I have comments to make on the New Age editorial of February 2 and the ISPR’s rebuttal published on February 4. It is true as the ISPR rebuttal has stated that the armed forces came in aid of the civil administration after the president had issued the proclamation of emergency. However, in between this seemingly innocuous statement of the ISPR that is true on the face of it, there is in fact a Pandora’s Box on the other very important issue that needs to be answered to determine the accuracy of the New Age editorial. Let me put these issues as questions. First, did the president voluntarily declare emergency or was he forced? Second, who is really calling the shots in this government now? Third, is the military really acting in aid of the civil government or is it the other way around?
   Well, let us not pretend as we do as a nation but for a moment try and be rational. Everybody in Bangladesh now knows that the military leaders marched to Bangabhaban on that fateful night and forced the president to declare emergency. Everybody knows as well that it was not the president but the armed forces who chose Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed as the chief adviser and then chose the rest of the council of advisers.
   If there was any confusion about the nature of this government, General Moeen himself has dispelled those in favour of the New Age editorial. Has he forgotten his initial days when he was going about lecturing on issues like who should be the Father of the Nation? What should be General Zia’s place in history? How about his attempts at giving his and the army’s ‘vision’ of the future system of government and governance in Bangladesh in seminars arranged for him? In Bangladesh, we have always seen that at moments of national disaster, it has always been the
   head of government who accepted donations from the people for the victims of such
   disaster.
   This time, we saw more people lining at the army headquarters to make such donations to the army chief. What signal has that given to the people? Is it that the army is here just to assist the civil administration? Come on generals, be serious and please don’t take us civilians to be such fools.
   Finally, as for transparency in defence procurement, the ISPR should know that the New Age editor was being diplomatic when he wrote about ‘whispers’ about corruption there.
   Here is a personal opinion that I am giving unsolicited. Dr. Fakhruddin has been the greatest disappointment for many of us who have had laid such high hopes upon him going by his academic and professional competence. He is now nothing but a pathetic figure of a man who has shown just no courage to stand up to the military whose arrogance has now pushed the politics and the economics of the country on the verge of total collapse. If the ISPR was correct in what it was trying to say, that the army was merely aiding the civil administration, then the army chief should have been nothing more nothing less than what the cabinet secretary is to the civil administration. Reality says otherwise, and that is what the New Age editorial has tried to tell the readers, diplomatically.
   Shahjahan Ahmed
   Dhanmondi, Dhaka