August 17 our last wake-up call

What happened on 17th August 2005 was not something new but what was awesome was the enormity of the event. 17th blast is till date unprecedented in the annals of terror. Hardly any parallel can be drawn where the whole country was rocked in a synchronised manner. It still remains unfathomable. About 400 blasts were caused in a spate of half an hour. Whosoever was at the command end of the dastardly act has conveyed the message loud and clear, displayed their prowess where the security apparatus looked ridiculous.

The blast and the leaflets claiming responsibility raised many questions that may not be simple to answer. Such an act only signals the inability of the government to treat the warnings that it got from the series of previous blasts that saw much more devastation than what the 17th Aug blasts have produced. Compared to the past blasts this may not have caused as severe a devastation but this was good enough to put the Bangladesh government in a tight spot and us in the list of countries struck by extremists that the western world has been apprehensive about, including our immediate neighbour. One cannot any more deny that there are extremists, grown in size for many reasons, either directly involved or has been used for political or for other strategic advantage, both inside and outside the country. But at this juncture I would rather concentrate within the country and where we have gong wrong though it has to be said that we hardly took any lesson from the past mistakes.

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It would be a simplistic conclusion to put the entire blame on the intelligence apparatus without looking at the inside workings of these organisation. No doubt that there has been massive intelligence failure looking at the enormous extent of the operation. Question then is why is that the security organisations could not claim any preemptory success even in a small remote district town like Borguna or Bagerhat? What prevented the preemption that perhaps was logical, for the intelligence should have anticipated such kind of threat?

Surprisingly, most of the blast took place in areas, which are supposed to have been under regular surveillance like the district headquarters. The perpetrators chose the heart of the civil administration with such ease that these lead to only one conclusion of intelligence failure and if not then failure at the execution level as the State Minister for Home himself was heard saying that he had information for 14 to 16 August. He then changed his statement saying that he himself was surprised like others (Daily Star-18 August 2005). He never defended the intelligence apparatus if his earlier statement was correct. Rather his changed statement also underlines the failure theory.

However, whosoever is responsible for such lapses does not matter because we do not have the culture of accepting responsibility, at least that we know of. As usual there would be some changes at bureaucratic level as a fallout of the incidence but political failure would remain veiled, as it had always been. Political blame-game continues as usual and the police take actions as usual rounding up so-called suspects in hundreds to prove their efficiency.

Unfortunately, this time it is anyone and anybody of a particular attire or presumably connected with the self-declared perpetrators, the JMB (Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh), a little known Islamist group, calling to establish a state system based on the Sharia, that exists in no Muslim country, let alone in a country like Bangladesh where Islam spread through Sufiism, that makes us a tolerant society which can hardly be changed through coercion. I firmly believe that this fact is well known to the perpetrators of the nation-wide blasts. Therefore, one needs to be careful in generalising the issue that is already showing sign of dissension in the society, and that could be one bigger aim of the extremist group.

Having said all the above, what lessons can we possibly learn though we should have taken these lessons earlier to prevent what has happened. We need to differentiate national security, national interest and political or personal mileage. Unfortunately, political blame-game is taking shape as the opposition declared strike without giving much importance to the public sentiments which desires to see the end of political bickering to close ranks to find a way out from the virulent atmosphere which has almost put the country into brink of disaster. Who would they rule or preside over if few thousand peacekeepers are sent to 'stabilize a destabilized neighborhood' as the chief minister West Bengal puts it. I can only draw inference of the Ivory Coast a country that failed only for political reasons.

It is political bickering that has provided space for either homegrown or outside-motivated jihadist forces. If there was an intelligence failure the main reason is that all state apparatuses have long been politicised in that they can hardly attend to the national security aspect. Some of us have warned time and again that our political leaders have never taken into account the national issues.

As immediate ramification of the blast one Indian analyst Mr. Anand Kumar puts it mildly, " These blasts also indicate the danger posed by the Islamists to the political system of the country in the coming days. But the impact of this Islamic extremism would not remain limited to Bangladesh and is bound to affect other territories which the world has seen in recent times".

Let's also quote from another Indian analyst who is frequently quoted in international press, Mr. B. Raman. He writes, "Their (so called Jihadist's) internal objective is to covertly use the fundamentalist and jihadi terrorist organisations for consolidating their power and undermining their political opponents. Their external objective is to use these organisations against India. The state-sponsored growth of these organisations has enabled them to take advantage of the silent complicity of the two Governments to promote their own Islamic and pan-Islamic objectives". These are dangerous conclusions if taken as sublime warnings.

Finally, let me explicitly say that our nation is in grave danger. Many wakeup calls that the nation has received but we pretended to sleep over them. However, as claimed by the Jihadi group in their leaflet, they reminded us of those warnings. It mentions that they had issued three earlier warnings. To me, Jihadists or not, this was the last wake up call as the two Indian analysts has put it. It is for our politicians to take them seriously, if not, they should be prepared for public wrath that is already brewing. Should this be taken as last wakeup call by the parties in politics and differentiate between national security and their petty political priorities? We can only appeal to saner section of our leaders to come together on national issues before it is too late.

Warnings are on the wall, try to read them.

The writer is a free lance defence and security analyst.