Attacks on NGOs : Stain on image

Sad it is to say that Bangladesh is one of the few countries in the world where the humanitarian organisations at present are working under the threat of terrorists' attack. Afghanistan and Iraq are among the others. In Afghanistan and Iraq the militants have targeted the NGOs, development agencies and other humanitarian organisations because they want to take the revenge of the "regime change" that occurred through the military intervention by a US led coalition predominantly of the West. Militants in Afghanistan and Iraq have targeted the humanitarian and development agencies like UNO, ICRC and NGOs. The militants seemingly prefer to carry on attacking such soft targets. In the last two years the militants have killed, abducted and attacked many people working in the humanitarian organisations in Iraq and Afghanistan. We might remember the deadliest attack on ICRC and UN mission in Iraq that killed many people including the UN mission head in Iraq. By attacking the NGOs and other humanitarian organisations militants retaliate against the West.

But why such types of attack are happening in Bangladesh? The attack on the NGOs is not an "isolated local and religious incident", Dr. Younus of Grameen Bank said. He further said "It is a political and planned attack". There are a lot of reasons to believe Dr. Younu's assertion. Here I would like to put forth some of the activities of the government that has made the NGOs vulnerable to the terrorists.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

'The Foreign Donations (Voluntary Activities) Regulation (Amendment) Act 2004': From the beginning the four-party alliance government, has become very critical about the NGOs. Some influential figures within the government frequently slandered NGO activities and side by side prepared the above bill to make it an act last year with a view to having ultimate authority to 'control' the NGOs. On pressure of the donors and protest of the NGO community government had to call the bill back.

If the bill were passed, government could remove the NGO chief and other officials any time it wished. There was an intention to restrict the activities of NGOs terming them as political activists. In the bill, involvement of NGOs and their staff in "political activities" was totally prohibited. And implication of the term "political activity" was so pervasive ["accepting membership of, directly supporting or getting aligned with any political party," and "includes any activity which may be interpreted as political or may affect politics or such other activities which may be interpreted to be detrimental to national independence, sovereignty and culture, ethnic and religious sentiment, etc…

.. "] that many of the good and effective programmes of NGOs such as campaign for good governance, voter education, against corruption, advocacy, policy analysis, women empowerment, legal aid etc. could easily be shown as linked with politics to punish the NGOs. This attitude had created concern among the donor communities. Last year in the BDF [Bangladesh Development Forum] meeting, the donors had criticised government for interfering with NGOs.

Splitting ADAB: ADAB is the oldest forum of the NGOs under which hundreds of NGOs of the country were united. Government has virtually tried to break this forum by creating FNB -- the divide and rule approach of controlling. New ADAB and FNB, in fact have taken a face to face position, instead of standing shoulder to shoulder. Government seems to have fullfilled its intention of weakening the NGOs by dividing them into two parts.

Obstructing activities of Proshika and some other NGOs: Government barred fund of Proshika and some other NGOs for long time which has hampered their development programme. Sufferings came down on many staff as those NGOs faced difficulties to provide wages and salaries because of fund shortage. Mr. Kazi Faruq, the Executive Director of Proshika and a noted development thinker in the country with some of his colleagues had to remain under detention for many days under such types of allegation that people believe are plotted and politically motivated. Till today thousands of beneficiaries of these NGOs are being deprived of services.

I think these instances are quite enough to understand the anti-NGO mentality of the administration, and definitely it is working as green signal for the terrorists. Whatever condemnation [the LGRD Minister has condemned the attack as a "heinous" act] about the attack is coming now from the government is assumed as nothing but a political trick to pacify the NGO community for the moment. The terrorists, I believe have their long term plan that they will be executing. The "seriousness" of Mr. Babar [the State Minister for Home Affairs told with BBC on 18 February that he is very "serious" about it] perhaps is not being taken into account by the terrorists. The Bhorer Kagoj [20.02] has reported that one of the BRAC offices in Gopalgonj received fresh threat of bomb attacks. The Federation of NGOs handed over a memorandum to a district administration [Nilphamari] [20.02] seeking security of their lives.

More than 60 million people of this country are living below the poverty line. Their access to the government service is very much limited -- restricted in fact. Widespread corruption, inefficiency, nepotism, favouritism, politicisation of administration have made the government services unavailable to this big part of our population and it has created a big gap between people's NEED and the services GIVEN. The interventions of the NGOs are helping the government to minimise this gap. It is difficult to find out even a single sector of development where these NGOs are not contributing.

NGOs are precisely focused on the marginalised and deprived section of our population. They are not involved with any party politics; they are not calling any Hartal; they have been working silently and cooperating with any government in power. Despite this, the disguised enemies of this country want to see these organisations shut because these are creating a group of critically aware civil society, empowering the women, raising awareness among the community about their rights, and all these activities go against those who prefer ignorance, darkness and exploitation. The latter have already infiltrated in politics and terrorised the cultural fields. Now they have extended their black hands up to the development organisations. They are apparently against all that are good, progressive and liberated. They seem well organised and coordinated and slowly marching towards a serious mission. We have no time to spare but to stand against it.

Md. Firoz Alam is a development activist.