Editorial
Govt’s decision on public-private
partnership commendable
WHEN disclosing the draft industrial policy at a consultation meeting on Sunday, the industries minister, Dilip Barua, reportedly said that state-owned enterprises would not be divested anymore. He also stressed that the government would invest on these enterprises to make them profitable and efficient. This indication of putting a stop to wholesale privatisation of public sector industries at the behest of the international financial institutions is indeed commendable, especially in view of the point made in another New Age report published the same day, which states that half of the 74 state-owned enterprises divested were, in fact, shut down after privatisation and the rest only limped on.
Although there have been no comprehensive studies into the state of public enterprises after privatisation, it is evident from anecdotal evidence and different publications about the poor state of individual establishments that privatisation has not brought about the desired results, either through increased employment, social returns or revenues. In fact, the industries minister appeared to hit the nail on its head when he hinted at the general practice of breaking up public enterprises into bits and pieces and selling them off for a profit by private quarters. The reported features of the industrial policy also indicate a more sensible approach to industrialisation as the government targets some 40 per cent of the GDP and 45 per cent of employment by 2021 to come from industrial production. Additional effort on industries, particularly in reviving or reopening factories that have been shut down, would then lead to higher employment and increase in real wages for the people. There are indications that the industrial policy calls for protection for local industries by restructuring the liberal tariff regime that encourages imports as well as by stipulating what is most likely to be a local content requirement. This would require manufacturers to use locally produced goods as raw materials, thus further encouraging industrial production and leading vertical and horizontal industrial expansion. The policy also suggests that there would be a strong focus on public-private partnership.
The draft identifies 16 ‘controlled’ sectors as being important for the protection and preservation of national security and natural resources. Investment proposals in these sectors will require special approval. Indeed sectors including fossil fuels, financial institutions, power generation and major infrastructure projects. The spirit of the industrial policy, as far as reported, is also laudable. If the entire policy reflects similar spirit without obvious loopholes or contradictions that other policies have, then we believe it would bring immense benefits for the nation.
However, it should also be pointed out that similar to previous instances of lofty promises and even adoption of progressive policies, the country has not quite derived the potential benefits because of poor implementation of those policies. We expect that once the industrial policy is finalised adequately reflecting the input received from the consultations that are being held, it would be implemented with due sincerity. Surely, drawing up an acceptable and apparently effective policy in consultation with the relevant quarters is in itself a difficult task, which the government appears to have accomplished quite well. But effective implementation of that policy, which lies ahead, is infinitely harder and will test of the government’s resolve.
Call off political witch hunt
within bureaucracy
THE Awami League-led government’s latest move to identify bureaucrats accused of being sympathetic to rival political parties, and either investigate them or force them into retirement, smacks of the worst traditions of political vengeance-seeking that plagues Bangladeshi politics. According to a New Age report published Sunday, the government has already transferred over 300 bureaucrats in the first few months of its tenure, many of them ending up as officers on special duty, as part of a ritual that typically makes way for the influx of bureaucrats loyal to the newly elected regime. This is ironical given the Awami League’s election campaign promising ‘change’ in the acrimonious political culture that bedevils politics. The AL-led alliance has not only remained true to form in victimising perceived rivals — as the 300-plus transfers indicate — but it has now openly initiated a witch hunt to seek out those in the bureaucracy who disagree with its politics.
If the BNP-led alliance filled the ranks of the bureaucracy with its sympathisers in a five-year stint from 2001-2006, the Awami League’s rationale that these partisan individuals must be rooted out is not only flawed but also unethical given that the incumbents are seeking to fill those places with bureaucrats loyal to them. Meanwhile, it has also been reported that the AL-led alliance may be looking to rehabilitate nearly 6,000 public servants sidelined by the BNP during their previous tenure, largely on the basis of partisan loyalties.
This is a continuation of a vicious tradition which has terrifying consequences for the overall governance of Bangladesh, as every government places its own set of bureaucrats in top positions, compromising competence and performance for partisan loyalties. It further institutionalises the systematic partisan politicisation of the bureaucracy both civil and military. Far worse, it rewards the worst sycophantic elements within the bureaucracy with coveted positions while punishing those who remain neutral and professional and may deserve promotions based on their performance. This has been one of the major factors behind an overall slide in the quality of governance over the past decade, for which Bangladesh has paid a bitter price.
On March 12, the prime minister’s office sent a letter to all secretaries of the government expressing concern at the snail’s pace with which the government’s work was advancing. The bureaucratic witch hunt that the government is now about to initiate will once again paralyse the bureaucracy with fear, with even competent bureaucrats hesitating to disagree with the political leadership or with party loyalists inside the secretariat for fear of being branded a BNP-Jamaat sympathiser. If the government sincerely wants to put an end to the political ping-pong that the two major parties have played with the bureaucracy till now, it should break the tradition by advocating a ‘hands off’ approach in the decisions of promotions and postings, allowing them to be on the basis of professional excellence not partisan loyalty.
Al-Qaeda and western
intelligence operations
by Rahnuma Ahmed
Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies.... Al-Qaida, literally ‘the database’, was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.
Robin Cook, British foreign minister, 1997-2001
(In saying this, he was divulging confidential information. Cook died a month later, in August 2005).
THAT al-Qaeda originated in the US-financed mujahideen guerrilla war in Afghanistan, that Osama bin Laden enjoyed American support and received CIA training in ‘weapons, sabotage and bomb-making’, is well-known. That Laden later fell out with the US administration over the entry of US forces into Saudi Arabia (the presence of foreign forces in the ‘land of the two mosques’) after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991 is also well-known as is known that the resulting enmity led to al-Qaeda’s attacks on 9/11 in the US (for instance, http ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda ).
But this storyline – once-allies-now-enemies-unto-death – seems untenable in the light of recent research conducted by British political scientist and policy analyst Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation and the Anatomy of Terrorism (2005). A Norwegian daily, more-recently, has published an article based on his research (Kristin Aalen, Terrorists Working for Western Countries, Stavanger Aftenbladet, 24.11.08). It is accompanied by a geopolitical world map – largely true to his findings except for over-simplifying the Pentagon’s sponsorship of al-Qaeda fighters in the Balkans – which outlines how these two forces have worked together. The Norwegian text has been substituted by its English translation, available on Nafeez’s blog. Without going into the details of what is shown on the map, I want to write instead about what he says of al-Qaeda.
A vehicle of Western covert operations
AL-QAEDA is a monolithic, hierarchical organisation. Its activities are coordinated by its leader, Osama bin Laden. It is the source of contemporary international terrorism. These conventional portrayals, writes Nafeez, are false. The truth is that al-Qaeda – a term coined not by Islamists but by the CIA – refers to the computer database that Robin Cook had pointed out. Of course, Nafeez adds, this does not mean that it is not ‘some sort of identifiable entity’. It does exist, but not as ‘a self-directed institution in its own right’, rather, as an amorphous association of networks.
Factually speaking, al-Qaeda is ‘a post-Cold War strategic instrument.’ Although born within the realities of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, in the CIA’s vision, its operational scope was not to be restricted to Afghanistan only. According to a CIA analyst interviewed by Richard Labeviere, chief editor at Radio France International, ‘The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries worked marvellously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilise what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia.’
According to Nafeez, al-Qaeda’s activities, during and after the Cold War, related primarily to a new doctrine of covert destabilisation, one that was, and is, being implemented in ‘new theatres of operation strategically close to Russian and Chinese influence’, i.e. Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and central Asia. As such, al-Qaeda is better characterised as a ‘conglomerate of quasi-independent Islamic terrorist cells’, one that spans at least 26 countries.
This conglomerate is inextricably embedded – both with regard to its raison d’etre, and its modus operandi – in another conglomerate, a ‘disturbing’ one, says Nafeez, of international Western diplomatic, financial, military and intelligence policies. The geo-strategic structure of al-Qaeda derives directly from western corporate interests, those particularly related to monopolising global energy resources. In all mujahideen activity, one consistently comes across the directed involvement of western financial, military and intelligence power. This takes place through state-regional nodes in strategic regions (prime examples are Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Algeria), direct liaisons, and human nodes. US, British and western power ‘routinely manipulate al-Qaeda’; in all cases, including 9-11, it generates destabilisation. This ‘paves the way for, and ultimately sustains the involvement of, Anglo-American interests in the monopolisation of regional resources and the establishment of military-backed geopolitical power.’ Thus, al-Qaeda is not, as popular perception goes, ‘a foreign enemy external to Western civilization.’ Rather, it is the name for ‘a highly developed category of Western covert operations,’ one that is designed to secure destabilisation through the creation, multiplication, mobilisation, and manipulation of disparate mujahideen groups.
Epilogue: Debates are currently raging in Bangladesh over the necessity of cracking down against militancy, the lack of a clear government policy, the likelihood that Islamist militant groups are regrouping for attacks, that madrasahs are breeding grounds for extremists, militant attacks are aimed at destabilising the government, and the need for regional anti-terror initiatives.
Are these debates, and policy proposals, totally un-connected to the policy of ‘guiding the evolution of Islam’ in what is now considered by some to be a new sphere of US strategic interest? Are these un-connected to the US embassy’s growing concern to promote ‘respect for American values’ in Bangladesh? (see Sumit Ganguly, The Rise of Islamist Militancy in Bangladesh, report commissioned by the United States Institute of Peace, 2006). Those taking part in the debate, either deliberately or foolishly, feign ignorance.
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