--- On Sun, 3/1/09, Zoglul Husain <zoglul@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
Intelligence personnel are intelligent people, especially if they are in higher civil service. So whenever they concoct intelligence stories, they use data and cook up or contrive inter-relations between them so that the readers can be deluded. Bush finally blamed the Iraq mess on 'bad intelligence', but can he get away? Please see the following findings: "The Senate Intelligence Committee "Report" that white-washes the "Bad Intelligence" story for the White House is quickly becoming the only accepted version of reality. The media rush to rubberstamp this story - "Report: War Rationale Based on CIA Error" - while ignoring the Office of Special Plans and its role producing "bad intelligence." What error did the CIA make? The AP tells us, "In the unanimously approved report, senators concluded that the CIA kept key information from its own and other agencies' analysts; engaged in "group think" by failing to challenge the assumption that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; and allowed President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell to make false statements." From this, it seems the CIA schemed to trick the Bush and his administration into misleading Americans and the world in order to scare us into attacking Iraq. Is this true? Of course not. Bush, Cheney and other top Bush officials planned to attack Iraq early in 2001, long before the 9/11 attacks. Before we debunk this facile cover story, let's consider the other key Senate Intelligence verdict, from the same AP story: Following release of the 511-page review Friday, the panel's top Democrat, West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, said three-quarters of senators would not have voted to authorize the invasion if they had known how weak the intelligence was."' All the dirty work that RAW perpetrates in Bangladesh are camouflaged with stories, manufactured in their own shoddy research chambers. They usually go on overdrive on these. But do we believe in them? Have they solved a single 'mistrey' of terrorist attacks in their own land, except partially in the Malegaon terror attack, which was perpetrated by the Hindu fundamentalists of their own land?? As to BDR mutiny in Bangladesh, 'we know who done it' and the people will give a fitting reply in due time.
To: mokarram76@yahoo.com From: mokarram76@yahoo.com Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:49:05 -0800 Subject: [bd_journalists] BDR Mutiny: Indian guns to Pro-Nationalist and Islamist Blocks pls see indian version of BDR mutiny
by two RAW ex-operatives
mokarram
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http://www.dailypio neer.com/ 159223/Is- it-just-a- BDR-mutiny. html
Is it just a BDR mutiny?
Kanchan Gupta | New Delhi
After the Awami League swept last year's end-December general election, decimating the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and reducing the Jamaat-e-Islami to two seats in the Jatiya Sansad, there were celebrations across the country. Not only had democracy returned with a bang after being kept in a limbo for nearly two years by the military-backed caretaker Government, the Islamists, who had been on the rampage during Begum Khaleda Zia's hugely corrupt rule, had been defanged.
As Bangladeshis danced in the streets, with women leading the celebrations, gloom descended on House No. 6, Shaheed Moinul Road, Dhaka Cantonment, the residence of Begum Zia. Meanwhile, the Jamaat-e-Islami headquarters wore a deserted look, its leaders stunned by Islamists losing their deposits in constituencies which were supposed to be Jamaati strongholds. With nearly 86 per cent turnout in an election certified by international observers and the media as absolutely free and fair, neither the BNP nor the Jamaat could claim the poll had been rigged.
The loss of power and being pushed to the margins of Bangladeshi politics meant different things to the BNP and the Jamaat. For Begum Khaleda Zia, a resurgent Awami League with Sheikh Hasina Wajed as Prime Minister meant the Government would continue to investigate the 'business dealings' of her sons, Tarique and Koko, and prosecute them for corruption. For the Jamaat-e-Islami, it meant the Government reopening the trial of the 1971 war criminals, among them Jamaat's chief, Matiur Rahman Nizami, secretary-general Ali Ahsan Mujahid and assistant secretaries- general Abdul Kader Molla and Qamaruzzaman. Along with other razakars, they led armed groups which joined forces with the Pakistani Army to suppress the liberation struggle of 1971, killing civilians and raping women.
The caretaker Government had virtually cleansed the administration of pro-BNP elements; the few that remained were removed by Sheikh Hasina within days of her assuming charge. Begum Zia's hopes of warding off a robust inquiry and vigorous prosecution of her sons now rested on 'friends' in the Bangladeshi Army -- junior and middle-level officers whom she had actively promoted while in power, using her cantonment 'connections'. As for the Jamaat-e-Islami, its worst fears began coming true with the new Government placing the trial of the 1971 war criminals at the top of its agenda and the Jatiya Sansad adopting a resolution for immediate action on this front. By early-February, the police began arresting those accused of helping the Pakistani Army; in Rajshahi, the daughters and son of a razakar publicly denounced their father, indicating the popular mood in Bangladesh.
On February 14, the Government formally began the process of bringing the razakars to justice by ordering an official investigation into the role of Matiur Rahman Nizami and nine others for "carrying (out a) massacre during the war of independence in 1971". A worried Jamaat now began to panic. Any hopes the Jamaatis may have had of Islamabad bailing them out by pleading with the Awami League Government were dashed after Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari's special envoy, Mirza Zia Ispahani, who rushed to Dhaka last week with the message that this was "not the right time for the trial", had to beat a hasty retreat in the face of outrage and condemnation by both MPs and civil society.
On Tuesday, Sheikh Hasina visited the headquarters of Bangladesh Rifles, popularly referred to as BDR, in Dhaka for a meeting with the top brass of the paramilitary force which is the counterpart of India's Border Security Force. During the meeting, she made three points: First, her Government would not tolerate either extremism or terrorism within the country and the BDR had to step up its vigil along the border (especially in the south and the north-west); second, she would not allow Bangladeshi soil to be used for launching terrorist attacks on any country (implying India); and, third, she expected the BDR to put a stop to smuggling activities, possibly referring to trafficking in women and children for which Dhaka is coming under increasing pressure of global watchdog bodies. Sheikh Hasina left nobody at the meeting in any doubt that her Government meant business and she expected the BDR to deliver. The message may have been for the BDR, but the senior officers present on the occasion were all from the Army who had been deputed to the paramilitary force. In a sense, she was also putting the Army on watch.
On Wednesday, 24 hours after the Prime Minister's visit, BDR personnel stormed their headquarters, took senior officers and students at a campus school hostage, and positioned themselves for a siege. Ostensibly, they were provoked by the officers not taking up their long-pending demand for higher wages and better service conditions with Sheikh Hasina. The mutineers ran amok, shooting at their officers and civilians. There are conflicting reports of subsequent events. Hospital sources have said 10 people, including three civilians, were killed in the firing. A junior Minister in the Government has pegged the death toll at 50. Sheikh Hasina's first response was to take a soft line: She promised the mutineers they would be granted a general amnesty and not punished for their deed, provided they laid down their arms and surrendered.
But till Thursday morning, the mutineers remained unmoved, prompting Sheikh Hasina to toughen her stand, demand that the men should immediately surrender, and threaten that she would be "bound to take any step in the interest of the country". Simultaneously, she ordered the Army to move into the BDR headquarters. By late Thursday evening, the mutineers had laid down arms and surrendered, and the police had taken control of the BDR headquarters.
It is not yet known how many of the BDR's 42,000 men in 64 camps across Bangladesh actually joined the mutiny and turned on their officers. But such details are really not relevant. What is of import is that the Government should have been caught unawares by the revolt, which brings us to two questions. First, why is it that a demand that has been around for years reached flashpoint in less than a fortnight of the Awami League regime formally launching the prosecution of razakars? It is a fact that BDR salaries and service conditions are appalling — average wages are pegged at Taka 5,000 a month; the men are given three months' free rations (those in the Army get free rations throughout the year); and, there are no promotion prospects as all senior posts are filled by Army officers on deputation. But this has been so for decades. Second, if the mutiny was at all planned, how come the intelligence agencies, especially the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (fashioned after Pakistan's ISI) failed to warn the Government? It would seem that the conspirators were aiming for something more than better wages and extra free rations; it would also appear that the real conspirators may not be from the BDR.
Here are the reasons why. As part of her programme to cleanse the Government, its agencies and the security forces of BNP partisans and pro-Jamaat elements, Sheikh Hasina sacked the DGFI chief, Maj Gen Golam Mohammed, who is believed to have helped convert his organisation into an extension counter of the ISI at the behest of the Jamaat and whose proximity to Begum Zia was no secret, and replaced him with Maj Gen Mollah Fazle Akbar. This could have unnerved pro-Jamaat elements still embedded in the DGFI and they may have either collaborated with the mutineers or killed crucial information. If true, this suggests that the Jamaat's infiltration of, and the ISI's hold over, the DGFI are far deeper and stronger than believed till now.
There's a second possibility: A faction within the Army, which either owes allegiance to Begum Khaleda Zia or subscribes to Islamism, if not both, conspired with elements in the BDR and the DGFI to plot and execute Wednesday's mutiny. Perhaps the conspirators had hoped that the killing of Army officers by the BDR mutineers would provoke a backlash by way of the military rising in revolt against the Awami League Government, in a replay of the terrible events of August 15, 1975. The BDR, in any event, is heavily embedded with Islamists who were appointed to the organisation during the five years when the BNP-Jamaat alliance was in power. The Jamaat-e-Islami skilfully exploited the grievances of the BDR men to sell them its ideology of hate, directing their anger and resentment against 'Hindu India'. It is this which has facilitated the easy cross-border passage of HuJI activists and bombers, cattle-smuggling, trafficking in women and drugs, and illegal migration. The 'fees' paid to BDR men compensated their poor wages; if Sheikh Hasina were to insist on putting an end to these crimes, there would be no more money to be made. It is entirely possible that the Jamaat played on this fear of BDR men to push them into rising in revolt.
Linking the various possibilities is the ISI factor: With Dhaka spinning out of Islamabad's orbit after the return of Sheikh Hasina, and the Bangladeshi Army chief, Gen Moeen U Ahmed, making his dislike for both the BNP and the Jamaat clear (he used the caretaker Government to crack down on sympathisers of both organisations in every arm of the state) while subtly pushing for a pro-India, pro-secular line, it is understandable that Rawalpindi would not take kindly to him. There have been reports of the Pakistani Army/ISI trying to instigate pro-BNP generals in the Bangladeshi Army to plot a coup, but nothing much came of that move with Gen Ahmed moving swiftly against potential plotters and relieving them of their posts. In sheer desperation, the ISI may have used 'friends' in the Bangladeshi Army and 'agents' in the BDR to organise Wednesday's mutiny.
After all, if Sheikh Hasina were to succeed in reviving the spirit of 1971, which has caught the popular imagination as never before, and steer her country away from debilitating Islamism, apart from crushing the Jamaat-e-Islami ruthlessly, Pakistan would lose its eastern flank, which it regained by proxy during Begum Khaleda Zia's rule, once again. That's not a very happy thought in either Rawalpindi or Islamabad.
http://www.southasi aanalysis. org/%5Cpapers31% 5Cpaper3072. html
Paper no. 3072
| 27-Feb-2009 | Bad Omens From Bangladesh By B. Raman "In an assessment on Bangladesh disseminated in January, 1997, this writer had observed as follows: " There are individual officers in the Bangladesh intelligence community and in its security forces, who feel positively towards Sheikh Hasina (Prime Minister) and her father, but one cannot say the same thing of these organisations as institutions. Institutionally, they may not share with her the same enthusiasm for closer relations with India and for assisting it in dealing with the insurgency (in the North-East). It would take her and her party considerable time to understand and assess the intricacies of their working and the labyrinthine relationships which they have built up with their Pakistani counterparts during the last 21 years. She, therefore, has to move with caution." "The savage manner in which 15 members of India's Border Security Force (BSF) were reportedly abducted, tortured, killed and their bodies mutilated beyond recognition last week shows that even after almost five years in power, Sheikh Hasina is apparently not in total command of her military and intelligence establishment, which like its counterpart in Pakistan, has been infected by the fundamentalist virus of Afghan vintage and is probably developing an agenda of its own vis-�-vis India." ---Extract from my article dated 23-4-2001 titled BANGLADESH: A BENGALI ABBASI LURKING SOMEWHERE? at http://www.southasi aanalysis. org/papers3/ paper232. html ------------ --------- --------- --------- -------- The current mutiny across Bangladesh by directly-recruited junior officers and other ranks of the Bangladesh Rifles (BD) bodes ill for the recently-elected (in December, 2008) Government headed by Sheikh Hasina. Their mutiny, which started in Dhaka on February 25, 2009, and has since spread to other parts of the country, including Chittagong, ostensibly over long-pending grievances regarding pay and allowances and food rations, is directed till now not against the political leadership but against the senior army officers---- serving and retired---on deputation to the BDR. 2. The targeted Army officers occupy senior positions in the command and control of the BDR and their pay and allowances and other perks are governed by those applicable to the army officers and not by those applicable to the directly-recruited officers of the BDR. Resentment over what is perceived by the direct recruits as the step-motherly treatment meted out to them by the deputationists and re-employed officers of the Army seem to have acted as the trigger for the mutiny. The spreading mutiny, during which a number of senior army officers serving on deputation in the BDR, are reported to have been either killed or held hostage, seems to have taken the Army and political leadership by surprise. It was the outcome of a secret conspiracy well-planned and well-executed by the junior officers and other ranks. The intelligence wing of the Bangladesh Police and the Army-dominated Directorate- General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) seem to have been taken by surprise. If the DGFI had advance information, it would have at least tried to alert the senior army officers so that they did not become targets and victims of the mutineers. The fact that it did not do so suggests that the DGFI was not aware. 3. The fact that the mutineers were able to plan and execute this conspiracy in total secrecy with even the grass-roots political cadres of different parties not getting scent of it, speaks of a well-organised anti-army network inside the BDR. The identities of the ring leaders of the conspiracy remain unclear. A question of major concern both to the BD political and military leadership as well as to India should be---- was the mutiny purely due to bread and butter issues or is there something more to it? 4. As in the case of the BD Army, in the case of the BDR too, many of the recruits at the lower levels come from the villages and quite a few of them are products of the mushrooming madrasas across the country funded by money from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Pakistan. The rural areas of Bangladesh and the madrasas there are the main recruiting and brainwashing grounds of the Harkat-ul-Jihad- al-Islami (HUJI-B) and other jihadi organisations. While the international community has paid considerable attention to monitoring the infiltration of the Pakistani Armed Forces by fundamentalist and jihadi elements since the days of the late Gen.Zia-ul-Haq, similar attention has not been paid to monitoring the presence of fundamentalist and jihadi elements in the BD Armed Forces and the BDR. 5. Senior officers' relationship with the junior ranks has always been the Achilles' heel of the BDR, which used to be known before the birth of BD in 1971 as the East Pakistan Rifles (EPR). The EPR consisted largely of Bengali direct recruits officered by Punjabi and Pashtun deputationists from the Pakistan Army. Resentment over the humiliating attitude of the Pakistani Army officers towards the Bengali junior ranks was an important factor, which had contributed to the desertion of large sections of the Bengali junior ranks from the EPR and their joining the freedom struggle under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. 6. After the birth of Bangladesh those members of the EPR, who had deserted and joined the freedom struggle, were reconstituted into the hard-core of the newly-created BDR. The force at the lower and middle levels has grown around this hard core. It now has a strength of around 70,000 and its role is mainly trans-border security in times of peace. In Bangladesh territory bordering India, which has been the hotbed of the activities of the HUJI and where many of its training camps are located, the BDR is responsible for security. Its role in this regard often brings it into contact with the HUJI and other jihadi elements. 7. The unfriendly attitude of sections of the lower ranks of the BDR to India became evident from the savage manner in which 15 members of India's Border Security Force (BSF) were abducted, tortured, killed and their bodies mutilated beyond recognition by elements from the BDR in April, 2001. Sheikh Hasina, who was in power at that time too, did not or could not take action against those responsible for this savagery despite her professed friendship for India. The BD Press had quoted the then BD Foreign Secretary, Syed Muazzem Ali, as telling journalists at Dacca on April 20, 2001, as follows: "The border force has standing responsibility of protecting the frontier from any external attacks. BDR are there to repulse any attack on the country�s frontier. There are some situations when decisions are taken instantly. It does not require to send file to Dhaka, get order and then start firing. It is the charter duty of BDR to protect our frontier from any attack on our border. If question of war comes, then the orders from top level may come." He thus tried to justify the action by the BDR. 8. The mutiny and the consequent confrontation between the junior elements of the BDR and the Army has placed Sheikh Hasina in a trickly situation. The Army seems determined to act against the BDR mutineers and crush their revolt by using tanks and other heavy weapons against them. It should be able to crush them in Dhaka and other big towns. Its ability to do so in the rural areas and particularly near the border with India remains to be seen. If the mutineers realise the lack of wisdom of their action and surrender without further resistance, the situation may be controlled. If they put up a resistance in the rural areas, many HUJI and other jihadi elements might join them in the hope of exploiting the situation to their benefit. 9. In the past, the BDR had remained loyal to Sheikh Hasina and other political leaders. They preferred to depend on the police and para-military forces for their personal security than on the Army, which they distrusted. Now she has no other option but to back the army in its confrontation with the mutineers and authorise it to take whatever action it considers necessary to quell the mutiny. The political fall-out of the confrontation could be unpredictable for her Government. The ultimate beneficiaries of any political instability resulting from it could be the jihadis. 10. The developing situation has to be closely watched by India and the rest of the international community. (The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@ gmail.com) |
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