Unheard Voices

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Some developments related to Bangladesh media are raising concerns. All of these may be unrelated. But being put all together, it creates an unsettling picture.

Since Jan 11: Owners and directors of at least 5 tv channels and 5 newspapers are under the ACC anti-corruption dragnet.

Sep, 07: First 24-7 news channel CSB shut down.

Nov 07: Economist reports

For the regime, the anti-graft drive has had some useful side-effects. The intelligence services are systematically acquiring shares in private media companies, by offering the release from detention of their owners in return.

Jan 15, 08: New Age reports that in the first year of emergency 35 journalists were injured, 13 arrested, 35 assaulted, 83 threatened and 13 sued while one media practitioner was forced to sign an undertaking and another came under attack.

April, 08 Popular nightly talk show on Ekushey TV closes down amid on/off restriction.

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Na Bola Kotha, our Bangla blog, with a spate of interesting articles in quick succession:
Snigdha writes about Africa, biodiversity, development and globalization in an essay discussing the documentary Darwin’s Nightmare.
Shubinoy discusses the rising backlash against biofuels, specifically ethanol production in the West, which has turned primary crops away from the food chain and contributed to spiking food prices worldwide.
Husainuzzaman, who is an environmental scientist as well as a popular blogger in the Banglasphere, contributes his first piece to NBK - an in-depth look at water conservation techniques for the future. Lessons for our policymakers in this piece; the writer also contributed a fascinating piece on how to clean up the river Buriganga in Sachalayatan a few weeks ago. Highly recommended. Go to Na Bola Kotha.

All photographs by Udisa Islam & colleagues, taken during Fact Finding Team’s visit to Sajek.
CHT: Denying History
CHT: Life is Not Ours

[Buddhi Ranjan Chakma Begging For Help]

[Bagerhat: Burnt Pahari Homes]
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My feeling is that Rezwan bhai has hit the nail on the head. He has hinted at a link between democracy and disaster response/management in the case of Cyclone Nargis. Democracies thrive in open societies with free flow of information. A person’s right to know and people’s right to speak are fundamental to democracies. While some have tried to portray this flow of information and the different media through which they flow as “wastes of time”/ “distractions” that keep people from going about their daily lives, that is a fundamental misunderstanding of the entire situation. (more…)

From Rahnuma Ahmed op-ed:
“Between 1979 and 1983, Bangladesh’s military rulers sponsored migration of Bengali settlers into the Chittagong Hill Tracts. An estimated 500,000 plains settlers were provided land grants, cash and rations.”

“Things are very different now. Now you may find some Bengalis going to CHT, they are following their family members. That is not settlement. How can one stop that? It sounds nice, the only problem is that it isn’t true.”

“The army has affirmed that such incidents will not be tolerated, that peace and communal harmony must be maintained at all costs. Such affirmations ignore history. It makes nothing of tales of killings perpetrated by Bengali settlers and security forces.” (more…)

A much delayed welcome speech from Fakhruddin Shaheb. Comment about the content of is a bit later but the best part of the speech was that it had some specific dates.
Quick Instant reaction:

Positives:

1. Definitive date for election. Finally a date is here which should partially dispel speculation about the election whether it will happen or not.
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Burma emergency

“What is exercising me is not the identity of our next PM or his or her government. Well before the aborted 2007 election, I said we should ignore the election and focus on the following one (then slated for 2012). I continue in that belief that we should focus on the election after next (assuming we have one this winter)…What I mean by that is not the identity of the future winner, but the basis on which our political debate will be conducted in the future. The victor of the election this winter will have hell to pay. The new regime will not be able to control the country. Two years into its tenure, it will be in crisis. For those who have greater ambitions for this country I would suggest minimising the debate about who will be PM in Dhaka come March 2009. Rather, I would ask for a radical overhaul in the terms of the debate about national development. For those exercised about protecting resources such as gas and coal, an equivalent “committee” to protect the small farmer and landless is needed. While some doubt where the money will come from, I prefer to ask, where is the money going?”

Read the whole write up by Farid Bakht where he asks the political agenda to move to the left and learn from Nepal.

As the promised elections draw nearer, speculation about future political alignments continues to mount. Some ask: Will we see a gradual return to one-person rule over political parties? Will the parliament be able to actually represent the people? Will the creation of new institutions simplify or complicate politics? And many wonder: What will help avoid a future political crisis like the one that precipitated 1/11? These questions often lead to discussions about the need for more checks and balances to the executive power. In order to move away from the unchecked power of the premiership, agreement between the political parties must be achieved in the upcoming dialogue. This article discusses various options, some feasible within the current constitution, and others that require constitutional amendments, to bring about a much-needed balance of power. More

[Pahari Students Defy Emergency To Protest On DU Campus]

DOWNLOAD: Fact Finding Team 2 (Sara Hossain led)
DOWNLOAD: Fact Finding Team 1 (Moshrafe Mishu led)
REPORT: Ain Salish Kendra 2007 Annual Report
REPORT: Hana Shams in Star
REPORT: Shamima Binte Rahman in Shamokal (Bengali, Scroll down to 3d item)
OP-ED: Zubeida Nasreen on Region Unrest
LAW: Peace Treaty Challenged in Court, Court Rules Against Treaty
REPORT: Life Is Not Ours
REPORT: Bangladesh Watchdog
ALERT: Jumma People’s Network
OP-ED: Sachalatayan (Bengali)
HISTORY: 390,000 Bengali Settlers (2005)

[Korea Protests] (more…)

The death of 48 year old Rashida Mohiuddin due to medical negligence is another chapter of the dark saga of our health care sector. The rich can afford to fly abroad for treatment but they can’t afford the time to go when there is an emergency. Unlike other times, recent string of high profile deaths like film star Manna etc, and collective advocacy campaign via web by victim’s families, have kept the issue on the front line.

Hana Shams Ahmed looks at both sides of the debate
Hana Shams Ahmed: Labaid, accident or negligence?
Blog: Lab Aid’s Real Face
Report on legal recourse of medical negligence.
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After a lot of fumbling, failures and reform buzzwords, it seems that the government has come up with its own exit strategy. No, it has nothing to do with continuing reform or fixing our institutes. Its simply about their collective backside getting protected by ensuring their hold in the power for the long term.

Based on judging last few month’s of events and recently reports, the exit strategy now centers around Dhaner Sheesh and it looks like this:

• Create a splinter group of BNP whom the election commission would give the dhaner sheesh symbol.
• Float multiple smaller parties and create a loose coalition of Jatiyotabadi forces and civil society elements which will include this fake BNP with Ershad’s JP, Badruddoza’s BDB, PDP, Dr. Kamal Hossain’s Gonoforum etc.
• Ensure that this front gets at least 130 odd seats and a majority or at least enough to hold the balance of power.
• Post election, elect General Moeen U Ahmed as the president of Bangladesh by the obedient governing party.
• Create a national security council under the president to make sure that President Moeen U Ahmed have enough power to control the army after his retirement.
• Rule the country via a defacto military-civilian oligarchy
• If any of the above chain of events fail, the election will be stalled. That will also be done in a ‘constitutional’ way. The recent rezoning of the parliamentary districts makes it possible that the stalling of the election will be one law suit away.
• In the event of a violent protests by the political parties, elections will be stalled as well calling it a national security issue and the country will then be effectively ruled by the newly formed national security council or a ‘national unity government’ made up of pet BNP-AL leaders.

Follow the past few months activities, and the next few months, it will all fall into place. Also the recent ICG report has hinted on it as well quoting an unnamed international diplomat.

When or if the dust settles in Bangladesh, we may see a retired army chief as president, another retired army chief as the anti-corruption czar, a retired general administering elections and a security council which takes the advice of three or more generals as to how to manage the country.And this could be the best case scenario for Bangladesh’s civilian democracy.

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Crossposted from Imperfect World

Seeing Cherie Booth yesterday on TV demanding the immediate shipment of Hasina for medical treatment made me think about foreign interference in Bangladeshi politics. So I am going to blog about James Moriarty, the US ambassador to Bangladesh. His arrival earlier this month portends, I fear, a menacing level of interference.

“Diplomatic activism,” if we can call it that, has been key in the recent developments in Bangladesh not least in the installation of the current military-backed caretaker government. So what can we expect in the future? Judging from his recent stint in Nepal, Mr Moriarty is not the type to engage in sensitive diplomacy. Indeed one journalist wrote “Moriarty was to prove very much an American cowboy in a Nepali china shop.” Read “cowboy” as euphemism for stoking conflict, murder and mayhem. As the results favouring the Maoists come in from Nepal, Mr Moriarty - their implacable opponent - must be wondering where he went wrong. The truth is that he never did possess a realistic view of what was possibile in Nepal. Mr Moriarty’s CV on the web tells us he has won several performance awards. Perhaps these were won mainly when he was behind a desk in Washington. In Nepal, his performance would have earned him a severe dressing down given the perverse outcome. And hence perhaps his appointment/demotion to Bangladesh.

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As part of a programme marking the International Women’s Day, the government announced a National Women Development Policy on 8 March (see here). The announced policy was condemned by a section of the clerics as un-Islamic. Specifically, the clerics objected to any possible change to the inheritance laws such that women could get equal inheritance rights as men. On 11 March, the government announced that it had no intention of passing any law that is ‘anti-Islam’ (see here). On 27 March, the government formed a 20-member committee to identify inconsistencies in the policy as per Islamic rules and suggest steps (see here). While the committee deliberated, the clerical opposition continued. Following the Friday prayers on 11 April, violent protests broke out around Baitul Mukarram (see here). On 17 April, the committee recommended that the government amends its policy, replacing any commitment to equality between the sexes with ‘just rights’ for women (see here).

Drishtipat is committed to equal rights - irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity or faith - of all citizens. As such, it supports, without any reservation, equal property and inheritance rights for men and women. But this post is not about the commitment to these rights. Nor is it about theological discussions about what Islam has to say on the matter. Rather, it is about some lessons to be drawn from the developments described in the first paragraph.

(More in Mukti)