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Tuesday, October 12, 2010

[ALOCHONA] Re: New BNP stance on war crimes trial unfair, unacceptable

Come now. Saying Farida is a paid by thugs is unfair. She is sincere and there are many like her. I urge you to save your name calling for the obviously insincere.

Sincerity is not enough of course to resolve the plight of our troubled nation. But there are many sincere people in Bangladeesh who simply do not see the big picture, who cannot identify what their own role should be, who cannot correctly apply themselves to the politics of the day. Well. Everything is in chaos, as deliberately created and enjoyed, by the political classes. In this chaos we should not be surprised to see the sincere - including ourselves - in some chaos too.

The facts are plain:

If Sheikh Hasina's father was not assasinated and if she was not Prime Minister - there would be no effort made at war crimes tribunals today.

Irrespective of the sincerest efforts of good people like Farida Majid. Which is why they won't hold the PM accountable for anything that is going on now.


--- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, maxx ombba <maqsudo@...> wrote:
>
>
> war-criminals should have been punished many years ago.
> so that we could have special tribunal, for the criminals of 1972 - 1975 period.
> who will punish the tugs, who have looted public funds in the past ?
> So easy...to create smoke screen, by postponing legal actions against war-criminals!!!!There are many farida majids in Bangladesh, being paid by these thugs.
> best wishes.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
> From: farida_majid@...
> Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 16:29:24 -0400
> Subject: RE: [ALOCHONA] Re: New BNP stance on war crimes trial unfair, unacceptable
>
>
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> Bangladesh. Where war crimes are unacceptable.
>
> And everything else is acceptable!
>
> By which, I presume, the writer means every crime is accaptable, even encouraged, in Bangladesh
>
> except War Crimes.
>
>
>
> Who talks like that? Who can be that insensitive to the justice-seekers of crimes and atrocities
>
> committed 39 years ago still unheeded? Only those pretending to care about 'law and order' and yet
>
> sneers and snarls at attempt to end the culture of impunity for the cruellest of the criminals walking free
>
> in Bangladesh.
>
>
>
> Let me try to explain to those who visibly shake in rage at the mention of "war crimes" of 1971.
>
> What we, and the international community, are attempting to call "war" crimes are these very heinous
>
> crimes --- killings, looting, vandalizing, arson, rape, etc.---- committed systemetically on a mass scale
>
> for the realization of a political/communal proposition. That proposition being that Muslim and Hindu peoples
>
> cannot live together anymore even though these peoples have lived side by side for centuries on this land.
>
>
>
> The realization of this irrational and idiotic proposition, first manufactured by the British colonial
>
> administrators for facilitating their purpose of 'divide and rule', was welcomed by neo-colonizers of
>
> Pakistan, and then, after 1971, by the neo-Pakistanis of Bangla origin.
>
>
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> Equally irrational and ironic is the idea that the war crimes trials would divide rhe nation. It can
>
> only do so if we assume that close to half the nation holds the same criminal record as the Jamaati
>
> honchos and the grizzled old Muslim League razakars.
>
>
>
> Farida Majid
>
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>
>
>
>
> To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
> From: Ezajur@...
> Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 12:27:41 +0000
> Subject: [ALOCHONA] Re: New BNP stance on war crimes trial unfair, unacceptable
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The blank cheque given to criminals who support AL is such that I'm now begining to think that BNP is right to hamper the government's progress.
>
> Bangladesh. Where war crimes are unacceptable.
>
> And everything else is acceptable!
>
> --- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, Isha Khan <bdmailer@> wrote:
> >
> > New BNP stance on war crimes trial unfair, unacceptable
> > THE opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party has visibly changed its position
> > as regards the trial of the Bengali collaborators of the Pakistan army that
> > committed war crimes against the people of Bangladesh in 1971. Until
> > Tuesday, the party's spokespersons maintained that the BNP does not have any
> > problem with the war crimes being investigated and the criminals tried,
> > while warning the government that it must not victimise leaders and
> > activists of the opposition camp, in the name of trying war crimes. Fair
> > enough. But on Tuesday, the BNP chairperson, Khaleda Zia, told a gathering
> > of a section of the freedom fighters, according to a report front-paged by
> > New Age on Wednesday, that `attempts are being made to push the nation to a
> > confrontation in the name of war crimes trial four decades after
> > independence.' Referring to the clemency given to the guilty of the
> > Pakistani army by the post-independence government of the Awami League, and
> > subsequent `general amnesty' to the collaborators, Khaleda also said `such
> > double standard' of the ruling party `must be resisted'. The BNP chairperson
> > has taken a clear position against the `war crimes trial' in the name of
> > consolidating `national unity'. We believe the new BNP stance on the issue
> > of war crimes trial is unfair—and thus unacceptable—as it amounts to
> > injustice towards those who were killed, tortured, raped and burnt by the
> > occupation forces of Pakistan and their local collaborators during the
> > country's liberation war.
> >
> > It is historically true that the post-independence government of the Awami
> > League officially `forgave' the guilty officers of the Pakistan army, saying
> > that `the Bengalis know how to forgive.' It is also true that the Awami
> > League government of the day granted `general amnesty' to the local
> > collaborators, of course, barring those involved in heinous crimes like
> > killing, rape and arson. We believe such steps of the post-independence
> > Awami League government were unjust, as those amounted to injustice towards
> > those who sacrificed lives, underwent brutal torture, humiliation and
> > enormous ordeal for the sake of national liberation. We believe the
> > government of the day did not have the moral right to `forgive' the
> > perpetrators of war crimes.
> >
> > However, the inability, or opportunistic reluctance, of the
> > post-independence government to try the perpetrators of war crimes and their
> > collaborators does not mean that the crimes cannot be investigated and the
> > criminals punished now, forty years after the war of independence. There are
> > instances in history that war crimes have been tried several years after the
> > crimes were committed. It is better late than never, especially when it
> > comes to justice. We have no reason to believe the mere trial of war crimes
> > would divide the nation anew – the nation is already divided on political
> > lines – as the number of `collaborators' in 1971 was very few as against the
> > entire population of the day who stood for the country's liberation from the
> > occupation forces.
> >
> > We, therefore, believe the government should go ahead with the trial of the
> > collaborators of war crimes, and demand that the surviving officers of the
> > Pakistan army who perpetrated war crimes in Bangladesh should be handed over
> > to the war crimes tribunal for trial. Notably, the Pakistani authorities,
> > while signing the tripartite agreement with Bangladesh and India for the
> > repatriation of the guilty officers to Pakistan in 1973, promised to try
> > their crimes in their homeland. But the Pakistani authorities failed to keep
> > the commitment. It is time that Bangladesh demanded, at the least, that the
> > guilty officers be tried in Pakistan in accordance with the commitment that
> > its government had made four decades ago.
> >
> > Meanwhile, the country's democratically oriented citizens committed to
> > justice require to keep an eye on the whole process of the trial in Dhaka,
> > so that the trial is fair and transparent, and that the government of Awami
> > League cannot victimise its political rivals in the name of trying the
> > perpetrators/collaborators of war crime, nor can it prolong the trial unduly
> > for politically using the issue for parochial partisan interests for the
> > years to come, as it has done before.
> >
> > http://www.newagebd.com/2010/oct/07/edit.html
> >
>


------------------------------------

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[ALOCHONA] Big Brother is only a Mouse Click Away



Invasive Cyber Technologies and Internet Privacy: Big Brother is only a "Ping" or Mouse Click Away



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[ALOCHONA] The Maoist Versus The State Of India



The Maoist Versus The State Of India

By Prakash Kona

It is not Pakistan that is the Indian state's biggest worry. It never was in fact. Not the "terrorists" in Kashmir or the separatists in the Northeast. These are issues that any state needs to give the government a legitimate reason for existing. If there were no "enemies" there would be no state either.

The thorn that dares to bleed the Indian body politic to death is the Maoists with their haunting vision of an agrarian utopia in this part of the earth achieved through barrel of the gun. The Maoist knows the Indian state like he knows himself. The so-called terrorist is after all a victim fighting for justice and is susceptible to emotions like home, family and nation. With the Maoist it is more than that. He seeks to wage a relentless war against the state and its machinery at every level. Neither family nor nation stands in the way of the utopia. He is guided by ideology – an ideology that has no place for pity and compassion because it seeks to put an end to that embodiment of absolute injustice called the state. A relentless state has a relentless enemy – the enemy that speaks the language of the state and is merciless when it has the opportunity to be so. That enemy is the Maoist who wishes to destroy the government by turning it into an insomniac that has gone mad chasing shadows melting in the bitter heat of collision.
I'm sure there are diverse groups within the extreme left but I took the liberty of bracketing them under the term Maoists since more or less the fundamental aim of every one of these groups is the overthrow of the state and the means to that being armed insurrection. The rural landless poor, tribals in the forests, the utterly exploited and physically suppressed through violence of every imaginable sort form the base of the Maoists in India.

Maoism is a reality and Maoists are real. It's like those heads of Ravana in Ramayan that keep coming back no matter how many times they are destroyed. Ravana must be shot in the heart and not in the head. If Maoism is a problem the heart of the problem is social injustice. As long as injustice exists Maoism's hundreds of heads will continue to resurge much to the vexation of politicians, police and the army. The terrible neglect of villages and repression of tribals has made Maoism a force to be reckoned with.

Maoism like all forms of resistance has a context in this country. The middle classes don't like the sound of the word "communism" that they associate with atheism and poverty and eccentric intellectuals who are failures at the emotional and social level. Not the least communism in India means disturbing that age-old institution called caste system and oppression of women. Bollywood films are responsible for the image of the stereotypical communist something close to the angry young man created by Salim and Javed in the movies of 1970s except that the angry young man is an angry "middle class" young man who ends up embracing the system. That is not the context for the rise of Maoism that Manmohan Singh, the bookish Prime Minister of India who knows all the facts but has no clue about reality, to his credit rightly recognized as the real danger in this country.

First and foremost, the police and the army are more to be dreaded than the most violent law-breaker because their power addiction knows no limits. It is addiction to mental violence that makes it possible for them to be physically violent as well. I see policemen on the streets. The way they behave with hawkers, street vendors, autorickshawwallahs and the other poor loitering on streets for lack of anything better – the absolute sadism of it – in an instant you know where Maoism gets its constituency from. Maoism is a real alternative to state-certified violence. To the brick the Maoist responds with a stone.

I'm not a rightist, leftist or centrist. I'm not an atheist or theist or agnostic. I'm not disturbed, confused or lost. I'm an ordinary person seeking clarification for a few doubts that bother me. How is that Mukesh Ambani can have a house worth two billion dollars while the poor on streets are not worthy of a roof on their heads? The moral is that in India you got to be a big criminal. You can't be a small criminal. The small criminals are beaten to death or lynched by poor self-hating fools who have no other way of expressing their powerlessness as it happens in backward states like Bihar and UP. Big criminals like Mukesh Ambani appear in Forbes magazine which is a magazine for big criminals by the way. They're heroes in this country. It means robbery works. You just have to rob so much that no one can touch you and you're beyond the law. How can you respect a system that gives respectability to criminals merely because they're big businessmen! This is the context to Maoism.

Liberalization has meant growth in some sectors. Not distribution of wealth that would lead to a healthy society. Even in dictatorships there is growth where one person or a small group has the whole nation at its disposal. But that is not development. Development is about all-round growth in every sector compatible with cultural needs and sharing the resources of the nation. It means growth not just in IT sector or telecommunications but also in food, agriculture and industry. Most importantly development means that common people are not subjected to violence of relentless private owners. That is not the development we're seeing in India. Not all wild animals think like men except in Hollywood/Bollywood imagination which reflects the worldview of a certain section of people who don't fit in the category called "human."

Such is the inhumanity of global capitalism that if there is one last drop of blood in your body they would not hesitate to sell and make profit out of it. You toil and sweat every day of your life and you barely manage to survive at the end of your life! You play a few games for the Indian Premier League and you've a million dollars or more, enough for you to retire and holiday for the rest of your life! If I were poor I would be ashamed to call myself Indian. The shameless elites of this country, the slavish middle classes, the equally shameless media, they're the true enemies of the poor.

Public opinion and collective memory are the two weapons we've in this country to fight fascism. There are enough deadly cobras and vipers in every political party without exception especially the right-wing nationalists who are determined to destroy this country. The media wants to shape public opinion to suit big business and erase collective memory by keeping people occupied thinking about cricket rather than their lives. Media fascism is the most dangerous of all forms of fascism. I've no doubt that there are individual journalists and reporters who are honest, patriotic, and conscientious and who go out of the way to bring the truth to the people. I may disagree with them at times but they've my genuine admiration and respect because I know how hard it is to tell the truth in a country like India where lying can be a way of life. That does not however excuse the fact that the media by and large is a part of crimes committed against common people in India.

The rise of the BJP in particular Narendra Modi in Gujarat is an instance of what can happen when people are drugged with lies. This is exactly how the Nazis rose to power. First come the economic crises and a large section of people are unemployed and without means of basic survival. Then, a sense of powerlessness along with a sense of doom that the world all around you is crumbling to pieces. Third, an imaginary enemy (the Jew in Europe and the Muslim in India. Also, the lower castes and the rural landless poor as in the case of the North Indians in Bombay targeted by Raj Thackeray). Last, but not least, institutionalized violence where the government joins the mobs resulting in fascism.

The Maoist is a utopian like the Jihadist except that earth is his heaven. No one chooses to die because he or she is tired of life. It's the pain of injustice that pushes a man or woman to prefer fight dying than living in agony and experiencing slow death. Where there is injustice people will fight. The ways in which they fight may be different. In that sense Maoist extremism is a response to state extremism.

What sort of a world order will the Maoists create is the issue here. Revolutions stagnate with power and revolutionaries become defenders of the establishment. In fact they become an establishment unto themselves as in the case of Fidel Castro with Fidel equating himself with the state of Cuba. If history is any example I seriously don't think that the Maoists will be particularly different in this respect. Utopias have been the sources of endless bloodshed that make human cruelty seem completely reasonable as in the case of Pol Pot and the Soviet Union under Stalin. A vicious "wild animal" state favors the Maoist. In a more benign social order people would naturally dissociate themselves from violence and be unwilling to compromise on the loss of civil liberties no matter how profound the cause. People would rather stay poor than exist without freedom. Saint Augustine says: "The purpose of all wars, is peace." The point is that even the war-monger needs peace. The need to make peace is more natural to a human being than the need to go to war.

The line that separates idealism from fanaticism is almost invisible. Boris Pasternak's Dr Zhivago touches on this side of a revolution. The young idealist Pasha Antipov becomes a fanatic – an infamous executor of "traitors" - after the revolution eventually committing suicide, aware that the revolution has failed him as much as he has failed the revolution. Yeats' poem "The Great Day" also deals with the failed idealism of revolutions and not without a bit of irony because ultimately one hierarchy ends up being replaced by another.

Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot!
A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot.
Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!
The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.

In essence, the Maoists are confronting the state and not subverting it. Confrontation here means a head-on collision based on guerilla warfare with a powerful and illegitimate state. The illegitimacy of the state is obvious to the Maoist. In a direct confrontation everything is black and white. There is no gray area. The enemy is conspicuous. Subversion is when you reach out to the masses to educate them and create the conditions to expose the state as being illegitimate. It's a slower and more dangerous process and works with the effectiveness of arsenic to destroy the enemy. This is why the confrontation of the Maoist is preferred by the state to subversion. In subversion the enemy is within the state. He or she works for the state as an active citizen but does everything possible to pull the state down. The Maoist and the state are in a perpetual struggle and given the might of the state in terms of weapons and the consent of the majority it seems impossible for the Maoist to succeed apart from causing a dent here and there.

Bourgeois society is built on hurt. Somebody wins but so many lose. People have to crush their souls to satisfy parents and neighbors and peer groups forcing themselves to live up to those false images we see on television. Not everyone who "succeeds" is happy about it. Not everyone rich is happy with the wealth that comes from exploitation. Not everyone is proud to be an "image" at the end of the day. People with no morality themselves do the moral policing. Love is built on what others think that you possess not because you're worthy of it. Sensitive and individualistic people suffer and resort to various ways of self-destruction through alcohol, drugs etc.
Subversion plays on this terrible emotional unhappiness and spiritual vacuum that is the result of bourgeois life. Such people must be convinced of the meaninglessness of bourgeois society and the fact that there is an alternative to this meaninglessness. Maoism can never achieve this. That's where it fails as a revolutionary discourse. It relies too much on the bullet. A person who believes that this system is illegitimate and exists to serve the powerful is more dangerous than the most powerful weapon on earth. With eleven disciples it took the teaching of Christ four hundred years to overthrow the evil Roman Empire. What Christ gave the world was only an idea – an idea that subverted the enemies and ultimately rendered them powerless.

The idea is that the most powerful state on earth is just made of men – ordinary men with ordinary thoughts and ordinary feelings. When these ordinary men project themselves as extraordinary and manage to convince the people that they are, the Hitler phenomenon is born and the state becomes an evil force with the complicity of the person-on-the-street. The German state was fascist because that's what the German people had become. The Indian state is classist, casteist and patriarchal because that's what Indians are.

People need to be convinced that everyone needs modern education, health care and a life that has space for innovation and change. The young need basic rights to choose what is best for them. We need clean water and more trees. These things are possible – that's what we need to be convinced of if only we believed that what this country needs is not a few billionaires but collective wealth. The kind of class disparity that we see in India is a sign that there are two Indias – one for the rich and the other for the poor.

What I tried to offer is a context to Maoism and why it poses a threat to the Indian state. I don't justify the means of the Maoist though I relate to most of the things they're fighting for beginning with redistribution of land. Ken Loach's seriously engaging movie "Land and Freedom" about the Spanish Civil War connects the idea of freedom with land. Malcolm X pointed out that all revolutions on earth are about land. In the same breath I say: this land is ours. This country is ours. In all its beauty and its ugliness. It does not belong to imperialists and colonialists. In all its sweetness and repulsiveness. It does not belong to wolves like the Tatas, Birlas and Ambanis and foxes like the Thackerays and Advanis and Gowda and his sons whose claws go deep into the flesh of this sad and beautiful country. In all its brutality and compassion. Not to the armies and the police. Not to politicians and the governments. It belongs to the poorest of the poor whose labor goes each day to make life worthwhile in this country. This land is ours. Ours it will remain. "Let the doors close on forced labor never to open again./Let man stop enslaving man; this cry is ours./ To live alone, like a tree and free like a forest as brothers together,/ This longing is ours" (Nazim Hikmet).

Prakash Kona is a writer, teacher and researcher who lives in Hyderabad, India. He is currently working as an Associate Professor at the Department of English Literature, The English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad.
 


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[ALOCHONA] Indian transhipment duty waiver will amount to betrayal of people

Its very stupid idea to charge Custom Duties on Indian Goods going to India. If these people think, those Goods would not be shipped to India and would be sold in BD, what we can do is charge Custom Duty at the Point of Entrance and they give their Cheques back, when those Goods leave BD Border if BD has Labor Shortage and Government can not supervise such shipments. Do we really have Labor Shortage?
.
In violation of UN Sanctions, Pakistan was paying for all imports of Talibani Afghanistan and no Custom Duties were charged under Afghan Transit Agreement with Taliban and Govt. of Pakistan for years. Nobody in Pakistan had ever objected to it until, it was discovered that Generals were importing everything Custom Duty free under that Scam and selling everything in Pakistan making tons of money.

--- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, Isha Khan <bdmailer@...> wrote:
>
> *Editorial
> *Indian transhipment duty waiver will amount to betrayal of people
> IT is hardly surprising that India has sustained its pressure on Bangladesh
> to waive duties on transportation of cargoes from its west to northeast.
> According to a report front-paged in New Age on Tuesday, which quoted an
> official of the Indian High Commission in Bangladesh, the Indian high
> commissioner, Rajeet Mitter, iterated the request during what he termed a
> `routine call on' the foreign secretary on Monday. Earlier, the Bangladesh
> customs authorities obstructed two Indian vessels, which were carrying goods
> from west to northeast India, from entering into Bangladesh territory after
> they had declined to pay transit fees. It is not unlikely that New Delhi
> would continue to exert pressure on Dhaka to secure the waiver. What is also
> likely—and disquietingly so—is that the Awami League-led government might
> acquiesce to New Delhi's request—demand would, perhaps, be more
> precise—sooner than later. Needless to say, the indications are too many to
> overlook.
>
> It all began with the visit of the foreign minister to New Delhi in
> September 2009 when Bangladesh agreed to provide India access to Ashuganj
> port to facilitate `transport of over-dimensional consignments for the
> Palatana power project in Tripura' as a `one-time' deal. Then in January
> 2010, during the visit of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, to New Delhi,
> the two countries agreed to declare Ashuganj in Bangladesh and Silghat in
> India as ports of call. Later, in April, at a joint meeting, both sides
> agreed that Bangladesh would collect duties under her customs laws and,
> subsequently on May 31, amended the `Protocol on Inland Water Transit and
> Trade' and added Ashuganj and Shilghat as ports of call. Bangladesh also
> eventually allowed multi-module transit to India after adding Ashuganj as a
> new transhipment point between the two countries. As per the new
> arrangement, India can now carry its goods not only by waterways but also by
> roads and rail transports from one part of its territory to the other
> through Bangladesh.
>
> As the government accommodated one Indian request after another, its key
> functionaries and crony `intellectuals' and `experts' trumpeted that
> Bangladesh stands to gain substantial benefit from transhipment of Indian
> goods, and that the annual revenue could be in the vicinity of Tk 20,000
> crores, although a senior economist of the Bangladesh Institute for
> Development Studies, an associated research organisation of the state,
> showed that the annual revenue earning could at best be Tk 210 crore but
> most probably to the tune of Tk 70 crore. It now seems that, if India has
> its way, Bangladesh may as well say goodbye to any possibility of gaining
> any monetary benefit from the transhipment deal. Such a grim possibility
> could very well be closer to becoming a reality as none other than the prime
> minister's adviser on economic affairs has recently requested the Internal
> Resources Division to waive charges on Indian vessels plying through
> Bangladesh river networks.
>
> While we may criticise India for putting pressure on Bangladesh for undue
> advantages in bilateral trade, it will be difficult to fault it for
> relentlessly trying to advance its own interest. The same, unfortunately,
> cannot be said of our government's actions or inactions; after all, it has
> so far shown an inexplicable and, needless to say, inexcusable readiness to
> compromise on Bangladesh's interest, not only economic but also
> geo-strategic. The government needs to realise its apparent eagerness to
> please its Indian counterparts is tantamount to betrayal of the people, who,
> as the constitution says, are their real masters.
>
> http://www.newagebd.com/2010/oct/13/edit.html
>


------------------------------------

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[ALOCHONA] Indian transhipment duty waiver will amount to betrayal of people



Editorial
Indian transhipment duty waiver will amount to betrayal of people

IT is hardly surprising that India has sustained its pressure on Bangladesh to waive duties on transportation of cargoes from its west to northeast. According to a report front-paged in New Age on Tuesday, which quoted an official of the Indian High Commission in Bangladesh, the Indian high commissioner, Rajeet Mitter, iterated the request during what he termed a 'routine call on' the foreign secretary on Monday. Earlier, the Bangladesh customs authorities obstructed two Indian vessels, which were carrying goods from west to northeast India, from entering into Bangladesh territory after they had declined to pay transit fees. It is not unlikely that New Delhi would continue to exert pressure on Dhaka to secure the waiver. What is also likely—and disquietingly so—is that the Awami League-led government might acquiesce to New Delhi's request—demand would, perhaps, be more precise—sooner than later. Needless to say, the indications are too many to overlook.

   It all began with the visit of the foreign minister to New Delhi in September 2009 when Bangladesh agreed to provide India access to Ashuganj port to facilitate 'transport of over-dimensional consignments for the Palatana power project in Tripura' as a 'one-time' deal. Then in January 2010, during the visit of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, to New Delhi, the two countries agreed to declare Ashuganj in Bangladesh and Silghat in India as ports of call. Later, in April, at a joint meeting, both sides agreed that Bangladesh would collect duties under her customs laws and, subsequently on May 31, amended the 'Protocol on Inland Water Transit and Trade' and added Ashuganj and Shilghat as ports of call. Bangladesh also eventually allowed multi-module transit to India after adding Ashuganj as a new transhipment point between the two countries. As per the new arrangement, India can now carry its goods not only by waterways but also by roads and rail transports from one part of its territory to the other through Bangladesh.
   
As the government accommodated one Indian request after another, its key functionaries and crony 'intellectuals' and 'experts' trumpeted that Bangladesh stands to gain substantial benefit from transhipment of Indian goods, and that the annual revenue could be in the vicinity of Tk 20,000 crores, although a senior economist of the Bangladesh Institute for Development Studies, an associated research organisation of the state, showed that the annual revenue earning could at best be Tk 210 crore but most probably to the tune of Tk 70 crore. It now seems that, if India has its way, Bangladesh may as well say goodbye to any possibility of gaining any monetary benefit from the transhipment deal. Such a grim possibility could very well be closer to becoming a reality as none other than the prime minister's adviser on economic affairs has recently requested the Internal Resources Division to waive charges on Indian vessels plying through Bangladesh river networks.
   
While we may criticise India for putting pressure on Bangladesh for undue advantages in bilateral trade, it will be difficult to fault it for relentlessly trying to advance its own interest. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said of our government's actions or inactions; after all, it has so far shown an inexplicable and, needless to say, inexcusable readiness to compromise on Bangladesh's interest, not only economic but also geo-strategic. The government needs to realise its apparent eagerness to please its Indian counterparts is tantamount to betrayal of the people, who, as the constitution says, are their real masters.
 


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[ALOCHONA] Transit, transshipment fees



Transit, transshipment fees -Foreign Office rejects India's waiver push


The Foreign Ministry continues to oppose India's insistence on waiver of transit and transshipment fees, saying Indian private sector already receives massive subsidies for transporting goods to the northeastern hinterlands.The ministry Monday drove home its message to the Indian High Commission officials and advised India's diplomats to lobby Bangladesh's National Board of Revenue (NBR) instead to seek the waiver.

The NBR has imposed transit and transshipment fee of Tk 10,000 per container and Tk 1,000 per tonne for bulk cargo.
"India should be prepared to pay a certain amount for using Bangladesh's land as corridor," a foreign ministry official said.

"The Indian central government subsidises its private sector for transporting goods to the northeastern part through the 'chicken neck' corridor," the official said, adding New Delhi can channel a part of that amount to ship goods through Bangladesh.

Bangladesh can earn an estimated Tk 1.0 to Tk 2.0 billion as transshipment fees and it is insignificant for Indians if they consider the broader economic benefits, he explained.Foreign minister Dr Dipu Moni and finance minister AMA Muhith supported the fees and both had earlier ruled out the waiver of transshipment fees, insisting those will be the country's income.

But economic adviser to the Prime Minister Dr Mashiur Rahman favours the withdrawal of fees and wrote a letter to the shipping minister to stop collecting the fees until "further decision."

Adding to the standoff, the customs authority has blocked the entry of two Indian ships carrying fly ash at the Bangladeshi border at Shekbaria as they didn't pay the transshipment fee. The ships destined for Assam were still not allowed to enter the Bangladesh territory.

Referring to the Protocol of Inland Water Trade and Transit (IWTT), the Foreign Ministry official defended the action, saying domestic laws will be applicable as cargoes entered the Bangladesh territory."In the agreement, it is not mentioned anywhere that transshipment and transit fees cannot be imposed," the official said.

The government signed the transshipment agreement in May to allow Indian goods to transship to Tripura through Ashuganj.According to the agreement, Ashuganj will be the second transshipment point and fifth port of call in Bangladesh, while India has declared Shilghat to be the port of call on the Indian side.

Sherpur in Sylhet was the first transshipment point under the 1972 protocol, but India never used the facility.Tripura border is only 49 kilometres from Ashuganj and the river port is navigable throughout the year.

The Indian authorities since '80s have demanded that Ashuganj become the second point and Bangladesh has agreed to the demand during the visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to India in January.The IWTT agreement stipulates that Narayanganj, Mongla, Khulna and Sirajganj are the port of calls in Bangladesh and Kolkata, Haldia, Pandu and Karimganj in India.
 
 


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[ALOCHONA] Reconsidering Columbus Day



      Even Howard Zinn did not elaborate too much on the question why it was so important for Western Europe for finding a different route to reach India. India was the the most fabulously rich country in the civilized world in the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th centuries under the  Mughal Empire. Sailing south, and then eastward rounding the Horn of Africa was too daunting a task, and, frankly, no available European ship was that seaworthy.
 
   Columbus was foolish to think that he landed in India. But perhaps he found out his grave mistake sooner.
But then he decided to resort to the lie deliberately in order to continue favors flowing to him from Ferdinand and Isabel of Spain.
 
   He kept up the lie for 7 or 8 long years until Portugal's Vasco da Gama did sail around Africa to reach the western coast of India.
  What a MEGA size lie and think of its humongous after effects! Think of the wanton genocide that went on in the Caribbean and Cuban islands all for Columbus' lie. Colombus kept robbing gold from the natives to send to Spanish Royalty to prove that he had reached India, the land of gold!
 
          You must keep a copy of Howard Zinn's wonderful book by your side for any reference to the'real' history of the USA.  Read
a quote from Columbus' diary quoted by Zinn in the first chapter of his book:
      
http://www.truth-out.org/reconsidering-columbus-day-campaign-suggests-honoring-indigenous-peoples-history-instead64119
 
   I learned more about the reprehenible fraud that Colunbus was from a lecture by a professor from the University of Lisbon
delivered at a conference celebrating 500th Anniversary of the so called 'Discovery' of America at Columbia University in 1992.
 
                  Farida


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Re: [ALOCHONA] Indian BSF constructs road, bridge inside Bangladesh territory



Why worry about territorial integrity and sovereignty?

Oops, silly me - this was given to India in 1971.

Apologies.

Emanur Rahman | m. +447734567561 | e. emanur@rahman.com


From: Isha Khan <bdmailer@gmail.com>
Sender: alochona@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 07:10:58 +0600
ReplyTo: alochona@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [ALOCHONA] Indian BSF constructs road, bridge inside Bangladesh territory

Indian BSF constructs road, bridge inside Bangladesh territory


 
Despite protest from Bangladesh side, the Indian border security force BSF has started construction of a road and a bridge inside Bangladesh territory at Goainghat upazila in Sylhet district.Sources said, tense situation have already been spread among the people of border area and they have already started leaving their villages. The situation of the border area is going to be hot again.

The sources further said, Indian BSF personnel on October 1 suddenly entered the territory of Bangladesh alongside the border pillar 1270 and 1271 near Pratappur BDR outpost at the upazila. After entering the area, they took a move to construct a road on about 230 acres of lands in Bangladesh territory with a bridge.

It was alleged that to connect the Panichhula upazila of India with the Padua camp headquarters, which is situated near Pratappur, the BSF men were constructing the road and bridge. The bridge is being constructed on the Piain River which is flown on Goainfhat upazila.

Manjur Ahmed, a local journalist, told this reporter that 60 per cent construction work of the road and bridge has already been completed. "With the aim of establishing habitation in the territory of Bangladesh and occupying the resources side, the BSF men have taken plan. They are cutting trees and cleaning jangles to implement their aim and plan for occupying the area," he said. The local people fear that clashes between the two borders forces may occur cantering the construction work. For this reason the border of Goainghat may be restive again.

The BDR protested the activities of Indian forces and requested them to stop the construction work in the country's territory. But they were continuing the construction work ignoring the protest and request of BDR, said Pratappur BDR camp commander Nayeb Subedar Md Shahed Ali.

Admitting the activities of BSF, he told this reporter, "They are constructing road and bridge in Bangladesh territory. We have protested strongly and sent them protest letter 4 times. Despite being our protest, BSF is continuing the work denying our protest."Replying to the protest, the BSF men claimed that they are not constructing any new road or bridge in the area, they are just repairing an old road at their territory.

But the BDR camp commander Shahed Ali claimed that the speech of BSF is not true. The BDR was watching the situation carefully, he added."We have informed the matter to our higher authority. Our manpower is ready and they were deployed there. The number of manpower has been increased. If we get any order from high authority, we are ready to do anything," he said.

The 21 Rifles Battalion of BDR repeated the request of stopping construction work. At the time BSF agreed to conduct a joint survey for ensuring the ownership of the land where the road and bridge were being constructed. After some time, the Indian forces denied the agreement saying that the company level or battalion level authorities had no right to conduct such kind of survey. They said the matter should be discussed at the state level.

A Sub-inspector of Goainghat Thana Md Shahidullah told The New Nation that the BDR authority has not informed us about the matter till now. "We will contact with BDR to know about the activities of BSF to construct a road and bridge and after that we will fix our responsibility," he said.

http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2010/10/10/news0688.htm


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[ALOCHONA] Re: New BNP stance on war crimes trial unfair, unacceptable

You presume so incorrectly that you should not try to presume.

I believe:

1. War crimes trials must proceed
2. War crimes will not divide the nation
3. War crimes trials are largely symbolic but still worth doing

And, YES, categorically, every other crime is acceptable - and to challenge you properly I will say that every other crime is encouraged.

Don't you see the news? Don't you read the papers?

Here. Plain English:

As long as AL goes after war criminals you don't give a damn what AL does today. I can sympathise that you want to hold accountable those who committed crimes in 1971. But you should not be so surprised that many want to hold AL/BNP accountable for crimes they commit in 2010! And many of us can't give AL a blank cheque for crimes committed today becasue they aregoing after crimes committed 40 years ago.

And, I challenge you further. When token justice is partially served by the hanging of a handful of jamaatis you will find no change in the course of justice in 2010.

That doesn't mean you don't hang convicted war criminals. Please do.

Clear enough?

A 12 year old girl committed suicide last week after she was married off. No one gives a #### in 2010.

--- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, Farida Majid <farida_majid@...> wrote:
>
>
> Bangladesh. Where war crimes are unacceptable.
>
> And everything else is acceptable!
>
> By which, I presume, the writer means every crime is accaptable, even encouraged, in Bangladesh
> except War Crimes.
>
> Who talks like that? Who can be that insensitive to the justice-seekers of crimes and atrocities
> committed 39 years ago still unheeded? Only those pretending to care about 'law and order' and yet
> sneers and snarls at attempt to end the culture of impunity for the cruellest of the criminals walking free
> in Bangladesh.
>
> Let me try to explain to those who visibly shake in rage at the mention of "war crimes" of 1971.
> What we, and the international community, are attempting to call "war" crimes are these very heinous
> crimes --- killings, looting, vandalizing, arson, rape, etc.---- committed systemetically on a mass scale
> for the realization of a political/communal proposition. That proposition being that Muslim and Hindu peoples
> cannot live together anymore even though these peoples have lived side by side for centuries on this land.
>
> The realization of this irrational and idiotic proposition, first manufactured by the British colonial
> administrators for facilitating their purpose of 'divide and rule', was welcomed by neo-colonizers of
> Pakistan, and then, after 1971, by the neo-Pakistanis of Bangla origin.
>
> Equally irrational and ironic is the idea that the war crimes trials would divide rhe nation. It can
> only do so if we assume that close to half the nation holds the same criminal record as the Jamaati
> honchos and the grizzled old Muslim League razakars.
>
> Farida Majid
>
>
>
>
> To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
> From: Ezajur@...
> Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 12:27:41 +0000
> Subject: [ALOCHONA] Re: New BNP stance on war crimes trial unfair, unacceptable
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The blank cheque given to criminals who support AL is such that I'm now begining to think that BNP is right to hamper the government's progress.
>
> Bangladesh. Where war crimes are unacceptable.
>
> And everything else is acceptable!
>
> --- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, Isha Khan <bdmailer@> wrote:
> >
> > New BNP stance on war crimes trial unfair, unacceptable
> > THE opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party has visibly changed its position
> > as regards the trial of the Bengali collaborators of the Pakistan army that
> > committed war crimes against the people of Bangladesh in 1971. Until
> > Tuesday, the party's spokespersons maintained that the BNP does not have any
> > problem with the war crimes being investigated and the criminals tried,
> > while warning the government that it must not victimise leaders and
> > activists of the opposition camp, in the name of trying war crimes. Fair
> > enough. But on Tuesday, the BNP chairperson, Khaleda Zia, told a gathering
> > of a section of the freedom fighters, according to a report front-paged by
> > New Age on Wednesday, that `attempts are being made to push the nation to a
> > confrontation in the name of war crimes trial four decades after
> > independence.' Referring to the clemency given to the guilty of the
> > Pakistani army by the post-independence government of the Awami League, and
> > subsequent `general amnesty' to the collaborators, Khaleda also said `such
> > double standard' of the ruling party `must be resisted'. The BNP chairperson
> > has taken a clear position against the `war crimes trial' in the name of
> > consolidating `national unity'. We believe the new BNP stance on the issue
> > of war crimes trial is unfair—and thus unacceptable—as it amounts to
> > injustice towards those who were killed, tortured, raped and burnt by the
> > occupation forces of Pakistan and their local collaborators during the
> > country's liberation war.
> >
> > It is historically true that the post-independence government of the Awami
> > League officially `forgave' the guilty officers of the Pakistan army, saying
> > that `the Bengalis know how to forgive.' It is also true that the Awami
> > League government of the day granted `general amnesty' to the local
> > collaborators, of course, barring those involved in heinous crimes like
> > killing, rape and arson. We believe such steps of the post-independence
> > Awami League government were unjust, as those amounted to injustice towards
> > those who sacrificed lives, underwent brutal torture, humiliation and
> > enormous ordeal for the sake of national liberation. We believe the
> > government of the day did not have the moral right to `forgive' the
> > perpetrators of war crimes.
> >
> > However, the inability, or opportunistic reluctance, of the
> > post-independence government to try the perpetrators of war crimes and their
> > collaborators does not mean that the crimes cannot be investigated and the
> > criminals punished now, forty years after the war of independence. There are
> > instances in history that war crimes have been tried several years after the
> > crimes were committed. It is better late than never, especially when it
> > comes to justice. We have no reason to believe the mere trial of war crimes
> > would divide the nation anew – the nation is already divided on political
> > lines – as the number of `collaborators' in 1971 was very few as against the
> > entire population of the day who stood for the country's liberation from the
> > occupation forces.
> >
> > We, therefore, believe the government should go ahead with the trial of the
> > collaborators of war crimes, and demand that the surviving officers of the
> > Pakistan army who perpetrated war crimes in Bangladesh should be handed over
> > to the war crimes tribunal for trial. Notably, the Pakistani authorities,
> > while signing the tripartite agreement with Bangladesh and India for the
> > repatriation of the guilty officers to Pakistan in 1973, promised to try
> > their crimes in their homeland. But the Pakistani authorities failed to keep
> > the commitment. It is time that Bangladesh demanded, at the least, that the
> > guilty officers be tried in Pakistan in accordance with the commitment that
> > its government had made four decades ago.
> >
> > Meanwhile, the country's democratically oriented citizens committed to
> > justice require to keep an eye on the whole process of the trial in Dhaka,
> > so that the trial is fair and transparent, and that the government of Awami
> > League cannot victimise its political rivals in the name of trying the
> > perpetrators/collaborators of war crime, nor can it prolong the trial unduly
> > for politically using the issue for parochial partisan interests for the
> > years to come, as it has done before.
> >
> > http://www.newagebd.com/2010/oct/07/edit.html
> >
>


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[ALOCHONA] Re: New BNP stance on war crimes trial unfair, unacceptable

Terrorists and Freedom fighters - Sam Vaknin

People who exercise violence in the pursuit of what they hold to be just causes are alternately known as "terrorists" or "freedom fighters".

They all share a few common characteristics:

1.A hard core of idealists adopt a cause (in most cases, the freedom of a group of people). They base their claims on history - real or hastily concocted, on a common heritage, on a language shared by the members of the group and, most important, on hate and contempt directed at an "enemy". The latter is, almost invariably, the physical or cultural occupier of space the idealists claim as their own.

2.The loyalties and alliances of these people shift effortlessly as ever escalating means justify an ever shrinking cause. The initial burst of grandiosity inherent in every such undertaking gives way to cynical and bitter pragmatism as both enemy and people tire of the conflict.

3.An inevitable result of the realpolitik of terrorism is the collaboration with the less savoury elements of society. Relegated to the fringes by the inexorable march of common sense, the freedom fighters naturally gravitate towards like minded non-conformists and outcasts. The organization is criminalized. Drug dealing, bank robbing and other manner of organized and contumacious criminality become integral extensions of the struggle. A criminal corporatism emerges, structured but volatile and given to internecine donnybrooks.

4.Very often an un-holy co-dependence develops between the organization and its prey. It is the interest of the freedom fighters to have a contemptible and tyrannical regime as their opponent. If not prone to suppression and convulsive massacres by nature - acts of terror will deliberately provoke even the most benign rule to abhorrent ebullition.

5.The terrorist organization will tend to emulate the very characteristics of its enemy it fulminates against the most. Thus, all such groups are rebarbatively authoritarian, execrably violent, devoid of human empathy or emotions, suppressive, ostentatious, trenchant and often murderous.

6.It is often the freedom fighters who compromise their freedom and the freedom of their people in the most egregious manner. This is usually done either by collaborating with the derided enemy against another, competing set of freedom fighters - or by inviting a foreign power to arbiter. Thus, they often catalyse the replacement of one regime of oppressive horror with another, more terrible and entrenched.

7.Most freedom fighters are assimilated and digested by the very establishment they fought against or as the founders of new, privileged nomenklaturas. It is then that their true nature is exposed, mired in gulosity and superciliousness as they become. Inveterate violators of basic human rights, they often transform into the very demons they helped to exorcise.

Most freedom fighters are disgruntled members of the middle classes or the intelligentsia. They bring to their affairs the merciless ruthlessness of sheltered lives. Mistaking compassion for weakness, they show none as they unscrupulously pursue their self-aggrandizement, the ego trip of sending others to their death. They are the stuff martyrs are made of. Borne on the crests of circumstantial waves, they lever their unbalanced personalities and project them to great effect. They are the footnotes of history that assume the role of text. And they rarely enjoy the unmitigated support of the very people they proffer to liberate. Even the most harangued and subjugated people find it hard to follow or accept the vicissitudinal behaviour of their self-appointed liberators, their shifting friendships and enmities and their pasilaly of violence.


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