The New Nation - Internet Edition

Upazila parishad ordinance

THE council of advisers of the interim government recently approved 'in principle' the Upazila Parishad Ordinance creating two seats of vice-chairmen, one reserved for women, in the local government body. The ordinance provides that voters will directly elect the chairman and two vice-chairmen of the upazila parishad. Union parishad chairmen, municipal mayors and elected women members to the reserved seats of wards under the upazila concerned would be members of the upazila parishad The draft law awaits vetting by the Law Ministry.

The new law being made ahead, presumably, of the election at the year-end for revival of the local body, provides that if upazila parishad chairman or vice-chairmen hold any post at any level of any political party, he or she will have to resign before taking oath. Under the new ordinance, dispute regarding election cannot be filed in any other court except the election tribunal. The tribunal and the election appellate tribunal will have to dispose of the dispute within a fixed timeframe. The complaint will have to be made within 30 days of gazette notification and the tribunal has to dispose of the case within 180 days.

Appeal against the tribunal verdict should be filed within 30 days while the appellate tribunal will have to dispose it of in 120 days. The candidates for upazila parishad election will have to submit their wealth statement individually before being sworn in. Provision has been made in the ordinance that if the outgoing upazila parishad fails to hand over office to the newly elected parishad in presence of a first class Magistrate, then maximum 3 years imprisonment and maximum Taka 20,000 in fines will be awarded to the delinquents. Those accused for war crimes would be disqualified for contesting the upazila parishad election.

SAARC food security

A SAARC Food Bank may come into operation soon. Four SAARC members- Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have already ratified the declaration of the food bank. The rest four countries that is Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and Afghanistan, of the regional grouping are probably to ratify the declaration soon. The decision to develop a food bank for the region was taken in April 2007 at the last summit of the SAARC. In view of the experience of food crisis in the region and other countries of the world since 2007 the decision to develop a food bank for the region was a prudent and farsighted one. The recent experience also has taught that if the decision was taken some years ago and implemented the region would not have suffered such a food crisis. It has now become an urgent task for the SAARC to establish the proposed food bank to store the targeted two million tonnes of cereal rice and wheat.

Food crisis has not remained confined only to the SAARC region. It has become a global problem for a host of reasons. In that backdrop, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has warned nations that food price globally will come down only a little and furthermore, very slowly. Hence, all nations of the world, especially the Third World ones have to be very careful. Analysts and forecasters are one that even if money is available food may not be available in the international market at the time of dire need.

SAARC is a relatively underdeveloped but most populous region in the world. So, accumulation of foodgrain reserve should be a topmost concern for the countries of the SAARC. During the last summit, held in India. it was thousand times pledged to be more active to protect the interest of the member countries. Now time has come to translate the promise into action.

Let them live as equal citizens

Zafar Iqbal Siddique

It was noted with much pleasure that the present Caretaker Government of Bangladesh took lot of pain and a bold decision to grant citizenship rights of Bangladesh to those Urdu speaking Muslim Settlers and their kin from India who were born after the birth of Bangladesh as well as to those settlers who were infants or did not take part in any activities prejudice to the creation of the free Bangladesh after long 37 years.

Especially, the young generation of the Urdu Speaking Muslim Settlers are much indebted to the Present Caretaker Government of Bangladesh, who realised the need to re-settle the unsettled people after such a long period of time. This decision gave the innocent people who never saw the Liberation Movement of Bangladesh nor they were at any time of their life were involved in any activities prejudicial to the cause of Bangladesh, a sense of direction and hope to carry on building their life as a minority community for the betterment of the society and living in Bangladesh as a peace-loving community and help develop the economy of Bangladesh as its peaceful citizens.

But, we could find that some sections of both the Urdu Speaking Community as well as the Bengali Speaking Community are opposed to the idea of the re-settlement of the innocent and destitute Urdu Speaking People and giving them the right of the citizenship of Bangladesh, as they have no place to go at this stage of their life, simply to exploit their cause to meet their own greedy needs. We think that this idea should henceforth be stopped to bring peace to the life of these miserable people. Rather, both the communities should come forward to make plans to re-settle these people who have lost their properties and homes in the worst carnage, which was no less than the carnage which happened in the Balkans after the breakup of the former Communist Republic of Yugoslavia in recent times.

To know the real facts and figures prior to 1971, it may be noted that the first batch of Urdu Speaking Muslims settled in the territory now comprising East Bengal as early as 1857 and afterwards, when large chunks of Muslims from the Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal Regions of present day India were fleeing the British fury of the so-called Sepoy Mutiny, also known as the First War of Independence against the British by both the Muslims and the Hindus of the Sub-continent of South Asia. Those Urdu Speaking Muslims mostly merged with the Bangali populations and created more solid foundations for the implantation of the Muslim culture in East Bengal. The traces of those Urdu speaking Muslims were the Nawah Families of Dhaka, Comilla, Sylhet, Bogra, Faridpur and the famous Panni Family of Tangail. Even, strong traces of Urdu Speakers are the present day Dhakaiyya Community of the Old Dhaka areas who are fusion between the Bengalis and the Urdu Speaking people. But, some of them still retaining their old culture, like the Shitees of the Old Dhaka. While, some remote traces are the people settled in Natore, Rajshahi, Chapai Nawabganj, Ghaffargaon, Tongi, Gazipur, Mirpur, etc., were people who spoke Urdu even until 1971. After 1971, the language was over-whelmed by the Bengali culture and subsequently the household language changed to Bengali.

The second wave of Urdu Speakers came after 1947, when the Sub-continent of India or South Asia was divided into two independent countries of India and Pakistan. This second wave of Urdu Speaking Muslims were mostly businessmen on one hand and ordinary workers (like the railway staffs of the Indian Railways) who migrated in large numbers to help the new country of Pakistan with efficient capitalist businessmen to make flourish its new industries on the one hand and to equip its industries, factories and essential transport system like the railways with efficient staffs and workers to man them effectively on the other hand at that period of time, when the Bengali population of the East Bengal Area (or East Pakistan as called after 1947) were mostly agriculturists and farmers and were less urbanised, except the Bengali and Marwari Hindus who controlled the business and administrative affairs of East Bengal prior to the partition of 1947.

Most of the second wave of Urdu Speaking Muslim population had settled in much of the North Bengal Region which was next to Bihar. However, large chunks of populations of Urdu Speakers who were mostly urbanized settled in Urban Areas of East Pakistan (prior to 1971), especially in Dhaka, Chittagong, Narayanganj, Khulna and Mymensingh, that also included other communities of people from India like the Bohri Shias, Ismailis or Aga Khanis, Memon Communities from the Gujarat Area of India, Surtis from Gujrat, Bombay and Burma, Madrasees from Tamil Nadu, Hyderabadis and Mysoris from South India. Even traces of Urdu Speaking Muslims settled in remote areas as far as Sylhet and Cox's Bazar, who were mostly businessmen or Pakistan Government employees.

The third wave of Urdu Speaking Muslims came to erstwhile East Pakistan in 1964 (that is after the riots of 1964 in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal). Those Urdu Speaking Muslims were generally settled in and around the Dhaka City like the areas called Muhammedpur and the Mirpur areas, which were systematically made as settled areas by Field Marshall Md. Ayub Khan, the Military Ruler of Pakistan from 1960 to 1969.

It may be noted that the Urdu Speaking Community until the end of 1969 stood almost 5 million strong, which also included a large population of the Pakistani Community from the Sind, the Punjab, the NWFP, the Baluchistan and the Kashmir areas, who were mostly the businessmen, government and administrative staffs, army, police, teachers, doctors, engineers, etc.

As soon as the downfall of Field Marshall Md. Ayub Khan became eminent in 1969, persecution of the Urdu Speakers started here and there due to the idea of exploitation of erstwhile Eastern Wing of Pakistan by the minority Urdu Speaking Community over the majority of the Bengalis, which subsequently led to the tension between the majority Bengali population and the Urdu Speaking Muslims.

During this period, most of the Pakistanis and some of the rich and affluent Urdu Speaking populations, which included some of the Ismailis, the Bohris, the Memons, the Surtis and the Gujratis alike started leaving for Pakistan or abroad for settling, with whom the fiight of capital also began, leaving the erstwhile Eastern Wing of Pakistan into disarray.

Soon after the elections of 1970, when Awami League became victorious in the general e1ections as the majority party of Pakistan, large scale killing of the Urdu Speaking people started leaving no doubt in the minds of the helpless people that it is no more possible for these people to stay in East Bengal Region anymore.

Again, another large scale migration of the rich and affluent class started, who mostly migrated to Pakistan or the Western Countries like the U.K., the U.S.A., East Africa, South Africa, Europe and Australia. But, until now the chunk of Urdu Speaking people, including the Pakistanis and other communities as a whole stood not more then 20% of the total population.

However, after the dismemberment of Pakistan on Dec. 16,1971 a large population of the Urdu Speaking Community, who mostly came in and after 1964 fled to India, which were in the figures of 2.5 million (or 25 lakh at the most), which settled in Bombay, Calcutta, Bangalore, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar; because these people had ready access to settle in their old homes and hearth from where they came. While, a million people had perished due to the war in 1971 at the hands of the Indian soldiers and their Bengali compatriots; whose traces were mixed up with the killed Bengali people of the East Bengal Region, who were in turn massacred by the Pakistani Army during the nine long months of the Liberation War of Bangladesh.

But, the worst sufferers were the poor people who came in 1947 who lost their hearth and homes long time back and were unable to migrate neither to India nor to Pakistan, which by 1971 were dwindled to a mere million people or Iess than that. Among the lot, half a million like the people from the Old Dhaka, etc., assimilated or merged with the majority people of Bangladesh, i.e., the Bengalis.

However, another half a million were undecided what to do, whether to go to Pakistan, who were promising time and again that they will take back their population by repatriation in due course. Alas, only a part materialised, when late Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan agreed to repatriate about 142,000 people after 1971. While, another 3,000 hardship cases were repatriated by Prime Minister Muhammed Nawaz Sharif's Government during his tenure.

Still, some left on their own accord either to Pakistan or other countries by managing their own expenses as late as 2005. However, we find that still 300,000 to 400,000 people are either living in camps or loitering here and there, as they have no where to go due to bad economic conditions and no right to citizenship.

Hence, it is my appeal to all sensible people of both the Urdu Speaking Community as well as their Bengali brothers to look at the situation fairly and frankly and kindly let these unfortunate people who were born after 1971 to live in peace as good citizens of Independent Bangladesh, so that the economic activities generated by-them will be beneficial to the prosperity of Bangladesh in the years to come.

A not-so-bright idea

Ramzy Baroud

The recent uproar surrounding Pastor John Hagee is only remarkable in the sense that it took so long in coming. The fundamentalist pastor of the 19,000-member Cornerstone "mega-church" in San Antonio, Texas has long shown himself to be not just anti-Semitic, but also anti-Islamic and anti-Catholic.

It doesn't take much probing to find ample examples of racism, bigotry and justification of violent tragedy in the words of the man once described by Senator Joe Lieberman as 'Ish Elokim' - 'Man of God'.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain severed his ties with the pastor after the recent publicising of a sermon in which Hagee seemed to rationalise the Holocaust. Hagee's suggested that the Holocaust fulfilled biblical prophecies because it 'enabled' the return of Jews to Palestine. According to this logic, Hitler was doing God's work.

McCain decided to reject Hagee's endorsement on May 22, stating that "Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate themtI did not know of them before Reverend Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well."

ABC News website reported on the scandal: "A source close to McCain told ABC News the Arizona senator thinks these sentiments are crazy, and that back in February when the campaign accepted Hagee's endorsement, no one on the campaign, and certainly not McCain, had any idea that Hagee believed these types of things."

Anyone who has followed Hagee's remarks in the past would have a hard time believing McCain's statement. Hagee is a Christian Zionist, and the Executive Director of Christians United for Israel. While he may have been embraced by Israel and its backers in Washington for his support of Israeli aggressions and policies, Christian Zionists are hardly fond of the Jewish people. In fact, their entire project is shaped by very anti-Semitic beliefs, perceiving Jews as lesser beings whose 'redemption' and 'conversion' are prerequisites for the Second Coming of Jesus. Despite these beliefs being well known, Israel found in Hagee an irreplaceable friend and ally. The self-proclaimed Jewish state seems willing to work with even anti-Semites to achieve political goals.

Max Blumenthal is one of many writers who have tried to point out the palpable racism in Hagee's discourse. He wrote in the Huffington Post on the day of McCain's announcement that "during a press conference at the 2007 Christians United for Israel Washington-Israel Summit, I asked CUFI Executive Director Pastor John Hagee about passages in his book Jerusalem Countdown in which he appeared to blame Jews for their own persecution. Hagee was visibly piqued by my question, insisting that his statements were directly inspired by the Book of Deuteronomy. When I attempted to ask Hagee a follow-up question, a public relations agent, Alison Silverman, the former assistant communications director for AIPAC, cut me off."

Blumenthal was eventually removed from the conference under threats of arrest by DC police. What's interesting about this is the AIPAC connection. The influential American-Israel lobby had invited Hagee to headline its conference in March 2007. While Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was unconditionally condemned for his Holocaust statements, Hagee's hateful references did not jeopardize his welcomed trips to Israel, and nor did it prevent US politicians in general from embracing him.

Aside from ardent Israel supporter Joe Lierberman's glowing dedication, President Bush said he appreciated "CUFI memberst for your passion and dedication to enhancing the relationship between the United States and Israel." When McCain received Hagee's endorsement he was "very honoured" and "very proud".

Aside from Hagee's largely forgiven anti-Semitism, the pastor was also a much valued member of the warmongering camp. Robert Weitzel writes, "Hagee formed CUFI in 2005 following the publication of his book, The Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World, which sports a mushroom cloud on its cover and argues for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West."

Passages in Hagee's book indeed read as a horror movie script - Arabs united under Russian leadership, inferno exploding in the Middle East, and finally, the much-coveted Armageddon.

Aside from his insistence that the US government hasten the End Times by provoking war with Iran, Hagee also has his own interpretation on the causes of Hurricane Katrina. "I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that."

Hagee's hate speech targeting Muslims (which suggested that all Muslims are programmed to kill and cannot be negotiated with), the Catholic Church (the 'great whore' of a 'false cult') were not enough to inspire politicians to repudiate the man. Hardly surprising, of course, considering that Hagee's offensive uttering is consistent with the politics of his supporters in Congress or the White House. Why should McCain who wants to "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" busy himself worrying about a biblical vision that guarantees the same end? Also, what is the difference between Hagee's biblical prophecies regarding Iran and the Arabs, and Hillary Clinton's warning to 'completely obliterate' Iran? Hagee is indeed in a good company.

Hagee was allowed to foment hateful, dark views of Muslims, Catholics, and others, while still being welcomed into the fold of politicians and statesmen. He was only criticised when his madness touched on the Holocaust. But isn't it true that his book and speeches help promote a regional Holocaust in the Middle East, one which would actually encompass numerous nations? Shouldn't the vow of 'never again' include the many millions that Hagee wants to see incinerated in his quest for Armageddon?

Hagee is not just an anti-Semite; his views are largely anti-human. Still, he is an invaluable asset to a select few who have managed to streamline the beliefs of millions of people into active political and financial advocacy for Israel. As far as Israel is concerned, Hagee is and will always be an Ish Elokim - perhaps until another war is realised.

Opinion: Climate change threatens the Sundarbans

Md. Tareq Mahmud

The Sundarbans mangrove forests, the largest of such forests in the world (over 10,000 km2 of land and water, more than half situated in India, the rest in Bangladesh), lie within the delta of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers on the Bay of Bengal. The site is intersected by a complex network of tidal waterways, mudflats, and small islands of mangrove forests.

Mangroves are made up of salt-adapted evergreen trees. They are restricted to the inter-tidal zone along the vast coastlines of tropical countries and extend landward along tidal rivers. Mangroves act as natural buffers against tropical cyclones and also as filtration systems for estuarine and fresh water. They also serve as nurseries for many marine invertebrate species and fish. The Sundarbans mangrove forests are wellknown for their biodiversity, including 260 bird species, Indian otters, spotted deer, wild boar, fiddler crabs, mud crabs, three marine lizard species, and five marine turtle species. But they also host threatened species such as the estuarine crocodile, Indian python and the most iconic Bengal tiger. For these reasons, the Sundarbans National Park, India, and the Bangladesh part of the Sundarbans were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1987 and 1997, respectively.

According to the IPCC, sea-level rise is the greatest threat and challenge for sustainable adaptation within south and southeast Asia.39 The consequences in terms of flooding of lowlying deltas, retreat of shorelines, salinitization and acidification of soils, and changes in the water table raise serious concerns for the wellbeing of the local population. In addition to global sea-level rise (or eustatic sea-level rise, i.e. the change in global average sea level brought about by an alteration of the volume of the world ocean), there is a continuous natural subsidence in the Sundarbans,40 which causes a sea-level rise of about 2.2 mm per year. The resulting net sea-level rise rate is 3.1 mm per year at Sagar. Additional sources of stress*, not related to climate change, include the diversion of upstream freshwater inflow of the Ganges by the Farraka Barrage in India since 1974 to alleviate the rapid siltation in the Port of Calcutta. This barrage diversion induced a decrease of 40% of the dry season flow.41,42 The joint action of sea-level rise, increased evapotranspiration, and lower freshwater flow in winter will also result in increased salinity in the area threatening the conservation of the Sundarbans mangroves.43 In the Sundarbans, as in many protected areas worldwide, conservation is threatened by several external factors and, again, climate change should be viewed as one source of stress among others. Altogether these factors could lead, in the case of a 45 cm rise in global sea level, to the destruction of 75% of the Sundarbans mangroves. 44 Further destruction of the Sundarbans mangroves would diminish their critical role as natural buffers against tropical cyclones. The Bay of Bengal is heavily affected by tropical storms: about 10% of the world's tropical cyclones occur in this area and 17% of these sweep the land in Bangladesh.45 No matter whether the frequency or intensity of cyclones change in the future due to climatic disturbances, exposure of the region to the devastating effects of storms will increase if the mangroves cannot be conserved successfully.46 Sea-level rise is typically a process that cannot be entirely prevented through site level strategies.

However, the following measures could help in increasing the adaptive capacity of the Sundarbans mangroves against the adverse effects of sea-level rise:

· conservation of remaining mangrove forests in protected areas;

· restoration or rehabilitation of mangrove forests through re-planting selected mangrove tree species, for example along freshwater canals of reclaimed land (successfully practiced on Sagar Island).

Such measures make sense both ecologically and economically. A project of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has evaluated the cost of building 2,200 km of protective storm and flood embankments that would supposedly provide the same level of protection as the Sundarbans mangroves. The capital investment was estimated at about US$294 million with a yearly maintenance budget of US$6million49 - much more than the amount currently spent on the conservation of the mangrove forests in the area.