The New Nation - Internet Edition

THE ambassadors of Japan and Germany to Bangladesh recently stressed on restoration of 'investors' confidence' and 'long-term perspective' so far as their countries' future investments in this country are concerned. Both Mr. Frank Meyke, the German envoy, and Mr. Masayuki Inoue, the ambassador of Japan, made their observations while talking to media men in Dhaka and touched issues involving interests that are vital for the host country's politics and economy. Japanese businessmen are watching very carefully what is going on in Bangladesh as they always think of 'long-term perspective', as local media reported quoting the envoy while the German ambassador spoke in favour of creating what he called 'a sustainable political climate congenial to foreign investment with democracy and human rights stabilised and strengthened'. He, however, also stressed the need for striking the right balance between the ongoing fight against corruption and protection of the economy and public interest as reported by the media. What is important is stability and prosperity.

Japan's foreign policy, as pointed out by Mr. Masayuki, is 'creating an arc of freedom and prosperity. Japanese investment in Bangladesh amounted to $127 million, as of June 2006, particularly in export processing zones (EPZs) wherein 24 companies are currently operating. In this regard, the envoy stressed the need for quick repayment of LC complying with international business practices and setting up comprehensive 'One Stop Service' to attract investment from Japan, the economic powerhouse of Asia.

The German envoy was frank enough to mention his host country's image rather bluntly - Bangladesh is still widely perceived as 'a land of floods, poverty and corruption', with significant obstacles on the grounds that are 'intimidating to the newcomer'. He listed the pervasive bureaucratic red tape, frequent power cuts, congestion in ports and frequent strikes and blockades as being obstacles to progress. The fight against corruption and protection of the economy and public interest needs the right balance and the fight against corruption should not lead to more harm than good to the general people as the European diplomat cautioned. Dwelling on the political situation, he expressed his confidence that the already announced election roadmap and legally binding reforms of political parties would be decisive factors in regaining the confidence of buyers and achieving strong export growth for Bangladesh again.

German investment in Bangladesh now amounts to about 50 million euros only as Mr. Meyke said investors from his country are still 'reluctant' to invest in Bangladesh even though they know that Bangladesh's investment regime including legal framework is one of the best in Asia, and features various fiscal incentives and easy repatriation of money. The views expressed by the two ambassadors of the developed countries are to be considered seriously by all concerned for earning confidence of the foreign investors, particularly when even the local investors are also keeping themselves away in the changed circumstances. Too much adverse campaign both at home and abroad has marred rather an otherwise bright prospect.

IT is guessed that there are about 400,000 illegal small firearms in circulation in Bangladesh. In addition, there are about 25,000 legally held firearms in illegal use in the country. The illegal arms in many cases are coming to Bangladesh as a consequence of slack law enforcement at the border areas and the difficulties in maintaining vigilance over the country's long land and maritime borders. But the illegal arms are not only coming from outside the country. Increasingly, locally made fire arms are being found by law enforcing agencies. Clandestine arms-making workshops were detected from time to time at different places of the country with their stores of pistols, revolvers and pipe guns, along with bullets or cartridges.

The unearthing of these workshops is indicative of the existence of a large number of these underworld makers of arms. Some of the locally produced arms caches showed that the makers had attained remarkable mastery in producing small arms-almost like genuine ones-and also in their firepower and effectiveness. The arms are also sold at relatively cheap prices. If firearms can be produced with such ease and sold cheap in the underground markets, then the country will become unlivable soon. Already, arms including automatic weapons like AK-47 rifles and sten guns are entering Bangladesh through the porous borders due to the operations of the international arms mafia. In addition, if locally produced arms become so easily available, then criminality is going to soar to a new high from a situation of getting arms so easily.

The toughest of actions and dragnets need to be taken by the law enforcement agencies to find out and put behind bars the illegal arms makers and to seal the points of entry of such arms at the borders. The present caretaker government should go all-out to recover unauthorised arms also for the peaceful holding of the next elections. But the search for illegal arms should not once again mean a pointless directive to their legitimate holders with licences to deposit the same to police stations. This was done several times before and the response was good from the owners. Thus, there can be no doubt about their compliance with official orders. But they certainly suffer from not having their weapons with them or the wear and tear of them from lack of care while they remain deposited in the police stations. Therefore, it makes sense to mainly target those people with the illegal arms because the purpose of possession and use of those are commission of crimes. The drive against illegal arms needs to be focussed against them instead of tormenting law-abiding citizens.

Sudhirendar Sharma

It is an imaginative advertisement that unleashes the power of wireless communication. Reliance Communications advertisement on the television uses three distinct frames - majestic snow clad mountain peak, sprawling sea with a swinging boat, vast desert with an insect moving across - to mirror the absence of air, land and water in that order. Nothing is lost, the musical tone forming the background score reassures that there is indeed `network' to proxy for everything else! Like a bikini, this amazing ad conceals more than it reveals. If clean air is not a marketable good with a price then the market places no value on it, the ad seems to suggest! However, if land and sea could fit into the corporate balance sheet the same must be appropriated using the emerging `network' albeit of politicians, bureaucrats and businesses.

From the Tata's controversial mini-car project that has displaced farmers in Singur to the Sethusamundram canal that will run across Ram's mythological bridge at the cost of fishermen's lifesaving catch, the fissure between what is good for `growth' (read `network') at the cost of `people' has been widening by the day. Yet, each of these projects and several upcoming ones being cleared by the `democratically' elected governments across the country (and even in other growing economies in the region) claim big gains for the poor. Despite the fact that doubts about benefits from such projects remain unanswered, bad policy making and insouciant politicians always pull such projects against all odds in India, purportedly to nurture the fledgling `network'.

Skim through the published reports and it would be hard to get a single credible report on the benefits of the Sethusamundram project, the project to dredge sand across the so-called Adam's Bridge in the Gulf of Manner region. Yet, there is unstinted support to the project from powers-that-be in Delhi and in Chennai. One wonders if the Union Shipping Minister and the Tamilnadu Chief Minister have access to information that most others don't or that they haven't read most of what is available in the public domain? It is either a case of hiding strategic information from the public or about making ill-informed decisions on someone's behest, a shameless breach of trust of the public by its elected representatives that may hold the livelihoods and the ecology in the region to ransom!

Politicians may play ignorant to published facts but do the babus (bureaucrats) help doctor such project reports to suit the vested interests? Whether or not they do so, the babus form an important link in the policy-planning process.

The critical question is: are they better informed than their political masters? N C Saxena, a widely respected former senior bureaucrat and a member of the National Advisory Council constituted by the UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, considers bureaucrats to be as poorly read, if not worse. According to Saxena, `one would find only three books in the house of an officer of the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) - a railway time table because s/he is always on the move, a film magazine because that is the only book s/he reads, and of course, the civil list - that describes how many in the system are above him.'

Does democratic governance not survive on peoples' faith in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance? Painfully so, even when we are living in a knowledge society where information and knowledge is only a press of a button away.

Yet, it is ignorance that wields power. No wonder, as Saxena echoes the widely shared belief among the political and bureaucratic elite, the powers-that-be use the state as an arena where public office is used for private ends. The recent arrest of former Uttar Pradsh Chief Secretary Akhand Pratap Singh, a senior IAS who had tried to escape from the back door of his house only to be caught in Delhi's traffic snarl, is a case in point. Reports indicate that till his retirement the said bureaucrat was being protected (in disproportionate assets case) by his political masters. Amen!

As corporations enter the public arena, the network is not only expanding but getting strengthened too. Conversion of public resources into private goods is exchanging hands faster than ever.

Singur and Sethusamundrum reflect the tip of the iceberg. As neo-liberal economist viewpoint becomes central to political, judicial and executive thought process, street vendors will only get displaced on the pretext of protecting peoples' health as neighborhood shops will face sealing to make way for the glamorous malls.

It is heartening that the enlightened few have started challenging judicial decisions which have begun to serve vested interests at the cost of the fundamental ethos of this country - Satyamaiv Jaite Nanratam- that truth will triumph and nothing else!

Need it be said that the recent trend of converting communal assets like land and water into commodities for trade in the capital market in the garb of `growth' (again read `network') will not only be anti-poor in short run but ecologically irreversible in long term too. In a market driven economy the environmental assets will need to be fully incorporated into the market for it (market) to transform ecological assets into marketable goods - generating profits for its stakeholders. Unless the move to bring the earth within the corporate balance sheet gets questioned, the network will only proxy the panch tatva, the five basic elements of air, water, land, fire and sky.

Enayetullah Khan

Three decades after my professional involvement with Bangladesh media began, the situation still remains difficult and complex. As a Journalism teacher at Dhaka University, I saw a Bangladesh which was just recovering from massive political turmoil, one-party rule, military coups and ban on all newspapers barring state-owned ones. Censorship, license, press advice on what could be written and what not was rampant. Since then the media and the state have grown but the lack of cohesion among the different social forces that can make a successful state is still a matter of concern. It's not about being pessimistic but the reality of unrealised dreams that aches us all.

At this point of time Bangladesh is under an emergency with the 'interim government' having come to power under the aegis of the military, politics is banned, certain rights are curbed. It's a sad comment on our self-management abilities. The political situation had reached such a point before the emergency imposition that some kind of intervention was inevitable and ultimately, welcomed by the people. Today many politicians admit their lack of acumen to take the country forward and internal political reform has become a key point of contention. Of the two major parties, one has already split while the other is under stress., Leaders of both the major contending parties are under internment though the legal process remains unclear and many senior politicians and their family members have been tried and jailed.

As far as media is concerned, we have seen in the last one and half decade a period of great growth. It came in the wake of the civil unrest in 1990 that saw streets protests topple a ruler who came to power through a military coup in 1982 and then floated a civilian party, a common practice. But after all the promise of political democracy it never came. But the post -1990 political life is not any more democratic than before.

The main stumbling block is the dysfunctional parliament which has become the symbol of our collective inability to be ruled by constitutional practices and law. While elections are duly held, the parliament is boycotted so governance stagnates. Politicians have clearly preferred to diminish its significance as accountability is also ignored by ignoring the parliament. Elections have become a way to gain power rather than rule through democratic institutions, So after 37 years of independent life as a state, we haven't still achieved political democracy.

Media plays a charismatic role in Bangladesh history as main players in building democratic aspirations. In the last 15 years, post -1990 media have developed in all sectors and become powerful. But politicians have attacked media for causing unrest

and supposedly anti-politician stance. Media has moved away from politicians and gone closer to the consumer. In the absence of any space for political debating which the parliament provides, we notice the remarkable growth of media as the alternative political space. In fact, the chat shows, columns and interviews literally became the quasi-parliamentary space.

The rise of the consumer market on which media outlets depended has also generated a symbiotic relationship between the consumer, the advertiser and the producer of media products. This has, in fact, been very positive and considerably ensured objective coverage of issues. The highly profitable TV news casting has been forced under market pressure and competition to provide unbiased coverage or lose ratings. Thus, the traditionally political media has to that extent become more professional due to market influences.

In the last five years the media scene had exploded with over a dozen TV stations alone emerging. But the fragility of this growth was noticed when many of the owners who were powerful members of the last government were arrested and the stations suffered. The closure of Bangladesh's only exclusive TV news channel, which had quickly reached popularity charts on charges of forged permission documents after being warned of irresponsible reporting is also a negative development. Many owners are under scrutiny and we can't call this a great time for media in Bangladesh. Self-censorship is common, Media in the end is the describer of governance practices and process and lopsided development of one sector while others stagnate will not lead to media success. Our own experience says that whether its poverty alleviation or media management, we require systemic development across the board. Moneymaking is necessary for investment but has to be transparent. That means due process in all sectors including the economy.

In some ways media has succeeded in market terms only within the limitations set by governance standards of the state. Right to Information has become a movement spearheaded by NGOs in Bangladesh but doesn't exist as a functional right. Official Secrecy Act continues to dominate access to information. As expected, this control generates a large information black market that, in turn, leads to corruption and ethical misdemeanors on all sides. Information sources and the outlets play manipulation games.

There is confusion about the economic status of media. Is it a profit maximisation outlet or a social service unit? Since many are making money though not significant from media and many aren't but keep on investing for extra- economic reasons, media operates on individual terms. Nor is there any regulatory body to say what should be the rules governing wages, products, etc leaving the doors of speculative decision making open to both the owners and the workers.

Agencies like the Press Commission has been set up to arbitrate on grievances between media and those affected by its reporting has not proved effective. Nor can there be any mechanism to provide protection to media members who have been targets of violence for their work.

Yet media draws people; and is relatively more successful than other institutions both in terms of reach and influence. Some are also making serious money. However, like most other institutions, media has no standards to maintain because the sector remains unstructured. Although visible, this visibility is more incidental than designed. It was in fact, moving towards that point but such a mature construction can't occur when much of the rest are in a state of institutional confusion, unable to develop democratic practices and rule even after 37 years of its birth as a state. Without a robust political process media may flourish for a while but will be pulled back. Its success depends on the success of democratic practices and all institutions. As yet that hasn't happened in Bangladesh.

(This report was presented by Enayetullah Khan, Chief Editor, United News of Bangladesh (UNB) at the World Congress of News Agencies (WCNA) held recently in Spain. The author is currently doing research on Media and Democracy at the University of British Columbia.)

Md. Masum Billah

A series of articles and letters appeared in the both in English and Bengali vernacular dailies have appeared since the present government declared to institutionalize a Truth Commission though its exact shape and mode of operation have still seem opaque to many of us. However , it is a democratic process to express the opinion of people belonging to various class and section regarding any national issue and government may collect enough healthy information from those write-ups. I have already gone through half a dozen of articles regarding the issue. Among all the articles the following one under the heading Truth Commission: an impractical Proposition in Bangladesh Context; by H.M. Ershad appeared in the D.S. on October 21, 2007 invited my attention most. President Ershad with heavy experience as a general and as a president advocates that establishing Truth Commission proves to be an impractical proposition in Bangladesh perspective as the very title says. He has taken effort to prove the fact placing some convincing arguments. He wants to say the apartheid phenomenon of South Africa led Nelson Mandela to originate such kind of commission to evade the white people from punishment throwing them into jails. So, this sort of commission cannot be applicable in our perspective. He says, "Having come to power, Nelson Mandela formed a Truth and Reconciliation Commission based on the principle and ethics of Christianity. Catholic Christians who so desire goes to church on Sunday and confess their sin to the priests wanting to be forgiven. The priest advises them to follow the path of truth, shun acts of sin and lead a good life. Nelson Mandela was imbibed by the principles of religion when he formed TRC."Several other countries also followed the theory of truth commission but everywhere with a distinctive and different feature. So, my point is why not Bangladesh can institute it with Bangladesh perspective, not necessarily it would be like South Africa or France style truth commission.

Corruption has been institutionalized in our country under the garb of politics and the head of corruption accumulated which needs the country upside down to reset the whole thing. The Law Advisor has already pointed out that nothing will left if real judgment takes place and the present way of nabbing the businessmen and politicians. The existing gaols of the country will not accommodate them. If almost of all of them are thrown into jails, who will run the business? So, establishing this kind of commission will decide what kind of punishment can be meted out to the corrupt according to the degree of corruption.

In Bangladesh established businessmen contribute significantly to the welfare and economic development of the country. A remarkable number of populations earn their livelihood working in the entrepreneurs of these businessmen. But these businessmen have to embroil themselves in corruption which sometimes can be termed as willing corruption and sometimes forced corruption which they do unwillingly.

Willing corruption occurs when greedy and unscrupulous businessmen want to make unusual profit ignoring the existing rules and regulations of the state. They exploit the government, government agencies and even the workers and staff of their own organizations. They exploit the people, hoodwink the people and do other ways of immoral things to gain their individual ends. Food adulteration, to evade export and import charges, to smuggle goods, to hoard essential things to create artificial scarcity of food and other essential items fall under the category of willing corruption which must be dealt with severely.

Businessmen have to have close link and relations with the government and relevant government agencies which force them to be corrupt. These agencies hardly cooperate these businessmen considering their personal gains and ignoring the country's interest. Forced corruption calls for light punishment.

This commission will unfold a new opportunity to curb corruption in the business sector making the transparency available here. They have been scot-free so long years by dint of their moneyed power and influence and the present move against them and action seems rather tougher inviting and it was quite unwanted and unexpected by them. So, the sky has fallen upon their heads and its adverse effect and reaction has engulfed the whole nation. The success of the caretaker government has marred and paled into significance to uncontrolled swelling of market price.

Truth Commission may work as a sister organization of the judicial department showing the signs of transparency in the business sector as well as give them guideline how to continue their business honestly and avoid the government hurdles created by unscrupulous officials and bureaucrats. Business corruption is created not only by the business community but also government officials and departments and agencies concerned. The businessmen are not wholly or solely responsible for corruption in the business. Giving them punishment throwing them into jail does not prove fare justice always. Truth commission may minimize the matter which the existing judicial system cannot mete out.

The trial under the existing judicial department takes long time to settle any issue. The businessmen who really give commendable economic contribution to the nation cannot afford to wait for long to get justice avoiding their ongoing business which is the heart of our economy.

Whatever country it used as a medium/vehicle of justice, it received benefit but not on the same model. As for caretaker government which stands as a unique example in the globe. Under the same constitutional framework we have formed another kind of caretaker government which works and shoulders different responsibilities proving different from the previous ones. Similarly, the Truth Commission of South Africa might not be replicated but followed.

But the commission to be formed by people of different classes as different section holds different opinions and different suggestions for the business community. So, lawyers, doctors, engineers, teachers, intellectuals can be included in the truth commission.

Though the real shape of the said Truth Commission has yet to be finalized, the government has given hints that the corrupt politicians also will be brought under this commission for curbing political corruption. It also reiterated that the commission will be vested with the power to disqualify the corrupt politicians to participate in the election. Definitely its reasonable punishment for the politicians will give good teaching to other politicians and keep them away to get involved in corrupt activities.It is not necessary that the Truth Commission proposed by the present government might not be based on the same principle and ideals which found its origin in the South Africa. Ershad commented that the case of apartheid convinced him to form the TRC as it proved difficult and almost impossible to try the white people under the law made in the parliament formed under the leadership and guidance of Mandela who had to spend the significant part of his life in prison. It is not necessary to work the same way as some other nations formed the Truth Commission. We can just take the idea but mould it in our own ideals according to the needs of the time and relevant factors our country is facing.