Released on = August 17, 2006, 11:23 pm

Press Release Author = Patrcia Ovemarrie

Industry = Media

Press Release Summary = Last week, two major American dailies, Washington Post and
Wall Street Journal published opinion editorials saying Bangladesh was becoming the
next avenue of Jihadist activities. Some other newspapers here as well in other
Western capitals are also echoing the same voice.

Press Release Body =
Patricia Ovemarrie

Last week, two major American dailies, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal
published opinion editorials saying Bangladesh was becoming the next avenue of
Jihadist activities. Some other newspapers here as well in other Western capitals
are also echoing the same voice. Most interestingly, not only theme, but the
contents of such publications are almost similar; as if it were cooked in the same
kitchen to fit the dishes of different nations. Many people are raising fingers at
Indian intelligence agency behind such organized propaganda, which is believed to be
spending millions of dollars in attaining its anti-Bangladesh campaign. According to
defense analysts, after the recent Mumbai blasts, international community and super
powers were eyeing on New Delhi as the possible hub of Al Qaeda activities. They
were even considering India as a country seriously affected by Osama palls.
Moreover, according to Indian government versions, Islamist militants in Kashmir
area are continuously backed by notorious militant groups like Al Qaeda. Even RAW
published several dossiers and leaflets saying Kashmiri militants were receiving
money and weapon from international terrorist groups. But, now possibly New Delhi
realizes the fact that such campaigns would ultimately go against them as the
international community might ask the policy makers in that capital to begin serious
offensives on such elements. This was the reason for Indian policy makers to adopt
the policy of shifting the allegation of being Al Qaeda affected to Bangladesh.
Media experts feel that the so-called long arm of RAW, the Indian psy-war machine
has reached Washington to swing back and hit Bangladesh. A Washington Post op-ed
spin has joined a long trail of planted stories in the Indian media with
diversionary rummage suspecting Bangladesh involvement in 7/11 Mumbai
train-bombings. Indian media campaign over the years accusing Bangladesh of
involvement in the war of attrition carried on by ethnic insurgents in Northeast
India had gone stale.
Meanwhile, daring demonstrations of People\'s War power by Maoist rebels stole the
show by breaking jails, mining road-blockades, raiding police camps and blowing up
armed personnel carriers that braved the red belt right from Nepal borders through
Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. Added to the torments of
that unstable belt is the shadow of failure of India\'s Nepal policy. Confounded
Indian meddling has in effect given rise to spiraling influence of Maoists and
consolidation of their irregular regime undermining the Royal Nepalese Army.
Bangladesh is thus surrounded by unstable socio-political conditions and recurrent
armed struggle in Indian territory all around. Internal security of Bangladesh is
palpably threatened by pilferage of illicit arms traffic undertaken by Indian
militants (and crime rings as well) right under the nose of strong Indian naval and
air force presence in the Andaman Islands. The Indian rebels are scornfully defiant
of the specially empowered Eastern Command of the Indian Army operating from
Shillong covering West Bengal as well as the seven sister states of northeast India.
Yet in sustained psy-war offensive, Indian demi-official propagandists are out to
paint pictures the other way round and turn the table on Bangladesh. In fact,
Bangladesh has been able to maintain internal order and significantly suppress
militant tendencies within its bounds, notwithstanding heavy odds posed by
demi-official harbouring in Indian territory of fugitive criminals and
mischief-mongers escaping the law of Bangladesh. Yet to divert attention from
communal, ethnic, caste and class conflicts over most parts of India, highbrow RAW
propaganda machine has been dishing out tales of \"Islamic\" terror emanating from
backward Bangladesh allegedly to fuel violent conflicts in India. After the Mumbai
blasts on July 11, for instance, a three-column story in Hindustan Times posted from
Kolkata and Mumbai on July 13, broke news: Masterminds of Mumbai blasts organised
their trip from Bangladesh via West Bengal.
The story went on without any shred of actual evidence: The masterminds of the
Mumbai blasts have been identified and the role of the banned students Islamic
Movement of India (Simi) established. Faivaz and Zyiabuddin had arrived from
Bangladesh a month ahead of the blasts. They spent some time in the city, their stay
arranged by local Simi members. These members kept them in touch with Simi\'s
Maharashtra network, and it took them a month to put a plan in place and then
execute it.
The HT Kolkata correspondent added: \"The Students Islamic Movement of India (Simi)
is supposed to be banned. The truth is that only the name Simi is banned. Its
members are active as ever particularly in Bengal, only they use various false names
for their organisation...The atlases Simi uses include Islamic Chhatra Shibir (ICS)
and Islamic Siksha Shibir (ISS). The first is the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islam
Bangladesh (JEIBD). The outfit also collaborates with members of the Indian National
League (INL) and Islamic Action Force (IAF).
\"(Intelligence Branch, West Bengal) sources said Simi had last year held two
meetings in Bengal which were also attended by ICS activists from Bangladesh. The
first was held on August 27 at a madrasa in Malda, under the IAF banner, and the
second from August 31 to September 1 at a North 24 Parganas madrassa under the ISS
umbrella. At both meetings delegates laid stress on plans to infiltrate Islamic
cultural bodies for mobilisation of forces. In August 2004, ICS took some Simi
cadres from Bengal to madrassas in Bangladesh for higher studies. Some others from
Malda and South 24 Parganas also went fro higher studies in Islamic theology at a
Saudi Arabia-funded private institution in Chittagong.\" And so on.
On July 15, Mumbai Mirror echoed: Mumbai\'s Train Terror Came From Bangladesh. It
claimed: \"The Anti-Terrorist Squad is now quite certain that the seven bombers, and
the others who helped them carry out the blasts, had a strong Bangladeshi
connection. \'At least three of them were Bangladeshi nationals who had entered India
illegally. The rest, including those who provided the logistical support to the
bombers, were either trained in Bangladesh or had entered India through that
country,\' a senior ATS officer said on Friday, July 14.\"
On July 16, Daily News & Analysis or DNA (India) flashed on its webpage: Bangladesh
is becoming a hotbed of terrorist training. The story, again without a shred of real
evidence, went to the extent of claiming that the military in Bangladesh, to the
detriment of the nation\'s own security and SAARC commitments, was training
militants:
\"Terrorists operating in India are routinely traced to Pakistan, but Bangladesh,
which is on the country\'s eastern flank, has also become the hub of international
terrorist activities. Some of the suspicious calls made around the time of the
Mumbai serial blasts were traced to Bangladesh as it was via Bangladesh that one of
the suspects, Ansari, went to Pakistan.
Bangladesh also serves as an important base for Al Qaeda, which has been building up
its network for years. One of its sleeper cells was detected in Rajshahi way back in
2001. Particular concern to security agencies was the information that at
the?Saidpur Army Regimental Centre, nearly 100 young men were trained to infiltrate
into the Indian security forces.\"
Selig S. Harrison, a former South Asia bureau chief of Washington Post picked up the
cue that Bangladesh was becoming a New Hub for Terrorism. He wrote in the August 2
issue of the Washington Post on Op-ed page: \"While the United States dithers, a
growing Islamic fundamentalist movement linked to al-Qaeda and Pakistani
intelligence agencies is steadily converting the strategically located nation of
Bangladesh into a new regional hub for terrorist operations that reach into India
and Southeast Asia.
The ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) struck a Faustian bargain with the
fundamentalist party Jamaat-e-Islami five years ago in order to win power. In return
for the votes in Parliament needed to form a coalition government, Prime Minister
Khaleda Zia has looked the other way as the Jamaat has systematically filled
sensitive civil service, police, intelligence and military posts with its
sympathizers, who have in turn looked the other way as Jamaat-sponsored guerrilla
squads patterned after the Taliban have operated with impunity in many rural and
urban areas.\"
The Harrison spin went so far as to name names of high-level involvement of civil
and military officials in alleged \"Islamic extremists factions.\" Harrison
insinuated:
\"Jamaat inroads in the government security machinery at all levels, starting with
Home Secretary Muhammad Omar Farooq, widely regarded as close to the Jamaat have
opened the way for suicide bombings...
With some 15,000 hard-core fighters operating out of 19 known base camps, guerrilla
groups sponsored by the Jamaat and its allies were able to paralyze the country last
Aug. 17 by staging 459 closely synchronized explosions in all but one of the
country\'s administrative districts. When the key leaders of these groups were
captured, they were kept by the police in a comfortable apartment, where they were
free to receive visitors. ...
What makes future prospects in Bangladesh especially alarming is that the Jamaat and
its allies appear to be penetrating the higher ranks of the armed forces. Among many
examples, informed journalists in Dhaka attribute Jamaat sympathies to Maj. Gen.
Mohammed Aminul Karim, recently appointed as military secretary to President
Iajuddin Ahmed, and to Brig. Gen. A.T.M. Amin, director of the Armed Forces
Intelligence anti-terrorism bureau.\"
The fact remains that it is the same officials of the Bangladesh government and
armed forces men on deputation to the Home Ministry that successfully cracked the
nascent terror network within Bangladesh that was largely supported by supplies and
contacts across the border in India. Again, the US administration itself has been
publicly disclaiming any credible evidence of Indian or Bangladeshi involvement in
Mumbai train-bombings, as copied from Indian reports by Harrison.
He parroted: For Pakistan\'s intelligence agencies, especially Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI), the legacy of the independence war has been a built-in network
of agents within the Jamaat and its affiliates who can be utilized to harass India
along its 2,500-mile border with Bangladesh. In addition to supporting tribal
separatist groups in northeast India, the ISI uses Bangladesh as a base for helping
Islamic extremists inside India. After the July 11 train bombings in Bombay, a top
Indian police official, K.P. Raghuvanshi, said that his key suspects \"have
connections with groups in Nepal and Bangladesh, which are directly or indirectly
connected to Pakistan.\"
He further lamented that: \"The Bush administration has yet to speak with comparable
candor. ... On July 13 the U.S. ambassador called Bangladesh \"an exceptional
moderate Muslim state.\" His final appeal was political:
There is still time for\' the administration to use aid leverage and trade
concessions to promote (a regime change). In addition to implicitly threatening an
aid cutoff if it is rebuffed, the administration should offer the powerful incentive
of duty-free textile imports from Bangladesh (to a compliant regime). What is the
excuse for inaction in Bangladesh, where the incumbent government coddles Islamic
extremists and a strong secular party is ready to govern?
Hindustan Times faithfully orchestrated the story on August 3 under the title
\"Bangladesh becoming regional terrorist hub\". So did a vernacular daily in
Bangladesh that propagates doomsday scenario for the \"nearly-failed\" state of
Bangladesh, followed by a few other Dhaka dailies. The final appeal of the Harrison
spin evidently prompted by some Delhi-guided leaders of the opposition alliance,
failed to hit its mark. The publication of the op-ed story on alleged regional
terror-network in Bangladesh was presumably designed to coincide with the Dhaka
visit of Richard Boucher the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central
Asian affairs. Boucher at the end of his Dhaka visit told the press:
\"There were three successful elections in the past, and I hope that the fourth
election will also be successful one.\"
Lauding the democratic practices, he said Bangladesh is an important democratic and
moderate country, an example for many other countries to emulate.
He went on to hail the government for its successes in arresting the leaders of the
Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, assuring whatever US assistance required for
breaking down the militant networks in Bangladesh and combating terrorism globally.
\"We must continue assisting the country in this regard,\' he asserted.
Asked if the Jamaat-e-Islami, a partner of the ruling alliance, has any link with
the militant activities in Bangladesh, he said, \"We have not seen any such evidence.
If anyone finds evidence, let them come with it.\"
Shall we look into the real perspective in Bangladesh on the issue to existence of
Al Qaeda? According to Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of State, his government
has no information about such existence in Bangladesh. The denial of Boucher has
surely placed Indian propaganda into hoax. If Washington Post or other newspaper's
commentaries had minimum level of truth, why did the senior official of the US
administration simply denied the fact of existence of Osama's activities in
Bangladesh? Moreover, Bangladesh is now continuing its serious offensives on
Islamist militancy and already they have caught more than seven hundred suspects
including several kingpins belonging to Jamaatul Mujahedin Bangladesh (JMB). Prime
Minister Khaleda Zia repeatedly said that her government won't tolerate any kind of
terrorist activities in the name of Islam. Her voice was certainly appreciated by
many of the Western leaders, as she is now the only female heads of state in a
Muslim nation. Khaleda's trusted home minister Lutfozzaman Babar has already earned
the acclamation of global community for his commendable dedication in cleansing the
country from the jaws of Islamist militancy. With this in mind, we can easily draw a
conclusion to say that Dhaka is sincerity participating in war on terror and it is a
formidable partner of the United States in this agenda.

Contradictions in Bangladesh's politics

David Fornek

The caretaker government (CG) issue in Bangladesh is going to be the bone of
contention in the sequence of events in the coming months. There is a growing
apprehension that the CG could be made a subject of ridicule by certain civil
society leaders who are trying to create smokescreen and confusion about the
forthcoming democratic changeover.
In an apparent bid to echo the opposition Awami League and its allies, some of these
people are propounding various theories about reforming the Caretaker Government
(which will be vested with the task of facilitating the process of general
elections), the Election Commission, the office of the President, and the command of
Armed Forces which they suggest should be placed under the CG instead of being under
the President of the Republic. Bangladesh\'s Constitution enshrines the provision
that the President is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic;
hence it is only cogent and congruous that President exercises his power as the
Supreme Commander of the Bangladesh Army, the Navy and the Air Force.
Critics feel that most of these people are acting like a syndicate and presenting
themselves as very important in the media giving the impression that the next CG
will not be operational or effective to run business without them.
Critics tend to believe that this is being done to make the appointment of the chief
of the CG a subject of negotiation. Perhaps some of them wish to become advisers in
the CG and in the event they succeed in their game plan, they would be able to
determine the terms of the election and the procedure of transition to the next
elected government.
It is not clear why this group that think so much about the well being of the
country are not advising the opposition leaders that the best way to sort out the
constitutional issues is to enter into a dialogue with the government. As the US
Assistant Secretary of State for South and East Asia told newsmen at the end of his
Dhaka visit that there are only two ways to deal with the present political impasse.
First, through a discussion between the government and the opposition leaders, and
the other one is to follow the constitution. There is no other way of solving this
problem.
The Awami League and its supporters appear to be suffering from contradiction. The
party itself spearheaded the movement for the formation of the caretaker government
system in 1992 to hold the parliamentary elections every five years under it.
However, to amend the constitution two-thirds majority was needed which the then
ruling BNP did not have and the AL kept on boycotting the parliament session to be
of any help.
Critics say they wanted to go for the caretaker government system because it lost
the polls in 1991 and accused the election commission of poll rigging and demanded a
provision for a caretaker government to hold a free and fair election. The AL won
the election when it was held for the first time under the caretaker government and
its leaders were happy. But in 2001 when the election was held under the same
arrangement and the AL lost it, once again it accused the EC of poll rigging and
began agitation to reform the caretaker government system itself.
The AL lost the election because of misrule, widespread corruption, the rise of
criminal godfathers everywhere and the cabinet\'s questionable decision of
transferring the Prime Minister\'s official residence to Sheikh Hasina in her name by
a deed, which was universally disliked. In addition, as prime minister, Sheikh
Hasina has also handed over government-owned large building to her sister.
Awami League leaders\' are also accusing the members of the present Government of
indulging in corruption and plundering of public property. Nobody denies that those
engaged in corruption must be punished. But when Awami League makes the allegation,
it must not be forgotten that AL men\'s also plundered public property. Some of these
cases include the purchase of a frigate boat from Korea and MiG planes from Russia.
Sheikh Hasina is using her political power as the leader of the opposition and the
chief of Awami League to evade trials.
Critics suggest the AL leaders must learn to respect people\'s verdict without trying
to manipulate and confuse the election environment. They say it should take a proper
approach to election, which will stand it in good stead. Pro-Awami League civil
society leaders seeking a place in the CG should also have some patience to allow
the democratic process to deliver, they say.
I already mentioned that AL lost election in 2001 for massive corruption, rise of
terrorism and AL backed God Father's limitless overdoing, lawlessness,
politicization of most of the civil and even military administration etc. There is
reasonable fear of the same attitude if the party comes in power once again.
Although the leaders of this party are now rather openly trying to justify that
their rule had been a 'Golden Era' for the country. No doubt, the people of
Bangladesh understands the realities and they do have the power to judge the good
and bad in any of the future elections.



Web Site = http://

Contact Details = 755 Mt Period Prospect
Chicago
Illinois 60056-2056
USA