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IT SHOULD, perhaps, not take more than a cursory glance for one to discern the inherent inequity in the pay structure for public servants. The pay package for government officials and employees is generally poor; that the 7th Pay Commission is likely to recommend an 80 per cent increase in salary across could be taken as a testimony to that effect. The inequity, however, runs deeper – between the different categories that the bureaucracy has. Currently, an employee in the lowest rung of the public service gets a monthly pay of Tk 4,310, including a basic salary of Tk 2,400. Even if, as the pay commission has recommended, his or her basic salary is increased to Tk 4,000 and the take-home pay doubles, it might still be as inadequate to run a family as it currently is. If year-on-year inflation and the ever-increasing prices of essential commodities are factored in, the raise could very well appear to be a cruel joke. On the other hand, the recommended increase at the other end of the spectrum, although at the same rate, would result in a substantive raise in real terms – at least Tk 22,000.
   The matrix that the pay commission has used to arrive at the recommendation for a blanket raise for government officials thus appears more geared towards the solvency of the highly paid than the sustenance of the lowly paid. Whereas the lowest salary package should have been the baseline, the commission seems to have done just the opposite. The fault may not be the commission’s alone and may have stemmed from the inequity inherent in the government pay structure itself and its elitist architects. Indeed, as the chairman of the corruption watchdog Transparency International Bangladesh has suggested, the pay scale should be worked out on the basis of the job responsibility and accountability of an employee. However, it should also make sure that the employees on the lowest rung of bureaucracy are provided with adequate wages so as to lead a decent life.
   There is no denying that the pay structure for government officials and employees needs to be revised upwards. There may also be truth in the suggestion that the current pay structure encourages civil servants to get involved in corruption. However, containment of corruption in the bureaucracy should not and must not be the rationale for pay increase for civil servants. It is decidedly a slippery slope; after all, it is not easy to decide how much would be enough to stop civil servants from getting involved in corrupt practices. Besides, corruption is not essentially correlated to livelihood compulsion. Had it been so, the allegations of corruption would not have been so regularly levelled against top bureaucrats.
   Hence, the government would be well-advised to review and revise the pay commission’s recommendations in such a way that the pay hike is not unduly tilted in favour of the highest paid servant of the republic.

Extrajudicial killings: a national shame

The new government declared that no more extrajudicial killings shall there be. The emphasis with which this was stated was inspiring and we pinned our hopes on the government assertion thinking that in at least one area of life a change was truly coming about. It did not take us long to be undeceived. On January 16 the Rapid Action Battalion killed a 38-year-old man in a late-night shootout at Abdullahpur under south Keraniganj. On Friday the same force killed a suspected criminal who was allegedly wanted in 17 cases at Najirbagh under South Keraniganj in a so-called ‘shootout’, according to a report published in New Age on Friday. The same mockery of justice and pillorying of the rule of law by the very law enforcers of the country. The cover-up story is also more or less the same stereotype – the victim and his cohorts either attempting to flee to escape arrest or firing upon the law enforcers which invited the fatal bullet from the law enforcers.
   It seems the outcry by the human rights activists and civil society leaders and foreign observers has had no effect and the government is showing no more sensitivity to the issue than its predecessors. Extrajudicial killings in the hands of law enforcers claimed more than five hundred lives over the past five years, according to the human rights watchdog Odhikar. The home minister in parliament gave a slightly lower but far from comforting figure of 373. What looks further unpardonable about these incidents is that they are not probed and the perpetrators are not made accountable for the killings.
   It is futile to argue that the victims were all hardened criminals running fugitive from justice. To deny a citizen his right to a fair trial is a complete negation of the very concept of rule of law. Our justice delivery system may be dilatory or even flawed but this does not give the law enforcers the right to short-circuit the process. Immunity of law enforcers in this regard may create much future complication. If they are not accountable on the question of human life how can they be made accountable in other fields? Reform of the police and the law enforcers is in the air, it is being demanded by the enlightened citizenry that the police change their mindset which was moulded under the past colonial and autocratic rules and reorient themselves as friends of the people and protectors of their rights. What we are seeing instead is that the police are allowed to become thoroughly scornful of human rights. The country’s image abroad as a democratic country will be further dwarfed, more strictures will be passed on the country by international rights bodies and the goal of strengthening the rule of law will recede further. Extrajudicial killings are a national shame.

The truth is, conspiracies sometimes do occur.
   Michael Meacher
   Labour MP and former British minister for the environment
   
   ‘Bangladeshis love conspiracy theories’ was a comment I came across in foreign news reports, news analyses and blog-talk soon after the BDR rebellion. Somewhat piqued, I thought, surely that’s not something essentially Bangladeshi? And, surely not more than the Bush administration?
   
   Contending accounts of 9/11
   NAGGING disbelief about many aspects of the official story has seen the rise of a movement, initially grassroots, but later joined by professionals – pilots, architects, engineers, scientists, fire-fighters, lawyers, medical professionals, former intelligence officers including FBI and CIA whistleblowers, politicians – that has come to be known as the 9/11 Truth Movement, extending from America to Europe, and beyond. Its members have raised hard-nosed questions based on rigorous and meticulously detailed research, serving to sideline the crackpots, and to turn it into a serious community of truth-seekers, seeking to expose the official lies and cover-up surrounding the events of September 11, 2001. And, seeking justice and redress for those wronged on September 11, or as a result of those events. One of its central demands is the complete disclosure of all records and evidence.
   The mainstream press, both in the US and in other western countries, generally refers to the members of the movement, as conspiracy theorists. Matthew Rothschild, in Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracies, Already, writes, ‘Here’s what the conspiracists believe: 9/11 was an inside job. Members of the Bush administration ordered it, not Osama bin Laden. Arab hijackers may not have done the deed. The Twin Towers fell not because of the impact of the airplanes and the ensuing fires but because of explosives. I’m amazed at how many people give credence to these theories’ (September 2006).
   But, as Dr David Ray Griffin, professor of philosophy of religion and theology, and a renowned author of a series of eye-opening books on 9/11 (The New Pearl Harbour: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11, 2004; The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions And Distortions, 2004) points out, many journalists avoid ‘getting empirical’ about 9/11. Professor Griffin, in a televised lecture available on YouTube, says what Matthew Rothschild should have added was: ‘Here’s what the government conspiracists believe: 19 hijackers with knives and box cutters defeated the most sophisticated defence system in history. Hani Hanjour, who could barely fly a Piper Cub, flew an astounding trajectory to crash Flight 77 into the Pentagon, the most well-protected building on the planet. Other hijacker pilots, by flying planes into two buildings of the World Trade Centre, caused three of them to collapse at virtually free-fall speed, straight down. I’m amazed at how many people give credence to these theories.’
   Professor Paul Zarembka (State University of New York, Buffalo, editor of The Hidden History of 9-11-2001, publ. 2006) also dismisses the official account; he calls it ‘absurd’. If you just relaxed and dreamed it up no one would believe that the US could be taken out by 19 hijackers. If this had happened in Russia, we would have laughed it out. We wouldn’t have believed that they would let it happen. I don’t know exactly who did it but the evidence points that it was done internally.
   But, Michael Keefer, professor of English at the University of Guelph, Ontario, says disbelieving the official account is taboo. And it is so, because of the people’s contract, the implicit contract that they [western peoples] have with their governments. Namely, that the government will kill others, and not us. That it will not turn against us. Or, in the words of a young protester at one of the 9/11 Truth Movement rallies that I watched on YouTube, In the US, the people are convinced that the government loves them. But if it was, say Russia, if you say something bad about the government, people are likely to listen to what you have to say.
   Andreas von Bulow, former German defence minister (in Helmut Schmidt’s government), finds the official account ‘totally incredible’. Convinced that it was a covert operation, Bulow argues, ‘It was a highly sophisticated operation. Who [else] was capable of doing it? It was not possible for a non-inside force, to do it.’ And the reasons? To influence and brainwash the American people into a ‘long, long, ongoing conflict with the Muslim world,’ to get ‘the last oil reserves which we need for the next decades before the oil age’ goes out. But, how could a government, one that leads the world’s most powerful democracy, entertain the idea, let alone carry it out, of doing something as heinous, as immoral, and well, outright murderous? Bulow’s words are chillingly clear, ‘It’s a form of war. In war, it’s acceptable for people to die, even on your own side.’
   But could so large an operation, one that must have involved hundreds, if not thousands of people, remain a secret? Professor Griffins offers an interesting instance from history. The Manhattan project to build nuclear bomb involved 100,000 workers, it was kept so secret that even vice-president Harry Truman didn’t know about it until he became president.
   
   Who benefited from 9/11?
   ‘CUI Bono?’ is the question that any good investigator asks after a crime has been committed. In other words, who benefited from 9/11?
   The answers, 9/11 truth-seekers claim, are contained in ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century’, a PNAC (Project for the New American Century) document drafted by the US military machine’s think-tank. ‘This is about control of middle-eastern oil,’ says Meacher. ‘It indicates that America is aiming for global leadership both militarily and economically and what it says, is, I think, chilling. It says if we are going to transform America to tomorrow’s dominant force, that’s their phrase, then it’s going to be a long process. Unless there is a catastrophic and catalysing event – like a new Pearl Harbour.’
   And, 9/11 took place 12 months later.
   Who benefited? As many 9/11 truth-seekers point out, Iraq didn’t, nor did Saddam Hussein, nor al-Qaeda, nor any of the Arab countries. But Larry Silverstein did. He had acquired the lease of the WTC complex a few weeks before 9/11, had re-worked the insurance policy to cover terrorist attacks, and after what is known as ‘Twin Tower’, received $7 billion in compensation. For an original investment worth $15 million only! So did those who took part in insider trading on the stocks of parent companies of American Airlines (AMR) and United Airlines (UAL), bringing in profits running to millions, possibly, as high as a billion dollars. And, the PNAC group did. As did Dick Cheney (Halliburton), the arms industry (‘there’s nothing better for the arms industry than a war’), the Bush family (Carlyle group), US oil companies (the oil pipeline from the Caspian oil fields to Afghanistan was signed the day after Karzai was installed), the US government (provided it with the excuse to pursue its goal of a new world order by means of war).
   
   The 9/11 Commission: neither structurally nor procedurally independent
   PRESIDENT Bush resisted forming an investigatory commission for a year. The 9/11 Commission that was subsequently formed was, despite its stated intention, neither ‘independent’, nor ‘impartial’, nor ‘thorough’. Bryan Sacks (a contributor to The Hidden History of 9/11) writes, it was structurally compromised by bias-inducing connections to subjects of the investigation (for instance, its executive director Philip Zelikow worked closely with Condoleezza Rice, was also her co-author). It was also procedurally compromised, on three counts. It failed to take up promising lines of inquiry, to force the release of key documents that were closely guarded by the Bush administration, the FBI and various intelligence sources. It distorted information about pre-9/11 military preparedness, foreknowledge of the attacks or similar attacks. It omitted information related to the funding of the plot and the specific whereabouts of key officials (foremost among them, vice-president Dick Cheney) on the morning of September 11, 2001.
   These two key features, writes Sacks, converged to produce a report that unquestioningly accepted the official version that left unchallenged key myths associated with American exceptionalism (‘the US government loves its people’, ‘it would not conspire against them’).
   
   Lessons for us
   THE new US administration led by Barack Obama speaks of change. Will the change be substantive? Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, who has done groundbreaking research on 9/11, thinks not. Obama’s arrival is ‘set to rehabilitate American hegemony and restore some sense of credibility and even respectability to US military and financial power’ in the context of Bush administration’s trampling of ‘any semblance of half-decent PR’ during the last eight years. And even though Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, recently said that the use of the phrase ‘war on terror’ was to be discontinued, Obama’s formal request to Congress for $83.4 billion in ‘emergency’ supplemental funding to pay for the continuation of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his words to students in Strasbourg, ‘those terrorists are still plotting today. And there – if there is another al-Qaeda attack, it is just as likely, if not more, that it will be here in Europe, in a European city,’ sound ominous to my ears.
   Although our commerce minister, who is also coordinator of the investigations into the BDR rebellion, has become more reticent recently, no longer chattering about the alleged mutineers links to Islamic militants, and the JMB, the incidents of custodial deaths, and allegations of torture cast doubts on the credibility of the evidence that is being gathered. One can only hope that the government will learn its lessons from the 9/11 Truth Movement, and that its investigative committee will not produce a report that is neither ‘independent’, nor ‘impartial’, nor ‘thorough’.