100 Days of Vicious VengeanceAuthor: M.T. Hussain
Propaganda for 100 days
It is nothing unusual that on the 100th day of their rule of Bangladesh, the Awami League's third term in their show up in the State power and second term of Sheikh Hasina that started in early January 2009 and finished 100 days has as usual with their propaganda from inside and from across the border, particularly in Kolkata, went unparallel. Crushing Poverty
In Bangladesh, one of the poorest country in the world and with millions starving each day in and out for no work, no money to buy basic essentials including food cereal rice and wheat, in particular, from the open market, the question of food security is in rhetoric rather than in reality. Cereal price down
Even so, the poorest of the poor should be happier that the prices of basic cereals have gone down for whatever reason that could not be clearly perceived at that level. Say, for example, the worldwide recession if improved, the prices of essentials would again go up signaling that it was a temporary phenomenon and nothing durable or sustainable over a long period ahead. The continuation of the VGF (Vulnerable Group Feeding), restart of the OMS (Open Market Sale), organizing food rationing for the poor, reactivating the TCB (Trading Corporation of Bangladesh) or market intervention, etc. left with no doubt that widespread poverty in the country remains a continuing evil ahead, for how long it's anybody's guess. Production incentive lost
The other worrying issue is that should the price level of food cereals remain low for years, productivity of all such items is certain to fall for loss of incentive for the producers or the farmers in this case. In such case import bill of food cereals would not only adversely affect the macro economy but also increased dependence on outside source for supply against Bangladesh's demand. That the government reduced the OMS price of rice fixed earlier from Taka 18/ per Kg to Taka 16/, never to be able to reduce to Taka 10/ that would further shatter the macro-economy as had been ineptly promised in their election manifesto in December 2008.
Obama's Change and DIN BADAL
During the December election campaign particularly of the Awami League that brought them the big 'win', if one would give damn to the fraud in the whole matter, was that Sheikh Hasina possibly had stolen the term 'Change' that Barak Obama coined and continued to use in his Presidential campaign in 2008, when by accident of history or by design Hasina stayed in that country for about six months for 'treatment of ears and eyes' but translated in Bengali Obama's term for "DIN BADAL". Unenlightened feudal mindset
To me, the first and foremost change needed in Bangladesh politics is the mindset of the politicians, albeit, others, as well playing important roles in reshaping mindset of the new progeny. One may call it also as change of political culture of the country that we had in the past to something else. To what in more specific term?
Democracy misunderstood
If we take the case of democracy and pluralism, first of all that means equality, respect for and dignity of each and every individual, no matter high or low in social status. I wonder at times that the remnant of feudal mindset of many of our top leaders hardly fits into plural democratic demand as are in practice in the West. Although I don't expect anything change overnight, there should have been a beginning somewhere that at least I expected when I heard the word DIN BADAL or Change that Obama had coined. That the DIN BADAL now has boiled down in Bangladesh for the last one hundred days having no sign of its end except in reprisal and vengeance. Vengeance rooted back
It is appreciable that vengeance of the particular genre had its root in early 1980s when Hasina took to politics by the magnanimous approach to her of General Zia and the President of Bangladesh who had his sole burden to bring back Sheikh Hasina to Bangladesh from self-exile in India then stayed about six years. Within 17 days of her arrival in Dhaka, Zia was brutally killed by some elements supported by the Indian Federal Intelligence Agency, R&AW (Research and Analysis Wing, certainly a misnomer if not anything else). She proved her involvement, at least indirectly, in the killing of Zia when on the day 30th May of Zia's killing, she tried to flee Bangladesh through Akhaura border once again to India. She was, however, apprehended by the law enforcing agency of Bangladesh, Politics for avenging father's blood
In an interview at the London BBC Bengali Service immediately afterwards, she stated in verbatim that she hated politics to take on to except for inflicting vengeance of her father's killing (See, BBC's Serajur Rahman's item, 24 March 2009, Dhaka Bengali daily Noya Diganata). Kill ten for one
That she was only after blood in beastly vengeance well documented in various sources when in power for the first term in an official visit to Chittagong she openly asked her cadres to 'Kill ten for one' of their killed by their imagined opponents. Taka 50,000 advance for killing Khaleda
During her 2001 election campaign tour in northern districts, as Matiur Rahman Rentu had recorded in his autobiographical sketch AMAR FANSI CHAI, she offered the boatmen of the Ferry of the Dharla river in cash Taka 50,000 in advance for drowning to death Begum Khaleda Zia into the river while she would be visiting that area and would cross over the river in that ferry. She further promised to pay another Taka 50,000 when the drowning job would be finished. Orchestrated game for her father's 'killers'
The whole game she orchestrated for the trial of the so-called 'killers' of her father during her first term through manipulation of the State power and also giving perks on the one hand and intimidating the judges in the framed up trial during five years, June 1996 to July 2001, on the other, producing only gross miscarriage of justice in the so-called 'murder case' that by all legal norms had been a victorious coup d' etat being itself indemnified has remained in history the most notorious example of her vicious vengeance. Humbug about war crimes trial
The war crimes trial that her father made lot of humbug about and then abandoned for practical difficulties and moral questions involved is taken now in 2009 after 38 years when it is almost impossible to meaningfully pursue even any single case in the matter as no evidence is available for natural reason of time lag. Besides, Bangladesh, much less the government of independent Bangladesh, did not exist in the soil except the Government of East Pakistan; many like me would serve and draw regular salaries as employees of the East Pakistan Government until November 1971. Neither did any government in the world recognize the entity of independent of Bangladesh but only India lately though on the 6th December and that also for legal complicacies for her waging war on the 3rd December. How come then the war of Bangladesh in 1971 and so the imaginary war crime in Bangladesh during March to December 1971? Well, there had been civil strife and so had human rights violations in East Pakistan and that also perpetrated by some rogue elements of both sides, not of one group. That Bangladesh did not exist in reality, instrument framed after that period as the so-called Collaborators Act of 1972 and so also the 1973 War Crimes Tribunal had been that provided for giving retrospective effect is certain to be invalid or of no legal effect as no law can be given retrospective effect in legal jurisprudence. 25-26 February BDR massacre
It is argued at many levels inside the country and outside the border that it was only Hasina's misperceived vengeance that took lives of over six dozens of valuable senior army officers in the 25-26 February BDR campus mayhem. That herself and some other among her close associates have already been proved by the fact that she is not serious about bringing out neutral report on the massacre of unprecedented nature in history, and just buying time to make the likely report of their own liking that she did in the framed up case of the coup heroes of the 15th August 1975. Khaleda's Moinul Road Residence
Hasina's vengeance stooped to the lowest of minimum sense of dignity and lack of humane feeling to Khaleda's residence she bought in lease for 99 years nearly three decades ago, and the lease to expire in another seven decades hence in late 2060 A.D. That was offered to Khaleda then by humane consideration as a helpless widow following her husband's brutal killings in May 1981, and she had nowhere to go for a living being the widow with two young children to look after of the late army chief and the civilian President Ziaur Rahman. Hasina in her all pliant members cabinet and in Srajur Rahman's term 'HUKKA HUA' took the unlawful decision to cancel the lease document of the old Bungalow of about 40 years old wherein she lived for about 30 years with all the memories of her celebrated husband and the former President of Bangladesh. 100 days of vicious vengeance
Thus I would have my fully considered opinion that Hasina's 100 days in power of the rule should be notoriously marked by the vicious vengeance and vengeance alone of the worst kind that included killings of the comrades of the same genre among the students not beyond knowledge of Hasina but that is what she entered into politics for vengeance of the only goal in view.
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