a trade delegation on an official visit. It remains to be seen whether the United States' allegations against this individual turn out to be correct or a tissue of disinformation timed with Ahmadinejad's New York visit.
   Iranophobic US politicians and pundits have no doubt been heartened by the simultaneous attack on Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the UN's atomic watchdog agency, the IAEA, by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has in undiplomatic tone warned ElBaradei to 'butt out of Iran diplomacy'.
   ElBaradei's bold anti-war language is, of course, behind all the recent attacks on him, which dates to 2002 when he was similarly vilified for opposing an invasion of Iraq. ElBaradei's other guilt is that he has dared to draw comparison between the anti-Iran war hype today and the pre-Iraq-invasion circumstance, when his agency's failure to find weapons of mass destruction was repudiated by most of the 'respected' media pundits in the US, including those writing in the New York Times and the Washington Post.
   Sadly, history repeats itself, and the US media frenzy against Ahmadinejad, rooted in the US government's failures in Iraq and Iran's defiance of international pressures on the nuclear issue, will undoubtedly gear up to even higher levels once Ahmadinejad sets foot in New York. He has reportedly agreed to debate the president of Columbia University, and that too may become a casualty of the Iran-bashing campaign that succeeded in last year's cancellation of a similar event at Columbia.
   What is disturbing about this tidal wave of Iran-bashing in the US is the cowardice of more moderate elements of the US media and politics to speak against the irrational tone of such attacks on Tehran, which many leading US politicians who helped draft the Iraq Study Group (ISG) Report have called on the US government to 'engage' diplomatically.
   Yet instead of speaking out against the opposite policy of 'isolating' Iran by the White House, most of those politicians -- with the sole exception of Lee Hamilton, a co-chairman of the ISG -- have opted to stay silent.
   But that does not make sense, given the United States' national interests and the fact that the onset of US-Iran dialogue on Iraq has been a positive development requiring a timely deepening, for example via next month's conference on Iraq and its neighbours in Turkey, where Rice and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki will have an opportunity to discuss the issues dividing their two countries, which have a large pool of (non-zero-sum) shared interests in the region.
   In light of the US media's reports on Rice's preference for diplomacy, as opposed to warfare, with Iran, which has been seconded by President George W Bush and Defence Secretary Robert Gates, it is indeed surprising that the US Department of State has not weighed in on the issue of Ahmadinejad's request to lay a wreath at Ground Zero.
   Sure, such a gesture provides a 'photo op', as claimed by some New York City officials, but then again it is a small yet concrete step by Iran to reinforce and bolster its anti-terrorist image, given its steady cooperation with the anti-terrorist committee at the UN Security Council, and the US government is dreadfully wrong not to seek such visible signs of Iran's commitment.
   Asia Times/HK Online, September 22, 2007