[ALOCHONA] The Evil Axis stage-managed a landslide victory for BAL

The Evil Axis stage-managed a landslide victory for BAL By Zoglul Husain, UK London 3 January 2009. The Awami League, which won a landslide victory in the national election held on 29 December 2008, with 230 seats and 48.06% of the votes cast, was as stunned with joy as the BNP was numbed by shock with a paltry 29 seats and 32.45% of the votes cast, on a reportedly record turnout of 87.29% and accepted votes of 86.29%, the figure many read with disbelief. As the dust settles, it is time to take stock of where we the public now are, try and discern the future that is about to unfold and be pro-active, rather than sit idly, by twiddling our thumbs and singing, 'What will be, will be'. The landslide victory: The over-elated Awami League supporters have been saying that the people have spoken quite loud and clear, and that their opponents must listen. The fact is, back in 2001, it was the BNP who won a landslide victory against the BAL and, so, the people can swing from one direction to another and can swing back again. The other thing that needs to be mentioned about the landslide victory is that we have seen many landslide victories such as in 1954, 1970, 1973, 2001, and now in 2008, but in spite of all these victories, 45% of our people are still under the poverty line. So, nationally we must loudly and clearly address the question of poverty, rather than silently accept our 'fate' and meekly let the elected ones use popular support for misrule and corruption. How was the landslide victory achieved? It is the US, the UK, Europe, Canada, Australia, the UN, Israel, India, the military-controlled interim government of Bangladesh, the administration and their supporters together, who were the architects of this landslide victory. The BNP was basically forcibly uprooted from power, then it was thrown hard on the floor of the political arena, where it landed with bruises and broken limbs. Despite corruption and misrule, the BNP was thought to win the election scheduled on 22 January 2007. Corruption and misrule are also the characteristics of BAL as well, and much more so, as we have seen in their governments of 1972-75 and 1996-2001, but, that being at least seven years ago, is not known to the new voters, age 18-25. The evil US-Israel-India Axis launched a 'logi-boitha' attack through the BAL on 28 October 2006 as the BNP government handed over power to a caretaker government for the ensuing election. In the attack about 36 people died, which was followed by the frightening prospect of a civil war, about to be initiated by the BAL with their violent demos and blockades of roads and ports, and which, as planned on a blueprint drawn before 2005 by the evil Axis, provided them the excuse for a military takeover on one-eleven 2007, with emergency rules stifling democracy and cancelling the election of 22 January 2007. Then thousands of BNP leaders and workers were rounded up and sent to prison with thousands of others driven away from their constituencies. This was done along with non-stop propaganda against the BNP nationally and internationally. The Axis has overwhelming influences on the media, Human Rights organisations, etc. as they bankroll most of them quite lavishly. The axis then organised, probably with threat and or temptations, about 80 former MPs of BNP to demand reforms and to break up the party, with the reformists working with the interim government. With the emergency rules stifling democracy and with the state of the BNP, bulldozed and demolished as they were, the situation continued for two years until 16 December 2008, when the emergency rules were lifted, but with soldiers deployed for the election on 29 December 2008. Obviously, the time of 13-days was less than long enough for the BNP to recuperate and reorganise for the election, although Khaleda held about 200 meetings in two weeks with huge gatherings and massive support. Also, about the actual holding of the election, the BNP has, in press briefings, complained about irregularities and riggings in every constituency. This was essentially how the evil Axis dished out the landslide victory to the BAL. What happened to the 'minus two' theory? As the military-controlled interim government took over on one-eleven 2007, they first tried a 'minus two' theory, i.e. exiling both Khaleda and Hasina and forming a king's party. Initially to balance the imprisonment of huge numbers of BNP leaders and workers, they sent many BAL leaders and workers to prison. They backed Professor Yunus and later Ferdous Quoreshi to form a party, which would be subservient to the evil Axis. They even tried small parties to form a king's front. But these attempts failed miserably. On the other hand, Khaleda refused to leave the country, in spite of the government sending her two sons to prison with reported severe torture and in spite of both Khaleda and Hasina being sent to prison. And so the 'minus two' theory fell apart, failing also miserably. Then the evil Axis was compelled to strike a deal with Hasina, as the second choice, and Hasina readily pledged allegiance and subservience. Thus it was Khaleda who foiled the 'minus two' formula, but it was Hasina who reaped the benefit. What kind of government are we going to get? Over the last two years, the illegal military-controlled interim government was never impartial, the administration they set up was never impartial, the Election Commission they set up was never impartial, the condition, which the BNP was reduced to, was not impartial, and so, de facto, the election cannot be called free, fair, credible or acceptable. For two years, the whole country, under emergency rules, was turned into a big prison, where the evil Axis and its collaborators ruled. Actually, the evil Axis hijacked the election of 22 January 2007, by conspiracy and by force, and delivered the election of 29 December 2008, after a ruthless and sordid political engineering spanning over two years. The target was the destruction of the nationalist force within the BNP and, though the evil Axis has managed to defeat it for the time being, it would not be for long. Nationalist forces are like a Phoenix, which regenerates itself whenever hurt by a foe. The people of Bangladesh will never surrender to the domination and plunder of the evil Axis. A network of political resistance throughout the country is expected to develop soon. The US and their allies installed the governments of al-Maliki, Karzai, Musharraf, Zardari, etc. They have now installed the government of Hasina, which is likely to be a puppet government of India, supported by the US, their allies and their rubber stamp, the UN, as India is a strategic ally of the US. Hasina, as reported in the Ananda Bazar Potrika on 31 December 2008, already made a phone call to the Foreign Minister of India Pronab Mukherjee requesting him to be present at the oath taking ceremony of her next government. She said, "Dada, you will have to come to participate in the oath taking ceremony (of my government) with Boudi." Whether her political Dada (older brother) and Boudi (older brother's wife) attend the ceremony or not, Hasina has unmistakably given her elated signal of allegiance to the Indian Foreign Minister. So, where are we and what do we do? With the election as it was concluded, the political control of Bangladesh has gone to the evil Axis and they will expect the government to be a puppet on a string. But the people of Bangladesh will be extra vigilant to see if any of their national interests are jeopardized or compromised or sold out. For example, in order to highlight an agenda of the evil Axis, Hasina has already talked about a South Asian Task Force to control terrorism. This would be a ploy for a military intervention. In 2003, Bhutan launched a joint military operation with India to flush out ULFA, but since then Indian army has been stationed there permanently, with Bhutan reduced to an Indian dependency. I think it would be quite appropriate here to warn the government of Hasina, and its supporter the evil Axis, that if there is any attempt against the independence and sovereignty of Bangladesh, then the valiant people of Bangladesh will stand up in resistance in whatever capacity and in whatever way they can. The unjust Indian interests in Bangladesh are well known, but the evil Axis must also know the just national interests of Bangladesh. The evil Axis has already been defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan they will be defeated in Bangladesh too! The people of the world will certainly defeat the imperialists and the hegemonists! Zoglul Husain E-mail: zoglul@hotmail.co.uk http://newsfrombangladesh.net/view.php?hidRecord=239355

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[ALOCHONA] Awami Leage made no promise about 10-taka kg rice and free fertiliser !

Awami Leage made no promise about 10-taka kg rice and free fertiliser !   http://www.daily-dinkal.com/details.php?nid=26784&pubdate=2009-01-03

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[ALOCHONA] HIMAL - A H Nayyar & Zia Mian on Pakistan's challenge

Violence without limits and Pakistan's challenge
By: A H Nayyar & Zia Mian
HIMAL SOUTH ASIAN
January 2009
http://www.himalmag.com/Violence-without-limits-and-Pakistan-s-challenge_nw2758.html

The murderous assault on Bombay by Islamist militants, at least some of whom were from Pakistan, has exposed once again the grave danger that radical Islamist movements pose to Pakistan, its neighbours and the world. The urgent challenge now is for Pakistan and its neighbours, together with the international community, to work together to confront the risk of Pakistan spiralling into chaos and collapse.

Ten years ago, the political thinker and activist Eqbal Ahmad wrote that "conditions for revolutionary violence have been gathering in Pakistan since the start in 1980 of the internationally sponsored Jihad in Afghanistan." He argued that "revolutionary violence in Pakistan is likely to be employed by religious and right‑wing organizations which have not set theoretical or practical limits on their use of violence." He then warned that Pakistan "is moving perilously toward a critical zone from where it will take the state and society generations to return to a semblance of normal existence. When such a critical point of hard-return is reached, the viability of statehood depends more on external than internal factors."

Pakistan's leaders have failed for a decade to heed this warning. Sadly, the recognition of the need to act against the Islamist violence that now imperils Pakistan has come not from the terrible war that jihadi groups have unleashed on state and society, wreaking havoc from remote border areas to the heart of the capital city, targeting both the powerful and the powerless. It has come due to external pressure. The Americans demanded action against the Islamists following the attacks of 11 September 2001. The attack on India's Parliament in December 2001, and the military crisis that followed, generated new demands for action. The 2005 attacks on London's underground system and buses triggered further pressure. The list is long. The assault by Islamist militants on the people of Bombay in December 2008 is only the most recent, and is unlikely to be the last. All point in the same direction: Pakistan's failure is a threat to its neighbours and to the world.

The threat facing Pakistan is broad and deep. There is on the one hand the armed Islamist groups such as Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), its parent organisation Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JD), and similar Pakistani groups, many originating in the Punjab, but with a presence in towns and cities across the country. They are radical Islamist nationalists with a goal of turning Pakistan into a fundamentalist Islamic state. They are opposed to the democratic process. Created by the Pakistani state as a proxy army to wage war with India over Kashmir, these groups oppose any peace process with India and seek to heighten the conflict. They see the United States and its allies as a threat to their ambitions.

Then there are the Taliban militants in the tribal areas on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. These are essentially local religious warlords who have established theocratic rule in their respective areas of influence, with unheard of brutalities and barbarism. While each Pakistani Taliban group has its own base in the respective tribal agency, they have organised themselves into the Tehrik-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (the Taliban Movement of Pakistan). They are inspired by the Afghan Taliban, who were created by Pakistan in the 1990s as a proxy army to achieve Pakistani military and political ambitions in Afghanistan. These groups have given sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces that fled Afghanistan after the US invasion. They now fight alongside them against the US and its allies in Afghanistan.

These two movements, which Pakistan now needs to confront, are not necessarily separate. They represent two heads of the same monster. Many fighters in both groups were spawned in the madrassas, and have been nurtured and sheltered by Pakistan's mainstream Islamist political parties and missionary orders. The first generation of these groups – from the key leaders and activists to the model for their organisation, strategy and tactics, their politics and vision of success – were nurtured by the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in the war against the Soviet Union. In recent years, the Punjabi groups have taken shelter with and provided training to their Taliban brothers in the tribal areas as well as access to their networks in the towns and cities of Pakistan. Both groups are part of an even larger network that includes the Islamist sectarian militias in the country, hard-line activists in Pakistan's mainstream Islamist political parties and organisations, and sympathisers in government institutions and across social classes.

Crunch time
Pakistan's leadership has talked about the danger of the jihadi groups for a long time. As prime minister in 1999, Nawaz Sharif escaped an assassination attempt; Pervez Musharraf survived at least three attacks; Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz survived at least one; Benazir Bhutto was not that fortunate; and, thousands of ordinary people have been killed, their names never reported. Regardless, the jihadi groups have endured and their leaders have flourished.

The government of Asif Ali Zardari claims that the war against the jihadis is now Pakistan's war (and, for Zardari, a personal war), and that it will be waged with all the capacities of the state. But even today, not all in Pakistan seem convinced that confronting the jihadist movement is an urgent need for Pakistan's survival as a democratic country. For some hardline nationalists, and even some on the left who are concerned more about defying the imperialist agenda, the external pressure to defeat the Islamists should be resisted. Among the more pragmatic, the view is that Pakistan should accommodate the world, but without directly confronting the jihadist groups. There are also the cynical strategists. Only very recently, on a popular TV programme, a former chief of Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI advocated that Pakistan secretly support and protect the Pakistani Taliban to confront NATO forces and counter the increasing Indian presence in Afghanistan. He suggested that Pakistan deny such support in public.

A brutal confidence underlies the continuing commitment to Pakistan's strategy of waging a war by proxy, the attendant defiant face to the world and the denial of the terrible violence within. It is founded upon two pillars. The first is the belief in the Pakistan Army's ability to crush any insurgency if it really decides to do so. This is, after all, an army that has ruled the country for half its life, and has warred against its own people more than once and without mercy. This conviction was expressed most clearly in General Musharraf's statement in 2005 to the insurgents in Balochistan that he would "sort them out," and that "They won't know what hit them." This iron fist was evident in the ferocious army action in Bajaur, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, earlier this year, where the army used artillery and helicopter gunships to turn the town of Loe Sam into what was described as a "heap of grey rubble." The intense violence in Bajaur forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.

The second source of confidence is Pakistan's nuclear weapons. Many in Pakistan's army and political leadership believe that these weapons protect Pakistan from the outside world. Indian restraint during the 1999 Kargil War, in which Pakistan sent militants and troops into Jammu & Kashmir and during the 2001-2002 stand-off after the militant attack on India's Parliament, is held up as evidence of the power of Pakistan's nuclear shield. This was evident again after the Bombay attacks. Many in Pakistan expected and braced themselves for some kind of punitive strike from India on 'terrorist' targets, and a possible reaction from Pakistan. Policy analysts were speculating that a military strike on militant training camps would engender an immediate military response from Pakistan, which could lead to heightened tensions and perhaps war. But they were comforting themselves with the belief that Pakistan's nuclear weapons would deter India from an all-out war.

India's moves to mobilise international demands to force Pakistan to act, rather than launching an attack itself, offers little solace for the Pakistani establishment. The United Nations has placed sanctions against the top leadership of LeT. Pakistan will be obliged to seal Lashkar offices, arrest its leadership and freeze their assets. The UN has also required these actions against the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Pakistan has acted against JD by storming one of its camps, arresting a few leaders, and locking up its offices. But the fact is that LeT, as an organisation, has been banned in Pakistan for some years. The leaders of LeT/JD, including the chief, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, were arrested at the time of the ban, but were later released without charge. The recent arrest of Hafiz Saeed suggests that this pattern will continue. The New York Times described a local Pakistani police commander announcing that Hafiz Saeed was under house arrest, confined to his home and banned from going outside. Journalists report: "Mr. Saeed emerged moments later from the mosque across the street." The police commander then claimed, "I'm just following instructions."

Pakistan may be facing the most crucial moment of its existence. But its policymakers even now seem unwilling to fully recognise the dangers and are reluctant to confront them. The struggle becomes more difficult with each delay, every prevarication, and every subterfuge.

To truly confront the threat, the first challenge is for Pakistanis to agree that they want to live in a modern, democratic and plural society. To achieve this goal, the jihadi movement will have to be faced and overcome. The resort to indiscriminate and overwhelming force will not serve, it will make things worse. It will require what Eqbal Ahmad described as "a carefully planned and methodically executed programme of reform aimed at removing the root causes of the proliferation of violence in society, and improvement in the investigative, preventive, and prosecution capabilities of security and intelligence agencies, and the administration of justice." Put simply, to effectively meet the Islamist challenge, the Pakistani state must finally accept and fully exercise its responsibility to maintain peace, provide justice, foster democracy and participation, and make available in an equitable manner the resources necessary for economic and social development. Pakistan's neighbours and the world will need to help.

A H Nayyar is a senior research fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad.
Zia Mian directs the Project on Peace and Security in South Asia at Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security.

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[ALOCHONA] Maldives' rubbish island & Bangla Migrants who work there

For pictures see
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/jan/03/maldives-waste-turns-paradise-into-dump?picture=340139151

Paradise lost on Maldives' rubbish island
Randeep Ramesh,
South Asia correspondent
The Guardian,
Saturday 3 January 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/03/maldives-thilafushi-rubbish-landfill-pollution

It may be known as a tropical paradise, an archipelago of 1,200 coral islands in the Indian Ocean. But the traditional image of the Maldives hides a dirty secret: the world's biggest rubbish island.

A few miles and a short boat ride from the Maldivian capital, Malé, Thilafushi began life as a reclamation project in 1992. The artificial island was built to solve Malé's refuse problem. But today, with more than 10,000 tourists a week in the Maldives adding their waste, the rubbish island now covers 50 hectares (124 acres).

So much is being deposited that the island is growing at a square metre a day. There are more than three dozen factories, a mosque and homes for 150 Bangladeshi migrants who sift through the mounds of refuse beneath palm-fringed streets.

Environmentalists say that more than 330 tonnes of rubbish is brought to Thilafushi a day. Most of it comes from Malé, which is one of the world's most densely populated towns: 100,000 people cram into 2 square kilometres.

Brought on ships, the rubbish is taken onshore and sifted by hand. Some of the waste is incinerated but most is buried in landfill sites. There is, say environmental campaigners, also an alarming rise in batteries and electronic waste being dumped in Thilafushi's lagoon.

"We are seeing used batteries, asbestos, lead and other potentially hazardous waste mixed with the municipal solid wastes being put into the water. Although it is a small fraction of the total, these wastes are a source of toxic heavy metals and it is an increasingly serious ecological and health problem in the Maldives," said Ali Rilwan, an environmentalist in Malé.

Despite the growing crisis, Thilafushi remains largely hidden from view. Nobody goes there apart from workers.

Meanwhile, tourism has made the Maldives the richest country in South Asia in terms of GDP a head - which is around $4,500 (£3,100) - though that wealth is thinly spread.

However, almost everything has to be imported. Most tourists can only be catered for by bringing in thousands of tonnes of meat, vegetables and diesel oil every year.

All this produces what many say is an unsustainable amount of waste. Every tourist produces 3.5kg of rubbish and requires 500 litres of water a day.

The lack of space means the Maldives is now "exporting junk" to India. "Before, the ships that brought our vegetables from south India used to return empty, but now we are sending them crushed cans, metals, cardboard. They then sort them out and get cash for them," said Rilwan.

Environment issues are a major political issue in the Maldives, not least because its 300,000 people face being the first to be submerged under rising sea levels caused by global warming.

Earlier this month the new president, Mohamed Nasheed, told the Guardian of his radical solution to save his people: put aside some of the Maldives' tourism revenues to buy another homeland.

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