Ex-Ministers and BNP leader Smamsul Islam, Ex-BNP leader Mannan Bhuiyan and Jamaat Amir Motiur Rahman Nizami have been arrested yesterday. They were all accused in the so called GATCO corruption case and ex-PM and one of her sons are already in jail in the same case. We will discuss the absurdity of this case in detail in a later post, lets talk about the arrests today.
While there were hardly any resistance to the arrests of Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina, except for some half-hearted protests here and there, the immediate reaction or anger at those arrests were also very muted.
Compared to those arrests, an active opponent of our war of liberations, Mr Motiur Rahman Nizami’s arrest was much more glorious, if the word glorious can be applied to an arrest on corruption charges. Police was smart enough to pick up a time to arrest Nizami when the chances of spontenious resistance would be least. It was late night and Dhaka was under torrential monsoon rain. Despite all these, within minutes after arrival of police, thousand Jamaat activists gathered and totally blocked the roads. Also present were all the senior leadership of jamaat. It was clear from TV footage that senior Jamaat leadership were working hard to pave the way for the police leave the scene uneventfully. I am sure, if jamaat decided to get into confrontation, it would have been a long bloody night. I know very well Mogbazaar Bepari goli where Nizami lives. Most of jamaat senior leadership including Golam Azam lives in that Mogbazaar area, jamaat office is also there. Over the last 32 years, jamaat systematically took control of the neighborhood either by ownership of the properties or by renting properties by Jamaat activists in that area. Now almost all residents in that area are jamaat member, so are the small store owners, the laundry shop workers, the tea stall men etc. Jamaat also has proved its strategic pwoess in street battle to control Paltan-baitul Mukarram area. 10/28/06 is still visid in our memory. I have see the same tactic in Chittagong college area, rajshahi university are and continued effort to control Dhaka University adjacent katabon area.
Our mainstream politicians must take lesson from Nizami’s arrest. They must ask themselves, if Nizami with <10% national vote, can stage such an organized show of forces and they can’t, there must be some lapse in their leadership of the parties controlling 40% support each.
Shamsul Islam’s arrest was most uneventful but it proved the eagerness of BNP grassroots to embrace anybody who did not blatantly sided against BNP mainstream or Khaleda family. Shamsul Islam remained nutral yet he was greeted at the court and sorrounded all along by these activists.
But the most painful event of the day was watching Manan Bhuiyan’s arrest. He had to bring minivan full of his local area men as his bodyguards. But althrough his journey through the courts, verbal abuses and reportedly sandals were hurled at him. At one point he tripped and fell onthe gound. Even his lawyer, feeling like sheep in a wolf herd, had to invoke Khaleda Zia’s innocence in this case several times before he talked about Mannan Bhuiyan. And most interestingly, before the arrest, Mr Bhuiyan released a statement announcing that there is no longer any need to reform the party and party must united under the ‘great leader Khaleda Zia’. reform can be done later in party coucil under Khaleda Zia’s leadership. Looks like as Mr. Bhuiyan is being arrested now, the need for reform has evaporated.
May 19, 2008 at 4:39 pm
[...] may go. They have a decreasing numbers of men in the cult, some are leaving the country, some are surrendering to court etc. Why somebody should call them a party or as a part of the party? You can track its [...]
May 19, 2008 at 5:39 pm
One doesn’t have to be an apologist for the regime to note that there were something rotten within Awami League and BNP. If Jamaat wanted to, it could have turned Mogh Bazar into a Sadr City. It didn’t do so because it has its own calculations. We need to understand what those calculations are.
May 20, 2008 at 3:49 pm
I am curious on one thing. Always, Jamaat and BNP leaders are saying Sheikh Hasina should also be released. But AL only speaks for Hasina’s release. This shows they is not for demoracy, but their narrow interest. If Hasina was free but Khaleda was in Jail and Jamatt was in Jail, I thikn Hasina would be like she was at the airport “amra to shob boidhota dibo” to military govt.
May 20, 2008 at 10:30 pm
M.K. Anwar, an unparallel, honest, patriotic Bureacrat-turned-politician has been arrested as well.
Mr. Anwar was a very honest patriotic CSP. He was the preceptor of Ex-president of Pakistan, Mr. Legari; and whose(Mr. Anwar’s) name was on the Ayub Khan’s 303 list of allegedly corrupt or anti-Ayub top officials of the-then Pakistan.
Arrest of this kind individuals while the father of all the corrupts, Mr.Ershad is untouched and getting full political favor proves that the civil-military hybrid regime is the most corrupt of all regimes country has ever gifted!
Thanks.
May 21, 2008 at 7:26 am
Response to # 3
Mr. Alam,
Yours is indeed a very good observation. I’ve been saying it all along that the anti-corruption drive after the postponment of JAN, 07’s election is nothing but deception/eye wash by the same rotten, sleazy, shallow and hybrid LEFT/DADA leaning AL/COMMIES. Throwing some not so India-loving/Commie-leaning AL leaders (Like Obaidul Kader, Nasim, Jafarullah etc) in jail is like sacrificing/scape-goating some of their own people or taking few measured slaps while decimating opponents. This tactic has been picked from great TSUN SUE’s ‘The Art of the War’ book, which resembles empire’s killing 3000 of its own people just to legalize millions of Muslim killings(http://www.dictatorshipwatch.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=4757&mode=thread&order=0&thold= & http://www.dictatorshipwatch.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=4756&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0.)Every time BNP/JI leaders show the greatness of their hearts by demanding Hasisa’s release, AL conspirators stay mum about Khaleda because real crooks (in AL’s power) like Tofael, Kamal Hussein, suranjit etc are behind the whole SCHEME OF THINGS. In 70 these criminals made Yahya to declare election date because the WIND was in their favor but the same hypocrites posponded the election because of RAW’s prohibitation for diss-favorable winning condition. They accused BNP/JI for being army backed whilest infiltrated in army/police’s (MUA, NUR MOHAMMED are their products) top brasses. The election postpontment and 1/11 take over sagas were ENGINEERED/STAGE-MANAGED by these goons and their anti-mankind foreign cronies. Our condition in today greatly resembles the condition of unfortunate Pakistanies which can be found in the following article,
A brutalised people fed on lies
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Shireen M Mazari
It has certainly been an unmitigated time of horror, repulsion and despair for this nation. The mob justice being meted out in Karachi followed by a similar, mercifully failed, attempt at the same in Lahore has been a stark reflection of the depths of barbarity and despair to which society has sunk.
After waiting for decades to see effective and fair governance, promises of a better life fulfilled and basic decency, it is hardly surprising to find mobs taking justice into their own hands, venting all their rage through a barbaric violence and watching with a vengeance the burning of fellow human beings. The total lack of faith in the law enforcers has never been so chillingly reflected and it is ironic that all this has happened after Mr Suddle was sent to Karachi as the law enforcer par excellence. Seems his mission may have been more politically directed to rein in the MQM even as the streets of Karachi burnt. In any event, if this is not a spiralling into anarchy, then what is?
But then why blame the ordinary Pakistani who has witnessed the elites abandoning them when the going gets rough and creating safe havens for themselves abroad — only returning through scandalous deals and when the scent of power is strong. Worse still, they have had to see indifferent rulers themselves brutalise and physically violate the people when they rise against injustice and tyranny. Just a year ago, the officially sanctioned carnage in Karachi on May 12 took officially practiced brutalisation to new levels with a callousness that was reflected in the ugly celebrations of power the same day in Islamabad.
That is why from the urban centres of civil society elitism to the humble abodes of ordinary Pakistanis living their increasingly miserable lives in the rural areas and urban slums, the clarion call for justice and rule of law that was led by Chief Justice Iftikhar and the lawyers’ movement found an unquestioning resonance.
For the ordinary citizen who cannot hope for NROs and other such salvations, it is the higher judiciary that is the last hope for justice and protection against state tyranny. It was the support of the people that created a scenario whereby the government of the day increasingly lost credibility and forced the need for a new political dispensation which in turn had to begin with fair and free elections. Of course, the US sought to draw the parameters of this new dispensation and hence the deal since they saw the threat of the growing anti-US sentiment in Pakistan in the form of a less welcoming democratic political dispensation.
So when Mr Zardari expresses his gratitude to the US, UK and EU for pushing the country to democracy, that is not entirely correct. It was the street power of the lawyers’ movement and the upsurge of civil society in its support that forced the move towards a new democratic dispensation. However, it was certainly the US and its allies that pushed a particular democratic dispensation on to the country. That has been the negative aspect of the post-electoral scenario where the elected people are increasingly out of the loop as unelected returnees from overseas implement certain agendas — with the US ambassador, Ms Patterson, filling the role of a viceroy. What was left of our sovereignty post-9/11 has now been bargained away to the US. But perhaps the most galling aspect is the lies that are still being fed to the nation at large.
For instance, the US continues to kill our citizens indiscriminately through its missile and helicopter gunship attacks but we are either told there was no such attack — the presumption being we are all blind — or that the killings by the US were not “an attack”! This last claim was made by Haqqani, our new rep in the US, who declared in the face of clear evidence and US media reports to the contrary that “the US has not attacked Pakistan.” Then what were the missiles launched against the tribals’ in Bajaur — a gesture of love through “friendly” killings? Or is Bajaur not regarded as a part of Pakistan so that the attack cannot be regarded as an attack on Pakistani territory? At a time when others in the Muslim World are beginning to stand up to the US, why are our rulers so servile in their submission to US diktat?
There are lies, big and small, these days and they are being fed to the people as a daily diet. The British, in their usual games, now tell us that while the British officials at our airports can grab a Pakistani’s passport, it is not confiscation but mere retention! A forced retention can hardly be different from a confiscation and it is a shame on our successive governments for allowing the Brits this nonreciprocal authority in our own country. When I had raised this issue in an earlier column the Brit press person was miffed and gave out a bizarre and accusatory response. The latest news in this regard yet again substantiates by earlier contention that our rulers are merrily renouncing elements of the nation’s sovereignty to the US and UK.
Lies have become so endemic in the psyche of the ruling elites, regardless of who they may be, that in all probability they do not see it as an issue. Look at our prime minister declaring that the judicial issue was complicated because of the problem of “one seat, two chief justices”. This is just one of the deliberate confusions being created at the official level to continue keeping the judiciary under executive control, and are all ploys similar to the claim that the judges can only be restored through a constitutional measure — which immediately would be an expression of legitimacy for the actions of November 3 and beyond!
Meanwhile, people are facing a crisis of survival — again at the level of foodstuff it is certainly an artificially created one given the bumper wheat crops we have seen over the last few years. So where are these stocks? Are we deliberately being led to a situation where we are in such dire straits that the US can step in and demand exacting quid pro quos — as was done immediately post-9/11? Some of us had been critically writing about the extent to which the US was intruding on our sovereignty, but post the February elections, the intrusiveness seems to know no bounds.
Ironically, every time we move in the right direction ourselves in order to deal with the problem of violence and the tribals’ marginalisation the US ensures failure by military attacks on our territory. So we continue to sell lies to our people. But now the results of being fed on such lies over decades has created its own monster within our civil society. We do not need to look for Al Qaeda or other “militants”.
Our state has created a dehumanised population that has been terrorised and suppressed and has now unleashed its own terror within society. Today it is robbers who are facing mob “justice” through public burnings. Who will it be tomorrow? Everywhere violence has become more brutal — with the dispossessed either taking their own lives along with those of their children; or turning on to other citizens and reflecting an uncontrollable rage that needs satiation even beyond killing — as was witnessed in the unbearably hideous incident at an NDU residence in Islamabad where the mother and children were butchered and then burnt. Is the headiness of power so lethal that the whole nation can be sacrificed for self-satisfaction and revenge?
Tailpiece: Just to set the record straight, the US embassy had twice asked Riaz Khokhar when he was foreign secretary to remove me from the ISSI but they failed. I am told the General Hood expose put them into a hyper frenzy and this time they succeeded. But I had a good innings thanks to the talented and responsive research team of the ISSI.
The writer is a defence analyst. Email: callstr@hotmail.com
May 21, 2008 at 10:10 am
#3
My take on this that at the beginning stage, any move to free HS by AW was deflected by RATS. HS minus appeared to be a done deal in AW. All they were waiting for is BNP to do it. But BNP was able to isolate its own rats and had clear stand regarding KZ. But BNP was still overcoming the storm and initially was weak. But unlike AW, they were able to stand regarding KZ via keeping a separation with shanskars. They also realized Zillur and Motia were having tough time. If HS goes aboard or becomes minus, BNP splinter group will be stronger. To diffuse this minus theory and seeing AW were quieter then BNP, they provided an indirect boost to Zillur and Motia by speaking of both netris, along with helping their own cause. On secondary note BNP was simply practicing a goodwill democracy.
#
As for AW not demanding KZ release may have few reasons. AW has plentiful history of non-tolerance and hatred towards KZ and her family. So it won’t be a surprise.
Another reason that they could be wondering if both are released and there is a true fair election, HS-AW can not assure a victory against KZ-BNP. KZ-BNP + Jamaat are by no means a weak opponent when it comes to voting politics in Bangladesh. Ideal would be HS free and KZ in jail, but that would be difficult in present situation. HS free and a deal with Moin would be the best for AW as that will assure a non contest election. That may still happen.
May 21, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Asaad, ‘SH free and KZ in jail’ is ideal for whom?
It’s not ideal for SH. If Khaleda and her sons were convicted for alleged corruption in open and transparent court in Feb-March 2007, then perhaps that would have been good for Hasina. But the whole anti-corruption drive now lacks credibility. ‘Khaleda in jail but Hasina free’ now will seem like ‘Khaleda is vitctim and Hasina is a collaborator’.
May 22, 2008 at 7:12 am
#7
From an AW point of view! as you described in your para of “If Khaleda…..for Hasina”.
Of course, situation is not ideal anymore.
May 22, 2008 at 7:21 am
Accha, I have a question
What happens if our fathers in the army and in the (fictitous/foreign) govt decide to release all of them, Hasina, Khaleda, Nizami and their herds in November and let us have elections in December.
What happens then? Who wins? Who colludes? Who fights? Or is my imagination too far-fetched?
May 29, 2008 at 9:21 pm
I disagree with “abuusa’s” comments about MK Anwar.
MK Anwar may not be financially corrupt but he is totally what may be termed as a “morally” corrupt individual. During Ayub’s era, MK Anwar was a chamcha of no one but Monem Khan. It is said in the CSP circles that Anwar was such an a..kisser that he always addressed Monem Khan as “My Governor.” He was the DC of Dhaka during Monem Khan’s rule and everybody knows that you are not appointed, especially during those days, as DC Dhaka unless you were deemed to be obedient enough to carry out the illegal desires of the rulers of those times. MK Anwar’s rule as Dhaka DC ended with the ousting/sacking of Monem Khan. He lost his job in Ayub’s 3 not 3 because his backlicking of Monem Khan didn’t work. Patriotism not but selfish goals always navigated MK Anwar.
It was BongoBondhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who rehabilitated MK Anwar and the other Bengali CSP officers who were kicked out during 3 not 3. Sheikh Mujib took Anwar in because he, Mujib I mean, had a big heart.
Then you see Anwar playing the same game during Ershad’s rule, kissing backs of army generals and securing the home secretary’s job and then superceding others in his batch and becoming the cabinet secretary of Ershad. He did an excellent job for no one but Ershad because his sole intention was to serve his(Anwar’s) ulterior motives.
Next? After the disgraceful fall of Ershad, Anwar ran to Sheikh Hasina and requested her to let him into the Awami League. When Sheikh Hasina refused to take him in and gave him a piece of her mind, Anwar went to see Khaleda Zia through a close relative who was very intimate with Zia. That’s how he got into the BNP. Again, he joined the BNP not that he believed in their ideology and/or loved the Zias’ but because he wanted to advance his selfish goals.
I am sure before 1/11, when the thugs of BNP were plotting to rig the elections, we saw Moudud Ahmed and MK Anwar in the forefront defending illegitimate BNP moves as constitutionally agreeable while making a mockery of our sacred constitution. It was Anwar we saw sitting behind Tareq Zia at BNP milad mahfils plotting to deprive the nation from a credible election.
By the way, do you remember(on TV) Anwar sitting next to Razakar Nizami and telling the crowd that without the events of November 7th(so-called Sepoy Mutiny) the country would lose its Islamic identity? That was right after BNP’s majority win in 2001.
I could cite more about this morally corrupt individual but I believe that his ending up in jail is similar to his sins catching up with him. “Chorer Shath Din AR Gerhoster AAK Din,” goes the saying. This event hopefully will remind Anwar that committing sins and then performing Hajj will not suffice. Allah is NOT stupid! He forgives but doesn’t forget.
MK Anwar is a perfect example of how low a human being can go to try to achieve his selfish motives. MK Anwar is not a patriot. Terming him a patriot would amount to insulting the real patriots and honests of this earth.