The New Nation - Internet Edition

Boro procurement drive

PROCUREMENT of Boro rice began by the middle of this month with the government setting the target of 12 lakh tonnes to build 'a buffer food stock' and the drive started from Sirajgonj district. The procurement price for rice has been set at Tk 28 per kilogram against last year's Tk 18 considering the increased production cost of farmers. Production costs this year of the Boro were estimated at Tk 19.23 and Tk 13.19 for a kilogram of rice and paddy respectively. The average cost of producing paddy is Tk 13.19 per kg and the government is giving the farmers 40 per cent profit as announced by the food secretary at a press conference.

The government has the capacity to store 12 lakh tonnes of rice and the storage capacity can be raised to 14 lakh tonnes as disclosed for the official procurement target fixed for this year. Besides rice, about 225,000 tonnes of wheat can be stored in government godowns. About 17 lakh tonnes of rice worth $600 million and 12 lakh tonnes of wheat valued $423 million were imported in the first eight months of the current fiscal year, according to Bangladesh Bank data. During the same period last year, 2.5 lakh tonnes of rice worth $54.75 million and 11.5 lakh tonnes of wheat worth $234 million were imported.

Economists earlier suggested that the government apart from ensuring enough procurement from local market, should explore available import sources to build a safe stock to ease supply and prices of rice in local market. Last year the government's procurement stood at 7.6 lakh tonnes of Boro against its target of 12 lakh tonnes. This year's pricing has been done keeping in view the market realities and farmers hopefully would not stay away from the government's procurement centres.

For debt-ridden jute mills

THE jute and textile ministry at last reached the conclusion that unless the mills were relieved of loan burden and made self-sustaining in their operations, they would automatically die within a short span of time. Already the number of state-run jute mills in operation has come down to 14 now from 77 in 1972 when they all were nationalised and placed under a corporation. The ministry concerned is set to seek a bailout for the debt-ridden jute mills through budgetary measures and has raised recently the issue of debt relief with the central bank and nationalised commercial banks.

Assumption of certain amount of loans through the budgetary process, writing off portions of the loan amounts, injection of fresh funds or sale of some property like land of the state-owned jute mills might be considered in the bailout package as reported by media. The jute mills under the Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC) now owe four banks more than Tk 4,000 crore a major portion of which is said to be interest arrears. The interim government late last month assigned a task force headed by the jute and textiles secretary to suggest ways and means to invigorate the jute sector keeping the jute mills out of its purview. The task force is to look after the promotion of the private sector jute industry.

The 14 public sector jute mills that are now in operation, are ignored in the process. Seven of the eight other state-owned jute mills that remained closed are now in the process of handover to private entrepreneurs. The jute ministry earlier backtracked on a plan to constitute a national commission for mapping out 'an effective jute sector revival strategy'. All post-1980 governments pursued an almost identical policy of squeezing the jute industry on the excuse of chronic losses.

Emerging faces of corruption

Dr. M. S. Haq

The methods and practices of corruption (used in a wider sense) in Bangladesh have apparently been undergoing changes in qualitative, quantitative and other terms besides, the continuation of old methods and practices - where feasible - relative to time space and other variables. The questions now are: Are those developments in the domain of corruption being triggered and guided by the doctrine of necessity or the principal of survival of the fittest (in a sense) or a change in the phase of corruption cycle or otherwise - under the present day changed circumstances? Will those developments lead to eventual repositioning of corruption - as a modified product with a new look - in the market of Bangladesh and elsewhere? What will be the future of corruption and anti-corruption in Bangladesh, per se?

For dealing with above and other related questions, there is a perceived need for all concerned to accelerate and sustain - on a continuous basis - research and monitoring in pertinent areas and implementing anti-corruption measures, as required, as the part of a grand strategy for containing corruption in Bangladesh and elsewhere.

At this point in time, I am not aware of any comprehensive grand strategy on anti-corruption in the country.

There are, at present - things - in the air and on the ground as to for example, the cause of present day corruption. A few of them are presented below, relative to time, space and other variables:

1. the entry of new actors into the country's corruption markets is being increasingly felt. They - representing various sections of the society (used in a wider sense) - are apparently deriving their power from the present day changed circumstances, for example. One of the underlying assumptions here is - those new actors are probably filling up gaps of some of the old ones who are at present behind bars;

2. old practices are also in vogue such as, the collection of 70 taka per working day from road side coconut sellers - I wrote about it in one of my previous articles in the national dailies;

3. government employees or officials or both who deal with say, pay and audit matters of employees or officials or both of the present day powerful government organizations are perhaps engaged in using their official connections with staff members of those powerful organizations in pursuits of for example, protecting their relations - whether or not blood relations - and others from corruption related consequences or hiding corruption related ramifications from the public scrutiny, per se;

4. apparent gaps between say, monthly incomes and monthly expenditures of for example, government servants (to whom it may concern) owning or renting or both private residential accommodations of, what I would call, incompatible standards - I mean, income-apartment rental related disparities or income-apartment price related disparities or income-standard of living related disparities; and

5. efforts of black money holders towards legitimization of black monies through a somewhat new method of investing black monies in small businesses with the help of sizeable number of low income earning and trusted people.

One of the purposes of presenting the list is to advise all concerned about the need for scaling up the pace and effectiveness of say, investigations in above and related areas in pursuits of inter alia: building, sustaining and promoting solid knowledge, understandings and databases about changing trends and developments in the domain of corruption in Bangladesh and elsewhere; tracking changing trends and developments in the number and profile of say, beneficiaries of corruption; and getting all concerned prepared for meeting challenges and opportunities of for example, new generation corruption in the overall interest of Bangladesh and the world at large - all in a more efficient, effective and result-oriented fashion than those at present, per se.

I believe one of the vital candidates for the present day anti-corruption drive is the country's bureaucracies - civilian and military, more particularly - judiciary, law enforcement, accounts and audits, and certain resource creating and resource handling entities. I also believe an aggressive and meaningful anti-corruption presence in the area will be needed now because a clean, refreshed, dynamic, effective, accountable and motivated bureaucracy will be inter alia critical to better governance in Bangladesh and a corruption free (at least to a tolerable extent) Bangladesh, among other things - with the help and assistance of corruption free media (print, electronic, etc.), though.

Factors such as: the dispensation of right justice to the right person at the right time and cost at judicial and other levels; the lawful and result-oriented performance of law enforcers and other government servants; a drastic change in the state power related perceptions of bureaucracies - friends not masters; a real time, real term and sustainable subordination of state bureaucracies to people's power and institutions - save and except extreme situations that could demand otherwise for quick impacts in relevant areas, per se; and a more competitive, development-oriented and reliable media (print, electronic); could assist Bangladesh, friends of Bangladesh (including inter alia the US), neighbors of Bangladesh (India and Pakistan) and others (including inter alia WB and EU) in the effort towards promoting and sustaining a corruption free Bangladesh and a corruption free world at large.

The last word: let us intensify and sustain anti-corruption drives in areas say, income-expenditure profile of government servants; pay them (I mean, the government servants) wages and salaries on the bases of inter alia their respective job worth to be determined via a proper job evaluation exercise, market competitions and inflations, and a standard size family requirement; position their career expectations, career developments, career paths on a more solid, fair, legitimate, competitive and result-oriented ground; and enhance internal resources through elimination of wastage via anti corruption and other means and methods.

How to survive in a Gaza refugee camp

Ramzy Baroud

WE WAITED breathless. Breathing heavily was hazardous under these somewhat exceptional circumstances. The army, my father often advised, was sensitive to the slightest movements or sounds, including a whisper, a cough, or God forbid, a sneeze.

Thus we sat completely still. Muneer, my younger brother was entrusted with the mission of peering through the rusty holes in the front door. It bothered me that I was not the one elected for the seemingly perilous mission.

My father explained that Muneer was smaller and quicker, he could negotiate his way back and forth, seamlessly, between the observation ground and the room where everyone was hiding. The house's main door was riddled with holes; the upper half spoke of past battles between the neighbourhood's stone throwers and Israeli soldiers. The holes on the lower half, however were not those of bullets, but rust and corrosion. These holes often served us well. Muneer would lie on his belly and peek through them; he followed the movement of the soldiers as their military vehicles often used the space in front of our house. They pondered their moves from there, and often used our house' front step as a spot for lunch or tea. Worse, they often released their frustrations on the house's helpless residents, that being my family.

But this time the air is truly gloomy. Soldiers had never gathered in such numbers and remained for that long. Muneer, crawling back and forth, between the door and the kitchen - where we often hid - the only room with a concrete ceiling, thus much safer than the rest of the house - reported increasingly disturbing news. "There are men in white." He divulged the latest development with total bewilderment. "They are wearing masks. And there is a robot." For once, we felt in doubt of Muneer's version of events, which were most often sharp and truthful. Only my father seemed to understand. "Bomb squads," he whispered. His words left us in a state of dread and speechlessness. The sheer terror that we felt at that moment was of a new kind; a bomb only a few feet away from our house, and we couldn't escape for snipers were positioned all across the street, on the water-tower, behind the graves, everywhere. My mother hurried to her safe corner of reciting Quranic verses. She long argued that selected verses from the Quran were sure to create a protective shield between one and his enemies. My father was in no mood to scoff at her or anyone else. He looked as if he were in a trance.

I cannot even begin to imagine what must've gone through his head that day. He pulled a cigarette from a long, white pack of Kents and seemed past the point of ordinary nervousness. Even if the bomb was defused, the soldiers would most certainly round up all the youth in the neighbourhood, as they had done repeatedly, starting with us, and herd everyone into the military camp's temporary holding facilities. Torture and beating to glean urgently needed information were surely to follow. My mom was still in her corner, with audible words here and there breaking the frightening silence, things about God, and "my kids are the only thing I have in this life", and other supplications. My father called on Muneer to join the rest of us, and decided to take on the mission of watching the happenings outside as they unfolded, himself.

My father lay facedown for a long time. A military helicopter hovered in place for a little while and then disappeared, perhaps following a moving target, I thought. Helicopters were the best way to chase down fidayeen - freedom fighters - as they sought escape in the refugee camp's orchards. Did they find the one who planted the bomb? But what about the bomb itself? News was still scarce and my father was still laying on the chipped tiles behind the door.

Suddenly engines of military vehicles outside began charging one after the other. Some began moving away. The noise increasingly subsided. Foot soldiers seemed to be the only ones left behind. One could tell through the continuous murmurs and chatter. The bewilderment intensified, although this time with some hopeful prospects.

Are we really meant to survive the unfolding ordeal? My father began making his way back, crawling back to the kitchen. He often crawled that way to show off some of his training in the army many years back. We looked at him with inquiring eyes. My mother abandoned her figurative corner for a few moments, and joined us. "Its our bag of trash," my father said in a tone that was meant to dispel the mystery. "They thought our trash was a bomb."

My father opted to throw our trash in the street just hours earlier. Garbage accumulated for weeks in our house as the military curfew kept us indoors without a chance to step foot outside. So a few hours earlier, he did what we had urged him to do for days, since we couldn't cope with the suffocating odour. He opened the double doors for a few seconds and threw one black garbage bag as far as he could to the middle of the open space in front of the house.

Little did he know that his desperado act would send the Israeli army on high alert; would invite bomb squads, helicopters and perhaps every available tank and military vehicle to our unsuspecting neighboured. Within minutes, the serenity and silence of the military curfew was back. Except that watermelon rinds and my father's used Kent packs and other items, were scattered about the street. "Whose God damn idea was it to throw the trash in the street?" my father mumbled. No one answered. My father puffed on his cigarette and quickly delved into a contemplating mode. "I have never seen such military build-up since the war of '67," he said. His surreal look was interrupted by one hardly audible chuckle, and that was enough to ignite a storm of laughter among my brothers and even my mother which lasted for a long, long time.

I took my turn peeking through the rust holes to get a piece of the excitement and follow the progress of the trash as it was scattered by the wind and hungry cats in every possible direction. "Hey guys, the chains of the tanks softened the area outside. It should be really good for soccer when the curfew is lifted," I declared jubilantly.

And the curfew was indeed lifted, some forty days later.

(Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of Palestine Chronicle.com. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London)

America through Arab eyes

Rarami G. Khouri

ONE of the paradoxes of the complex relationship between the Arab world and the United States relates to the rhetoric and reality of democratic values. The Bush administration has made democracy promotion a central pillar of its foreign policy in the Middle East at the level of rhetoric, but in practice it pays little heed to behaving democratically in its interaction with the Arab people.

If democracy means the rule of the people, ideally a country's domestic and foreign policies should reflect the majority sentiments of its citizens.

The Arab world lacks credible democratic systems. Existing institutions like parliaments are controlled in a manner that reflects the will of small powerful elites that dominate the country, rather than accurately expressing public sentiment.

This control has been overcome to a large extent in recent years by good public opinion polls, conducted by local Arab groups as well as established international firms.

One of the major trends that has been repeatedly identified and reconfirmed in polls during the past decade has been the gap between the aims of American policies and Arab public perceptions of the United States.

Arab citizens, individually and collectively, do not have the means to translate their sentiments into policy. But in recent years they have enjoyed more and more opportunities to express their opinions, through mass media outlets and also in public opinion surveys. One of the most important regular surveys over the past decade is the Annual Arab Public Opinion Poll, conducted by Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland with the respected polling firm Zogby International.

The latest survey, conducted in March, covered a representative sample of over 4,000 people in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (1.6 per cent margin of error). It provides a good overview of Arab public opinion on key issues of the day, and deserves study every time it comes out.

This year's poll revealed strong and widespread opposition to American policies in the region. This is not particularly newsworthy, as this has been known for years, but it is particularly interesting for showing the substantial disdain that defines Washington's engagement with the Arab world.

I am not surprised that Bush's democracy-promotion strategy in our region has gotten nowhere, given that American policy tends to totally discount the will of the Arab people as it is expressed in repeated polls.

The three most important topics covered in the latest Telhami/Zogby poll in my view are about Iraq, Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict, which are now pretty much synthesized into a single dynamic in the perceptions of many Arabs.

On Iraq, the poll showed that only 6 per cent of Arabs polled believe that the American "surge" has worked. Over 61 per cent believe that if the United States were to withdraw from Iraq, Iraqis would find a way to bridge their differences. A massive 81 per cent of Arabs polled outside Iraq believe that the Iraqis are worse off than they were before the Iraq war.

Unlike many Arab governments that oppose Iran's nuclear programme, Arab publics do not appear to see Iran as a major threat, the poll found. Most believe that Iran has the right to its nuclear program and do not support international pressure to force it to curtail its program.

A consistent element in Arab public opinion over the past half a century has been solidarity with the Palestinian people - at least at the level of rhetoric. The latest poll found an increase in the expressed importance of the Palestinian issue, with 86 per cent of the public identifying it as being at least among the top three issues to them.

A majority of Arabs continues to support the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, though an increasing majority is pessimistic about its prospects.

Attitudes toward the United States remain highly critical, with 83 per cent of the public viewing the United States unfavourably, and 70 per cent expressing no confidence in the United States.

Nevertheless, the poll found once again that Arabs see the United States as among the top countries with freedom and democracy for their own people.

But a whopping 65 per cent this year, as in 2006, said they do not believe that promoting democracy is a real American objective in this region.

Equally important, four out of five Arabs polled said they based their views on American policies in the region, not on their perceptions of American values.

When asked what two steps the US government could take that would improve their view of the United States, 50 per cent of respondents said brokering a fair Arab-Israeli peace; 46 per cent said withdrawing troops from the Arabian Peninsula, and 44 per cent said withdrawing troops from Iraq.

This data suggests that while large majorities of Arabs oppose and actively resist American policies, there are also middle grounds where the two could meet - especially democracy and Arab-Israeli peacemaking.

A missing element is leaders on both sides who are daring enough to put democratic values into practice by actually responding to the will of their people.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of The Daily Star and director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut

(International Herald Tribune)