People are not befooled by election talk

People are not befooled by election-talk

NM Harun

The question now is simply of choosing either of the two paths – either (a) following in the footsteps of Thailand and Pakistan, have faith in and respect for the people and try to repair the political process through the holding of the stalled elections to the ninth parliament sooner rather than later or (b) perpetuate the authoritarianism, as Burma has done, in the bureaucratic arrogance of superiority over the people with the dire prospect of facing, unlike in Burma but as in the past in our country, popular protest, unrest and resistance to military-driven political engineering..............................

Odhikar: Human Rights Violation

Torture, human rights violations continue:

Odhikar Staff Correspondent

Odhikar, a human rights organisation, on Tuesday cautioned the government about the continuation of torture of the arrested persons and violation of human rights under the state of emergency. ‘It is reported that allegations of torture and violations of human rights continue under the state of emergency. Suspects were picked up by the law enforcement agencies, detained and tortured while they were in custody or during remand in order to extract evidence to use against them or others,’ said Odhikar in a report on the eve of the 13th month of emergency..............................

Tortured Truths

Tortured truths

It was a medieval idea that pain had to be inflicted on the body for truth to pour out. The purpose of modern torture is different. To instil fear. To crush political dissent. To wreak havoc and destroy lives. Often performed out of sheer habit. To assert supremacy. To possess nations. To build empires anew, writes Rahnuma Ahmed

AS A little child, when I was only three or four, I couldn’t understand how people could still see me if I shut my eyes. Later, like most people, I grew up. I realised shutting my eyes didn’t make me any less visible to others...................................

Fundamental choices facing Bangladesh

Fundamental choices facing Bangladesh: Godot does not arrive

NM Harun

The irony in the present-day Bangladesh is that the microscopically small nouveau riche class, which is based on crony capitalism and is also comprador in nature, has the military apparently with it and has virtually seized state power. But this class has not yet succeeded in creating –– and does not have the potential of creating any time soon –– a viable political party or parties of its own. The Awami League, despite its wooing of this treacherous class, still maintains its umbilical links with the petty bourgeoisie and its tactical/periodical alliance with the parties and forces which are or claim to be progressive, left-leaning and leftist; the BNP and the Jatiya Party, both creations of the cantonment, are too weak to protect as well as serve the nouveau riche class. In the vacuum, the military has been lording it over the caricature of a caretaker government that the Fakhruddin government is and trying to create an impression that it is the saviour of the nation........................................

Welcome ACC Plan

Welcome ACC plan to bring army under anti-graft surveillance
Bangladesh’s image at home and abroad as a country reeling from pervasive corruption at almost every level of society is a reflection of ground realities that ordinary Bangladeshis encounter in their daily lives. As such, any legal measures adopted to tackle corruption are not only welcome, it is important for such measures to be as pervasive, leaving out no section of society from its remit of operations...........................

Democracy depends on two "begums"

Democracy depends on our two ‘begums’
The future of our democracy depends not on the implementation of ‘minus-two’ by our generals nor on the ability of the civilian façade of the powers that be, i.e. the interim government of Fakhruddin Ahmed and the Election Commission headed by ATM Shamsul Huda, to fashion acceptable general elections to the ninth parliament. It depends instead, whether we wish to believe it or not, on the ability of our two major political leaders – the two ‘begums’ as the Economist refers to them – to rise out of the ashes and to lead their parties and our country in a new direction, writes Shameran Abed......................

Conspitorial moves by the Govt.

Conspiratorial moves the name of the game: who will bell the cat?

All sorts of wild speculations, made in utter disregard to the constitution, are doing the rounds in total impunity and at times with the indulgence of the powers that be. Advancing formulas of power struggle -- be it even through staging parliamentary elections -- outside the purview of the constitution is tantamount to seizing power through conspiratorial means… In this juncture, the key to politics lies with Hasina and Khaleda who have succeeded to retain, unquestionably, the leadership of their respective parties, the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. They are apparently playing it cool: if they survive, they will win; but their tormentors need to win to survive

NM Harun

An accomplished intellectual, Muhammad Habibur Rahman, had the rare opportunity to head the judiciary of the country as chief justice and also to adorn the position of the head of the government as chief adviser. He thus has, from his real-life experiences, a holistic view of the state of Bangladesh....................................

A Photo -op fraught

A photo-op fraught with misgivings

Autocratic regimes can ensure stability through confiscating people’s rights and spreading fear. However, peace and stability gained through oppression is always fragile and short-lived. If nothing else, one can hope that our chief adviser has realised this by sharing a stage with the likes of Musharraf and Karzai,
writes Shameran Abed

THEY say a picture is worth a thousand words. A picture that was splashed on the front pages of almost every major newspaper in this country last weekend, of our chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, posing with Pakistan president Parvez Musharraf and Afghan president Hamid Karzai in Davos, may be worth a few more. That the three leaders and the Iraqi deputy prime minister, Barham Salih, who somehow managed to escape the photo-op, were placed in the same panel by the organisers of the World Economic Forum tells its own story. But the picture that emerged from the panel, of the three leaders holding hands and smiling for the cameras, showed enough for even the staunchest supporters of this present undemocratic dispensation to feel a little queasy........................................

The Blood on your Hand

The blood on your hands Fakhruddin Ahmed’s government –

which incidentally promised accountability and decency in governance after its assumption of power – has seen at least 176 deaths in custody, some of them so terrifyingly gruesome that even a written account is too graphic for consumption, writes Mahtab Haider
The home ministry’s recent directive to the law-enforcement agencies that cautions them on deaths of detainees in their custody, though it may well end up being empty rhetoric, deserves praise. Praise because it is this government’s first open admission that the phenomenon of extrajudicial killings is not only continuing unabated but also that a senior adviser in the military-controlled interim government, former general MA Matin, finds the trend significant enough to discuss it with top officials from the law-enforcement agencies, and then issue a directive to this effect...............................

The blood on your hand

The blood on your hands
Fakhruddin Ahmed’s government – which incidentally promised accountability and decency in governance after its assumption of power – has seen at least 176 deaths in custody, some of them so terrifyingly gruesome that even a written account is too graphic for consumption, writes Mahtab Haider

The home ministry’s recent directive to the law-enforcement agencies that cautions them on deaths of detainees in their custody, though it may well end up being empty rhetoric, deserves praise. Praise because it is this government’s first open admission that the phenomenon of extrajudicial killings is not only continuing unabated but also that a senior adviser in the military-controlled interim government, former general MA Matin, finds the trend significant enough to discuss it with top officials from the law-enforcement agencies, and then issue a directive to this effect...............