Why do foreign powers shore up dictatorships?
Mahmud ur Rahman Choudhury
http://www.thebangl adeshtoday. com/leading% 20news.htm Last Monday we have seen the nature of Military dictatorships with reference to Pakistan and Bangladesh. This Monday we will explore one of the key bases of power of military dictators and see why and how foreign powers shore up dictatorships, again with examples of Pakistan and Bangladesh. In a number of previous commentaries, I have covered in details why, how and to what extent foreign powers have been involved with and had infact infiltrated into our law-enforcement agencies, our intelligence services and our military forces. So I will not cover these aspects here.
Two sorts of Weak States come in for some form or other of interventions by Strong States: (1) Weak States with natural resources which Strong Sates need and covet and (2) Weak States so geographically located as to serve the purpose of stepping-stone to other resource-rich areas or to states which pose a direct physical threat to Strong States. There is a range of intervention options starting from diplomatic and economic pressures, to attempts at "regime change" and finally to outright military conquests and occupation. We are concerned here about aspects of "regime change". The question however is: Why would Strong States support dictatorships as opposed to democratic regimes in Weak States?
Democracy in Weak States has a number of problems: they are divisive and so they lack control; they are corrupt and so costs of investments in exploitation of resources are high; they are unstable and so decisions change abruptly in a short time with changes of governments and ultimately they are answerable to their electorates who may not favor giving away resources to foreigners. Dictators, on the other hand, do not suffer from these disadvantages: they are decisive; they have absolute control; corruption is restricted to a small coterie of elites and finally they are not answerable to anyone. It stands to reason therefore, that the preferred form of governance in Weak States is dictatorship or at least the most authoritarian of democracies - from the point of view of Strong States. It also stands to reason that Weak States are allowed and even persuaded to remain weak, so that exploitation of economic resources can continue unhindered and advantages
continue to accrue to Strong States.
The strongest of the Strong States, the USA had been and still is shoring up dictatorial regimes of various sorts and grades throughout South America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia and in its endeavors, the USA is supported by other strong states of Europe and Japan who all benefit from the resources exploited from weak states in these diverse parts of the world. When such dictatorial regimes turn "rogue", that is they refuse to serve the interests of USA, they are subjected to outright conquests and occupation such as Iraq and Afghanistan; in other cases they are subjected to unending diplomatic and economic pressures to "comply" such as Iran and North Korea. The USA is a global player; other regional or "wannabe" global players pursue the same policy such as Chinese support to military dictatorship in Myanmar and its occupation of Tibet and Indian support to the Nepalese monarchy and dictatorial regime changes in Bangladesh.
Having stated general principles, let's get down to the brass-tacks of concrete examples of Pakistan and Bangladesh. When the Russians invaded Afghanistan, the USA found an opportunity to sort out Russia and in Pakistan the USA found a stepping-stone to get to Afghanistan. A regime change was initiated to throw out Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto and bring in General Zia ul Haq. With Pakistani help everything was done to get rid of the Russians including financing, training and arming the Taliban; Osama bin Laden was a part of that effort. When General Zia ul Haq got too patriotic, nationalistic and religious for US tastes, he was replaced with another regime change purportedly democratic but equally authoritarian in mind-set. When the Afghan Taliban turned "rogue" and took on the USA in direct attacks, another regime change was initiated with General Pervez Musharraf in chair which permitted conquest and occupation of Afghanistan by US and EU military forces. The
Indians were happy with this latest regime change because it kept a nuclear armed Pakistan engaged with the never-ending business of fighting "global terrorism" and because it weakened Pakistan by aggravating internal divisiveness. When internal divisiveness led to such instabilities that Pakistan was on the verge of disintegrating as a State, a "democratic regime" change was again initiated - it remains to be seen where this leads to but probably it will lead to complete control of Pakistani nuclear weapons by the US, making India very happy indeed for removing a deadly threat to itself. This was an example of initiating and supporting dictatorial regime changes in "Weak States so geographically located as to serve the purpose of stepping-stone to states which pose a direct physical threat to Strong States".
The case of Bangladesh is slightly different although results are the same. Bangladesh is an example of "Weak States with natural resources which Strong Sates need and covet". Resources which Bangladesh has consists of some natural gas, some coal, cheap manpower, sea ports and a location which could help in linking up two distant but trouble torn regions of India. So Bangladesh is directly important to India which wants transit through Bangladesh to its south-eastern provinces, port facilities for its south-eastern provinces and gas to fuel its industrial development in West Bengal and Assam. Indirectly, Bangladesh is important to USA and European states who see in Bangladesh a "sweat-shop" producing and exporting cheap goods and services which are too costly to produce in developed industrial economies. Additionally, Bangladesh is seen as a potential purchaser of technology based goods and services which advanced economies produce such as cars,
aircrafts, computers, telecommunication equipments, weapons and of course surveys and exploitation of gas and coal. So India, USA and EU states have some stake or other in politics and governments of Bangladesh.
Like in Pakistan "regime changes" have been brought about in Bangladesh, some of them involving great violence and bloodshed, the net results of which were military intervention in politics and the hoisting of dictatorships on the people of the Country. However, to elucidate my major contention, I am going to explore this latest regime change in the form of Emergency.
Before the Emergency, that is, around November 2007, US and British diplomats were so visibly busy talking to our politicians, our civil society, our academicia and our media that it was difficult to imagine who had more at stake in the upcoming elections - these foreign diplomats, or our people, politicians and our Caretaker Government. By December 2007, these foreign diplomats were openly rooting for a suspension of the elections. In fact to make matters smooth for some sort of military involvement, a FAX purportedly from the UNDP was procured through devious channels with even more devious authenticity stating that all UN peace-keeping missions for Bangladesh Armed Forces would be stopped if elections were not suspended forthwith. This FAX was used to convince Army Generals to agree to some sort of military intervention in politics and the same FAX was again used to "persuade" the President to sign on the declaration of Emergency.
After the Emergency was declared the Chief of Staff of the Army went to the media with a long list of dos and donts which included reforms in politics, anti-corruption, changes in leadership, good governance etc raising hopes in the people that now perhaps things were going to change for the better.
Also foreign diplomats took it upon themselves to propagate the virtues of the Emergency Government until such time that things started going sour. The US Ambassador Butenis was posted out to a 3rd grade post in Iraq and the British High Commissioner Anwar Chowdhry was posted out to be hidden away within the labyrinthine folds of British bureaucracy. The new US Ambassador, a few weeks after landing in Dhaka and while talking to a gathering of Bangladeshi- Americans declared that he was "the new sheriff in town", indicating a change in policy. US, UK, the EU, India and even Pakistan were now all for withdrawal of the Emergency and holding of "free, fair and credible elections" in Bangladesh.
India meantime, went a step further and invited the Chief of Staff of the Bangladesh Army to visit India which he did to a rousing state reception, normally reserved for visiting Heads of States. Before the visit, Indian media was awash with expectations of better India-Bangladesh relations; transit facilities through Bangladesh, port facilities, export of gas were all mooted in the Indian media. As to what was actually discussed and whether these issues came up for discussion at all, still remains a mystery. The Chief of Staff returned from the visit with a present of 4 horses which need a million takas monthly to house and to feed. There is an ancient Indian adage which goes: "if you want to destroy your enemy, present him with a sacred white elephant which needs so much money to maintain that your enemy will go bankrupt". Were the Indians sending us a subtle message through the present of these 4 pedigree horses to the effect that they would hoist on
us a government which would destroy us, if we don't fall in line with them?
By now people of Bangladesh are well aware of how the Emergency has led us to the dumps and how grievously we are all suffering for it. With nothing having changed for the better, the Emergency is on its way out and the new agenda is "election". Therefore lessons # 1, 2, 3, 4… ad infinitum is to make efforts to be masters of our own fates and to not rely on foreigners to sort out our own problems. We can only do this if we have not just elections, but democracy, the more of it the better, however much pain and suffering we may have to bear for it and however flawed that democracy is. Democracy is the only way in which we can empower our people to master their own fates.
I have run out of column space and have to end here but next Monday I am going to explore, for the benefit of our readers, how our own politics are destroying our hopes for democracy.