If possession of alcohol is all that this government has against people that they detain, it is this government that will end up with its image and credibility diminished and not the allegedly corrupt politicians that they are going after. That is a situation that this government must avoid, for this country cannot afford a mockery being made out of the current anti-corruption drive. Having raised the expectations of the people that corruption will finally be tackled, this government must not let the country down by failing to follow through with what they have started, writes Shameran Abed

Also read Naeem Mohaiemen’s why are they smiling where he draws a parallel on how we mucked it up 35 years ago and are still paying the price for it.

If you look at the state of 1971 war crimes trials, you can see what happens when enthusiasm and emotion replaces the more mundane, non-glamorous, back-breaking work of evidence gathering. Too busy with songs, slogans and emotions, we gathered little evidence, recorded few witness statements.

We are thrilled at abstract, performative, and emotive events, rallies and slogans about “war crimes.” No international war crimes tribunals, no truth and reconciliation committees, no methodical prosecution process. Three decades later, there’s a big fat zero in the justice and accountability column.

Can we control our fundamental windbag tendencies? Take a little break from raised fists, slogans, rallies, and utthejona (excitement). This time around, let’s have a little less emotion, and a lot more hard work, thorough research, and follow through.

From New Age today below is Shameran’s piece.

THE joint forces arrested Moudud Ahmed, a former law and parliamentary affairs minister and member of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s standing committee, on the morning of April 13 after an all-night-long raid on his residence at Gulshan in the capital Dhaka. Moudud is the fifth cabinet minister of the immediate-past government of the BNP-led alliance to have been detained since the declaration of the state of emergency and reportedly the first person in a fresh list of corruption suspects who are being targeted by the interim administration. While there is little doubt in the public mind that those detained by the joint forces within the past three months on charges of corruption have in varying degrees been involved in corruption, it must be stated that the cases that have been filed against some of them, and especially against Moudud, who has been indicted on charges of illegally possessing alcohol, are rather absurd.

The possession of alcohol without a proper license for a Bangladeshi citizen constitutes an illegal act in this country; hence, there is nothing wrong with bringing a case against Moudud on that count. However, it is hard to believe that possession of alcohol, along with a few saris meant for distribution as relief material, which were found at Moudud’s residence, are the most damaging allegations that this government can bring against him. From the way that the episode played out over Thursday night and Friday morning, one would think that the joint forces raided Moudud’s house all night long to find something to put on him, and having found some bottles of whiskey and a few cans of beer, decided to take him in on Friday morning. Yet, that can hardly be the case. If the government has included Moudud’s name in the reported fresh list of corrupt individuals, it must have done so with more concrete evidence against him, and when the joint forces were sent to bring him in, surely it did so in the knowledge that he could be indicted on more counts than on having in his possession the few bottles of alcohol and the saris that the forces may or may not have found at his residence that night.

Earlier, the police had filed money-laundering cases against people such as Nazmul Huda, former
communications minister of the BNP government, and Salman F Rahman, adviser to Awami League president Sheikh Hasina, because some foreign currency had been seized from their homes at the time of their arrest early February. Once again, the filing of money laundering cases on the basis of some foreign currency seized from the residences of these politicians, when there are allegations of massive corruption against the former and of having repeatedly defaulted on millions of dollars worth of bank loans against the latter, is equally absurd. While the politicians who have thus far been detained by the joint forces can hardly be defended, it is beginning to appear, from the manner of cases that have so far been filed against these individuals, that the government is more intent on diminishing their image and credibility, and thereby the image and credibility of politicians in general, by picking them up and filing these sorts of frivolous cases against them than on actually getting to the bottom of the abuse of power and corruption that they are alleged to have committed and been involved in.

Since the declaration of the state of emergency and the assumption of office of Fakhruddin Ahmed as chief adviser, the interim government that he leads has waged a war against corruption and against corrupt individuals, especially those who enjoyed positions of power and authority within the last two elected governments of the BNP and the Awami League. The chief adviser and the members of his cabinet have incessantly told us that this government will take to task all those who have been involved in large-scale corruption in the past several years. To that end, they have not only prepared and published lists of allegedly corrupt individuals, they have also detained many of the politicians who were on those lists and seized their assets. The actions taken by the interim government have, as expected, been greatly appreciated by the people as it was widely felt that our politicians needed to be made accountable for their actions. The feeling of absolute impunity with which they had operated in the past several decades had to be broken, and the people instantly commended the actions taken by the first government which appeared serious enough to do so. Yet, while taking corrupt politicians to task and ending the impunity with which some of our politicians have looted and extorted in the past is necessary for the growth of democracy in our country, the way the government has handled the corruption issue thus far leaves much to be desired.

Firstly, arresting a handful of allegedly corrupt individuals, while necessary, cannot be the be all and end all of fighting corruption. To fight corruption effectively, the government will also have to concentrate their attention on fixing some of the root causes that perpetuate corruption in this country. Those include among others the low pay of government officials, lack of proper checks and balances in the systems, inefficient and ineffective systems, etc. Solving these problems, by streamlining the government itself, making government institutions more efficient and service-oriented and building in proper checks and balances within the system are equally, if not more, important in fighting corruption as arresting corrupt politicians.

And secondly, the government cannot on the one hand vow to go after corrupt individuals with all that they have and on the other file these seemingly innocuous cases, such as the illegal possession of alcoholic beverage, against them. These sorts of cases cannot possibly serve the purpose for which these individuals are being arrested in the first place, which is to make them accountable for the large-scale corruption that they have allegedly committed. If the government is to stay true to its stated objectives of establishing a healthy political process and advancing a real, functioning democracy, it has to divert its attention from maligning politicians in general through these cases to seriously taking the corrupt ones to task for their wrongdoings.

The government should also remember that there is a history of non-political governments filing curious cases against politicians in these parts of the world, such as the goat theft case against Mohammed Toha during the Ayub regime and the curtain theft case against Anwar Zahid by the Ershad government. The alcohol case is reminiscent of those cases, which were, one should point out, filed in order to harass the defendants more than anything else. One sincerely hopes that the intentions of the present interim government are more serious than of the others mentioned, and that their seriousness will not only be reflected in who they pick up and detain, as is currently the case, but also in the type of cases that they file against these individuals.

In then end, if possession of alcohol is all that this government has against people that they detain, it is this government that will end up with its image and credibility diminished and not the allegedly corrupt politicians that they are going after. That is a situation that this government must avoid, for this country cannot afford a mockery being made out of the current anti-corruption drive. Having raised the expectations of the people that corruption will finally be tackled, this government must not let the country down by failing to follow through with what they have started.