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Saturday, June 18, 2011

[ALOCHONA] Successful Mayor....



Successful Mayor....




http://jugantor.us/enews/issue/2011/06/19/news0714.htm


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[ALOCHONA] Shafik Rehman's column



Shafik Rehman's column

shafik-rehman211

http://opinion.bdnews24.com/bangla/2011/06/18/%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%82%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A6%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B6%E0%A7%87-%E0%A6%95%E0%A7%81%E0%A6%AE%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%B0-%E0%A6%86%E0%A6%97%E0%A6%AE%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7%87-%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BE/


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[ALOCHONA] Everything We're Doing Now Was Planned BEFORE 9/11



Everything We're Doing Now Was Planned BEFORE 9/11

We've been told that 9/11 changed everything.

Is it true?

Let's look at the facts:

  • The Afghanistan war was planned before 9/11 (see this and this)
  • The Patriot Act was planned before 9/11. Indeed, former Counter Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke told Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig:

    After 9/11 the government drew up the Patriot Act within 20 days and it was passed.

    The Patriot Act is huge and I remember someone asking a Justice Department official how did they write such a large statute so quickly, and of course the answer was that it has been sitting in the drawers of the Justice Department for the last 20 years waiting for the event where they would pull it out.

    (4:30 into this video).

  • Cheney dreamed of giving the White House the powers of a monarch long before 9/11
  • Cheney and Rumsfeld actively generated fake intelligence which exaggerated the threat from an enemy in order to justify huge amounts of military spending long before 9/11. And see this
  • The decision to threaten to bomb Iran was made before 9/11
  • It was known long before 9/11 that torture doesn't work to produce accurate intelligence ... but is an effective way to terrorize people
  • And - sadly - America played dirty games to justify and win wars before 9/11
9/11 didn't change anything. It was simply an excuse to implement existing plans.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25318



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[ALOCHONA] MP Kobori and Ex MP Shamim Osman



MP Kobori and Ex MP Shamim Osman



http://amardeshonline.com/pages/details/2011/06/19/88071

http://www.prothom-alo.com/section/date/2011-06-19/category/2


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[ALOCHONA] RE: Monroe Doctrines in Asia?



MBI Munshi wrote:

The writer is absolutely right to argue that India already has a Monroe Doctrine that was originally adopted by Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1950's. I have written a book on the subject and termed the Indian version of the Monroe Doctrine the India Doctrine. It is reassuring that some Americans writers are waking up to the fact. I would go further and suggest that the Indian version is expansionist as well as hegemonic in nature. I originally wrote the book in 2006 and the title of the work is 'The India Doctrine (1947-2007) for anyone interested in understanding Indian foreign policy as applied to South Asia.

I do have some differences with the writer over the Chinese adoption of the Monroe Doctrine. The Chinese throughout its history has been distrustful and wary of outside interference and influence and has attempted to implement a protective barrier around it to prevent external penetration of the mainland which could cause or incite internal disturbance. The objective of the Indian version and the Chinese version of the Monroe Doctrine are very different. While the Indian have tended to be expansionist and hegemonic the Chinese are insular and protective and both have adapted the Monroe Doctrine to fit their particular needs and requirements.

 ---------------

Monroe Doctrines in Asia?



The Diplomat – June 15, 2011

By James R. Holmes

The Monroe Doctrine is seen as a quintessentially US policy, but it has lessons for India and China today. What happens when a free-rider meets a strongman?

Americans learn in grade school that the Monroe Doctrine was a phenomenon unique to US diplomatic history. Fashioned by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and President James Monroe in 1823, it was in effect early America's way of saying 'hands-off' to predatory outsiders. Latin America had largely cast off European rule early in the 19th century. US statesmen wanted to lock in these gains. They feared the European powers would attempt to reclaim lost empires in the New World, either through conquest or by creating client states.

Monroe and Adams sought to bias—or 'shape' in contemporary Pentagon lingo—the diplomatic environment against a return of the great powers. They put outsiders on notice that the United States regarded the security of the Americas as indivisible. That is, the US leadership would interpret any effort to subjugate any American republic as an unfriendly act toward the United States. Monroe and Adams engraved this axiom on US statecraft. It endured for a century, and arguably influences Washington's handling of diplomatic affairs to this day.

Here endeth the history lesson (for the moment). Is the doctrine more than a distinctly US response to a specific set of circumstances? Some eminent statesmen think so. Fifty years ago, India's founding prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, explicitly paid tribute to the precepts set forth by Monroe and Adams. Nehru used the doctrine to justify forcibly ousting the Portuguese from their centuries-old enclave at Goa, and he further cited it as the precedent for a 'broad doctrine' of benign Indian pre-eminence in South Asia.

Monroe and Adams wield authority from beyond the grave, it seems, and in some surprising quarters. And then there's China. China subscribes to a kind of inverse Monroe Doctrine. Chinese pundits routinely castigate the United States for trying to superimpose a latter-day Monroe Doctrine on East Asia. They see such a doctrine as a device for containing Beijing's rightful aspirations. In the same breath, they vehemently disavow any pretensions toward a Monroe Doctrine all their own. With apologies to Shakespeare, methinks the Chinese doth protest too much. Something's going on there as well. One need not invoke Monroe by name to think in Monrovian terms.

It seems clear that something more universal than the preoccupations of early Americans manifested itself in the Monroe Doctrine. Something about the doctrine resonates with great powers that share certain attributes with 19th century America. While there are obvious differences between the United States then and rising Asian sea powers now, consider the similarities. The United States, India, and China are natural 'hegemons,' or overwhelmingly dominant powers, in home regions populated by lesser neighbours. They vastly overmatch nearby states by indices of national power ranging from territorial size to population to natural resources to gross domestic product to military potential. They inhabit distinct regions endowed with natural defences against outsiders' exercise of political and military influence. Mountains, peninsulas, and sheer geographic distance are some of these. Furthermore, a nation that inclines to Monrovian thinking is a nation with considerable potential for sea power, since a hegemon puts its hands-off policy into effect chiefly on the high seas. And finally, a local hegemon with an anti-imperial and nonaligned past will likely find the Monroe Doctrine congenial.

The principles set forth by John Quincy Adams and James Monroe, then, could represent a natural precedent for nations that are roughly similar by these measures. Such nations could pattern their foreign policies and strategies on the Monroe Doctrine, as filtered through their own needs, interests, geopolitical circumstances, and history and traditions. The doctrine also presents outside observers with a device for tracking how rising powers may try to manage their geographic environs.

Varieties of Monrovian Experience

Numerous variants of US policy and strategy went by the name Monrovian. Adams and Monroe hoped to send a message about US purposes, even before the republic had built up enough economic and military power to put steel behind US policy. The doctrine appeared in two separate passages of Monroe's 1823 annual message to Congress, the forerunner to today's State of the Union addresses. The first ruled out territorial conquest. Monroe proclaimed, 'the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European power.' The second passage proscribed indirect abridgement on Latin American sovereignty, meaning actions that would reduce the United States' southern neighbours to puppet or proxy states. The US leadership, continued Monroe: 'could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing" these nations, "or controlling in any other manner their destiny…in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.'

The Monroe Doctrine, then, merely sought to freeze the status quo. Its framers had little desire to launch the United States into some revolutionary campaign to rid the New World of imperial rule altogether. They simply declared no more. Contrary to popular lore, this was no isolationist creed. Monroe didn't abjure international cooperation—even with the great powers—so long as it posed no danger to Latin American independence. Indeed, the president reported elsewhere in his 1823 message that the US Navy was policing the Caribbean Sea alongside an erstwhile foe, Great Britain's Royal Navy, in a joint effort to quash the slave trade. The Monroe Doctrine was a unilateralist document, but it didn't reject foreign entanglements wholesale.

While the hands-off principle endured, successive generations of Americans applied the Monroe Doctrine differently as they took stock of their interests, the dynamics at work in the international environment around them, and the nation's physical wherewithal to shape that environment. The more menacing the strategic surroundings appeared, and the greater the republic's ability to manage those surroundings, the more forceful a stance it tended to take.

The doctrine underwent at least three phases during the United States' rise to regional primacy. These phases offer three models Asia-watchers can use to chart the trajectory of emerging maritime hegemons such as India and China today. Comparing present to past, and determining which paradigm best approximates the current state of a nation's maritime power and strategy, promises to supply useful input to US strategic deliberations. Understanding the factors that impel a nation from one stage of the Monroe Doctrine to another—or lead it to depart from the Monrovian paradigm entirely—could also sharpen foresight in the West, helping statesmen and commanders know prospective allies, partners, and competitors better.

The first model might be dubbed the 'Free-rider' model. Despite lingering bad blood from the American War of Independence and the War of 1812, when British expeditionary forces burned the White House, the United States free-rode on British-supplied maritime security for much of the 19th century. As the beneficiary of outside protection, it could conserve resources that might otherwise have gone into building and maintaining expensive military and naval forces.

Great Britain boasted the world's strongest fleet by far following its overthrow of Napoleonic France. And the British leadership had reasons of its own to keep rival empires from crossing the Atlantic Ocean to reinstate European rule in Latin America. The Royal Navy was in effect Washington's silent partner in enforcing the Monroe Doctrine. As a result, the United States could afford not to construct a large battle fleet to uphold the Monroe Doctrine and defend other interests. The US Navy remained little more than a police force composed of a handful of frigates and lesser craft. As John Paul Jones observed ruefully, this skeletal US Navy was 'unable to meet (European) Fleets and dispute with them the sovereignty of the Ocean.' But it had little need to. The US government used the resources that would have gone into shipbuilding and armaments to finance internal improvements, support the republic's westward spread across North America, and undertake the multitude of tasks associated with nation building.

The Free-rider phase persisted throughout the 19th century, with the brief exception of the American Civil War. But the US Navy atrophied from neglect throughout the 1870s. So decayed and out-dated were the navy's warships, so shrunken its numbers, and so intellectually inert its leadership that when Washington demanded to mediate an end to the Chilean War of the Pacific (1879-1883), Chilean leaders were able to thumb their noses at the northern colossus. The Chilean Navy possessed modern battleships, while the US Navy possessed none. In fact, Santiago made it known that it would send a fleet to bombard San Francisco if Washington refused to butt out. Not so coincidentally, Congress authorized the Navy's first modern armoured men-of-war not long after this fiasco. The new fleet ultimately put teeth into the Monroe Doctrine. The timing for a US naval build-up was fortuitous. British sea power was coming under strain across the globe. By the end of the century, in fact, the British Isles faced dire peril across the North Sea in the form of Germany's emerging High Seas Fleet. No longer could the United States free-ride on an external protector. Its long strategic holiday was drawing to a close.

Second, the United States briefly acted as a 'strongman' of the Western Hemisphere during the 1890s. In 1895, it appeared that Britain and Venezuela might come to blows over a resource-rich strip of borderland between British Guiana and Venezuela. The Grover Cleveland administration decided to act. Washington demanded the right to mediate despite having no real stake in the dispute. In one diplomatic note to Lord Salisbury, the British prime minister and foreign secretary, Secretary of State Richard Olney announced in lordly tones that the United States would get its way not only in the Venezuelan border dispute, but in any regional controversy in which it chose to involve itself. 'Today,' proclaimed Olney, 'the United States is practically sovereign on this continent and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition' (my emphasis). The United States could state such a policy—the Monroe Doctrine was never law per se, although it took on a kind of permanence once other nations started deferring to it—both because of its moral stature and because 'its infinite resources combined with its isolated position render it master of the situation and practically invulnerable as against any or all other powers.'

For Olney and Cleveland, the United States was a better steward of hemispheric affairs than any outsider could be. The objectionable thing about the controversy wasn't Washington's goal—again, the administration only wanted to mediate a peaceful settlement—but the language in which US officials couched their diplomatic correspondence. A sovereign state controls the territory, waters, and skies where it holds sovereignty. The fiat of the ruling regime is indeed law. To take Olney at his word, and interpreting the words of the Monroe Doctrine literally, the United States now claimed the right to dictate events across half the globe.

Unsurprisingly, Olney's message and a subsequent note from Cleveland himself sat well neither with the British government nor with Latin Americans who had consented to no such arrangement. The encounter nonetheless paved the way for a discreet British exit from the Western Hemisphere. London realized it could no longer keep a North American squadron on station that was stronger than the US Navy, and it had the High Seas Fleet to contend with. By the turn of the century, Royal Navy fleets came home from the Far East and the Americas to concentrate on the main challenger, Imperial Germany.

The Monroe Doctrine's strongman phase was thankfully short-lived and the doctrine morphed into a 'constabulary' instrument after the turn of the century. The sea lanes in the Caribbean Sea were the main worry for President Theodore Roosevelt, the architect of a constabulary doctrine. Weak Caribbean governments commonly defaulted on their debts to European banks. Bankers appealed to their government for redress following a default. Unless government-to-government negotiations yielded satisfactory results, the European government sent warships to collect. Sometimes this meant punitive action. More often it meant seizing the customhouse in the Caribbean state in order to repay European creditors from the tariff proceeds.

In 1902, for example, a joint European naval squadron had mounted a blockade of Venezuela. This expedition prompted Roosevelt to order Adm. George Dewey's fleet to the area to shadow the European fleet and deter any breach of the Monroe Doctrine. Roosevelt had little objection to debt collection. What vexed him was the prospect that Europeans might convert customhouses—coastal territory in the Caribbean basin—into naval bases adjoining the new sea lanes that would come into being once a transoceanic canal opened at Panama or Nicaragua.

Warships based along these sea routes would pose a direct threat to shipping in waters of vital US interest. Roosevelt therefore set out to deny the great powers any excuse for occupying US territory. He used his 1904 message to Congress to affix a 'corollary' to the Monroe Doctrine. He quietly dropped Richard Olney's over-the-top language while offering quasi-legal grounds for US intervention in Latin American affairs. He declared:

'Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.'

In practical terms this meant that the United States reserved the right to step in when weak Latin American governments failed to discharge their obligations to foreigners, and when such failures imperilled US geopolitical interests in southern waters. In 1905, the Roosevelt administration negotiated a 'modus vivendi,' or working agreement, with the Dominican government. The compact empowered the US government to take control of the island's customs facilities, apportioning tariff revenue between the government and its creditors. A US customs agent stationed on Santo Domingo administered the agreement.

No military action was necessary to adjust the Dominican dispute or hold European fleets at bay—a fact in which TR took great satisfaction. Yet for Roosevelt, as for his predecessors, the Monroe Doctrine was a function of naval might. 'The Monroe Doctrine,' he wrote, 'is as strong as the United States Navy, and no stronger.' Fellow navalist Alfred Thayer Mahan, America's evangelist of sea power and the intellectual forefather of the modern US Navy, has likewise been dubbed a 'disciple of Monroeism.' To enforce the doctrine in an age of British decline, the United States had to amass sufficient maritime strength to make good on US purposes.

Monroe Doctrines in Asia

The Monroe Doctrine is a fixture in strategic discourses in Asia today. As noted at the outset, Indians explicitly invoke the doctrine as one source of inspiration for their foreign policy and maritime strategy. Fifty years ago, Nehru modelled his 'broad doctrine' on its US precedent. Indeed, Nehru honed the doctrine to a keener edge than did Monroe and Adams, declaring that 'any attempt by a foreign power to interfere in any way with India is a thing which India cannot tolerate, and which, subject to her strength, she will oppose' (my emphasis). Commentator C. Raja Mohan reports that the Monroe Doctrine has become 'an article of faith' within the Indian strategic community. In policy terms, this means building a 'blue-water navy' capable of high-seas combat. According to Mohan, it also means discouraging fellow South Asian governments from 'granting military bases and facilities to great powers.'

Despite officials' rhetoric, however, India's very modest shipbuilding and weapons-procurement patterns suggest that New Delhi remains in free-rider mode. Economic development remains a work in progress on the subcontinent, limiting the resources available for sea power. Any Chinese naval threat remains remote and diffuse for now. And it's far too soon to conclude that US naval power will wane further, demanding the sort of build-up undertaken by the United States to offset the decline of British naval mastery at the close of the 19th century. In short, New Delhi evidently discerns no serious power vacuum in the Indian Ocean.

For their part, Chinese pundits excoriate the United States for keeping up its forward presence in their backyard while heatedly denying that Beijing harbours any desire to substitute its own Monroe Doctrine. Yuan Peng, director of American studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, reprimands 'people with blurred vision or people with ulterior motives' for suggesting that China is now 'practicing an Asian version of the "Monroe Doctrine"' designed to usher the United States out of the Western Pacific 'while China itself becomes the regional hegemony.'

But Chinese words and deeds vis-à-vis Southeast Asia bring Chinese attitudes into sharp focus. Officials have asserted 'indisputable sovereignty' over most of the South China Sea. Last year, the Chinese foreign minister pointedly told his Southeast Asian counterparts that 'China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that's just a fact.' Such language is reminiscent of Richard Olney's insistence that Washington was 'practically sovereign' in the New World. Yet even Olney and Cleveland never dreamt of actually asserting title to the Caribbean basin, despite their overbearing diplomacy during the Venezuelan border crisis. If Beijing is pursuing a Monroe Doctrine by another name, it's a hyper-Monrovian offshoot of the original. In rhetorical terms, China appears to be a regional strongman in the making. Whether the People's Liberation Army yet boasts the wherewithal to execute a policy of regional supremacy is another question.

While Indian and Chinese history won't precisely repeat fin de siècle US history, then, the Monroe Doctrine offers a useful standard against which to compare the evolution of sea power in East and South Asia. To apply the Free-rider, Strongman, and Constabulary models as an intellectual gauge for Asian sea power, it's worth asking several questions:

1) Does an aspiring sea power meet the basic standards set forth above? Is it a natural hegemon with a nonaligned tradition and sizable potential for sea power?

2) Does it make special claims to primacy in its neighbourhood, and if so, does it appeal to the Monroe Doctrine by name? How interventionist is its foreign policy and strategy?

3) How does it view the maritime security environment? Is it comfortable with the degree and kind of outside involvement in the region?

4) Does it have the luxury of free-riding on an extraregional sea power, or must it trust to its own economic, military, and naval resources to put its security doctrine into effect?

Lastly, it's crucial to bear several caveats in mind when undertaking this mental exercise. Some aspects of Asia's geopolitical rise are troubling. First and foremost, two rising sea powers arguably espouse security doctrines reminiscent of Monroe's. But unlike the Western Hemisphere of the 19th century, which witnessed the rise of a single nautical hegemon that was remote from great power politics, two powers given to Monrovian thinking share a disputed land frontier, along with a past punctuated by intermittent conflict and warfare. How an Indian Free-rider would interact with a Chinese Strongman remains to be seen.

Second, as they gaze out to sea, it's unclear where the Indian zone of maritime primacy ends and that of China begins. The arc formed by the Malay Peninsula, the Strait of Malacca, and the Indonesian archipelago represents one intuitive frontier between the two Monroe Doctrines, but it's a permeable frontier. Indian ships occasionally ply the South China Sea, while New Delhi's 'Look East' policy mandates courting economic ties with Southeast Asian nations.

For their part Chinese vessels patrol the western Indian Ocean to help suppress piracy, while Beijing is financing seaport development projects throughout South Asia. Third, vital economic interests rivet the attention of both nations on the Indian Ocean—that is, on India's domain. The region represents a source of seaborne oil, gas, and other raw materials critical to both nations' economic development. Critical sea lanes also crisscross the region not far from the subcontinent. Whether Beijing and New Delhi can devise a modus vivendi governing their relations in South Asia remains an open question.

And finally, US maritime decline is by no means predestined. Great sea powers have bounced back before. Great Britain did it after being humbled during the War of American Independence. Indeed, the greatest days of the British Empire lay before it in 1781, when Lord Cornwallis capitulated to George Washington at Yorktown. It's entirely possible that the United States will make the conscious choice to remain the administrator of the global commons and find the resources to act on that choice.

In short, the principles laid down by John Quincy Adams and James Monroe two centuries ago represent a point of departure for appraising Asian politics and strategy today. One thing becomes clear from this initial foray: inhabitants of Asia and the United States will live in interesting times for many years to come.




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[ALOCHONA] prof yunus




http://www.bdnews24.com/details.php?id=198779&cid=2



Ex-GB staff seek 'total ouster' of Yunus
Sat, Jun 18th, 2011 8:10 pm BdST
Dial 2000 from your GP mobile for latest news  
Dhaka, June 18 (bdnews24.com) — Grameen Bank employees, who claim they were fired whimsically, have demanded Muhammad Yunus's ouster from all the working 36 associate organisations of the bank. 

Suppressed Workers Council and Retired Grameen Employees Association jointly put forth the demand at a press conference at the Dhaka Reporters' Unity on Saturday.

The Suppressed Workers Council comprises former employees, who claim to have been fired from the Grameen Bank in a high-handed manner. 

Council's organising secretary engineer Mohammad Anisur Rahman told the press conference that Yunus, having failed to retain his position in the Bank, was trying hard to get associated with its sister organisations. 

He feared in case Yunus was able to consolidate his association with those bodies, he would treat them as his own property. "He has already embezzled Tk 300 billion from these organisations," Rahman alleged. 



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[ALOCHONA] Fwd: [ History Islam & Beyond . . .] MUST READ: This will be the Arab world's next battle (The Guardian [UK])



This issue will be a crisis for Bangladesh unless we act to have a solution for it. (God forbid) if we have this issue, it could lead to civil wars in our country. I hope our political leaders are paying some attention and stop focusing on their "Pet projects" for a change.



-----Original Message-----
From: Romi Elnagar <bluesapphire48@yahoo.com>
To: undisclosed recipients: ;
Sent: Sat, Jun 18, 2011 9:05 pm
Subject: [ History Islam & Beyond . . .] MUST READ: This will be the Arab world's next battle (The Guardian [UK])

 

This will be the Arab world's next battle

Population growth and water supply are on a collision course. Hunger is set to become the main issue

    Long after the political uprisings in the Middle East have subsided, many underlying challenges that are not now in the news will remain. Prominent among these are rapid population growth, spreading water shortages, and growing food insecurity.
    In some countries grain production is now falling as aquifers – underground water-bearing rocks – are depleted. After the Arab oil-export embargo of the 1970s, the Saudis realised that since they were heavily dependent on imported grain, they were vulnerable to a grain counter-embargo. Using oil-drilling technology, they tapped into an aquifer far below the desert to produce irrigated wheat. In a matter of years, Saudi Arabia was self-sufficient in its principal food staple.

    But after more than 20 years of wheat self-sufficiency, the Saudis announced in January 2008 that this aquifer was largely depleted and they would be phasing out wheat production. Between 2007 and 2010, the harvest of nearly 3m tonnes dropped by more than two-thirds. At this rate the Saudis could harvest their last wheat crop in 2012 and then be totally dependent on imported grain to feed their population of nearly 30 million.

    The unusually rapid phaseout of wheat farming in Saudi Arabia is due to two factors. First, in this arid country there is little farming without irrigation. Second, irrigation depends almost entirely on a fossil aquifer – which, unlike most aquifers, does not recharge naturally from rainfall. And the desalted sea water the country uses to supply its cities is far too costly for irrigation use – even for the Saudis.

    Saudi Arabia's growing food insecurity has led it to buy or lease land in several other countries, including two of the world's hungriest, Ethiopia and Sudan. In effect, the Saudis are planning to produce food for themselves with the land and water resources of other countries to augment their fast-growing imports.

    In neighbouring Yemen, replenishable aquifers are being pumped well beyond the rate of recharge, and the deeper fossil aquifers are also being rapidly depleted. Water tables are falling throughout Yemen by about two metres per year. In the capital, Sana'a – home to 2 million people – tap water is available only once every four days. In Taiz, a smaller city to the south, it is once every 20 days.

    Yemen, with one of the world's fastest-growing populations, is becoming a hydrological basket case. With water tables falling, the grain harvest has shrunk by one-third over the last 40 years, while demand has continued its steady rise. As a result the Yemenis import more than 80% of their grain. With its meagre oil exports falling, with no industry to speak of, and with nearly 60% of its children physically stunted and chronically undernourished, this poorest of the Arab countries is facing a bleak and potentially turbulent future.

    The likely result of the depletion of Yemen's aquifers – which will lead to further shrinkage of its harvest and spreading hunger and thirst – is social collapse. Already a failing state, it may well devolve into a group of tribal fiefdoms, warring over whatever meagre water resources remain. Yemen's internal conflicts could spill over its long, unguarded border with Saudi Arabia.

    Syria and Iraq – the other two populous countries in the region – have water troubles, too. Some of these arise from the reduced flows of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, which they depend on for irrigation water. Turkey, which controls the headwaters of these rivers, is in the midst of a massive dam building programme that is reducing downstream flows. Although all three countries are party to water-sharing arrangements, Turkey's plans to expand hydropower generation and its area of irrigation are being fulfilled partly at the expense of its two downstream neighbours.

    Given the future uncertainty of river water supplies, farmers in Syria and Iraq are drilling more wells for irrigation. This is leading to overpumping in both countries. Syria's grain harvest has fallen by one-fifth since peaking at roughly 7m tonnes in 2001. In Iraq, the grain harvest has fallen by a quarter since peaking at 4.5m tonnes in 2002.

    Jordan, with 6 million people, is also on the ropes agriculturally. Forty or so years ago, it was producing more than 300,000 tonnes of grain per year. Today it produces only 60,000 tonnes and thus must import over 90% of its grain. In this region, only Lebanon has avoided a decline in grain production.

    Thus in the Arab Middle East, where populations are growing fast, the world is seeing the first collision between population growth and water supply at the regional level. For the first time in history, grain production is dropping in a region with nothing in sight to arrest the decline. Because of the failure of governments to mesh population and water policies, each day now brings 10,000 more people to feed, and less irrigation water with which to feed them.

    <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/22/water-the-next-arab-battle>;


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[ALOCHONA] How I Was Abducted And Tortured by DGFI



http://www.williamgomes.org/blog/?p=117

How I Was Abducted And Tortured

The headquarters of the Rapid Action Battalion in Uttara. Photograph: Shahidul Alam for the Guardian

On Saturday, May 21, 2011, in the morning, I went out for some work. When I was returning to my house from the highway near the Sayedabad Bus Terminal a man, who appeared to be taller than me with a height of 5 feet 7 inches, stopped me and said, "Please come near to the car", showing a car waiting on the road facing toward to Bashabo direction. Then, I looked at the car, which was indicated by the person. It was black Mitsubishi Pajero jeep with tinted windows.

I accompanied the person with the very intention of helping and the principle of showing the path to a person who might have lost his way and needed my assistance.

As I walked beside the black car I found the door was opened just next to me and from my back the man, who called me to come to the car, pushed me inside the car and from inside another man forcibly pulled me inside. These two persons, who pushed me from outside and pulled me into the vehicle, sat on my left and right hand side on the seat in the middle of the vehicle. They asked my name by a question, You are William Gomes? I replied in the positive. Immediately, they put black ribon on my eyes (blindfold) and then a black mask (hood) on my head. They took my belongings that include my bag, mobile phone and wallet. The two men sitting on my two sides pointed what felt like guns to my head from both sides and said "Kuttar bachcha (———), sound korbina (Don't make any sound)! Taile eikhan eiy guli koira dimu (Then, we will shoot you right here); Tore marar order hoise (Already order has been issued to kill you).

Then a man, who was sitting on the left seat to the driver, asked the driver to go to the 'Headquarter'. As the car started moving very fast a call came to a cell phone, which was carried by one of the abductors. The man received the call and the conversation I heard that he was saying, "Sir! Sir!! Kuttar bachcha re dhorsi (——- is caught!). Sir! Sir!! Ekhon e handcuff dita chhi (We are going to handcuff him right now!). Then they took my wrists and handcuffed me behind my back.

 

The car was moving fast. After around 40 minute it stopped at some place where they brought me out of the car. Two persons were holding my arm and shoulders from two sides while one them asked, "You move by yourself!" I said, "I cannot see. How can I move?" The man said, "Kuttar bachcha dekhos na (—–, can't see?) RAB er sob kisue tora dekhsos (You see everything what the RAB does). Tor putki dia aje ke gorom gorom dim dimu (We will push hot boiled egg through your anus today). Tor bapera tore kivave bachay dekhbi ne (You will see how your fathers — meaning AHRC, other international human rights organisations and international community — save you).

They took me inside of something and instructed someone to press nine. Then I understood that it was a lift, which was going to the ninth floor of a building.

They took me inside of a room and made me fully naked by taking off all my cloths including the underwear. One of them said, "Jarojer bacha muslomani kora abar nam dise christian (————-is circumcised but takes a Christian name). Ei kuttar bacha RAB, army'r birudhee kaj korbe na to ke korbe (Who else will work against the RAB and Army except these——-)? Sob jaroj gula e kaj kore (All the —– do the similar works).

The other man said, "Hurry up! Brigadier Sir is coming! Do not talk much now! Sirs will do their jobs; Onek mota file ase kuttar bachar namey (Very thick file is there against this -).

They put me on the floor and asked, "Sejda de kuttar bacha! (Bow down – like the Muslims touch their heads on the ground as part of prayer – ——-)!

I did not understand what I was asked to do. Then, a man forced me to bow down like sejda warning me not to touch the floor with my head. Then the man said, "Sejda dia thakbi jarojer bacha (Keep in this position like Sejda, ———-); Matha tulbi to putki dia gorom dim dimu (If you raise your head, hot eggs will pushed into your anus). Tor babara, AHRC r baba go hate pia loi sob gula re putki dia 100 ta koira dim dimu (Whenever we will catch your fathers, the fathers from the AHRC, we will push one hundred hot eggs through their anus each). Suddenly, the man stopped talking to me and said, "Sir! Sir!! Ready Sir! Subject is ready!"

I was feeling cold in that highly cold room without any clothes on my whole body during this time. An unknown voice asked me, "William Gomes, when did you last time went out of the country?" I replied, "Maybe in August last". "Where?" he asked. I replied, "In Hong Kong". He said, "You forgot the date? You khankir pola (), jarojer bacha RTHK (Radio Television Hong Kong) te jia ki koisos buila gesos (——–, did you forget what did you said in RTHK)? koto taka pisos ei sob desh birodhi kotha bolar jonno (How much money have you received for doing this type of anti-state activities?) I said, "I did not say anything bad." Then, they played the RTHK radio programme and said, "You and your AHRC is only good and Hasina (Prime Minister of Bangladesh) is bad?"

I fell down on the floor on two occasions during this period. I felt that blood was coming out throughout my nose. I was felling extremely cold. They asked me, "When did you last meet with Khaleda Zia? Where is the money? Where is the koti (10 million) Taka that you have received?" I said that, "I have never met Khaleda Zia in my life. As a libertarian I do not meet with the right wing people." A new voice then said, "Kuttar bacha, Mishu'r case e koto taka pisos Khaleda Zia'r kas thika , (how much money did you receive from Khaleda Zia by dealing with the case of (Moshrefa) Mishu (a workers' leader, who belongs to the pro-communist party)?).

At this point one man started talking in native English and asked me, "How much did the AHRC gives you as source money? How many people do you have inside the RAB and the police?" He also asked, "How did you manage the audio record of Mishu's statement from the custody? How did you mange to organize protests in (South) Korea for Mishu?"

I kept quite because I was feeling that my brain would soon come out of my head. Then, one of the interrogators, who was previously asking questions, said, "Kuttar bachcha chup keno (Why is the ——— maintains silence)? Gola fataia tor bapera to sara pruthibi te koita tace RAB band korte (Your fathers have been shouting crazily all over the world to disband the RAB). Tor bapeder ban kormu, aj ke tore agey ban koira nei (We will ban your fathers; let us first ban you today).

Then they asked, "When did you go to (Pakistan controlled) Kashmir? When did you meet with the ISI (Inter Service Intelligence of Pakistan) people?" I said that "I never went there". They said, "We have information that you are appointed by the ISI to destroy the Bangladesh army, RAB and the police".

I said, "I never knew anyone of the ISI; I am a human rights activist. I only work for the AHRC." They said, "We know that you are a dalal (collaborator) of AHRC; they are the greatest enemy of Bangladesh and army." Your boss came to Bangladesh and said the army may come to power. What is the problem of—————]? That kuttar bacha (———-) has been kicked out from his own country and that kuttar bachar sahos ki vave hoy Bangladesh army'r biruddhe kotha koi (How dare this son of dog speaks against the Bangladesh Army?)

Khankir pola, tui Birganj er thana burn korar jono taka disos (———, you have paid money for burning the police station in Birganj (in Dinajpur district, in northern Bangladesh). DGFI, NSI report taie koi (The report of the Directorate General Forces Intelligence-DGFI and National Security Intelligence-NSI reveals this information). AHRC ar ISI koto taka disilo (How much money did the AHRC and ISI give you)? Police re osomman koros (You dishonor the police)? Tor bape ra aisa desh chali bo (Will your fathers will come to rule the country)? Tor sob mail amader kase ase (We have all of your emails in our hand)! Ko kuttar bachcha! thana burn korte kare koto taka disos (Tell us, ———-, whom did you pay how much money for burning the police station)?

I answered that "I am against violence and I never learned from the AHRC to do any violence." The man said, "Ah ha re! koto sadhu! Torai to desher somman sesh koira dita sos (Wao! What a saint! You are destroying the dignity of the country); Desher er development bondho koira dita sos (Stopping the development of the country); Desh er bahirey mukh dekhaite pari na (We cannot show our face in abroad (for your work).

One of them said to another person, "Sir amader major Mustafiz bisoye ta jiggasa koren (Sir, ask him about our Major Mustafiz (Mr. Mustafizur Rahman Bokul, an army major, who was the main instigator of the eye-gouging and fracturing of limbs of human rights defender Mr. FMA Razzak); Bangladesh army'r man ejjot sesh koira dise ei shuorer bacha ra (These ——–have finished the prestige and dignity of the Bangladesh Army).

Another man asked, "How much money did you get to defame the Bangladesh army officials like major Musfatiz?" I said, "I am not against the Bangladesh Army. But there are bad people in the army, who kill people whenever they take over the power of the country. The man said, "Kuttar bachcha (——-)! Army kharap r tomra bhalo (Army is bad and you are good)? Jaroj er bacha (Son of bastard)!

NSI'r filey tor choddo gustirr khobor asey (There are detailed information of your fourteen generations in the files of the NSI); Tor bap e der sob khobor ase (All information about your fathers are also there). Tui Dulal re disturb korsos keno (Why do you disturb Dulal, a man, who was abducted by the RAB from the Dhamal Court area adjacent to the Dhaka Cantonment in 2010 and later returned after many months. He was kept in a secret torture cell cum detention centre of the RAB)? Razib Sazib re disturb koros keno (Why do you disturb Razib and Sazib (Two cousins, who were recently kidnapped by the RAB and detained and torture for about five days and later handed over to the police implicating a fabricated snatching case)? At that time a phone rang and the man talk to someone as I heard he was saying, "Sir! Sir!! Finishing, Sir!"
Then the foreigner, who was speaking in native English, asked, "When will —– come to Bangladesh?" I said, "I do not know anything about —-". He again asked, "When your boss will come?" I again said, "I do not know".

I felt so thirsty there at that time and I requested them to give me some water to drink. Then a man gave me water; it was mild hot and the taste of the water was not normal.

Then another man said, "Razzak is a dalal (collaborator) and cheat; Our good officer major Mustafiz is saving the nation from dacoit (robber) like you; He (Major Mustafiz asked his brother to bring the bastard (FMA Razzak) and chokh ta tuila ne (Gouge out his eyes); Ei kuttar bachcha salar pola jeno ar dekhte na pare (As if this son of ——– can never see with his eyes). Kuttar bachcha Razzak er jonno aamader ghum haram (We could not sleep for this —– Razzak); Sob jaiga thika sudhu mail r chiti (So many mails and letters have come to us all over (the world]). Tui kouttar bachcha ko koto taka pisos (——–! Tell us, how much money have you received)? Haramair bachcha! Taka tor putki dia dimu (Son of bastard! We will push the money through your anus)!

Police, magistrate der bolia dia hoise (Police and Magistrates are already instructed). Ja eibar joto khusi fight kor (Now, go! Fight your case as much as you can!) Oi salar pola Razzak er case e court ar police re amra ja rai ditey komu ta e dibo (Whatever we will instruct the court and the police to do regarding the case of Razzak that verdict will be declared)!

One of them said, Sob gula desho drohi (All are traitors)! Ei gula ei deshe thakar joggo na (These people do not deserve a place in this country); Passport gula nia fela dorkar ei kuttar bachchader (The passports of these ——– should be confiscated).

I was also asked who were the people in the diplomatic missions helping us? They asked, "Who are the countries that are providing funds to you?" I said, "We do not have any funds." They also asked, "Why I am interested about the Bangladeshi nationals in Indian jails (for which my organization Christian Development Alternative (CDA) wrote letter to the authorities requesting them to solve the problem from the human rights perspective.)? Why I am defaming a good government having good relationships with India?"

That man talked about the poster and sticker and asked, "Who is drawing the posters and stickers and who is printing?" I said, "I do not know the designer. Only Zaman Bhai (Mr. Ashrafuzzaman, a staff member of the AHRC) knows; He has his friends — teachers in charukola (Fine Arts Faculty of the University of Dhaka). But I know the man who prints the materials in the press; I know the place but do not know the exact address." They asked, "Why did you send the materials to the parliament? We got complaints from the parliamentarians also! They talk about a law on torture! They must know that the law will never be passed! We will make it sure!"

Then one officer said, "O re ekta rastro drohi mamla den (Fabricate a treason case against him); then, another person said, "Na, ore jongi mamla dai (No, we should fabricate a militancy case against him). Then the foreigner's voice said, "He is a terrorist!"

The other man said, "Kill him and give to magur machh (Clarias gariepinus (a species of fish that eats up human beings) like Salim (A petty businessman who has been disappeared after the RAB arrested him from Gazipur a year ago for which the lawyers of the AHRC filed a Habeas Corpus petition before a High Court Division Bench of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh).

I started crying and said, "I have two small sons; please pardon me! I will never do this work again!"

Then, one of them said, "Kuttar bachcha! Tumi korba na (——–! You will not do!)! Tumar baba ra to aj ke e as ta ce (Your fathers are coming today)!! Amra jani na mone korso (Don't you think that we don't know it)? Haramir bachcha, amader ghum haram koira abar baire theke harmair bacha der daika nia an ta so (Son of bastard, destroying our sleep now you are bringing other sons of ——from abroad)? Desher er development ar somman sesh koira dita sos (You are finishing the development and dignity of the country)!

I said that I will not go (to the Asian Human Rights Commission) and "I will do no more work for the AHRC". Then, the man said, "You better not leave the work! Behave well until ——- are in the country. Do not tell them anything about our meeting! Go and behave like a normal man! You better listen to us! Otherwise, we know better how to make you listen!"

Then they took me in another room put my pants and t-shirt on and dragged me out from the room; put me in a similar car, which drove fast as well. When they took off my blindfold and hood I saw the same 5 feet 7 inches tall man came near to the car. He was carrying my belongings — bag, mobile phone and wallet. I understood that it was the same car. The man was standing near to a vehicle of RAB and said, "Kuttar bachcha! Mukh khul ley magur mas re dia khamou (——-! If you open your mouth we will arrange Clarias gariepinus to eat you up); Amara tor sob dekhta ci (We are watching your every movements).

My health situation has gotten worse since that day. They might have put something in that water, which I drunk in their custody. I am having pain in both legs, particularly in knees and ankles. I find it very hard to write. Sometime I appear to be paralyzed; I do not find strength in hands; my body trembles and I feel that I will collapse at any time. I cannot sleep properly. Any small sound rings like big bang to me! I have pain in my backbone and at the whole of my back. Sometimes I cry when I remember that they made me naked and called me with very bad names. Can you imagine they called me jaroj (bastard)?

I fell that I should kill myself. They humiliated me but I cannot do anything. I am sure enough that the Commander of the Media and Legal Wing of RAB, M Sohail, was there in that room while they did all these to me and he was the man, who was translating to the foreigner.

It seems that my life is finished! They took me at around 10:30am in the morning (on 21 May 2011) and when I reached home it was around 3:30pm. I feel the pain . . . experience the pain all the time. I am very much ashamed whenever I think that they made me naked and forced me to bow me down before them like a slave! They blamed me to have connection with the ISI! I am not a man like that! I never went to Kashmir and Pakistan in my life!

I am felling so restless and tired! I am feeling pains in my head. It seems that something is moving inside my brain. I want to give good answers to the people who made me naked. I want them to know that I am powerless and poor and weak, but I am also fearless! I do not want to be killed by them like the DGFI and I want to sleep well, I still want to be a human rights lawyer. . .

http://www.williamgomes.org/blog/?p=117



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