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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

[ALOCHONA] Air Vice Marshal A K Khandkar



Air Vice Marshal A K Khandkar



http://www.amadershomoy1.com/content/2011/06/22/news0763.htm


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[ALOCHONA] Fortress India



Fortress India

Why is Delhi building a new Berlin Wall to keep out its Bangladeshi neighbors?

BY SCOTT CARNEY, JASON MIKLIAN, KRISTIAN HOELSCHER | JULY/AUGUST 2011

Felani wore her gold bridal jewelry as she crouched out of sight inside the squalid concrete building. The 15-year-old's father, Nurul Islam, peeked cautiously out the window and scanned the steel and barbed-wire fence that demarcates the border between India and Bangladesh. The fence was the last obstacle to Felani's wedding, arranged for a week later in her family's ancestral village just across the border in Bangladesh.

There was no question of crossing legally -- visas and passports from New Delhi could take years -- and besides, the Bangladeshi village where Islam grew up was less than a mile away from the bus stand on the Indian side. Still, they knew it was dangerous. The Indians who watched the fence had a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later. Islam had paid $65 to a broker who said he could bribe the Indian border guard, but he had no way of knowing whether the money actually made it into the right hands.

Father and daughter waited for the moment when the guards' backs were turned and they could prop a ladder against the fence and clamber over. The broker held them back for hours, insisting it wasn't safe yet. But eventually the first rays of dawn began to cut through the thick morning fog. They had no choice but to make a break for it.

Islam went first, clearing the barrier in seconds. Felani wasn't so lucky. The hem of her salwar kameez caught on the barbed wire. She panicked, and screamed. An Indian soldier came running and fired a single shot at point-blank range, killing her instantly. The father fled, leaving his daughter's corpse tangled in the barbed wire. It hung there for another five hours before the border guards were able to negotiate a way to take her down; the Indians transferred the body across the border the next day. "When we got her body back the soldiers had even stolen her bridal jewelry," Islam told us, speaking in a distant voice a week after the January incident.

Other border fortifications around the world may get all the headlines, but over the past decade the 1,790-mile fence barricading the near entirety of the frontier between India and Bangladesh has become one of the world's bloodiest. Since 2000, Indian troops have shot and killed nearly 1,000 people like Felani there.

In India, the 25-year-old border fence -- finally expected to be completed next year at a cost of $1.2 billion -- is celebrated as a panacea for a whole range of national neuroses: Islamist terrorism, illegal immigrants stealing Indian jobs, the refugee crisis that could ensue should a climate catastrophe ravage South Asia. But for Bangladeshis, the fence has come to embody the irrational fears of a neighbor that is jealously guarding its newfound wealth even as their own country remains mired in poverty. The barrier is a physical reminder of just how much has come between two once-friendly countries with a common history and culture -- and how much blood one side is willing to shed to keep them apart.


India did not always view its eastern neighbor in such hostile terms. When Bengali-speaking nationalists in what was then East Pakistan won Bangladesh's independence in a bloody 1971 civil war, they did it armed with Indian weapons. But the war destroyed Bangladesh's already anemic infrastructure and left more than a million dead, presaging the new country's famously unlucky future. Bangladesh is now home to 160 million people crammed into an area smaller than Iowa; 50 percent of the population lives on less than $1.25 a day, and the country bottoms out the list on most major international health indicators.

As bad as things are, they can get plenty worse. Situated on a delta and crisscrossed by 54 swollen rivers, Bangladesh factors prominently in nearly every worst-case climate-change scenario. The 1-meter sea-level rise predicted by some widely used scientific models would submerge almost 20 percent of the country. The slow creep of seawater into Bangladesh's rivers caused by global-warming-induced flooding, upriver dams in India, and reduced glacial melt from the Himalayas is already turning much of the country's fertile land into saline desert, upending its precarious agricultural economy. Studies commissioned by the U.S. Defense Department and almost a dozen other security agencies warn that if Bangladesh is hit by the kind of Hurricane Katrina-grade storm that climate change is likely to make more frequent, it would be a "threat multiplier," sending ripples of instability across the globe: new opportunities for terrorist networks, conflicts over basic human essentials like access to food and water, and of course millions of refugees. And it's no secret where the uprooted Bangladeshis would go first. Bangladesh shares a border with only two countries: the democratic republic of India and the military dictatorship of Burma. Which would you choose?

India has a long history of accepting refugees, from the Tibetan government in exile to Sri Lankans fleeing a drawn-out civil war. Faced with the threat of mass migration from the east, however, New Delhi has drawn a line in the sand. Rather than prepare expensive and possibly permanent resettlement zones, India began erecting a fence, complete with well-armed guards, in 1986. After the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won national elections in 1998, the program was ramped up to placate anti-Muslim sentiment among the party faithful. The fence grew longer and the killings more frequent. After years of complaints from Bangladeshi politicians, India made promises on several occasions to switch to nonlethal weaponry, but has rarely followed through on them.

By next year, every available crossing point between India and Bangladesh will have been blocked off by the fence. But while tightened security has made the border more dangerous, it hasn't actually made it much more secure. More than 100 border villages operate as illicit transit points through which thousands of migrants pass daily. Each of these villages has a "lineman" -- what would be called a coyote on the U.S.-Mexican border -- who facilitates the smuggling, paying border guards from both notoriously corrupt countries to look the other way when people pass through.

"Entire villages can cross the border with the right payoffs," says Kirity Roy, head of the Indian human rights organization Masum, which together with Human Rights Watch released a bleak report on the border situation in December. No one is likely to manage the crossing without a lineman's help, Roy explains. "If someone tries to sneak past the linemen without paying, they will find them out and tell the border guards to shoot them." An inefficient bribe system, he says, explains how border guards could kill 1,000 unarmed people in the last decade.

The ugly immigration politics on the western side of the fence, where popular sentiment runs decisively in favor of walling off Bangladesh, have made a bad situation worse. The New Delhi-based Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses estimates that there are already 10 to 20 million illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in India. (By comparison, there are an estimated 11.2 million illegal Mexican immigrants in the United States.)

The rise of global Islamist militancy in recent years has worsened the xenophobic streak in India's already dicey relations with its Muslim neighbors, and Indian politicians have been quick to capitalize on it. By 2009, Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram was declaring that Bangladeshis have "no business to come to India." The opposition BJP isn't rolling out the welcome mat either: Tathagata Roy, the party's leader in the Bangladesh-bordering state of West Bengal, has called for lining the border with antipersonnel mines. If the predictions come true for immigration from Bangladesh, Roy says, India's population of 900 million Hindus will have no choice but "to convert or jump into the sea."

The border itself has hardened into a grim killing field. Although border shootings are officially recorded by Indian officials as "shot in self-defense," the Masum and Human Rights Watch report found that none of the victims was armed with anything more dangerous than a sickle, and it accused the Indian Border Security Force of "indiscriminate killing and torture."

Most of the dead are farmers caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. In January, Bangladeshi soldiers told us, six Indian soldiers lured a Bangladeshi farmer named Shahjahan Ali into a swath of no man's land along the border. They stripped him naked, beat him, broke his legs, and mutilated his genitals before throwing him back into Bangladesh, where he bled to death from his injuries. "It's like they are drunk," says the Bangladeshi soldier who found Ali. "Like they are on drugs." Powerless to fire back without creating an international incident with their vastly stronger neighbor, the Bangladeshi border guards can do little more than pick up the bodies.

Felani's death, however, galvanized Bangladesh. Graphic photos of her dead body made the front pages of newspapers across the country, and political parties posted her picture with the caption "Stop Border Killing!" on seemingly every available wall in the capital city of Dhaka. Shamsher Chowdhury, a former Bangladeshi foreign secretary and current vice chairman of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, says, "The fence is our Berlin Wall." The shooting seemed to have given India pause as well. In March, New Delhi once again agreed to strip its border guards of live ammunition, and for once actually did it. For the first month in almost a decade, Indian troops didn't kill anyone on the border.

But by April the Indian soldiers had reloaded, shooting a Bangladeshi cattle trader and three others in separate incidents. It was a bleak reminder that while the fence itself may be a flimsy thing, the tensions that make it into a killing zone are remarkably durable.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/06/20/fortress_india?page=full

COMMENTS:

RAJSINGH

5:06 AM ET

June 20, 2011

such a bigotry and one sided article

this article is so one sided with not proper evidences and fels like a accusation ..

You compared it with US/Mexican border .. but India is not US .. we are a poor country and cannot support 20 million bangladeshi immigrants , you do know that in many states or assam and West bengal the "illegal" immigrants are now a big voting block and have become influential, You should also know that Bangladesh is not Mexico and there are many extremist organization there .. from LET to ULFA , a lot of insurgent s in India lived and trained there ( though the situation is much better now with the present bangla govt.)

you said that Bangladesh does nto respond .. do you ever follow news .. let me give you one example : http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/apr/18bang3.htm

and search more you will find dozen of such articles .. in one case 16 BSF soldiers were killed and then carried like animals by BDR.

The border fence is a necessity and don't try to drum it up as a humanitarian issue ... we are a sovereign country and have all the rights to protect our borders .. just see all the western countries adn how they protect their borders from immigrants ...

I can't believe this article is called "Reporting" , what a shame !!!

  REPLY
 

MAZO

5:51 AM ET

June 20, 2011

Mountain meet Molehill....

"Since 2000, Indian troops have shot and killed nearly 1,000 people like Felani there."

This one statement alone demonstrates the sheer bias of this article. Felani and civilians like her have been a small minority of cases who have been killed. Most of the people killed by the Border Security Force on the Indian side have been cattle smugglers, fuel smugglers drug smugglers, human traffickers and gun runners. All engaging in highly illegal activities and activities that cause the greatest harm to the very poorest of the poor, especially in Bangladesh.

Why doesn't this article note how human trafficking of young Bangladeshi girls sold into prostitution in India has been dramatically curtailed due to the Border fence ? How the sale of low quality drugs and the sale of illegal weapons has been curtailed ?

"and how much blood one side is willing to shed to keep them apart."

This statement again belies the real truth of the situation. The Bangladeshi Rifles are notorious for sparking international incidents by firing at Indian Border Police without cause. Till the recent change in government in Dhaka, the Bangla Rifles were regularly conducting unprovoked attacks on Indian guard positions along the international border. This was either done to give cover to smugglers moving goods across the border or to facilitate the crossing of criminals and terrorists from the Indian side over to Bangladesh to find safe sanctuary.

This article's hypocritical tone about "Indian aggression" fails to explain the belligerence of the Bangla Rifles or the fact that Bangladesh has stubbornly refused to demonstrate even a modicum of neighborly behavior by continuously refusing the passage of Indian goods across its territory to Indian states on its other sides or from Indian goods or Burmese oil from meeting each other. Bangladesh has for the last few decades engaged in a policy that was actively hostile towards India while covertly supporting anti-Indian militias, anti-Indian Islamic terrorists and other operations that have been severely detrimental to Indian internal security. The article fails to even note how many BSF soldiers have lost their lives to Bangla Border Guards in unprovoked firing on BSF positions. After all this, do the authors of this article really expect Indian benevolence towards such neighbors ?

The bottom line is quite simply; India owes Bangladesh NOTHING. We do not owe Bangladeshis refuge from natural disasters or economic aid or democratic guidance to solve their political problems and we most certainly do no owe Bangladesh a share of our still nascent economic progress.
In fact it is the Bangladeshis that owe India much for having a nation at all and for coming to their aid to stop a genocide by Pakistani troops.

  REPLY
 

WWMARGERA

6:31 AM ET

June 20, 2011

What a shameful article

RAJSINGH said:

> you do know that in many states or assam and West bengal the "illegal" immigrants are now a big voting block and have become influential,

What he failed to mention is that they use their influence to peddle islamic intolerance and extremism. bangladesh itself, like pakistan, is built on the foundation of islamic intolerance and genocide of Hindus. See this site to learn more about it:

http://www.genocidebangladesh.org/

What articles like this imply is that it is perfectly fine for islamic shitheads to kill Hindus and take over their lands, but if the remaining Hindus take proper care of the remaining land and make it flourish with their own hard work, they then have the obligation to let these same islamic assholes into these lands - and for what? So that they may take over these lands too? So that they can inflict yet another genocide on the native Hindus of the subcontinent? The real wonder is not that India has finally begun to do something to stop bangladeshis from taking over India, but rather this that India itself does not try to take over bangladesh. Would any of you have shown the same degree of restraint? I doubt it.

  REPLY
 

KHICHURI

2:53 PM ET

June 20, 2011

Good article, but needs more perspective

You need to understand the reason why this is a huge issue in India. Immigration of millions from across the border have led to major demographic changes in some Indian states leading to violent movements that lasted for decades. Lets say if illegal immigrants from Mexico become close to 50% of the population of an US state - and if USA and Mexico were both very poor countries with lots of ethnic divisions and conflicts and if Mexico were majority Muslim which had a record of treating their Christian minority very badly, how would things work out? Bangladesh has for decades provided shelter to Islamic militants and other terrorist newworks that have targeted India - they have stopped doing this only recently after a new progressive government came to power. The minority community in Bangladesh- Hindus have been treated pretty horribly by Bangladesh, though things have been getting better of late.

That said, unlike the other comments, I unequivoically condemn the shooting of innocent people on the border and I agree it should stop. So you are making an useful point. Thanks.

  REPLY
 

SHAN94

9:47 PM ET

June 21, 2011

A complete lack of historical understanding

Bangladeshi muslims are Indian Bengali muslims who in 1946, claimed that they could not live with Hindus and used street rioting in Direct Action Day and Noakhali, to rape, murder and forcibly convert Hindus. East Pakistan / Bangladesh was carved out of India by muslim rioting.

They reduced Hindus from 30% in 1946 to 10% today, by ethnic cleansing, abduction of women, land grabbing by Enemy Property Act and other acts of terror.

Bangladeshi muslims have formed Eurabia type enclaves in many bordering states of India. And here, they harass the local Hindus by stealing women, cattle, and land.
Illegal immigrant Bangladeshi muslims have already formed islamist secessionist groups like MULTA, trying to slice off a few more districts from India.

Bangladesh gave up secularism in 1975 and Islam is the state religion.
Hindus, Christians and Buddhists from Bangladesh are welcome in India.
As far as Bangladeshi muslims, they have no further rights on India. They made their choice in 1946 and they can enjoy their karma.

Mexican illegals are christian not muslims like the Bangladeshi muslims.
Bangladeshi muslims , living in UK, have made many parts of London into Eurabia.

  REPLY
 

MBI MUNSHI

12:00 AM ET

June 22, 2011

FP swallows Indian Propaganda whole

It is a shame that US magazines still remain so undiscerning and uncritical of Indian policy objectives and propaganda aimed at its South Asian neighbors. India's border fencing policy with Bangladesh has nothing to do with climate change or illegal immigration. India would be a far worse sufferer of climate change than Bangladesh with the ocean on three sides (i.e. the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea covering India's eastern and western flanks) and the tsunami of 2004 clearly showing that a rise in sea levels would have extremely devastating consequences for India. Bangladesh was completely unharmed by the 2004 tsunami because of the shallow waters on its coastal regions. India will sink long before Bangladesh does in the case of climate change and a corresponding sea rise. This does not mean that Bangladesh will remain unaffected by climate change as cyclones could become more violent and deadly but there is an even chance that such a storm could hit India or Myanmar without ever reaching Bangladesh shores (look at a map).

As for illegal immigration there were only two periods where Bangladeshis/East Pakistanis emigrated to India en masse - in 1947 and 1971. Most of the emigres in these two periods were Hindus and have settled nicely in Hindu majority India without any intention of retuning to Bangladesh. After 1971 illegal immigration to India from Bangladesh has been limited and the overall figure of 20 million immigrants to India is highly exaggerated. If so many Bangladeshis had tried to emigrate to India in the last 30 years then the death rate on the border (from BSF shootings) would be far far higher. It also makes no economic sense for Bangladeshis to emigrate to India. All the Indian states surrounding Bangladesh are far poorer in GDP/PPP terms excepting one - Meghalaya which has virtually no Bangladeshi immigrants. Bangladeshis would also not prefer to go to other parts of India because of cultural, religions and linguistic differences as well as increasing Hindu chauvinism in financially lucrative and wealthy states such as Maharashtra and Gujarat. So in conclusion the argument about illegal immigration to Bangladesh is a fallacious one.

So what is the real reason for India's inhuman border fencing policy with Bangladesh? The obvious rationale for the policy (apart from India's inherent hegemonic tendencies) is preparation for war with China. Under the subservient regime of the present Awami League government under Sheikh Hasina there have been several strategically significant deals already signed or under negotiation with New Delhi such as transit facilities and access to ports as well as other vital infrastructure. These are all intended to help supply the Indian military located in the North East who are presently in a face off with Chinese troops (across the border from disputed Arunachal Pradesh) in Tibet. In the event of war, India could easily access Bangladesh to reach its army positioned in the North East but which is presently limited by the narrow Shilguri pass (or chicken neck) which could be easily blocked during a protracted conflict with China. Having access through Bangladesh provides a convenient alternative route to the North East region. But what has any of this to do with the border fencing policy? The fencing policy has a military objective to fence in Bangladeshis who might prefer to side with China and who could help incite rebellion in the insurgency prone North East states of India in time of war. It is in India's vital national interests to completely isolate and hermetically seal Bangladesh from the North East states. Bangladeshis generally resent Indian expansionist and hegemonic policies (see The India Doctrine (1947-2007)) and could easily find common cause with a sympathetic China. The strategic alignment of Bangladesh under the Awami League with India also has some obvious negative consequences for the country. Bangladesh would be inevitably drawn into a war it does not want and against a country it does not want to fight and has no serious differences with (i.e. China).

In a recent article in PROBE news magazine it was asserted that India was turning Bangladesh into a huge prison through its border fencing policy. It is my assertion that in the event of war India will in fact turn Bangladesh into a giant concentration camp.

  REPLY
 

MBI MUNSHI

12:07 AM ET

June 22, 2011

FP swallows Indian propaganda claims on border fencing policy

It is a shame that US magazines still remain so undiscerning and uncritical of Indian policy objectives and propaganda aimed at its South Asian neighbors. India's border fencing policy with Bangladesh has nothing to do with climate change or illegal immigration. India would be a far worse sufferer of climate change than Bangladesh with the ocean on three sides (i.e. the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea covering India's eastern and western flanks) and the tsunami of 2004 clearly showing that a rise in sea levels would have extremely devastating consequences for India. Bangladesh was completely unharmed by the 2004 tsunami because of the shallow waters on its coastal regions. India will sink long before Bangladesh does in the case of climate change and a corresponding sea rise. This does not mean that Bangladesh will remain unaffected by climate change as cyclones could become more violent and deadly but there is an even chance that such a storm could hit India or Myanmar without ever reaching Bangladesh shores (look at a map).

As for illegal immigration there were only two periods where Bangladeshis/East Pakistanis emigrated to India en masse - in 1947 and 1971. Most of the émigrés in these two periods were Hindus and have settled nicely in Hindu majority India without any intention of returning to Bangladesh. After 1971 illegal immigration to India from Bangladesh has been limited and the overall figure of 20 million immigrants to India is highly exaggerated. If so many Bangladeshis had tried to emigrate to India in the last 30 years then the death rate on the border (from BSF shootings) would be far far higher. It also makes no economic sense for Bangladeshis to emigrate to India. All the Indian states surrounding Bangladesh are far poorer in GDP/PPP terms excepting one - Meghalaya which has virtually no Bangladeshi immigrants. Bangladeshis would also not prefer to go to other parts of India because of cultural, religious and linguistic differences as well as increasing Hindu chauvinism in financially lucrative and wealthy states such as Maharashtra and Gujarat. So in conclusion the argument about illegal immigration to Bangladesh is a fallacious one.

So what is the real reason for India's inhuman border fencing policy with Bangladesh? The obvious rationale for the policy (apart from India's inherent hegemonic tendencies) is preparation for war with China. Under the subservient regime of the present Awami League government under Sheikh Hasina there have been several strategically significant deals already signed or under negotiation with New Delhi such as transit facilities and access to ports as well as other vital infrastructure. These are all intended to help supply the Indian military located in the North East who are presently in a face off with Chinese troops (across the border from disputed Arunachal Pradesh) in Tibet. In the event of war, India could easily access Bangladesh to reach its army positioned in the North East but which is presently limited by the narrow Shilguri pass (or chicken neck) which could be easily blocked during a protracted conflict with China. Having access through Bangladesh provides a convenient alternative route to the North East region. But what has any of this to do with the border fencing policy? The fencing policy has a military objective to fence in Bangladeshis who might prefer to side with China and who could help incite rebellion in the insurgency prone North East states of India in time of war. It is in India's vital national interests to completely isolate and hermetically seal Bangladesh from the North East states. Bangladeshis generally resent Indian expansionist and hegemonic policies (see The India Doctrine (1947-2007)) and could easily find common cause with a sympathetic China. The strategic alignment of Bangladesh under the Awami League with India also has some obvious negative consequences for the country. Bangladesh would be inevitably drawn into a war it does not want and against a country it does not want to fight and has no serious differences with (i.e. China).

In a recent article in PROBE news magazine it was asserted that India was turning Bangladesh into a huge prison through its border fencing policy. It is my assertion that in the event of war India will in fact turn Bangladesh into a giant concentration camp.




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[ALOCHONA] Fwd: Allegation of EC's election conspiracy



-------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Zoglul Husain <zoglul@hotmail.co.uk>
Date: Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 1:02 AM
Subject: Allegation of EC's election conspiracy

Allegation of election conspiracy

BNP's letter to the Election Commission

Click to read:
BNP Letter to EC


http://av.bdnews24.com/file/all/21-06-2011-Letter%20to%20EC.pdf



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[ALOCHONA] Bangladeshi State-agents target Human Rights Defenders for abduction and torture without any room for redress



http://www.williamgomes.org/blog/?p=126


21 June 2011

 

 

Mr. Andris Piebalgs

Commissioner for Development,

European Commission,
Rue de la Loi 200
B-1049, Brussels

BELGIUM

 

Fax: +32 (0)2 298 8624

 

 

Dear Mr. Piebalgs,

 

RE: Bangladeshi State-agents target Human Rights Defenders for abduction and torture without any room for redress

 

I take this opportunity to introduce myself as a human rights defender and a journalist of Bangladesh. I work as executive director of a Dhaka-based human rights organization named Christian Development Alternative (CDA) and I also work as Bangladesh Correspondent of Sri Lanka Guardian, an online newspaper of the South Asian region. My work mostly focused on custodial torture, extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrest and detention by the law-enforcement agencies and security forces of the country.

I have been subjected to abduction and torture and extreme forms of cruel and inhuman treatment while in an eight-hour detention by the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) at its headquarters in Dhaka on 21 May 2011 for which I have no scope of redress or reparation in the current legal systems of Bangladesh. I have been forced to hide in a secret shelter in order to save my life due to death threats since I was released from their custody. For further details regarding my abduction and detention are available at: http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-078-2011

   

I came to know that a nine-member joint delegation led by you and Mr. Birk Niebel, Economic Cooperation and Development Minister of Germany, called on the Prime Minister of Bangladesh on Tuesday, 21 June, at her office.

 

As a citizen of Bangladesh I appreciate the assistance European Commission, as development partners, provides to my country, as these assistance helps the people of Bangladesh very much. I am aware that the EU, as one of major development partners, mostly emphasizes on the issues of good-governance, human rights and rule of law while providing grants to Bangladesh where gross human rights abuses perpetrated unabatedly by the State-agents is a way of life and law-enforcement.

 

As a human rights defender and journalist I am aware that victims of torture and extreme forms ill-treatment do not have minimum access to justice in the existing legal system in Bangladesh, which has not yet criminalized torture despite the fact that the country is a party to the Convention Against Torture (CAT) and a Bill on criminalization of torture and extrajudicial killing has been pending for two years in the parliament of Bangladesh.

  

As a victim of torture I have no room left for myself to seek justice in the current circumstances. I believe that interventions from your good office, during your meetings with your Bangladeshi counterparts, may create space for enabling the victims like myself to access to justice in Bangladesh, as the country receives grants from your governments for upholding the rule of law and protecting human rights of the people.

 

Sincerely yours'

 

William Gomes

www.williamgomes.org

http://www.williamgomes.org/blog/?p=126




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[ALOCHONA] Bangladeshi State-agents target Human Rights Defenders for abduction and torture without any room for redress



21 June 2011

 

 

Mr. Andris Piebalgs

Commissioner for Development,

European Commission,
Rue de la Loi 200
B-1049, Brussels

BELGIUM

 

Fax: +32 (0)2 298 8624

 

 

Dear Mr. Piebalgs,

 

RE: Bangladeshi State-agents target Human Rights Defenders for abduction and torture without any room for redress

 

I take this opportunity to introduce myself as a human rights defender and a journalist of Bangladesh. I work as executive director of a Dhaka-based human rights organization named Christian Development Alternative (CDA) and I also work as Bangladesh Correspondent of Sri Lanka Guardian, an online newspaper of the South Asian region. My work mostly focused on custodial torture, extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrest and detention by the law-enforcement agencies and security forces of the country.

I have been subjected to abduction and torture and extreme forms of cruel and inhuman treatment while in an eight-hour detention by the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) at its headquarters in Dhaka on 21 May 2011 for which I have no scope of redress or reparation in the current legal systems of Bangladesh. I have been forced to hide in a secret shelter in order to save my life due to death threats since I was released from their custody. For further details regarding my abduction and detention are available at: http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-078-2011

   

I came to know that a nine-member joint delegation led by you and Mr. Birk Niebel, Economic Cooperation and Development Minister of Germany, called on the Prime Minister of Bangladesh on Tuesday, 21 June, at her office.

 

As a citizen of Bangladesh I appreciate the assistance European Commission, as development partners, provides to my country, as these assistance helps the people of Bangladesh very much. I am aware that the EU, as one of major development partners, mostly emphasizes on the issues of good-governance, human rights and rule of law while providing grants to Bangladesh where gross human rights abuses perpetrated unabatedly by the State-agents is a way of life and law-enforcement.

 

As a human rights defender and journalist I am aware that victims of torture and extreme forms ill-treatment do not have minimum access to justice in the existing legal system in Bangladesh, which has not yet criminalized torture despite the fact that the country is a party to the Convention Against Torture (CAT) and a Bill on criminalization of torture and extrajudicial killing has been pending for two years in the parliament of Bangladesh.

  

As a victim of torture I have no room left for myself to seek justice in the current circumstances. I believe that interventions from your good office, during your meetings with your Bangladeshi counterparts, may create space for enabling the victims like myself to access to justice in Bangladesh, as the country receives grants from your governments for upholding the rule of law and protecting human rights of the people.

 

Sincerely yours'

 

William Gomes

www.williamgomes.org

http://www.williamgomes.org/blog/?p=126



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[ALOCHONA] Detour Asian Highway is feasible for none



Detour Asian Highway is feasible for none

Mohammad Zainal Abedin

It is learnt from reliable sources that India designs to compel the government of Bangladesh to meet some of its strategic demands. The havoc that India creates along her border with Bangladesh since emergency was declared is nothing but a pressure to meet Indian demands. One of such demands is to get the approval of the detoured map of Asian Highway that the past government declined considering the greater eco-strategic interest of the country.


India exercising its influence changed the original map of the Asian Highway that enters Myanmar via Teknaf of Bangladesh. India succeeded in redrawing its map that will come from India and enter India again via Tamabil of Sylhet of Bangladesh. This map is beyond the basic principle of the Asian Highway. One of the basic principles of Asian Highway says that it will not touch a country twice. Moreover, it will connect one capital of a country to the capital of its immediate its neigbouring country. But the redrawn map ignores these principles. It not only technically denies Bangladesh as separate independent sovereign country, but also degrades its to the status of Indian states. Because the changed map does not connect Bangladesh with Myanmar capital direct from Bangladesh. India's basic aim for a detoured Asian Highway is to arrange direct road link through Bangladesh to its troubled Northeastern States. India tried to get corridor facilities through Bangladesh under the cover of transshipment or transit. But the immediate past government considering long-term eco-strategic-military and defence interest declined to provide transshipment facilities or railway link or road link for movement of trucks, etc.

Due to India's negation Bangladesh could not yet restore the original map of Asian Highway. If India does not concede to Bangladesh's demand, yet Bangladesh should not bend down to Indian pressure. Let the Asian Highway be constructed in accordance with Indian prescription without connecting Bangladesh. A detoured Asian Highway will be of no use for Bangladesh or others, even for India. All the vehicles will have to ply about 2,000km detoured and zigzag mountainous and militant infested way and India will never be able to ensure security of the vehicles and crews as well .

One Indian research associate M Amareet Singh, a Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management of New Delhi uncovered the most accurate and real assessment of the happenings of northeast, particularly of Manipur, through which the India-proposed detoured Asian Highway may pass through. In an article 'Manipur: Highways of Extortion' (available in SAIR: Vol. 4: No. 46: May 22, 2006), he referred to the assassination attempts on Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh on May 17, 2006, while his cavalcade was traveling along National Highway (NH) 39, to Langmeidong in Thoubal District.

The attempt is considered as a sharp reminder of the utter insecurity of Manipur's crucial road links – the State's lifelines. M Amareet Singh said, "While a high-profile ambush on the Chief Minister does make news even now in a State wracked by incessant violence, much of the daily and routine militant activities and innumerable acts of extortion, intimidation and murder pass largely unnoticed under the scanner of public and media attention, particular outside the State. " This is the reality. Indian media deliberately ignores many reports to save the image of the India and its heavyweights in New Delhi. If any happening is reported daily, not only the outsiders, even the locals will believe that India is facing a constant assaults in Northeast, which also undermines its sovereignty and authority on Northeast. Indian media only releases those items, which they cannot bury.

Indians may claim that attack on the chief minister is an abrupt and isolated incident and it may not repeat in future. But how can India say that Northeast is safe for the common people, particularly for those foreign vehicles, which will ply along the most volatile region of the present-day world, if the detoured Asian Highway is constructed to suit India's interest.

India cannot ensure the security of the existing highways. Blockade of highways has been the most common and effective method for militants and agitators to bring pressure on the State Government in landlocked Manipur. But the most uneasy situation the common people, particularly the vehicles that daily face in Manipur and elsewhere in Northeast is highly disturbing. Militants to raise the permanent income took extortion on the highways an easy business. "These two factors, in combination, have made life for the common citizen increasingly unbearable," Singh mentioned in his article.**

Manipur is principally connected by road to the rest of the country and to Myanmar by three National Highways: NH-39, NH-53 and NH-150, totaling 965 kilometres of road through the State. With no rail links, the only other connection is two flights a day, which serve the elite of the State. Of the highways, the Mao-Imphal section (109 km) of NH-39 is the State's main lifeline, its major link route to the outside world. Over 300 trucks ply along this route daily to bring petrol, diesel, cooking gas and other essential items, including food grains, from other parts of the country. In addition, large numbers of passenger buses and private vehicles ply along NH-39. Further, the Imphal-Moreh section (110 km) of NH-39 is also widely used by the trading community to shop at key town of Moreh on the Indo-Myanmar border. Besides, NH-53 connects Imphal to Silchar in Assam (223 km) and NH-150 connects Imphal to Kohima in Nagaland and Aizawl in Mizoram (523 km). (Is Asian Highway Safe? M. Amarjeet Singh: Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management: SAIR: Vol. 4: No. 46: May 22,2006).

As things stand, extended sections on all these highways operate on the whims of various militant groups. The Mao-Imphal section of NH-39, which passes through the Naga dominated areas of the Senapati District is virtually under the control of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland – Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM), an outfit that is currently engaged in peace talks with the Union Government, but which operates a widespread and systematic extortion network across both Nagaland and in all Naga-dominated areas in neighbouring States. The Imphal-Moreh section of the NH-39 is similarly under the control of various Kuki militant outfits as well as the NSCN-IM. The poorly manned NH-53 has also been parceled out between various militant groups like the NSCN-IM, NSCN-Khaplang (NSCN-K) and United National Liberation Front (UNLF). Likewise, NH-150 is under the sway of various Kuki and Naga militant groups.

With various militant outfits asserting dominance over extended segments of these highways, the State and its people are perpetually at their mercy. Extortion along these highways is rampant and several militant groups, prominently including the NSCN-IM, impose different rates of 'illegal tax' on commercial vehicles plying on these highways, depending on the value of consignments, at several points marking the transition from one militant group's area of dominance to the next.

On the Dimapur-Mao-Imphal section of NH-39, for instance, the NSCN-IM, according to media reports, charges an oil tanker about INR 3,000 per trip, followed by trucks carrying cooking gas cylinders at about INR 2,000, and those carrying cement, INR 1,000. Besides this, the NSCN-IM charges a truck about INR 7,000 and a tourist bus about INR 12,000 annually as a 'permit fee' to operate in the State. On July 26, 2002, Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh accused NSCN-IM of collecting 'vehicle tax' amounting to INR two hundred to three hundred million annually from vehicles carrying essential items into Manipur through the Dimapur-Mao-Imphal section of NH-39 and the Imphal-Jiribam-Silchar section of NH-53. The NSCN-IM is said to have opened tax collection centres at Mao in Senapati District and Dimapur in Nagaland for the Dimapur-Mao-Imphal section of NH-39; Imphal and Pallel in the Chandel District for the Imphal-Moreh section of NH-39; and None and Nungba in the Tamenglong District for NH-53. (Is Asian Highway Safe? M. Amarjeet Singh: Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management: SAIR: Vol. 4: No. 46: May 22,2006).

While speaking in the State Legislative Assembly in Imphal on August 4, 2003, Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), Ibomcha Singh, stated that each and every passenger bus plying along the Imphal-Moreh section of NH-39 annually paid a sum of INR 30,000 to various militant groups such as the Kuki National Organisation (KNO), United Kuki Liberation Front (UKLF) and NSCN-IM. He also stated that smaller commercial vehicles paid INR 20,000 annually. (Is Asian Highway Safe? M. Amarjeet Singh: Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management: SAIR: Vol. 4: No. 46: May 22,2006).

Militant groups have threatened to block the highways on several occasions when the owner's of commercial vehicles refuse to pay the 'revolutionary taxes' demanded. On February 1, 2006, for instance, services of passenger and transport vehicles running along the Imphal-Moreh section of NH-39 were cancelled following the threat of an unidentified militant group to increase the extortion amount collected from vehicle owners.

Insecurity on the highways is compounded by repeated militant attacks on Security Force (SF) and commercial vehicles. As these highways pass along rough hilly terrain, the over-extended SFs can do little to pre-empt attacks. Looting and harassment of commercial and personal vehicles by armed miscreants is also a common occurrence and over 200 cases of looting and dacoity were reported on NH-39 in 2003 and 2004. Some of the more recent and prominent incidents of this nature include:

May 13, 2006: Heavily armed men looted two Manipur-bound passenger buses on the NH-39 at Jakhama in Nagaland.February 15, 2006: Five security force (SF) personnel were wounded in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) explosion triggered by suspected UNLF cadre along NH-39 at Sangakpham in Imphal East District.September 9, 2005: Unidentified gunmen looted three vehicles along NH-39 at Leingangpokpi area in the Chandel District. August 24, 2005: Unidentified gunmen looted six passenger vehicles plying along the Imphal-Moreh section of NH-39 in the Leingangpokpi area in Chandel District. July 20, 2005: Suspected NSCN-IM militants blew up a bridge along NH-53, located between Khongsang and Noney in Tamenglong District.

There have also been a number of attacks on tankers carrying liquefied petroleum gas and diesel/ petrol over the years. Militancy has also disrupted road construction and maintenance work on these highways, as militants have hijacked vehicles and abducted and harassed construction workers. Work along NH-150 had to be repeatedly stalled because of the State Government's inability to provide adequate security coverage to Border Roads Organisation (BRO) workers. In one incident, four personnel of the Border Roads Task Force (BRTF) were abducted by unidentified militants from a place near Jiribam in the Imphal East District on October 31, 2004. The abductors reportedly demanded INR Five million for their release. They were subsequently released on November 10, 2004. Following that incident, the BRTF suspended road construction and maintenance work from Jiribam to Barak on the NH-53 in 2004. Work only resumed in June 2005 when better security cover was provided.

Frequent blockades by protestors on the highways are another crucial challenge, and these has severely affected the well being of the entire State and led to acute scarcities of essential commodities, including life-saving medicines, on several occasions. Indeed, the blockade of highways has become the most common and effective method of protest adopted by agitating groups in the State to bring pressure on the Government. It is useful, in this context, to recall the 52-day long 'economic blockade' imposed by the All Naga Students' Association of Manipur (ANSAM) from June 19 to August 11, 2005, in protest against the State Government's decision to declare June 18 as 'State Integrity Day' in honour of 18 persons killed while protesting against the extension of ceasefire between the Government of India and the NSCN-IM in Manipur. Surprisingly, the 52-day blockade was followed by another three-day highway blockade from August 10-12, 2005, imposed by the Sadar Hills District Demand Committee demanding a new district in the Sadar Hills of the State. Subsequently, the All Tribal Students' Union of Manipur (ATSUM) imposed an 'indefinite' highway blockade from midnight, May 15, 2006, (which lasted till May 21)) demanding better education facilities in the Hill Districts of Manipur.

Ironically, despite these repeated and disturbing incidents and persistent extortion on the highways, the Manipur State Government fails to initiate effective action to bring the situation under control. An Indian researcher provided all these information. He might have refrained from uncovering further information. What he informed is enough to guess what will happen to the vehicles and crews that will cross the region along the proposed Asian Highway.

On the other hand India will use this highway to squeeze Bangladesh. It may often impose ban on the movement of Bangladeshi vehicles along this highway, which will cause a lot to its economy. India may halt and delay the movement of the Bangladeshis vehicles for days in the name of searching the contrabands in the vehicles.

The detoured highway excluding Bangladesh will remain incomplete. It will not solve Indian problems and Bangladesh will retain its importance both to India and other Southeast Asian nations, if it is not connected with the controversial detoured highway. Bangladesh needs to remain static and rigid to its current position of denying detoured Highway. Rather it should work with patience to implement the original map of the Asian Highway. We should not bend down to Indian pressure or propaganda by its stooges who claim that Bangladesh will lose a lot if it is not connected to Asian Highway prescribed by India. Actually Bangladesh will lose nothing if it remains disconnected with the detoured Asian Highway.

Bangladesh should better try to open a new door of road link through mutual understanding with Myanmar. If it is possible, all the east-bound vehicles will use Bangladesh-Myanmar Highway instead of the detoured Asian Highway through troubled Northeast Indian region. Indian propaganda and pressure should not scare our scare our policymakers.

http://bangladesh-web.com/view.php?hidDate=2007-01-22&hidType=HIG&hidRecord=0000000000000000147626


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