The way it is
When actions beget suffering
What is, however, dangerous for the country as well as for the ruling politicians is that they may be heading fast towards a stage when they will not be able to see facts as facts any more and truth will disappear from their vision altogether. Myopia and blurred vision lead to poor and wrong decisions.
THE BNP-Jamaat-e-Islami government has put itself in embarrassing situations itself at least thrice in quick succession this month. The Bush admini-stration of USA has inflicted one blow to it. Meanwhile BNP, as the main ruling party, has separately suffered humiliation in another case in which the public had a say.
Conventional wisdom and common sense would make us believe that BNP leaders could be uncomfortable after all these. But we cannot be sure that they are. This is the sad part, we mean, as far as we are concerned.
The BNP-Jamaat government increased the price of fuel oil and water rates in the first week of the new year. This has made life more difficult than before for the poor and the middle class. There is resentment against this action of the government across the country. Only the blind cannot see it. Not all of the adverse effects of the fuel price hike have been seen yet. The government is thus still to hear the last word of annoyance from the public on this score.
Within days of this came the ordinance indemnifying all deeds and misdeeds concerning Operation Clean Heart. The alliance government has sought to keep out of the jurisdiction of the courts all acts relating to this action for restoring law and order. From the calling in of the armed forces personnel by Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia to the responsibility for the custodial deaths, detentions and searches without warrant, everything has been covered against legal and court action.
Rumbles of protest at home and criticism abroad continues against the Indemnity Ordinance. The government's wisdom is in question. Also in doubt is how much does it respect law and human rights. This suspicion itself is bad enough for one's well-being. When activities are seen which strongly indicate that what has been suspected is true then the situation becomes frightening.
To us, a serious question arising out of the indemnifying action of the government pertains to the concept of law. We believe that we made and accepted laws to deal with crime, violence, corruption, injustice, unfairness, disorderliness, indiscipline and insecurity. In short and most importantly, we want to know that laws are there to protect us against anything that would harm us, mainly physically and in some cases psychologically. Laws make us comfortable.
Thus having a law, ordained by executive action or made by parliament, which blocks all other laws, especially those which were put in place to control and contain excesses and lawlessness by a state organ or more, does violence to our concept of law and the ethical base of rule of law. It is thus difficult to accept unlawful means to fight lawlessness.
Opposition to the Indemnity Ordinance will therefore continue on various fronts. The BNP-Jamaat government's exasperation on this score will not end soon. Meanwhile, the bomb explosions at Sakhipur, which have killed at least seven people, the murder of a Jubo League leader by assassins wearing police and Anasar uniforms and the hail of bullets showered by supporters of a ruling-party backed candidate to drive away from competition a rival in the union council elections in Sandwip clearly point to the need for a thorough and in-depth evaluation of the Operation Clean Heart. This is necessary for the government to do at least to convince itself that much still has to be done to restore law and order in the country.
Against that backdrop the open dispute between the Election Commission and the government about military deployment in the countryside to ensure peaceful and fair union council elections has been painful to watch. The EC has been undermined and the BNP-Jamaat government is about to be caught in the wrong foot one more time.
Then came the blow from the US government of President George Bush. It has put Bangladesh on its list of Special Registration Programme. According to this decision by the Bush regime Bangladeshi adult males visiting USA on non-immigrant visas will be finger-printed and they will have to register themselves with immigration authorities. Their fingerprints and information given by them while registering themselves with US immigration authorities reportedly will be examined by the latter to figure out whether the former were among known anti-US terrorists or had or were likely to have connections with such people.
In short, the US government has signified that it believes there could be anti-American terrorists among Bangladeshis. The Bangladesh government and lots of Bangladeshis have been stunned by this act of the lone superpower in the world at present. They think that the US government has been unfriendly to Bangladesh, to say the least. Many Bangladeshis fear that they will now face harassment in USA or while entering or leaving that country.
The BNP-Jamaat government is probably very worried about the political reaction in Bangladesh and abroad of this US decision. The main opposition party, Awami League, used to say when it was in power that BNP and allies had connections with Muslim terrorists. After being unseated in the last general election it says that there are such elements within the government (meaning the Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Oikyo Front). Now it is saying, though not in so many words, that the US government has proved it right. But aside from what the Awami League or parties favourably disposed towards it say the government in Dhaka is clearly been seen by Bangladeshis in general as inefficient because the latter had completely failed to foresee the US decision against Bangladesh.
To the common people it is one more glaring failure of a bumbling, even clumsy, government. While lots of people are ready to blame the Awami League propaganda at home and abroad about a fundamentalist threat in Bangladesh as one factor that had helped the US decision-making they do not give a "not guilty" verdict to the government insofar as the country's negative image in the West is concerned.
However, we should give a thought at the same time whether there was a method in the madness in the Western media. It would be wise to suspect that all those stories in the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Wall Street Journal and the Time Magazine telling their world that Bangladesh is about to be infested by Al-Qaida and Taliban activists were planted to put this country on the terror list of their countries. Sad though it is, it looks like US-led West will make Muslims pay for being Muslims, even the servile ones will not be excluded.
For BNP, the ruling political party, the huge defeat in the Narayanganj Municipal election is something to be concerned about. The leaders of BNP have been understandably silent for at least two days on the verdict delivered by the voters of Narayanganj.
A local BNP leader, however, sought to comfort himself and his party by saying, " This result of the voting show that we do not rig elections". The ruling party's unofficial candidate has been defeated by the Awami League-backed candidate in the election to the post of chairman of the municipality of Magura. The margin of vote here is, however, smaller than in Narayanganj.
It is not clear, however, whether the government and BNP have taken any message from these events, which were negative in nature. On the other hand they appear to be balking at the lessons and have resorted to the much-used but unloved tactic of blaming and berating the opposition parties. Witness how quickly did several ministers, who included seasoned politicians like Mr. Abdul Mannan Bhuiya, start a chorus putting all the responsibility on opposition's shoulders for putting Bangladeshis on the terrorist-suspect list of the US government! Also, Mr. Haris Chowdhury, a political secretary to Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, has pointed a finger at the opposition for the bomb blasts at Sakhipur last Thursday, which took seven lives. Investigation had barely begun on the Sakhipur bombings when he did this. Obviously, these government leaders do not mind treading a useless beaten track.
What is, however, dangerous for the country as well as for the ruling politicians is that they may be heading fast towards a stage when they will not be able to see facts as facts any more and truth will disappear from their vision altogether. Myopia and blurred vision lead to poor and wrong decisions. But people will suffer, as they are doing already, because the government takes nearly all major decisions which affect their lives. Of course, they will be able to react to the government-made disasters quite tellingly in the next general elections but by then they would have gone through much agony, for no fault of theirs.
People are already talking about their frustrations with the BNP-Jamaat government. They cannot understand why the price of rice should go up, even in this season of plenty and low food price. They bitterly recall that this is happening although BNP and the members of its alliance had promised before the Jatiya Sangsad elections if they won and came to power then they would keep cost of living in check. And if rice price has gone up due to inefficiency of the government then what explains the raising of price of fuel oil by it? Is that action by this BNP-Jamaat government due to callous disregard for the woes of the people or is it a brazen breach of commitment, they ask.
Whatever the reason, what the rice farmers are talking about is that the increased price of diesel oil has hit them like a bolt from the blue and they are facing much difficulty in finding the extra money that the government has forced them to spend on watering their fields with the help of fuel-driven irrigation pumps. Visitors from the countryside tell us that lots of votes will go against those candidates of union council seats who belong or are close to BNP because of the suffering being undergone by the village poor and small farmers due to high price of rice and diesel oil. Results of the Narayanganj and Magura municipal elections support this contention.
Ataus Samad is senior journalist and columnist
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