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5th
August,2003
Before
5th August
Details
“Diplomat Duping Dope”: Tareq
Rahman rejects report
Media Mafia’s take this
evening is on a report in The Statesman today that appears below.
In what is being monitored
here as a steady barrage of propaganda conveyed as News and penned by
Mr.Bibhuti Bhusan Nandy - non else but a retired Additional Secretary of
Indian intelligence the RAW, has as in the past, dwelt in concocting and
fabricating information to slander and malign Bangladesh. No reader will be
unable to overlook the communal slur and overtone in all of Mr.Nandy’s
recent filings including this one.
This instant
however, DakBangla
contacted Mr.Tareq Rahman to cross check on the veracity of the Statesman
report. Expressing his surprise Mr.Rahman said he has not met any
“diplomats’ in the recent past and naturally negated the content of the
published report about him as “fabricated speculation” and “somebody trying
to score big points with their respective head office”.
It is therefore
DakBangla’s
opinion that the significant
development quoted by Mr.Nandy and the rest of the paragraph is
nothing more than propaganda and a repeat display of the author’s
anti-Bangladesh communal mentality that has only seen aggressive and
unwanted proliferation in almost daily feeds to The Statesman.
It is
also regrettable that a more than 128 years old publication like The
Statesman of Kolkata has been ‘outwitted’ and fallen prey to the ‘stale
dope’ provided by Mr.Nandy.
DakBangla Monitors
Tuesday, August 05, 2003
In another significant
development, Tareq Rehman, Begum Zia’s son and heir-apparent, has “conveyed”
to an Indian diplomat in Dhaka that the real reason for nominating Salauddin
Qader Chaudhury for the OIC assignment is to “ease him out of the country”
and “that’s all to India’s advantage.” The diplomat readily fell for the
dope and approvingly reported his “intelligence coup” to New Delhi. A less
naïve officer, with a touch of professionalism, in his place would have seen
through the game and advised his headquarters that by nominating Salauddin
for the top OIC job the BNP-Jamaat dispensation had only exposed its true
colours. He would have pointed out how his predecessor, under a spell of the
same Young Turk, and, in league with his boss back home, had messed up
India’s time-tested policy priorities in Bangladesh, causing irreparable
damage to Indo-Bangla relations.
Outwitted by
Dhaka
By BIBHUTI BHUSAN NANDY
CONTEMPORARY Bangladesh has no dearth of communalist crooks
and thugs. The most vicious of them all who evokes instant hatred and horror
at the very mention of his name is Salauddin Qader Chaudhury. A Bangladesh
Nationalist Party MP and Adviser on parliamentary affairs to the incumbent
Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, for the people of Bangladesh this man is
evil personified, stalking a large swathe of Chittagong district and doing
or undoing whatever pleases him or whatever he perceives as serving his
personal interest and political agenda.
Salauddin defies all canons and constraints of law and
morality. His steady rise in parliamentary politics rests squarely on the
skillful exercise of his devious electioneering controls and his ability to
manipulate and intimidate voters and the administration alike. No politician
or political party has dared to challenge his ever-expanding terror networks
and arm-twisting terror tactics.
Like their father late Fazlul Qader Chaudhury, Salauddin
and his equally redoubtable sibling Gias Qader are wholly and irrevocably
sold out to Pakistan. The blood-curdling horrors that the father-and-sons
trio had perpetrated in conjunction with the marauding Pakistani army during
the liberation war in 1971 are forever etched in the public mind.
The Bangladesh Liberation War Documents and a report by the
people’s commission appointed by the Committee for Elimination of the
Killers and Collaborators of 1971 describe in horrifying details some of the
brutalities Salauddin had gratuitously committed against freedom fighters in
Chittagong district. These include the gruesome killing of 71-year-old
principal Nutan Chandra Singha, and assassination of Farooq, a student
leader and Dayalhari Biswas, another college student.
Soon after the liberation of Bangladesh, Salauddin and his
father were arrested when they were about to flee to Pakistan with a maund
of gold. Following a brief detention, they were let off under the general
amnesty declared by the Sheikh Mujib government. Salauddin has thrived ever
since on numerous heinous crimes. Killing and maiming of political opponents
are his favourite pastimes.
The assassination of Gnyanajyoti Bhikshu of the Raujan
Buddhist monastery by the Aziz Bahini, Saluddin’s private army of
terrorists, last year is one of the most horrendous crimes against religious
minorities in Bangladesh in recent times. Salauddin sheltered the main
assassin Aziz in his own house and arranged his safe escape to the Middle
East.
Salauddin Qader Chaudhury lets go no pretext to spit venom
against India to arouse communal passions against religious minorities. He
is invariably involved in every act of Hindu-cleansing in Raujan upazilla
and Chittagong metropolitan areas.
It’s an open secret that Salauddin has made a huge fortune
through his close links with the criminal underworld and smuggling networks
operating in the Chittagong port and coastal belt. Despite his pathological
hatred for India, in 1991, he made a frantic bid for the GSA of the Indian
Airlines and Air India. His failure to clinch that lucrative deal only
sharpened his enmity towards India.
Originally a diehard Muslim Leaguer, Salauddin served as a
Cabinet minister in the late Eighties in the Cabinet of Gen. Ershad. He
joined the BNP just before the parliamentary election in 2001. His
machinations ensured the defeat of the BNP candidate and freedom fighter
Col. (Retd.) Oli Ahmed to the unofficial Jamaat candidate Shajahan Chaudhury.
Despite this treachery, Begum Zia appointed him her adviser on parliamentary
affairs solely for the purpose of using his unending mischief potential
against the Awami League. Salauddin has been doing this task most
effectively, making it impossible for the opposition Awami League to
function in the Parliament.
Despite this un-edifying profile of the man, the BNP-Jamaat
government has nominated Salauddin as its candidate for the post of
Secretary General of the Organisation of Islamic Countries. This has
triggered an avalanche of protests throughout the country. For his part,
Salauddin has launched a fierce counter-offensive against his detractors. He
has filed two defamation cases against the editors of two respected dailies
of Dhaka for publishing criticisms of his nomination.
The Bangladesh intelligentsia has no doubt at all that the
Khaleda government has nominated this war criminal for the OIC assignment at
the instance of Islamabad in the hope that, should he scrape through, it
would enormously increase the leverage of the Pakistan-Bangladesh axis in
the Islamic world that can be used, among other things, to discomfit and
disturb India.
It is for the OIC member states to decide if a man of
Salauddin’s character and credentials should become the Organisation’s chief
executive. India has no locus standi in the matter, but two developments in
this context merit comments.
Last month, Salauddin devoted his 50-minute budget speech
in the parliament entirely to calumniating the Awami League, calling the
opposition leader Sheikh Hasina as bua (housemaid). What is worse, comparing
Sheikh Mujib with the Ulfa leader Anup Chetia, he asserted in the presence
of Prime Minister Begum Zia: “Chetia continued to speak for the independence
of his country from the prison in Bangladesh, but during his detention in
Pakistan Sheikh Mujib had said that he did not want independence and
preferred an undivided Pakistan”, adding: “Unlike Chetia, Mujib did not have
the courage for independence.” By eulogising Anup Chetia the aspirant for
the post of OIC General Secretary unwittingly called the bluff in Dhaka’s
insistent disclaimer that it has nothing to do with the cross-border
terrorism in north-east India.
In another significant development, Tareq Rehman, Begum
Zia’s son and heir-apparent, has “conveyed” to an Indian diplomat in Dhaka
that the real reason for nominating Salauddin Qader Chaudhury for the OIC
assignment is to “ease him out of the country” and “that’s all to India’s
advantage.” The diplomat readily fell for the dope and approvingly reported
his “intelligence coup” to New Delhi. A less naïve officer, with a touch of
professionalism, in his place would have seen through the game and advised
his headquarters that by nominating Salauddin for the top OIC job the
BNP-Jamaat dispensation had only exposed its true colours. He would have
pointed out how his predecessor, under a spell of the same Young Turk, and,
in league with his boss back home, had messed up India’s time-tested policy
priorities in Bangladesh, causing irreparable damage to Indo-Bangla
relations.
Clearly, a small coterie of researchers and analysts
continue to dupe a clueless government into complacency about Dhaka’s ever
sharpening anti-India agenda. Is there no way to hold them to account?
(The writer is
former Additional Secretary, Research and Analysis Wing, Cabinet
Secretariat, retired Director General, Indo-Tibetan Border Police and former
National Security Adviser, Government of Mauritius)
The Statesman Kolkata, 5th August 2003
Top|Home
Read back
to back The
Guardian
London
reports of today don’t add up
In the by now defunct ‘time honored
tradition’ of local politicos earning respectability by quoting ‘foreign
sources’ to their negative perception of Bangladesh, the two reports in The
Guardian of London today appears to be the machination of the Bangladesh
bashers on the lunatic fringe and is a far cry to realities on the ground in
Bangladesh.
DakBangla for one does not
sweep beneath the carpet or deny the fact that human rights violation,
rapes, and murders and oppression do not occur in Bangladesh, but it wishes
to emphasize that it is not limited to ‘minorities’ alone. Indeed many
reports on oppression and human right violation on ‘majorities’ are never
ever circulated as news with the same fanfare as those on the so-called
‘minorities’.
What it wishes to reemphasize here as it has
done in the past and finds reprehensible is that the media specially foreign
ones are being used as a conduit for blackmail and slandering of the overall
positive attributes of Bangladesh - one of the more important players in
the South Asian region whose possibilities are immense – and a possibility
that many in the region are envious and deliberately want to derail.
It is a sad day when foreigners quickly send
in filings to be published by their respective head offices without doing
their homework, and without realizing that they have been made mere pawns
and a party to the shallow, demeaning and self defeating political power
play that plagues Bangladesh.
We publish both reports and our comments and
questions are in italic RED.
DakBangla Monitors
Dhaka 21st July
2003
Top|Home
Read back to back The
Guardian, London reports of today don’t add up
[THERE ARE TWO REPORTS IN
THIS FILING WITH DAK BANGLA’S CONJECTURES]
Britain
ignores Bangladeshi persecution
John Vidal in Dhaka
Monday July 21, 2003
The Guardian
The British government has effectively closed the door on
asylum seekers from Bangladesh despite having seen a dossier which detailed
more than 700 attacks by fundamentalists on ethnic and religious minorities
in the country.
The document offers compelling evidence that serious attacks
and persecution of Hindu, Christian and other minorities are rising.
Backed by evidence from local and international development
groups sent to the government several months ago, it includes reports on
tortures, extra-judicial killings, gang rapes, the looting and burning of
temples and churches, evictions, beatings, the theft of land, destruction of
property, financial extortion and threats of physical violence. All the
cases have been reported to the police.
[ The duty of following up Police cases is not that
of the Government’s alone but also of the oppressed. The law of the land,
the Courts etc remains fair and free and is a replication of the British
Judicial System. Surely the reporter can suggest ways of contravening the
situation and means to challenge a legal process that is lax or has slipped
to lethargy. ]
Yet the Home Office apparently ignored the dossier when it
announced last month that Bangladesh, along with five other countries, was
being added to the "white list" of 24 countries from where asylum
applications are presumed from the outset to be unlikely to succeed.
"The countries that we are adding to the list today are
generally safe - individuals from these countries are not routinely fleeing
for their lives and do not routinely need our protection under the Geneva
convention," the Home Office minister, Beverley Hughes, said.
The Home Office has reiterated that position. "Bangladesh is
a parliamentary democracy with a constitution that allows for an independent
judiciary. We maintain our commitment to providing a safe haven for asylum
seekers," a spokeswoman said, adding that Bangladeshis would still be able
to seek asylum here.
[ As for the case of Bangladesh asylum
seekers in the UK – we have no indication in this report here how many
‘minorities’ from Bangladesh facing ‘persecution’ end up in the British
shore. ]
But the Guardian has uncovered evidence that Bangladesh is
sliding into a situation in which oppression of minorities is becoming
systematic.
The country, which is 85% Muslim but has a long tradition of
tolerance to religious minorities, is being pushed towards fundamentalism by
the Jamaat-e-Islami party, which is growing rapidly in the poorest rural
areas, according to organisations on the ground. It now shares power with
the majority Bangladesh National party and effectively runs two key
ministries.
[ Well the Jammat-e-Islami together with the BNP
came to power democratically – if there base in ‘rural Bangladesh’ is
growing – their is nothing that the Bangladesh authorities can do as
obviously they are committing no crime – as much as neither the Christian
missionaries. Our city based politicos have hibernated in the luxury of
urbane comforts – and IF ‘fundamentalism’ is succeeding, it’s only because
so called ‘secular’ parties have done nothing to correct the situation.
Villages for the middle class utopians are nothing more than a vote bank
which they ritually visit and promise the heaven before polls and abandon
once in power. There is however no way of figure out from the above
statement how Jammat and BNP is ‘pushing’ fundamentalism ]
"The British government knows what is happening. They have
been sent the information," said Rosaline Costa, director of the human
rights group, Hotline Bangladesh. "It says there is communal harmony, but
this is a lie ... There are many genuine asylum seekers."
[ ‘Minority’ asylum seekers in the UK – this must be
a joke – they would prefer to move to India, it is easier and cost
effective]
The present wave of attacks was triggered by the 2001
elections when violence flared across Bangladesh. The Human Rights Congress
for Bangladeshi Minorities estimated that dozens of people were killed, more
than 1,000 women from minority groups were raped and several thousand people
lost their land in the three months around the election.
[ The HRCBM is an anti Muslim hate propagandist
group and great at juggling figures. If anything they say is TRUE – one
might as well consider their propaganda that 3 million Hindus and Hindus
alone - were killed in 1971 and SO we pretty much have a clear idea WHO is
‘guiding’ and providing these figures to The Guardian reporter this instant]
"We have not seen human rights violations like this before.
It has never been so bad," says Sultana Kamal, director of the legal aid
group ASK. "The assaults are taking place every day. The oppression is
continuous now."
[ No clear indication of ‘past’ or ‘present’ abuses
other than the word ‘before’ of ASK – legally such comments will be
unacceptable in a Court of Law..so much for ‘legal aid groups’ ]
Amnesty International, which has expressed grave concern to
the Bangladeshi government about mounting human rights abuses, said
Britain's decision to put Bangladesh on the white list "made no sense".
The Bangladeshi government has admitted that some atrocities
have taken place, but insists that the violence is not religiously
motivated.
[ Unless proved otherwise – assuming propagandas
are not construed as FACTS – we believe the Bangladesh
Governments assertions are correct ]
The Guardian, 21st July 2003
Rape and torture empties the
villages
John Vidal
Monday July 21, 2003
The Guardian
Purnima Rani, a 12-year-old Hindu girl, is terrified and
breaks down frequently as she describes what happened 18 months ago in the
village of Perba Delua in Bangladesh.
"Nearly 30 people came to our house. I recognised many of
them as my neighbours. They beat my mother almost senseless. I begged them
to stop. They dragged me outside. I resisted but they hit me with sticks. I
shouted to my sister to save me but they beat her too. I cannot tell you
what happened next."
Purnima was gang-raped and her family found her unconscious
three hours later in a field a mile from the village. Four young men, all
supporters of the government and its coalition partner, the fundamentalist
Jamaati-e-Islami party, were arrested but have not been charged.
[ If Purnima Rani said “I cannot tell you what
happened next." The reasonable question to ask John Vidal – is who then
filled him in with the story of her rape? Also how could a 12 year old girl
survive a ‘gang rape’ of “nearly 30 people”?!]
But the ordeal did not stop there. The family's hairdressing
business was twice looted, her elder brother was beaten and is expected to
lose his sight, and they have now all fled the village after threats that
they would be killed.
Her father has been offered bribes to drop the case and
Purnima, one of the few victims of Bangladeshi sectarian violence who is
prepared to talk openly, is now in hiding. "I want justice, not money," she
says.
Serious attacks on and persecution of religious minorities by
Islamic fundamentalists are increasing, and despite a detailed dossier on 18
months of persecution of religious minorities, and women in particular, the
British government calls Bangladesh a "generally safe" country. Amnesty
International says this makes "no sense".
Thousands of Bangladeshis are fleeing, a few wealthy ones
applying to go to Britain and continental Europe. Those who arrive in
Britain will almost certainly be sent back. But the Guardian has uncovered
compelling evidence that in declaring Bangladesh in effect free of internal
problems Britain is turning a blind eye to atrocities committed by
fundamentalists.
[Can The Guardian name one among the ‘wealthy
minorities’ that have or are seeking asylum in the UK?]
Evidence is emerging that the oppression of minorities is
becoming systematic. Bangladesh, which is 85% Muslim but has a long
tradition of tolerance to religious minorities, is, say local organisations,
being pushed towards fundamentalism by the Jamaat-e-Islami, which is growing
rapidly in rural areas with the deepest poverty and runs two key ministries.
"This is like a silent revolution. We are returning to the
dark ages," a leading lawyer said, asking not to be named.
[ If the person quoted above is a lawyer – we need
to know what his fears are in not identifying himself. It could well be that
this lawyer is somebody well known in Dhaka and is
front man of the HRCBM extremist in Bangladesh ]
"I think the backdrop is being created for the introduction
of strict sharia laws. You see extremist rightwing fundamentalists
infiltrating every professional area, in the appointment of the judiciary,
the law, medicine and in education. They are capturing key positions in
government, the universities and institutions."
[ Whether any body is ‘infiltrating’ is doubtful
here – but as a free country anybody that is qualified can and will reach
important positions – and in so doing his ‘religious’ or ‘political ‘
affiliations are never taken into cognizance in Bangladesh as they are not
in any civilized country . If they are ‘capturing’ any position – it is by
dint of their merit – which again is not a CRIME ]
Britain has seen the dossier of human rights abuses, which is
backed by evidence from local and international development groups.
In the village of Fhainjana, a mob of 200 fundamentalists
recently looted 10 Christian houses, allegedly assaulting many women and
children. Christians were seriously beaten and others molested after
refusing to give money to thugs in the village of Kamalapur, near Dhaka. In
Deuatala Bazaar, gangs of young men with knives told Hindus to leave.
Hundreds fled.
Many villages are said to be now empty of minorities.
Elsewhere, Hindus have been burned alive and gangs have desecrated temples.
Rosaline Costa, director of the human rights group Hotline
Bangladesh, says that the British government is well aware of the situation.
"They must think we are stupid. It says there is communal harmony, but this
is a lie. Documents showing the scale of the atrocities on minorities have
been sent to all governments. There are many genuine asylum seekers."
Thousands of Bangladeshis are thought to have crossed the
border to India in the past two years. It is impossible to verify numbers
because New Delhi will not release records, but Dhaka's statistics show the
Muslim majority increasing dramatically and the Hindu, Buddhist, Christian
and other minorities declining.
{Again no mention of this ‘Dhaka statistics’]
In western Bangladesh, where the Jamaat-e-Islami is
particularly strong, many villages have been deserted by minorities. "In my
village of Sri Rumpur, near Khulna, there are no Hindus left," said a man
who asked not to be named. "They have all been driven out by people
threatening to torture them or demanding money. People who raise their
voices are threatened. It's a kind of systematic ethnic cleansing."
Toab Khan, editor of the independent newspaper the Daily
Janakantha, said: "Repression of people who publicise human rights
violations is growing. We have reported communal violence from the
beginning. Our head office has been bombed, our agents have been threatened
and beaten up. The government has withdrawn all its advertising and is
pressurising and harassing reporters and the owner."
Attacks on press
Last month three newspaper editors were arrested after
publishing a letter critical of the government's human rights record. BBC
and Channel 4 film-makers have been detained. Shariar Kabir, a film-maker
and human rights activist, was charged with treason and jailed for 59 days
for writing about torture and interviewing Hindu families who told him they
were fleeing the country.
The Bangladeshi government, which has admitted that some
atrocities have taken place, argues that the violence is not religiously
motivated. But it has directly attacked western-funded NGOs working to
increase women's rights and strengthen the voice of the poor in minority
communities.
In the past 18 months British and European aid to five main
NGOs has been frozen, ostensibly pending an investigation but almost
certainly because they have worked with the poor to strengthen women's
rights. The UK Department for International Development's office in
Bangladesh has protested.
{The accounts of the NGO’s were frozen as it was
proved beyond any reasonable doubt that aid from Britain and Europe were
being misused for political purpose – not for bonafide NGO work. Bangladesh
has a responsibility to protect aid money sent in by foreign donors]
"Up to £40m in grants directed at relieving poverty for 2.8m
families is affected. Millions of the poor are being denied help for
ulterior motives," Kabir Choudhury, president of the South-East Asia Union
against Fundamentalism, said.
Leading Islamic scholars are appalled by the repression and
the rise of fundamentalism. "What we are seeing is the Talibanisation of
Bangladesh," Maolama Abdul Awal, former director of the Bangladesh Islamic
Foundation, said. "If we allow them to continue ... [minorities] will be
eliminated. Bangladesh will become a fascist country."
[Hurt feeling of an unemployed Molla!]
An NGO director said: "I am being called a terrorist. They
telephone me personally demanding money, saying they will push me out of the
country and that my children will be killed ... They intend to wipe us out.
I do not understand why the British government is turning a blind eye to
what is happening."
{NO names of the ‘Director” – so readers are
requested to fill in the blanks]
The Guardian, 21st July 2003
Top|Home
The
Daily Star] Within the last three weeks warrants of arrests were issued
against five editors and one executive editor on defamation charges. First,
warrants were against the editors of Prothom Alo and The Daily Star, then
against the editor of Jugantar and finally against the editor, advisory
editor and executive editor of Daily Janakantha.
The Meat
A warrant for arrest can be
issued by the Police at any time if an aggrieved citizen registers a case –
that is well….. what the legal books of the land says, no different from any
other civilized country. However
DakBangla points out, that
the
defamation
charge labeled against the
honorable Editors
of
the above newspapers is a small angle to a much larger scenario – in that
this is a classic case of the
powerful
i.e. the Government of the day, that has decided to take on the so-called
very powerful
i.e. the Press – indeed in a rather
hazardous
way, the self proclaimed
high moral guardians
of the Nation
- the sanctimonious
Editors and their cronies!
We the less
powerful i.e. the citizens of Bangladesh unfortunately can
only sigh and perhaps chuckle at this tragic turn of events, because when
push comes to more than a mighty shove and when
fates cruel butt is on us - we in no
way can indulge in the luxury of such high
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