The Teflon man
Mohammad Badrul Ahsan
If a cat has nine lives, Hussein Muhammad Ershad has many more, because the former military dictator-cum-born-again-populist is back in the news. He has an enviable way of making it happen, perhaps the only living politician in this country who is comparable to Harry Houdini, the legendary magician, who specialised in tricks and escapes.
Ershad can be locked in handcuffs and leg-irons, and then nailed into a crate. The crate can be roped and weighed down with two hundred pounds of political embarrassment before being lowered into a lake of shame. Bet your money, he will escape sooner than you thought.
It is amazing how it has always worked in his favour, except for that one time when he had to land in jail. Remember 2006 when politicians from both sides of the political divide were courting him? Remember how the course of events precipitated over his participation in the national election? Sixteen years after his ouster, he was still the main man in a political madness that brought another madness called One Eleven.
This one time Ershad is back as an anti-climax. The High Court has rendered the 7th amendment of the constitution, making his power grab illegal, an offense punishable by law that doesn't exist yet. This embarrassment comes when he is a part of the government and his brother is a cabinet minister. God works in mysterious ways. A blow from friends hurts more than ten from enemies. Touché!
Is Ershad going to stand in the dock for it? I do not think so. The great escape artist will prove again that no trap is hard for him to escape. He has friends in the right places and years of political plumbing has made him adept at digging out of any hole. Rest assured he is going to get out again.
The former strongman is likely to be in the news longer than he thought. The families of victims killed in mass uprising against him are planning to sue him. Even the student leaders of the '90s movement are asking for his trial. If these things happen as and when they happen, I am convinced, as he must be, that the clamour is going to die down after sometime. In his life as a political turncoat, he has learned that there is nothing that can't be overcome given a little time and the short memory of our people.
So, Ershad is going to do it again. He is already saying that he has accepted the court verdict, claiming in the same breath that it is not sufficient to put him on trial. The parliament has to pass the law before the long hand of justice can touch him. And this is where he is comfortable. He knows there will be many a slip between the cup and the lip. He also knows it is easier said than done. Trying him is going to be a trying thing.
I say it because life never rights all the wrongs. Augusto Pinochet was put under house arrest fourteen years after he stepped down as president of Chile in 1990, the same year Ershad was toppled in this country. Pinochet had around 300 criminal charges pending against him, but he slipped the iron hand of justice when he died in 2006. Pol Pot, the Cambodian monster, died in his jungle hideout, before he could be captured and brought to justice. Adolf Hitler took his own life to escape the ordeals of trial and conviction.
Destiny, of course, has a hand in it, and maturity is when one realises that life doesn't always balance its book. The killer of one human being is a murderer, few more is a serial killer, and many times more is a mass murderer. But a dictator is someone who has no limits. One estimate has it that the number of people killed or disappeared under Pinochet's watch ranged from 5,000 to 30,000. Hitler is responsible for 20-25 million deaths, Stalin for 20-60 million and Mao Zedong for 40-72 million.
In comparison, Ershad the autocrat was an angel. He is responsible only for a handful of deaths -- students who were crushed under a speeding truck and others cut down by bullets fired by his henchmen. He built many roads, raised many buildings, and composed many poems. He did all of these by appeasing anyone who wanted to oppose him.
Trial or no trial, Hussein Muhammad Ershad is guilty on two counts. He seized the power of this country, less serious of his two offenses. More serious is how he popularised appeasement -- the seedbed of corruption in this country. He is a Teflon man.
Nothing sticks to Teflon. No criticism sticks to Ershad. But the fact remains that he gave us enough rope so that we could hang ourselves.
Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is Editor, First News and a columnist of The Daily Star. E-mail: badrul151@yahoo.com
http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=153338
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