The New Nation - Internet Edition

Victory Day aspirations

THIRTY-SEVEN years ago on this day, Bangladeshis created a magnificent history by triumphing over an occupation force and creating an independent and sovereign homeland. The creation of Bangladesh was nobody's favour. The people made supreme sacrifices and tremendous endeavours to win freedom. But the singular thought that fills the mind on the occasion of Bangladesh's 38th Victory Day is, whether this nation that created history in 1971 through a heroic War of Independence could utilise its enthusiasm and energy better to achieve faster progress in national development in all other spheres. The goals for which independence was won prominently included a better life for the people in every sense.

Other nations in Asia could travel very far in the same period to a remarkably elevated state economically. The goals of the independence struggle also included the establishment of a democratic system of governance, rule of law and a society based on fairplay and justice. But these goals remain not attained in large measures. The reasons must be explored in our political sphere, in the lack of dedication and vision of our leaders. The rate of advancement in different spheres could have been substantially greater if the country's political leaders were tolerant and learnt to cooperate with each other. The politics of a country can be the single most important vehicle for its rapid socio-economic progress.

Therefore, the political leadership needs to show maturity to really take the country forward. This would be the strongest aspiration of those who take time out to ponder over the state of the nation on occasions such as the Victory Day. Our polity or civil society should choose enlightened and dedicated leaders who are transparent and free from corruption to steer the country with much greater success in future.

Dumping of foreign products

IT'S strange enough to watch how the trade authorities can afford to show 'indifference' to the allegations of dumping of foreign goods on the local markets and initiatives to protect the country's products against anti-dumping measures in the export market. Businessmen, too, who very often complain of 'unfair undercuts' by foreign companies over the years, appear to be strangely reluctant to furnish detailed information to support their claims and help the authorities level valid charges against foreign competitors. Though there is an anti-dumping law, it has little application so far in 13 years of its enactment.

The Tariff Commission received complaints that many companies from India, China and Thailand were marketing their products at much below market prices and even production costs with the view to capturing the Bangladesh market. As the complaints were not substantiated by documents required for a valid legal fight at the World Trade Organisation, the commission hardly took any effective steps for looking into the matter and carrying out investigation. It is difficult to take measures unless the costs of production of any commodity of local and foreign companies are surely known for lodging a complaint of dumping.

The commission does not get cooperation from the local private companies with 'necessary information' relevant for ascertaining acts of dumping required ahead of legal battle. Industrial sub-sectors that have been exposed to dumping include electrical goods, agro-products, stationery items, cosmetics, furniture, watch, and bicycle, melamine, ceramics, plastic and plastic goods. The concerned agencies have gone slow on imposing any anti-dumping duties. Of late, the Tariff Commission is reportedly planning a study to see whether undercuts by foreign companies are beyond the permissible levels.

Terror in India

Wali-ur Rehman

The recent terrorist attack in Bombay, India's financial capital, has again reminded us that South Asia is now the new Theater of terrorism. Although the initial claim was made by an unknown Indian terrorist group Deccan Mujahideen, orchestrated attack on the historic icons of Bombay has all the hallmarks of transnational Islamist militant involvement.

Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Sing's remarks of external linkages, has now been proved to be correct with the arrests of several Jihadis near Muzaffarabad. The involvement of Jamaatud-Dawa, the reincarnation of Lashkar-e-Tayeba (LET). Both LET and Jaishe Muhammad were earlier trained by the Pakistani intelligence agency to fight initially the Soviet-Union in Afghanistan. Later on from 1989 onwards, the Jihadists were sent to the Indian part of Kashmir as what the Pakistanis called the Kashmir freedom fighters. Earlier in 2001 the Lashkar-e-Taiba attacked the Indian parliament and this led to the mobilization of troops by both India and Pakistan along the LOC creating a nightmarish situation, with the spectre of a Theater nuclear war.

Subsequently, both Pakistan and India had been working towards a more stable relationship, partly because of a realistic assessment made by both the countries, and partly because of pressures of friendly countries like the United States. Earlier in1999 the former Pakistani President General Pervez Mosharraf launched an adventurous attack on the Indian border town of Kargill which ended in a humiliating military defeat of General Musharraf who was wrongfooted both militarily, politically, morally. He launched the attack without informing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The rest is history

Pakistan itself is under threat from numerous terror attacks. Al-Qaeda leadership wants to de-stabilize Pakistan; it is against the secular leadership of PPP with Asif Ali Zardari as President. Earlier Taliban elements claimed responsibility for assassinating Benazir Bhutto. When Pervez Mosharraf destroyed the Lal-masjid near the I.S.I. Headquarters, Al-Qaeda and Taliban declared war on the state of Pakistan. Their main anger against Pakistan is because of the Pakistan -US Theatre strategic relationship. Though the terrorist organizations like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaishe Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Jangvi were banned by both Pakistan and the international community, all of them reappreared under different names in Pakistan. And they are churning out Jihadis by hundreds every month. These Jihadis are a deadly mixture of Deobandis, Salafis and Takfiris going to the Indian Kashmir and joining the local anti Indian elements to fight the state of India. Pakistan which, as Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution termed, is a Titanic hurtling toward an iceberg, can be saved only by a combination of pragmatic political leadership and chastemed intelligence agency, needs the help of everybody, including India, inspite of the Mumbai destruction. It may happen only if Pakistan wants it.

Or else India may have to face a Pakistan, which will have become a failed state, with the fear of eventual disintegration. I personally do not think that the state of Pakistan was involved in the attack. But the splinters of Al-Qaeda, LET, Jamaatud Dawa with the support of rogue elements in the ISI joining the non-state actors. But Pakistan should take some responsibility to help itself and the region, as US Secretary of State has demanded of Pakistan.

We may recall that the US and India intercepts of ISI communications prior to the bombing of the India Embassy in Kabul, demonstrated the rogue ISI elements' involvement. When Pakistan was shown the evidence, they understood the problem. A similar situation has been replicated in Bombay, where ISI involvement might have been there without the knowledge of the State.

Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was founded and financed by ISI to fight in Kashmir, has now spread its tentacles in the whole of South Asia and as far away as Chechnya, China (Zhinziang province) and in parts of Africa. LET has now become a frankenstein-which want to destroy the state of Pakistan. As the experts including the Carnegie International think, ISI support to these Jihadis has come to roost.

An American author, a former CIA officer in the Bush Administration, now an Obama adviser on South Asia, Bruce Riedel, wrote in his book 'In Search of Al-Qaida' that "Osama Bin Laden worked with the Pakistani agency in the late 80s to create Lashkar-e-Taiba as a Jihadist group intending to challenge the Indian rule in Kashmir." Senior Brookings Institution Fellow Stephen Cohen has explored some interesting historical linkages and present day ground-reality of Pakistan, resembling the nineteenth century Poland, Austro-Hungarian Empire, and contemporary Yugoslavia-states that have been partitioned out of existence, lost a major war, and slipped into internecine warfare and destruction-the one obvious difference being that Pakistan still retains a major military capability, including a nuclear arsenal." Freedom Houses index of "Free", "Partly free" and "Not free" research over a 30 year period shows Pakistan, with 21 years partly free, and nine as 'not free'. It lags far behind India, which was "free" for eight of the 30 years and "party free" for twenty, and even behind Bangladesh."

One has to also sympathize with Pakistan. As a former Pakistan diplomat, I have some of my finest friends in Pakistan--before and after independence.

The Pakistan civil society wants to see a more secular Pakistan without mixing up the State with Religion. But unfortunately General Ziaul Huq's rule did perhaps, the greatest damage to Pakistan as a 'State based on the principles of rule of law, liberty and religious freedom'.

Major-General Zahirul Islam Abbasi, spoke publicly about the need to "Islamise both Pakistan and its army'. Even before that, Asif Nawaz Janjua, the Army Chief from August 1991 to January 1993, had slowly pushed back political Islam in the Army and reasserted the tradition of making Islam as component of professionalism.

As Hasan Askari Rizvi notes, " Pakistan's middle and junior level officers were the product of an era when public display of Islamic Orthodoxy and Conservation was an asset", and even a method of career enhancement.

Stephen Cohen has explored further the politics of Pakistan in his magnum opus. He quoted Sura Anfal (sura 12) which reads "Remember, the Lord inspired the angels, I am with you: give fairness to the Believers, I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers" if terror was sanctioned by the Quran, then it is a legitimate instrument of state power." But this interpretation is palpably wrong. A.K. Brohi extensively wrote about Jihad. He said it means struggling and striving to reach a goal like going to China for learning, as ordained by Prophet Muhammad, is Jihad. The Wahabis and Deobandis distorted the meaning of Jihad to the extent that it gave rise to Takfirism, which is not Jihad and is a total distortion of Islam.

Way out:

India has a legitimate concern about its national security. What with Maoist threat or the Marxist shadow, nothing worries India about its security as that of Islamist extremism. Pakistan-inspired extremist infrastructures have to be destroyed as the US and other friends of Pakistan have been asking. Indian leaders have also requested the Pakistan Government to do the same. Pakistan has dodged that issue everytime it is raised. No one expected much from Parvez Musharraf who spent half the US grant of over U$ 10 b. on the Eastern border rather than the Western front, as the Americans wanted. The US Congress has opened an investigation on the irregularity of a large amount of grant still unaccounted for.

According to the latest report compiled by the US intelligence council supported by Goldman Sachs by 2025 the world economic architecture is expected to be as follows:

Economically China will become number one, USA number-2, India number-3 and Japan number-4. Strategically however the United State will remain number one hard power, followed by Russian Federation in terms of the possession of nuclear arsenal. In light of above India's top priority should be to get her economic forces released to the maximum so that the GDP growth rate will come to double digit in the next fiscal.

India is a country where the people are innovative; India is a country where everybody is creative. It is likely to become as predicted by both Goldman Sachs and the US intelligence council, the number 3 economic giant by 2025 and number one by 2050. And for that India needs physical infrastructure from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and from Arunachal to the tip of Bombay. Indian economic growth will remain steady but that of China may suffer because of its unregulated growth within an undemocratic power system in spite of having the highest economic growth of the World with maximum FDI but without jurisprudential support mechanism. Suddenly China has closed thousands of factories all over the country with millions of workers unemployed, because of the world economic downturn. China may have to choose democratic future with a strong center. India on other hand, as the world's largest democracy has to grapple with inherent problem of democracy, with robust opportunity for any Government coming to power. And Democracy will ultimately take India ahead of China in the next 50 years or so. Whereas the US and Europe are both suffering from the shortage of brainpower, India and China are producing right now 60% of the world's scientists, physicists and mathematicians.

Therefore India has to respond very maturely in the face of what many call the 9/11 in India. It needs prudence and responsibility. Indian leadership has shown both.

Whereas the populist reaction is to arrogate to itself the right of hot pursuit, the Indian leadership has called upon the people of India to remain calm and circumspect in the all-party meeting.

But India has to immediately respond to the lack of preparedness. In the past few days we have seen the resignation of the Home Minister and the chief Minister of Maharashtra. the National Security Adviser also seems to be on his way out.

At this moment of crisis India needs an experienced diplomat like Ambassador Brajesh Mishra or Ambassador Shyam Saran, having the vision and pragmatic experience to face the situation. Whereas the US intelligence warned India of a possible attack on Bombay, about a month ago, the security in Bombay fell far short of expectation. India must set up a Federal Counter-Terrorism authority and along with that a Homeland Security outfit like that of the US. Yesterday the UN Security Council had a relatively fruitful meeting: it decided to declare Jamaatud-Dawa as a terrorist-group.

I disagree with many of the American think tanks including Rand, which tried to put the entire blame on Pakistan. One has to remember that President Zardari, rattled the security establishment of Pakistan by suggesting the non-first use of nuclear arsenal. He even unnerved more the security agencies by quoting Benzir Bhotto that "every Pakistani has a bit of India and every Indian has a bit of Pakistan". In fact it is true-but Pakistan Security establishment does not yet want to accept it.

I have disagreed with many of the policies of Banzir Bhutto in the past including the pursuit of the doctrine of Zulfikar Ali Bhotto visa-a-vis India. After the current unprecedented incident, the Pakistan government needs to do a lot of soul searching. General Kayani must understand the ground-reality in India. The Pakistan leaders should come forward to assist India, not only to bring the terrorists to justice but also they should go an extra mile. Pakistan has to assist India in facilitating the discovery of the SERVER in a third country for the use of Satellite telephone by the terrorists. It does remind one of the 9/11 situation. They were trained in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the US.

And 16 of the Terrorists were of Saudi origin included Osama Bin Laden. In this case, the training was given to them in Pakistan only. At the Global Strategic Review (GSR) the International Institute of Strategic Studies concluded in its last session in Geneva that the terrorist threat to Pakistan and Afghanistan should be resolved through a regional conference, like the Dayton conference. I personally supported this proposal by the Pakistani author Mr. Ahmed Rashid, Writer and Journalist.

It was further concluded that all the 8 SAARC countries should identify and hand over terrorists residing in the SAARC countries, wanted by any neighboring SAARC country. Here is a case in point when Pakistan can earn for itself world respect as a responsible democracy by handing over those three perpetrators wanted by India.

The US flew out of Pakistan many Al Qaida terrorists including Khaled Sheikh Muhammad with the connivance of Pakistan. Why can't Pakistan demonstrate its readiness to do the same for the sake of regional and global security?

Upholding the spirit of Victory Day

Kazi Liakat Hossain

The Nation is celebrating 37th anniversary of its Victory Day to day with a heavy heart and gloomy face, because national victory was achieved but political and economic victory is yet to be achieved. On this day the gallant Freedom Fighters liberated the country from the occupation forces. Actually it was Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, whose great leadership and dynamism had inspired the otherwise innocent, harmless teeming millions to stand as a solid rock in those very dark days of the 9th months holy War of Liberation. At this critical juncture when the nation appears to be divided on political lines, many pertinent questions crowd the minds of the people of the land recalling atrocities committed by the Pakistani occupation forces leading to a calamitous crisis unprecedented in modern history.

After a nine months war mighty Bengali Nation attained victory at a heavy cost. But even in this democratic era the nation is plagued and haunted by forces opposed to our glorious Liberation War. On the other hand, there is sign of unity of thought and action. Politics has become a costly game and completely commercialised for the benefit of only those self-certified patriots who are allegedly destroying the moral fabric and body politics of Bengali Nation.

Hats off to our Caretaker government and Armed Forces whose active participation to curb political crisis by arresting corrupt politicians and black-money holders and dishonest businessmen and to hold free and fair national election on 29th December. The present Caretaker government has taken manifold programmes to curb all sorts of indiscipline and anarchy and establish economic development of the country which has been praised by everybody. But the rocket high prices of essential commodities, particularly rice, pulse, potato, soyabean oil, flour, baby food, etc. has brought the government under much criticism. Though CG is trying their best to bring it under control at any cost.

However, there were elements who acted against the war of Liberation.

These anti-liberation forces and collaborators should be brought under trial, forming special tribunal. If we look at the previous history of 2nd World War, the killers (Hitler's followers) who persicuted and killed 60 lac Jews, but still they are (the killers) being brought under trial. So in our country the collaborators should immediately be brought to book.

This is the responsibility of the present government, if we want to show real respect to our martyred soldiers, Birshrestha Fl. Lt. late Motiur Rahman and Birshrestha late Shipahi Hamidur Rahman and many unknown martyred freedom fighters, who sacrificed their lives for liberation of the motherland. If it is done the souls of the martyred freedom fighters will rest in eternal peace. So we should say victory has been achieved but economic and political victory is yet to be achieved.

Has the Four Party alliance government and Awami League government followed the ideals of Father of the Nation and even freedom fighter late President Ziaur Rahman? We earlier mentioned that plutocracy was prevailing in Bangladesh.

The government was being ruled by the tycoons and corrupt business syndicate not sufficiently educated persons. The time has come for us that the Caretaker government has declared Jehad (war) against corruption, nepotism, terrorism and dishonesty in political circle. There is a ray of hope to overcome these unholy incidents by the Caretaker government.

The Victory Day has come this year with new hopes and aspirations since the national polls is going to be held on 29.12.2008. With a view to making the country economically developed, major political parties and our gallant Armed Forces should come forward as they are showing their sincerity and hard labour for holding national election. Many people opined that the recent step taken by the Caretaker government is praisworthy and it will clear the cloudy atmosphere from political arena and next national election will be free and fair.

If the present government can hold the election free and fair the fruits of democracy may be achieved. We sincerely do believe that CG will be able to hold a free and fair national election in this current month, but if they can't do it, then it will jeopardise our hard earned unity and independence.