Brigadier General Shamsuddin Ahmed (Retd)
The news is indeed very disconcerting for Bangladesh. Sixteen US senators and representatives, both Republicans and Democrats, including Senator Edward Kennedy and Senator John Kerry, are reported to have jointly urged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to advise President George W Bush to raise the issue of political violence in Bangladesh at the ongoing United Nations World Summit.
They have referred specifically to bomb attacks on Sheikh Hasina and British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury, assassination of former finance minister SAMS Kibria and the recent hundreds of coordinated bomb blasts across the country on August 17 as events illustrating the depth of the ever-rising problem of political violence in Bangladesh.
The worst comment was that the possibility of Bangladesh becoming a failed state and a base of operations for international terrorist organisations should be part of discussions at the summit. Whether or not President Bush will raise the Bangladesh issue at the summit is a matter of the US government. But the fact that the political violence in Bangladesh, particularly the bombing spree that has gripped the country during the rule of the present coalition government, is no longer an internal issue of the country, and is being talked about by the international community, especially by the lone superpower of the world, is a matter which is deeply worrisome for the people of Bangladesh. A country liberated through a bloody war and sacrifice of millions of people 34 years ago is now being branded as a likely failed state and a base of operations for international terrorist organisations thanks to the ineptitude and utter failure of this government as well as all previous governments to rein in the rising religious militancy in the country.
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