Four months earlier, in January, the Bangladesh military had installed a puppet technocrat government through a bloodless coup and declared a “state of emergency.” The junta’s emergency rules suspended parts of the Constitution, made any criticism of the government or the military a punishable offense, put a blanket ban on political activity, and sharply curtailed press freedom. The military intervention brought an end to gruesome street-battles between two feuding political camps led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Awami League, and at first many Bangladeshis welcomed the de facto coup.

But skyrocketing prices, a devastated economy and rampant human rights abuses have changed their minds. Over the past year, the military has set up torture and detention facilities across the country and targeted political parties with an “anti-corruption” witch hunt that saw the arrests of more than 400,000 people, including two former prime ministers who lead the two biggest political parties.

The military intelligence agency, the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, or DGFI, which remains the driving force behind the de facto military rule, led a campaign to establish control over civil and political affairs, carrying out overt and covert operations against opposition parties and members of the media.

After my arrest, I was taken to a torture facility set up by the directorate inside its Dhaka headquarters. Thus began my 22-hour ride on the torture train, as my captors — high- and mid-level DGFI officers — tortured me, interrogated me and forced me to sign false confessions. I was questioned at length about my work as an editor for the Dhaka-based Daily Star newspaper, as a news representative for CNN in Bangladesh, and as a consultant researcher for Human Rights Watch.

In all these jobs, I obviously talked too much. As a journalist, I reported and commented on extra-judicial executions and torture by the Rapid Action Battalion, a paramilitary force; persecution of Ahmadiya Muslims (a heterodox sect of Islam) by extremist-Islamist groups with the active patronage of intelligence agencies; military repression in the region known as the Chittagong Hill Tracts in southeaster Bangladesh; and, perhaps most dangerous, sponsorship and patronage of Jihadist outfits by the DGFI and the National Security Intelligence agency. As a consultant for Human Rights Watch, I documented Bangladesh military involvement in extra-judicial executions and torture, systematic curtailment of press freedom, and rampant human rights violations carried out by the security forces under the “state of emergency.”

So I became a target for a junta that considered itself above criticism, even above the law. The military labeled me an “enemy of the state.” In the torture chamber, five or six DGFI officers took part in nightmarish torture sessions, using batons, boots and fists to inflict serious injuries on me. I saw sophisticated torture equipment. When I was moved out of a soundproof torture chamber, I could hear other detainees, locked inside cells, screaming and moaning in pain. I was forced to record false confessional statements on paper and video, admitting to imaginary terrorist, treasonous acts, and implicating my friends, associates and colleagues. Only when I fell sick from the torture were my blindfold and handcuffs taken off — briefly. I was constantly humiliated, exposed to obscene verbal abuse and racial slurs. My captors kept threatening me with extra-judicial execution.

News of my arrest sparked an outcry. I was fortunate that CNN, The Daily Star and Human Rights Watch stood by me and worked to secure my freedom. A network of bloggers and activists engineered a global campaign demanding my release. Foreign governments lobbied the Bangladeshi authorities. Within 24 hours of my detention, in an unprecedented move, the DGFI set me free. I went into hiding with my family. Eventually, we were allowed to fly out of the country and found a refuge in Sweden, where the authorities offered us political asylum.

I was not the first or last person marched into a torture chamber in Bangladesh. But I have the opportunity to detail my survival, while hundreds, if not thousands of stories relating to inhuman torture and Kafkaesque detentions in Bangladesh remain untold.

I am tempted to remind foreign governments that the abuses happening in Bangladesh in the name of “reform” and “anti-corruption” are possible thanks to their complicity and complacence. The support of donors like the United States and Britain, eager to address political paralysis and corruption but naïve about our history with military governments, has been crucial in providing legitimacy to an illegal, unconstitutional arrangement. Supporting a monster to kill a demon might work for computer gamers, but in politics and diplomacy it is usually disastrous.

It is time for Bangladesh’s friends in the United States, Britain, and European Union to support our struggle for democracy and pressure the military to end its “state of emergency” and declare an early date for free and fair elections. Military torture centers should be shut down and extra-judicial executions ended. And every perpetrator of human rights violations should be prosecuted and punished. No one else should experience what I went through.

And this piece of information is not from the nightmare I had last night that largely dealt with an editor who drank fifteen liters of laxative. My source, as a matter of fact, can be best described with the phrase “horse’s mouth” or the very next thing to it: mouthpiece of the military, staunchly pro-government, Bengali daily Amader Shomoy, itself.

Without further ado, a quick translation of the Amader Shomoy lead story [Monday, December 17, 2007].

Iajuddin to leave post before elections: Army chief Moeen may become the new president

Azahar Ali Sarkar: President Professor Iajuddin Ahmed may leave his post at his own will before the parliament elections. Army chief General Moeen U Ahmed may become the new president. Before taking oath as the president, General Moeen U Ahmed will step down as army chief. However, though he will leave the post of army chief, he will remain serving as the supreme commander of the military forces, as the president. On top of that, the new president will have more power. The new president will have the power to sack an elected prime minister, his/her cabinet and to dissolve the parliament. All of these are from different sources.

According to sources, from the beginning of the new year, different business groups, professional organizations and political parties will start demanding that Moeen become the president. The demand may gain even more momentum by March. In that context and in a special situation, in the interest of the country and its people, the army chief may take over presidency.

Sources also inform: politicians, businessmen and general public believe that a free and fair parliamentary election is not possible under President Iajuddin Ahmed. Because, before Fakhruddin Ahmed, as the chief adviser of the caretaker government Iajuddin Ahmed took some controversial steps. For those reasons, his acceptability as a president had suffered among the people.

On the other hand, in different seminars and meetings General Moeen has repeatedly confirmed that personally he has no such ambitious hope. Even he doesn’t know of any armed forces member who has such ambition. But to help the civil administration and to protect peace and sovereignty of the country, armed forces remain determined to carry out any greater duty. According to constitution experts, the president, due to in sight events, may take reference from the Supreme Court to appoint a temporary president following due legal procedure as stated in clause 106 of the constitution. But in this case, this has to be endorsed by majority MPs in the next parliament session.

Constitution analysts also observe, the Supreme Court has advisory authority over any crucial issue concerning the people of the state. If at any point of time, the president feels that a legal question involving such a crucial issue has come up or has the chance to come, and is so important that advise from the Supreme Court is necessary, then he can send it to the Appellate Division for consideration. This division then can advise the president and comment on this issue after proper proceedings and hearings. Based on this, the president can take the decision by himself and if needed he can even appoint a temporary president, analysts claim.

According to intelligence agencies, family and other sources, President Iazuddin Ahmed wants to resume teaching before next election. He himself doesn’t want to hold the post. He has already been requested by several reputed universities in home and abroad to teach in their institutions. Though he is more interested in running a university established by him. Aiming that he already took all preparations to run a university in Dhaka.

[Emphasis added.]

Now, going back to Islamabad, historians at BBC have recorded the adventures of General Pervez Musharraf, arranged in a chronological order. Money picks.

1999 October — Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif overthrown in military coup led by General Pervez Musharraf…

…

2000 December — Nawaz Sharif goes into exile in Saudi Arabia after being pardoned by military authorities.

2001 20 June — General Pervez Musharraf names himself president while remaining head of the army. He replaced the figurehead president, Rafiq Tarar, who vacated his position earlier in the day after the parliament that elected him was dissolved.

…

2002 January — Musharraf announces that elections will be held in October 2002 to end three years of military rule.

…

2002 August — President Musharraf grants himself sweeping new powers, including the right to dismiss an elected parliament. Opposition forces accuse Musharraf of perpetuating dictatorship.

2002 October — First general election since the 1999 military coup results in a hung parliament. Parties haggle over the make-up of a coalition. Religious parties fare better than expected.

…

2004 April — Parliament approves creation of military-led National Security Council. Move institutionalises role of armed forces in civilian affairs.

…

2004 December — President Musharraf says he will stay on as head of the army having previously promised to relinquish the role.

So here, we have a general: present and future. One eventful evening he and his army takes over a corruption engulfed South Asian country in a bloodless coup. It comes amidst a rising fear of rampant Islamist militancy and is backed by international actors and supported by a section of the “civil society.” The general appoints a former World Bank member to head a cabinet hand-picked by the military HQ. Attempts to exile one former prime minister to Saudi Arabia and another to US follow. The army employs a formula to remove two top leaders — icons of bitter rivalry — from the political scene. The military-led interim government promises elections next October. Preparations taken for the establishment of a “National Security Council.” Key national institutions are taken over by former army officers, militarized. The military is set to facilitate the formation a new political party led by a section of the “civil society.” To reap benefits of the vacuum created, major Islamist parties gear up to become the main opposition in the country.

And you are thinking, I am talking about Pervez Musharraf. I am talking about General Moeen U Ahmed and the undeclared martial law in Bangladesh. Well, if you are still eager for a “Pakistan link,” General Moeen is indeed a graduate of PAF Public School, Sargodha — a military school in Pakistan. Did two generals read the same history book? Hmm… good question.

Anyway, if things go as planned, as I said, sometime in 2008, General Moeen U Ahmed — a military dictator, a bank robber — will become the president of Bangladesh.

Not surprising, at all, given what he told BBC in April.

Bangladesh’s army chief says the country should not go back to being run by an “elective democracy.” He said democracy in Bangladesh had so far led to corruption, rights violations and criminalisation threatening the state’s survival.

Not surprising, given the advocacy by the general — presiding over a darbar of other pro-Jamaat-e-Islam/Islamist generals — for “a new brand of democracy.”

I reckon Bangladesh will have to construct its own brand of democracy, recognising its social, historical and cultural conditions, with religion being one of several components of its national identity.

Not surprising, given the blessing for the junta from the “leader of the free world.”

US President George W Bush has lauded a drive in Bangladesh against corruption and terrorism as the country’s army-backed interim government prepares to hold a general election late next year.

Not surprising, given the fact that in 11 months Bangladesh has already turned into a hellhole.

– Fundamental rights suspended.
– Extra-judicial murders.
– Mass torture.
– Crackdown on press freedom.
– Mindless eviction.
– Ban on “politics.”

And if that is not enough, I will take the burden of issuing a prophecy on what the future holds for Bangladesh. Well, not really, because Brad Adams — Asia Director of Human Rights Watch — has already done that, written a preview. As a matter of fact, that was written on October 10, 2003.

Pervez Musharraf’s four-year rule in Pakistan has led to serious human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch charged today in a letter to the Pakistani president. On the fourth anniversary of the military coup that brought General Musharraf to power, Human Rights Watch called on him to immediately return the country to constitutional rule.

Human Rights Watch pointed out in its letter that military agencies have frequently tortured and harassed political opponents, critical journalists, and former government officials. The past four years have also seen a rise in activity by extremist religious groups and an increase in sectarian killings in Pakistan, in part due to the Musharraf government’s policy of marginalizing mainstream opposition political groups. Opposition legislators have told Human Rights Watch they have been beaten, harassed and subjected to blackmail for opposing Musharraf’s policies.

“In Pakistan, the judiciary has been emasculated, political parties rendered powerless, and extremist and sectarian religious parties strengthened under Musharraf’s rule,” said Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division. “General Musharraf should transfer power to a legitimate government now.”

…

The growing influence of extremist religious elements has impinged on the rights of women and religious minorities. Laws regarding rape and honor killings still discriminate against women. The number of blasphemy cases registered has risen while discrimination and persecution on grounds of religion persist.

……………

We all need to take a pause… and think… do we really want to see another junta strangling democracy and people’s struggle in yet another country, watch helplessly when yet another military monster feasts on people’s blood. How many Asma Jahangirs will be kicked behind the bars while Motiur Rahman Nizamis will roam around free? Can we handle one more Pervez Musharraf or Than Shew? If not… then… an abortion is of absolute urgency, in Bangladesh.

……………

As I am writing this, Bangladesh celebrated its Victory Day, on December 16. Someone left a comment in a blog.

Bengalis are fortunate to get liberation from this brutal army, we are not *sigh* — A Pakistani. December 16, 2007.

Are we really… liberated from the brutal army?

Arnold Zeitlin — Visiting Professor, Department of Journalism, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies — recently circulated an email detailing his recent visit to Dhaka, that summarizes and analyzes a lot for many of the uninitiated in the Bangladesh story. Republished in a slightly edited form, with permission from the author.

……………

I am in Dhaka, Bangladesh, for four days to attend the wedding festivities of Maneeza Hossain, the daughter of my long-time Bengali friend, Anwar Hossain Manju, owner of one of the largest Begali-language daily newspapers in the country and a former minister and parliament member for more than 20 years. I came not only because of the wedding, as happy an occasion as it has been, but the occasion presented an opportunity to see many friends in a short time and get an idea of what is going on in the country.

As usual, Bangladesh is in a parlous, if somewhat indifferent state, as the result of an odd, behind-the-scenes martial law coup imposed when the country’s caretaker president declared a state of emergency after a political deadlock prevented national parliamentary elections in January.

The top figure in the country is a civilian known as the chief advisor to the reconstituted caretaker government, also described as the interim government. Behind closed doors, according to common knowledge, sits the army commander in chief. To many, how this arrangement works is a mystery.

“We do not know who is calling the shots,” one of my friends, a senior minister in Khaleda’s government who has held high posts in other regimes, told me at breakfast. I was astonished. If he does not know, who does?

I was told that under the commander in chief, who apparently occupies no position in this quirky, mirky martial law regime, sit five brigadiers making decisions. No, someone else told me, it was the colonels, without whose commands the troops in the field would not move. “It is the majors,” a third party insisted.

Whoever is making the decisions; it was the army who called Bangladesh’s United Nations representative back to sit in the caretaker government as advisor on foreign affairs. A retired foreign secretary told me that.

When the New Age daily newspaper printed a story about military phone taps that military did not like, the army called the reporter who signed the story and ordered him to report to military headquarters. When the reporter told his editor, Nurul Kabir, Kabir ordered him not to go.

When an army major called Kabir and ordered him to appear with the reporter, Kabir countered with an invitation for the major to stop around the New Age office any time for a chat.

Then a colonel ordered Kabir and reporter to appear. Kabir was reminded that since the state of emergency had withdrawn constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights, he could be arrested and brought (presumably in chains) to headquarters. Kabir said he responded with the same invitation to the colonel.

The colonel then explained politely that he had some things to show Kabir and bringing them to his office would be awkward. So, Kabir went, withstood two hours of lecturing, then returned to his office and banged out a half-page article headlined “…the right to say no,” which in the time honored tradition of Bengali intellectuals he started with a quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche:

I understand by “freedom of spirit” something quite definite — the unconditional will to say NO, where it is dangerous to say NO.

Kabir still sits in his office untouched but knowing without doubt the army calls the shots and this subterranean martial law acts softly, the big stick so far unwielded. He and many others wonder why the need to scrub fundamental rights. As he stated in his article:

Questionable is the proposition that suppressing the fundamental rights of millions of people is the prerequisite to the streamlining of the corruption-ridden politics, anti-people bureaucracy, anarchic economy and obscurantist education, etc… but the rulers, particularly those who are not the product of a sound process of democratic polity [A reference to the military, of course: My insertion] always love to believe that they can do without the consent of the people…

In the manner of military regimes that take office by force, the interim or caretaker government has been aloof. Although it is committed to creating election reform, it so far has not consulted the public or with the major political parties. Partly as a result, the two political parties have started at a low level to talk to each other, although Khaleda Zia, leader of the BNP, the last prime minister, and Sheikh Hasina, leader of the Awami League, prime minister before Khaleda, hate each other, an affair that has deadlocked Bangladesh politics for 16 years. They last agreed to 1991 when they joined forces in the streets to oust the military ruler, General Ershad, in a people’s power uprising.

At any rate, some Bangladeshis insist the new united nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon gave his assent to the military role because the military came to him beforehand. The Bangladeshi army enjoys a profitable status as a supplier of peacekeeping troops, up to 13,000 forces, to the United Nations. Its leaders felt their status would be damaged and profits lost if it openly declared a military coup.

As one politician from the opposition Awami League political party explained to me, common soldiers get a bonus equivalent to $100-$200 after three years service as a peacekeeper. Officers get up to $400. Officers are carefully rotated so as many as possible get a shot at the money. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the figures.

Issues such as an electoral roll that evidently had millions of false or outdated names led to the election deadlock. The Awami League charged that in handing over the government to a caretaker before the election — as mandated by the constitution as a measure to rule out favoritism by the government in power — the ruling Bangladesh National Party (BNP) made sure the caretaker president and the election commission agents in the field were its pocket. The Awami League eventually put up candidates, although it felt the system guaranteed it would lose a rigged vote. It then withdrew from the campaign in the absence of reform.

A key figure in the BNP government insisted that election lists, election commissions and field agents do not decide an election. The voters decided, he said. He pointed out the BNP held power in the 1996 election, and the Awami League won. In 2001, the AL held power when it handed over to the caretaker, and the BNP won. I remember covering the 1991 election won for the first time by the BNP. Sheikh Hasina was stunned that she could lose and insisted fraud won for the BNP.

Elections in Bangladesh often are circuses of vote buying and candidate and voter intimidation by party goons who occasionally kill. They also, said my friend, are festive times. “Bangladeshis love elections,” he said.

The task of compiling a legitimate, updated election list is a major priority that seems easily achievable for the interim government. On the proclaiming of the emergency, the caretaker also took on the issue of corruption, which is widespread in Bangladesh. Usually ignoring the corrupt nature of American politics, the sheer volume of which involves more money than everywhere in the world combined, Transparency International, a Berlin-based organization the news media loves to quote, has proclaimed Bangladesh number one on its list of corrupt states.

The government has frozen bank accounts, threatened to withdraw passports to prevent tax evaders from fleeing the country and generally made a lot of people uncomfortable. The daily newspapers are filled with accounts of this or that politician or businessman being raided or having an SUV (always described as “luxurious”) seized. One politician was charged with having a false license plate on his vehicle, another keeping in his home sheets of roofing tin to be used for relief operations, hardly the kind of corruption that has siphoned millions if not billions from the public.

The corruption search benefits from the suppression of fundamental rights (searches are warrant-less, arrests and seizures of property are arbitrary) and has been popular. It seems also to delay the effort to produce a fairer election scenario with new voter lists, perhaps ID cards for voters, more careful regulation of party agents, etc. Parties and many others are growing restive about the government not declaring a new date for election.

The corruption search so far has been small time, although a few big political names have been involved, including Saifur Rahman, a former finance minister who has been active internationally on Bangladesh’s behalf, Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, a powerful, well connected but disliked by many, advisor to the last prime minister, Khaleda, and her political secretary, Haris Chowdhury (no relation; half the Bangladesh population is named Chowdhury). The last two have been arrested.

I once had dinner with Haris, who came to my friend Manju’s house, with his chum, Tarique Rahman, the son of Khaleda, a figure who held no public office but was the prince-ling, the most powerful person in the BNP next to his mother. He has been laying low. Many are waiting for his arrest, partly as evidence of the creditability of the caretaker’s intentions to root out corruption.

The arrest of Tarique would bolster the popularity of the caretaker and perhaps mask the impatience for setting a new election date. In fact, circling tantalizingly around the entire issue is the position of Khaleda and, to a lesser extent, Hasina. People speak openly of getting them both out of the country. Getting the proof of corruption on these figures, as well as anyone else caught in the net, would be difficult to show convincingly in court. That is a circumstance that could undermine the caretaker’s efforts to root out corruption in a society that has been corrupt from independence in 1972.

When I showed one of my friends in BNP a story full of anonymous sources and musings in the local English The Daily Star about senior BNP leaders split with Khaleda over their advice that she own up to mistakes and clean up the party, he said it was not news. “We’ve been telling her that for five years,” he said.

However, the interim regime has been cautious to a fault. In a list of 50 figures whose bank accounts were frozen, 23 of those listed with political party affiliations were from the BNP, 21 from the Awami League, although the BNP has been in power 10 of the past 15 years, twice the time of the AL. Someone carefully balanced the list.

Coming to Bangladesh as I do, from time to time, it is discouraging to see the signs of great wealth in Dhaka, the tall, glass-lined towers that clutter Dhaka and make the city a monument to black money, against the background of abject poverty, the tens if not hundreds of thousands of ragged bicycle rickshaw pullers who scratch out subsistence working every day for pennies as their fathers or even grandfathers did when I first came to Dhaka in 1969. The Daily Star estimated 85,000 registered rickshaws cluttered the roads, with, perhaps another 400,000-500,000 more unregistered. With an estimate of three pullers to each rickshaw working in shifts, Manju said, imagine someone able to organize the anger or desperation of these more than one million pullers in Dhaka as well as those who labor outside the capital.

By the way, that some one is unlikely to be Muhammad Yunus, the presiding genius of the Grameen Bank micro-credit scheme who has been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to give the poor, mostly women, small loans (at high interest) to start businesses and lift themselves from poverty. He has announced he will start a political party. Hardly striking terror into the hearts of hardened if sidelined Bengali politicians, he has become the target of derision and criticism.

I found no one who took him seriously as a political force. In discussing a new book that researched the impact if micro-credit, another friend, Rehman Sobhan, for four decades one of the country’s most influential economists and thinkers, declared the borrowing money cannot solve the problem of poverty. A survey reported in the book of 2,501 rural borrowers at effective interest rates of 27 to 31 percent claimed 39 percent were unsure of any change in their access to food and 70 percent had no access to better medical care.

Manju and I, with his new son in law, Hasan, a Lebanese, and an older one, Imtiaz, drove the 30 kilometres from Dhaka to Manju’s rural retreat near an area called Savar. All along the way were the remains of shacks and shanties that had been torn down ruthlessly by the caretaker regime in a drive to rid the country of illegal structures. Many had been the homes of poor people, many of who now lived under tarpaulin and blankets in makeshift shelters along the roadside. Manju, who built the road when he was communications minister in the Ershad and Hasina governments, said he always had been bothered by these structures but he never did anything about them because he worried about where those who lived in them would go. They were now torn down without regard to where those sheltered by them would go.

Bangladesh is replete in illegal structures, some as tall as 20 or more stories, many luxury buildings in Dhaka erected illegally on protected wetlands. While some action is being taken delicately in the direction of these more expensive structures, it appears to the faux military regime easier to take out their dictum against illegal structures on the poor.

Editor Nurul Kabir said the drive has continued all over the country, alienating the poor. He said the interim government has alienated both the poor and the very rich. That same drive up to Savar and back in the same day demonstrated another aspect of Bangladesh that receives less notice but is a surprising facet of the country’s condition. Factories, textiles, electronics among others, have sprung up all along the already crowded roadside, noticeably more than the last time I travelled that road in May 2005. A garish amusement park with a giant ferries wheel, erected by the builder of luxury towers in Dhaka, is a centrepiece in one trading town.

Bangladesh curiously prospers in some sectors. A friend I met last in 2004 was then building his second garment factory to fill orders in his markets in Ireland the Britain. This was in the face of predictions then that the end of quotas which had protected Bangladesh’s garment export trade were ending, leaving Bangladesh and other poor garment-producing countries to fend off competition from rising China. My friend’s factory not only has prospered, he is building a bigger one, 120,000 square feet, to provide him the wherewithal to enter the American market.

At the wedding festivities, I met Manju’s son in law, Imtiaz, who returned a couple of years ago to live in Dhaka with Manju’s daughter, Tareen. He gave up a six-figure job at Goldman Sachs and a New York apartment to make the move. He said after some adjustment he thrived in the textile business and is now excited at the prospect of building a factory to make plastic piping for the first time in Bangladesh.

At the same occasion, I met the son of the minister of education in Khaleda’s most recent government, a man who left a luxurious McLean, Virginia, home that I had visited, after 30 rich years as a World Bank executive, to return to politics in Bangladesh. The son grew up in northern Virginia, attended Langley High School but has returned to Bangladesh to be with his parents. He, too, was excited by the business prospects he finds in his somewhat unaccustomed homeland.

Like him was a Bengali economist who has worked for years in Washington for the IMF. He wants to leave his wooded home in Great Falls, Virginia, and his $150,000 a year job, to start an economic think-tank in Bangladesh that he estimates will pay him no more than $7,000 a year.

More people like them see Bangladesh as a land of opportunity. Their experience was an eye opener to someone who has seen intelligent Chinese decide over the past six years to remain in the United States because they had no incentives to return to their homeland.

My short time has been informative and refreshing. Bangladesh has no role other than on the margins of globalization, perhaps not even that in the likelihood no solution is found to political deadlock and corruption and present problems fade away to be replaced by even more urgent problems. Elections alone cannot resolve Bangladesh’s circumstances.

To enjoy the protection of the law, and to be treated in accordance with law, and only in accordance with law, is the inalienable right of every citizen, wherever he may be, and of every other person for the time being within Bangladesh, and in particular no action detrimental to the life, liberty, body, reputation or property of any person shall be taken except in accordance with law.

Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Article 31.

No person shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment or treatment.

Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Article 35.

Although technically you may call it extra-judicial — I will not say killing — but extra-judicial deaths. But these are not killings. According to RAB, they say all those who have been killed so far have been killed or dead on encounter or whatever crossfire, whatever you call it — people are happy.

Moudud Ahmed, former law minister, in an interview with NPR.

It was a question from a sister to the person who ordered her brother’s killing: “My brother, before you murdered him, did he have any last wish, any last word?” Jahanara Begum Rubi caught Lieutenant Colonel Emdad off-guard. The commander of RAB-7 in Chittagong was visibly shaken and kept mum for a minute before breaking the silence: “Our politicians, for them, we have to kill our children.”

Weeks after their brother was killed in “crossfire,” Rubi and Giashuddin visited the RAB-7 headquarters in Steel Mill, North Potenga. Belongings of Mohammad Mohimuddin Mohim, killed in RAB custody on November 29, 2004 were returned to his family with an unofficial and off-record apology from the RAB boss. “They have a license to abduct anyone, brutally torture, kill and throw the dead body right beside the highway. That’s justice, Bangladesh style,” Giashuddin told me as his weeping mother sat next to a portrait of her dead son.¹

Mohim — a central leader of BCL — is one of the 900 plus victims of an extra-judicial killing frenzy that is going on strong in Bangladesh, with absolute impunity.²

……………

A merciless death squad — clad in black: paramilitary uniform, bandana, wraparound sunglasses — was the Independence Day gift of Khaleda Zia and her 4-party alliance government to Bangladesh in 2004. March 26, 2004, Rapid Action Battalion was formed, weeks later, on the eve of the Bengali New Year, April 14, 2004, RAB started operating on the streets.³ Earlier, in 2002, the 4-party alliance’s gift to the nation was a joint anti-crime operation: “Operation Clean Heart.” In three months, at least 58 people died of “heart attacks” in army custody. 11,000 people were detained in make-shift torture cells around the country.

According to a finding by the Asian Human Rights Commission, at least 8,000 victims of “Operation Clean Heart” were innocent citizens without any criminal record. In 2003, the government, through an ordinance, indemnified all army, police, and paramilitary personnel from any legal action for abuses arising out of that operation.⁴

The “success” of “Operation Clean Heart” encouraged the establishment of RAB that is yet another joint-force comprising military, paramilitary, and police personnel: an “elite police force.” To go with the title of a Hollywood blockbuster, our own version of “Men in Black” with an ingenious script that turns a cold-blooded murder into “crossfire”:

Acting on a tip-off, RAB arrested criminal “X” while he was planning to carry out criminal activities. Upon interrogation X confessed that he is in possession of illegal firearms. Later, RAB took X along to recover illegal firearms from place “Y” and at around 2:30 am came under fire from X’s cohorts that prompted them to return fire. RAB shot “Z” number of bullets during the shootout. X was caught in crossfire and died on the spot. A revolver, two pipe guns, and three revolver bullets were recovered from the scene.

“Crossfire stories are lies and everybody involved knows it. The authorities are so brazen about telling these lies that they don’t even bother to change any version of it knowing fully well that they sound increasingly unbelievable as they recycle the same story over and over again. When official government bodies, such as the police or RAB, brazenly lie in full public glare, and repeatedly so, it reveals a level of disrespect for the public intelligence that can only be compared to a Goebbelsian mindset which subscribed to the view that repeating a lie many times makes the public accept it as true,” wrote Mahfuz Anam, editor of The Daily Star, on July 21, 2005, nearly a year after “crossfire” made its entry into our vocabulary as a synonym for “murder.”⁵

While “crossfire” remains a euphemism for “extra-judicial killings,” this is not a story of cold-blooded murders only, extra-judicial executions only, point-blank shoots and kills only. Add impunity, abduction, inhuman torture, arrogance, intimidation, and absolute terror. The worst nightmare Bangladesh is suffering for 3 years.

……………

Sheik Abubakkar Sultan Bitan is a businessman and a loving father of a three-year old daughter. While I was interviewing him at his Uttara residence, she was trying to persuade him into playing with her. Bitan took the kid on his lap and with a choking voice described his night in a RAB torture cell.⁶

On July 15, 2005, evening, it all started from a minor street brawl, an altercation Bitan had with a plain-clothed official of RAB-1, ASP Ashraf, near Jasimuddin Road in Uttara as he tried stopping the ASP from beating an elderly man. Minutes after the incident, Bitan was abducted from the street by gun-wielding members of RAB who blind-folded him and took him to the nearby headquarters of RAB-1. He was taken to a torture cell where he was hung upside down and RAB members started beating him on the soles of his feet with batons and metal bars.

“There are torture techniques, you know,” Bitan told me with an aching look in his eyes: “They will hit the soles of your feet and unbearable pain will boil yours brains.” He paused and sent his daughter inside. While the torture was on, he fell unconscious again and again (”I really lost count after three or four”). A RAB medical officer was present to bring him back to his senses. At one point, he was made to lie on the floor, face down, and his back was sprinkled with a layer of sand. Around 10-12 RAB members took turns in beating Bitan with batons (”Every cell under the skin gets damaged without any bruises visible”). “Till this day I can not walk properly or wear shoes. I am under pain medication. They would have crippled me for life,” he told me, in tears, about a year after the incident.

Bitan believed he would have been shot dead (he was blind-folded and tied to a tree inside the RAB compound after the torture was over and there was blank gun-shot) if Lieutenant Colonel Gulzar — then Director of Intelligence, RAB — did not intervene in time and secure his release just before midnight. Gulzar, a long-time family friend, was contacted by Bitan’s family after they came to know about his detention.

“To some extent, I feel lucky,” Bitan told me, “I suffered torture but unlike hundreds of others, escaped crossfire.”

……………

Masudur Rahman Iman Ali — a Jubo League leader in Savar — was not as “lucky” as Bitan. On March 8, 2006, Iman was abducted by a group of plainclothes RAB members from the Dhaka Magistrate Court premises. Next morning (March 9, 2006), his mutilated dead body was found in a barren land near his home. Four days later, on March 11, 2006, The Daily Star reported:

The Rapid Action Battalion’s claim that Iman Ali, a Jubo League leader of Savar, died Wednesday in “crossfire” comes under question as locals and family members say they found the bullet-hit body in a shirt that had absolutely no bullet holes.

The family members suspect Iman was tortured to death and then the body was shot at and dumped near Panna Textile Mill in Khagan Village. Neighbours and family members allege a certain influential quarter used RAB-4 to kill Iman in reprisal for his leading role against its attempt to occupy 10 acres of land in Miton village last month.

“There were three bullet hits in Iman’s chest, but surprisingly none of the bullets went through the shirt he was wearing,” remarks a security guard of a textile mill who is one of the people who first saw the body sprawling in Khagan. Seeking anonymity he says the body was lying straight and there was no scratch or sign of struggle on the ground, which indicates the killing took place somewhere else. “If someone takes a bullet, the body usually thrashes about, twitches and jerks, leaving scratches on the ground.”

RAB arrested Iman, 35, a member of Dhaka District Jubo League, Tuesday afternoon on the Dhaka district magistrate’s court premises, where he went to appear in a case. The next morning his body was found in an open space in Khagan. RAB claims he was killed in “crossfire” between his accomplices and RAB members. The shootout started as Iman’s accomplices opened fire on the RAB-4 team that went to Khagan to recover his arms cache, describes the elite police force. In a press release on Thursday RAB termed Iman a terrorist, extortionist, killer and one involved in land grabbing.

But, many a local says Iman was very polite and popular in the locality. “If Iman was a criminal then why did some 10,000 people take part in his Namaj-e-janaza,” questions Ali Ahmed Mian, a septuagenarian villager of Shamrai. He says Iman was planning to contest in the local Union Council election, which might also be a reason for his death.⁷

A few days after Iman’s murder at the hands of RAB-4, I met Nazrul Islam — his brother — at his home in Savar. Nazrul was furious and fuming: “I will see an end to it. How can they abduct someone from the court-house? How can a human being inflict so much pain on another person’s body? Why on earth they chose to dump his body under the open sky for everyone to watch?”

A few weeks later, as I received a call from Nazrul wishing to see me, I went back to Savar. This time he was calm and composed but even more determined to expose the true nature of his brother’s death. “I told you, I will get the proof that they tortured him to death,” Nazrul greeted me with a glare. “They hammered in nails into his fingers and gave him electric shocks that burnt his back,” he slipped his hand into his pocket and brought out a photograph that shows the back of Iman Ali’s dead body: the whole layer of skin missing or peeled off. A photographer (name withheld on request) present at the morgue where Iman’s body was taken for an autopsy had taken the photo, but fearing harassment he did not deliver it to the newspaper he worked for.

Wishing to verify Nazrul’s claim — that Iman Ali was given electric shocks that peeled off his skin — I consulted a specialist (name withheld on request) from the burn and electrocution injuries unit at DMC for his assessment on what exactly happened to Iman. Not electric shocks, but a more alarming mode of torture: acid, he concluded, after studying a blown up version of the photograph. Apparently Iman had a large quantity of acid poured on his back while he was being tortured at the RAB-4 torture cell.

“They wanted to set an example,” Nazrul told me. “Iman lead a movement that thwarted a bid to evict hundreds of Christian families from their homes spread around 10 acres of land in Miton. Babar’s (Lutfuzzaman Babar, then state minister for home affairs) cousin wanted to grab that piece of land. In this country you don’t raise your voice against the powerful.”⁸

……………

In Bangladesh, raising one’s voice against the powerful invites danger. For Abul Kalam Azad Sumon, his activism against the changes in the design of Khilgaon flyover — that made movement of the people of that area difficult — invited death, on May 31, 2005. On June 1, 2005, The Daily Star reported:

Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) claimed that Jubo League leader Abul Kalam Azad Sumon was killed in a “shootout” in Rampura early yesterday but witnesses and other sources said he was killed in RAB custody for mistaken identity. The sources also said there were no proof of Sumon’s involvement in criminal activities and his addresses mentioned in the charge-sheets of two cases were full of discrepancies that raise questions about the RAB allegation against him.

The RAB said Sumon was killed in a shootout on Road 4 in Block F of Bansree, Rampura at about 3:30 am yesterday. The gunfight occurred when a gang of criminals opened fire at a patrol team of RAB in the area. The RAB press release said the RAB members after the shootout found the body of Sumon lying on the spot. Later Khilgaon police identified him as “Goailya Sumon,” a notorious criminal of Goran area, it claimed.

However, witnesses said some plainclothes RAB men had picked up Sumon and two others from the office of a cable operator in Goran where he worked as a cashier. They said a man first entered the office of Lorel International, the cable operator, in East Goran, at about 8:30 pm on Monday. A few others followed him and identified themselves as RAB members. “One of them loaded his pistol and pointed it to Sumon’s abdomen. Another man blindfolded Sumon, Hanif and Bidyut. Then they left the place in a yellow taxicab,” a shopkeeper in the area said, seeking anonymity. Hanif and Bidyut are the mechanics of the cable operator. “About 50 people witnessed the incident. The plainclothes RAB men later put on their uniform before pushing the three youths into the cab,” he said. Asked about the alleged criminal activities, most locals said Sumon was polite and modest and he was not involved in crimes.

Sumon’s father Abdul Hakim said he and his wife Amela Khatun rushed to Khilgaon Police Station after they heard that Sumon was arrested. As the duty officer confirmed that Khilgaon police had not arrested him, they went to the Detective Branch (DB) office on Mintoo Road, but did not find their son there. “At about 2:30 am we went to the RAB-3 office at Tikatuli and found Sumon sitting in a RAB jeep. Possibly, they were taking him out of the office,” Hakim said. “We tried to meet Sumon, but the RAB members drove us out when we identified ourselves as Sumon’s parents,” he said. Sumon’s mother was found shell-shocked, sitting on a chair, when The Daily Star correspondents visited their house. Hakim said at about 5:00 am yesterday he went to Khilgaon Police Station and found Sumon’s body lying in a police van with blood oozing from his abdomen. Sumon’s father said he would file a case against RAB for killing his only son.⁹

Months later, Sumon’s father, Abdul Hakim, told me, as was also reported in many newspapers at the time, that it was not a case of mistaken identity but a targeted murder engineered by a senior leader of the BNP who controls the locality and considers it his personal fiefdom. Khilgaon flyover was a “prestige issue” for him, and Sumon’s activism invited his wrath, Hakim claimed.

My interview with Bidyut, one of the two others arrested with Sumon, disproved the RAB claim that Sumon died in a “shootout” in Bansree, Rampura. Bidyut confirmed that the night Sumon died he was very much in custody of RAB-3 where he was severely tortured: his body bore six bullet holes, a half-inch cut above the nose, and a quarter-inch cut above the left eyebrow.¹⁰
……………

Sumon Ahmed Majumder was the key witness to the May 2004 assassination of Ahsanullah Master, an Awami League MP in Tongi. He had to pay the price weeks later, on July 16, 2004. A few hours after plainclothes RAB members assisted by a local BNP leader picked him up from his residence along with two of his cousins, Sumon died in RAB custody by midnight.

Earlier this year [2006], Lokman, one of Sumon’s cousins detained by RAB spoke to me after his release from the prison (a criminal case against him was throw out by the court).

Lokman described their evening at the RAB headquarters in Uttara where Sumon was brutally tortured while two of his detained cousins were forced to watch. They used batons and metal bars to beat the three detainees mercilessly. “You have seen too much and we are going to tear your tongue out for life,” Lokman quoted one of the RAB officers telling Sumon. “Bhai (Sumon) could not speak except to plead for water. I begged one of the constables to give my brother some water. ‘Son of a bitch, you keep your mouth shut, or we are going to kill you, too.’” At one point, they were taken to an open space inside the RAB compound and with a drill machine, Sumon’s knee was slit open. “They attached electric wires to the wound and started giving him shocks.” Right after that Sumon fell unconscious, Lokman reckons, for the last time.¹¹

……………

Members of the outlawed communist parties in Bangladesh — known as “sharbaharas” (proletariat) — are at the top of RAB’s hit list. Right out of the “crossfire” script, on December 17, 2004, BSS reported:

A faction chief of the banned Purba Banglar Communist Party (PBCP), Mofakkhar Hussain Chowdhur, was killed in crossfire in Kushtia in the early hours of today. Chowdhury, known by different names like Shahid Hussain, Madhu Babu, was arrested by a joint team of RAB-3 and RAB-6 from Rupnagar under Mirpur in the capital on December 16 morning, RAB sources said.

After interrogation, he told the RAB that all the faction leaders of the party scheduled to meet in Kushtia on the night of December 16. Accordingly, a team of RAB-3 was going to Kushtia to arrest the other leaders. When the team reached near Kushtia town, armed cadres of Chowdhury’s faction fired at the RAB members. The RAB team returned the fire and the gun battle lasted for half an hour. During the gunfight Chowdhury attempted to flee, but two bullets hit him, killing him on the spot. The RAB members recovered two pistols, two magazines, four bullets, and one LG. Two RAB members were also wounded in shootout and undergoing treatment in a hospital.

Mofakkhar Chowdhury aka Pravakar Master surely belonged to a different category of “criminals.” A valiant freedom fighter during the war of liberation, Mofakkhar was best known as one of the think-tanks of a two-decade-long underground “armed struggle” in Bangladesh’s south-western and northern regions aimed at establishing communism.

Though many in the left-political camp in Bangladesh strongly disagreed with Mofakkhar’s endorsement of “armed struggle,” his authority on Marxist-Leninist literature was legendary. When RAB arrested him, sacks full of books, booklets, leaflets, posters, and party documents were found in his possession. His death was seen as a high-profile political killing.

Earlier this year, after many months of pursuit, I convinced one of Mofakkhar’s deputies (name withheld on request) to allow me an interview. And his version of the story was simply shocking.

In 2001, in the run-up to the general elections, an influential BNP leader — who later became a minister (the very person who allegedly sponsored Bangla Bhai and JMJB) — approached PBCP to work as BNP’s hired gun in the northern part of the country during the elections. Mofakkhar Chowdhury and his council turned down the proposal.

However, one of his deputies, Abdur Rashid Malitha aka Tapon Malitha, seized that opportunity and worked for the 4-party alliance during the elections, inviting serious annoyance of the PBCP high-command.

In 2002, Mofakkhar expelled Tapon Malitha from the party, who later formed PBCP-Janajuddha that became the largest and most feared outlawed communist party in Bangladesh within a year, with active support from the BNP minister already mentioned.

“The so-called anti-sharbahara operation by RAB is an eye-wash,” I was told. “They just go after opponents of the Tapon Malitha faction. Once or twice, Tapon’s own men, whoever he considers a threat, come under crossfire, but largely it’s his enemies.”

In 2003, the minister’s nephew was killed by PBCP cadres. Mofakkhar Chowdhury was held personally responsible for the murder by the minister and Tapon Malitha was given an assignment to avenge the killing. As Malitha failed, the minister brought in Bangla Bhai. Under his sponsorship, Bangla Bhai and JMJB unleashed a cleansing operation against the Mofakkar-led faction of the PBCP in Rajshahi, Naogaon, and Natore, killing more than 36 sharbahara men, mostly followers of Mofakkhar, who, however, escaped the onslaught and fled to Dhaka.

“By assassinating Comrade Pravakar, RAB carried out Tapon Malitha and Bangla Bhai’s unfinished assignment,” Mofakkhar’s deputy told me, “If you go by their directions, you will rule like Tapon, if you don’t you will be taken to the gallows.”

“Political parties (BNP/AL) do use the sharbaharas during elections. And that Bangla Bhai was sponsored by a minister is true, according to my knowledge. But, the claim that RAB follows a hit-list prepared by Tapon Malitha is totally baseless, to some extent it’s hilarious. How can you trust these people: extortionists and dacoits? There is no such hit-list. RAB is engaged in uprooting a tumor that has crippled the life of the region, not carrying out a political campaign,” a former official of RAB-5 (name withheld on request) told me when I checked the claim with him.

……………

“They kill criminals and spare the godfathers,” a close associate of Mominullah David, a Jubo Dal leader from Narayanganj killed in a “shootout” in Dhaka on November 25, 2004, told me. “Dada (David) used to play cricket in the Narayanganj league. Who turned him into a top-terrorist from a cricketer? His photo, lying face down on the street, in a puddle of blood, was printed in newspapers but his godfathers were having fun-time in Hawa Bhaban,” he told me in disgust.

Pichchi Hannan was one of the top 23 criminals in Bangladesh. On August 6, 2004, in yet another episode of “crossfire,” he was killed in Diakhali, Savar. For seven days before he died, Hannan was in RAB custody where he was questioned on his involvement with organized crime in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India. At one point during the interrogation, he started disclosing the names of his godfathers: a well-known BNP leader in the transportation sector, a state minister, and an ex-AL MP from Dhaka. With this disclosure, alarming and threatening for his masters, Hannan signed his own death warrant, according to an August 2004 report by Shaptahik 2000.

Ahmedul Haq Chowdhury Ahmudya was one of the most feared Jamaat-e-Islam cadres in Chittagong. For him, leaving the party and joining the BNP with 1,000 Jamaat members on July, 2004 signed his death warrant. On September 10, 2004, Ahmudya and his deputy, Minhaz, died in “crossfire” in Satkania, Chittagong.

“Jamaat is a one-way ticket, you may join but never leave,” award-winning investigative reporter Sumi Khan, best known for her fearless reporting on Jamaat and Islamic militancy in Chittagong, told me. Sumi believed herself to be somewhat responsible for Ahmudya’s death: he had given her an exclusive interview that disclosed the name of his godfather, Jamaat MP Shahjahan Chowdhury. “By disclosing sensitive information about Shahjahan Chowdhury and Jamaat’s terror network in Chittagong, Ahmudya invited death,” Sumi told me. “It is very interesting, how BNP and AL cadres get killed in crossfire while Jamaat cadres roam around free.” According to one of Sumi’s sources, Jamaat bribed a top RAB official 10 lakh taka to get rid of Ahmudya.

In August, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) appealed to Jean-Marie Guehenno, Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations, to expel Bangladeshi peacekeepers from UN peacekeeping missions until the Bangladesh government disbands RAB.

“We intend to begin a campaign on the role of Bangladesh in UN peacekeeping operations vis-a-vis atrocities committed by its security personnel at home, notably the RAB, until such a time as the RAB is disbanded and conditions in the country enable effective redress for victims of abuses there,” read the AHRC appeal.

International pressure on Bangladesh to bring an end to extra-judicial executions has been mounting in the past few months. Back home, human rights advocates and the media are fiercely critical of the regime of terror the state has unleashed on its populace, but, to their chagrin, RAB to this day patrols the streets of Bangladesh with unchallenged and unabated impunity. We are yet to see a single case where a RAB member has faced trial for his involvement in extra-judicial murders, though time and again the government promised justice for any human rights violations by RAB.

More than 900 are dead, and their families still waiting for a proper investigation of their murders. Awaiting justice where the state itself has turned into a monster — life, liberty, and fundamental human rights became the first casualties of “crossfire.” To quote Jahanara Begum Rubi, sister of the slain BCL leader Mohimuddin: “I am still waiting for the answer that I never received.”

1. Also: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/bangladesh1206/4.htm
2. Extra-judicial executions by security forces: October 2001 to November 2006.
3. BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4522734.stm
4. http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2006statements/693
5. http://www.thedailystar.net/2005/07/21/d5072101033.htm
6. Also: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/bangladesh1206/5.htm
7. http://www.thedailystar.net/2006/03/13/d60313012116.htm
8. Also: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/bangladesh1206/4.htm
9. http://www.thedailystar.net/2005/06/01/d5060101022.htm
10. Also: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/bangladesh1206/4.htm
11. Also: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/bangladesh1206/4.htm

What exactly made the Kansat police open fire on a group of villagers (with no certain partisan affiliation), killing nine people and injuring scores, remains the burning question. How “unruly” can a “mob” of farmers — registering their genuine grievances against an unjust and corrupt system of electricity distribution — get, that the police (100 percent sponsored by public tax-money) have no option but to resort to bullets? May I ask, do our police protect citizens, or do the citizens need protection from the police?

When more than a thousand irrigation pumps become useless metal-scraps, thanks to wildcat load-shedding, when lush paddy fields go barren acre after acre, and when those very farmers in charge of feeding a nation of 140 million (all the police officers taking part in the shooting frenzy included) start agitating for an uninterrupted supply of electricity, laying siege to Palli Bidyut sub-stations, then this kind of callous repression is unwarranted, at the very minimum, if not the utmost betrayal of the promise of “right to peaceful protest” enshrined in our constitution.

And this story does not end here. Irony builds up while the state machinery chooses to tackle the farmers (without ever giving them a fair hearing) by unleashing its forces of terror and our mainstream opposition political parties (even those with red kurtas) take happy naps before gearing up for their “long march” to Dhaka.

I have been searching through the newspapers for one serious reference from any of the top opposition leaders regarding the Kansat drama for the past few days. Need I mention that I have failed?

Now the question targeted for the opposition remains, whether the Kansat killing is any less important than what is going wrong with the voter list? If I may note, our politics is now so very alienated from the grass-roots, that according to a Prothom Alo report, BNP and AL leaders in Kansat have confessed that they knew about the electricity problem from the beginning but never felt the urgency to treat the issue with any sort of attention. Maybe, ruling party activists were too busy plotting obstruction to opposition party long march while the opposition was busy planning its route to Dhaka and forming an “electoral alliance.”

And then the opposition party marched (in four-wheelers) towards Dhaka, leaving behind the farmers of Chapainawabganj, without electricity and without any platform of protest.

Now, the opposition long march towards Dhaka that ended in a rally at Paltan Maidan was never expected to unseat the government. In my humble opinion, it was more of a political soap than any sort of revolution. However, our omnipresent and omnipotent sarkar apparently thought otherwise and decided to come down heavily on the public once more.

This time more than 8,000 people came under blanket arrests in Dhaka city on the eve of the opposition rally. Police and JCD activists (note the camaraderie) obstructed the long march at different entry-points of Dhaka in all possible manner, from barbed-wire fences to armed assault. From the government’s side, it was a mindless (but usual by now) show of intolerance towards opposing views and agitations. Such a smart decision it was — to impede the opposition’s “planned as peaceful” program — that now as its aftermath, we are all set to suffer yet another (a political campaign more violent than a “long march”) hartal on February 15 [2006].

As far as my analysis of the current trend goes, Dhaka is now sending out a very disturbing signal to the periphery by blocking peaceful avenues of public protests. If mainstream political parties are not allowed the minimum platform for registering their (however alienated they may be) grievances, if public right to peaceful protest is ruthlessly suppressed, if all of us are handed over duct-tape to seal our lips, we should think about what undemocratic and unconstitutional forces would ultimately come to benefit from this unhealthy state of affairs.

In a democracy (I hope we still are one), by definition, opposing views and public protests must be treated with the highest level of tolerance and patience. Unfortunately, as we can see from our recent experiences, that is not the case. And if that is not the case, we are now witnessing yet another “long march” undertaken by the government — from democracy towards despotism.

And on this, I would like to recall the words of Henry David Thoreau. If the king is uncivil than the subjects will one day rise up in “civil disobedience.”