Drishtipat Blog

Not the general public.
Nor the politicians.
Nor any professional bodies.

Yesterday a roundtable of random people (failed politicians, the reform party, 51 first class giving professor and passed sell by date intellectuals) urged for the formation of NSC. Those who are familiar with pattern of making laws and ordinances without any discussion or transparency now know that the standard formula is this.

1. Ask a professor to present a keynote paper favouring what you want.
2. Have a roundtable of people who are used to boot licking.
3. Call it “Gonodabi” and make the law.

In case of NSC, the first two has been concluded. The first paper calling for NSC was presented by Imtiaz Ahmed. Yesterday, the round table happened.

Last time, NSC was called for in Bangladesh was by Gen Ershad in February 1982, a month before the overthrowing of President Sattar, when Ershad wanted an institutional role for the miliary in Bangladesh for policy making.

Read the three news reports and you will get the gist.

Prothom Alo
Daily Star
New Nation

Who was present? The line up has the best of military bootlickers.

The organization which organized it also is a just floated organization and I am sure it will disappear after this meeting of after the passing of NSC ordinance.

The key note speaker was professor Ataur Rahman from the political science department. Does the name sound familiar? Remember the time when Gen Moeen U Ahmed a gave speech for the future of democracy in Bangladesh at the invitation of a no name organization. Yeap, it was headed by the same guy.

Mizanur Rahman Shellly — advisor to the previous two military dictator Gen Ershad and Gen Zia.

ASM Abdur Rab — the previous domisticated pet opposition leader from 1988 under Ershad. When every single party boycotted election. He participated in election to become the leader only to agree with everything dictator ershad said.

Dr. M A Matin - the leader of the Kings party under Ershad and who is in political wilderness

Journalist Sadeq Khan - the big Jamat backer and supported every single martial law that happened in the country.

Osman Farooq - the incompetent education minister from the BNP regime

…. and the list goes on and on.

Here are some of the choice quotes:

Ataur Rahman said formation of the NSC is necessary to ensure internal security, including food and energy, and to protect national security.

“We do not want to see the recurrence of 1/11 changeover by the military,” he said adding, contribution of military can be institutionalised and democracy can be restored through formation of the NSC comprising co-ordinated leadership. He said formation of such a body is not contrary to the Constitution.

Someone please ask the good old pol-sci professor to give us an example of another country where in stead of the police force, a security council is needed to ensure internal security. Secondly, since when a security council is used to decide on food and energy issues? With lots of deals on coal and energy involving a lot of cash coming up, this should raise the red flags on any one’s mind, if it hasn’t yet.

Former minister and BNP leader M Osman Faruk said such a civilian military platform would be able to participate in policy making.
He underlined the need for deciding the goals of NSC first, then to take measures to give it a constitutional shape

This is interesting because this is a politician from the upcoming Kings party who is asking for the parliament to step back and let this unelected council do the policy making. If you are wondering and looking for instances for such arrangements, you won’t find any because this is coming from the same guy whose other name is political expediency.

BJP leader Dr MA Matin said formation of a NSC is logical since the experiences of previous four Parliaments are not so comfortable.
He said the design of the proposed NSC has to be determined in view of the socio-economic political conditions of the country.

So the ‘leader’ who lost every single free election held after 1990, is now giving us sermons of democracy. Note he is also asking it to be created as an alternative to the not so comfortable parliament.

I saved the best for last for sure.

JSD President ASM Abdur Rab said there is no alternative of formation of National Security Council involving the Armed Forces.

Formation of BAKSAL, proclamation of state of emergency and emergence of 1/11 change over would not have happened, if there was a participatory rule involving army and other professionals, he observed.

So what is the takeaway? Not a single person opposed this idea in the round table and because of the “jonorole”, the government will “have to” consider building same new ordinance putting in NSC.

If you haven’t seen this editorial yet, please read. Stop this insanity. We must resist NSC if we want any semblance of future or growth for our democracy. Reform can not be forced. Neither can it be made permanent without the buying in of the parties. Rather as the article says: Bangladesh does not have an external security crisis to require the setup of an NSC. We have a political crisis that requires a political solution based on strengthening democracy, not one that creates a set of non-democratic institutions. So we need to recognise the proposal for an NSC for what it mainly is: it’s an exit and entry strategy.

The five dangers of a National Security Council
Sikder Haseeb Khan

WITHOUT oversight by elected representatives, the caretaker government is considering some permanent institutional changes in Bangladesh. Among these, the most prominent proposal now is to form a National Security Council (NSC), which would become the top authority to deal with security issues.

The proposal was floated two months into emergency rule, in March 2007. By December, the Law Ministry had reportedly prepared a draft on a potential 24-member structure of the NSC. The army chief reasoned recently: “It’s [the NSC] there in India and Pakistan — so why not in Bangladesh?”

However attractive it may be made to look on paper, the creation of a non-democratic authority on security would be disastrous for Bangladesh. In countries where democracy is already weak, NSCs have been a guise to establish the policy supremacy of the military over elected authorities. So the five dangers outlined below are neither hypothetical nor far-fetched; they are real.

Danger 1: NSC will control internal law and order. In countries like Pakistan or Turkey, a possible rationale exists about having an NSC, since these countries face complex and compelling threats from their external environments. Bangladesh has no external enemies threatening its survival. The reality is that an NSC in Bangladesh will be used to maintain and enforce internal security, providing cover for the many coercive agencies that already exist, such as the police, RAB, BDR, and so forth. Furthermore, as the experience of other weak democracies show, the NSC will likely operate outside judicial oversight. To strengthen our democracy, we need greater accountability for law enforcement — and creation of an NSC will be a big step away from that direction.

Danger 2: NSC will see politics as a threat. Let me put it simply: “Give a man a hammer, and everything will start to look like a nail.” Once it is focused internally, the NSC will be able to interpret anything that it does not like as a threat. There may be legitimate security issues from time to time, but what will happen most often is that political opposition to policies favored by the NSC will be seen as a security threat. In all weak democracies, the NSC has weakened democracy further by blurring the line between the freedom and threats, eventually resulting in situations where the state begins to view parts of its own citizens as enemy number one. This becomes a downward spiral: the more that threats are constructed and sold to the public, the more entrenched the NSC becomes. So, a security council may even increase conflict in society.

Danger 3: NSC will protect human rights abusers. We already have enough human rights abuses resulting from the government’s heavy hand. Getting justice is extremely difficult; those trying to secure accountability for extra-judicial murders know this. The formation of an NSC will provide a shelter at the highest level for rights abusers. This has happened in Pakistan. The NSC will also protect those groups that it sees as allies.

Danger 4: NSC will not be accountable to elected authority. The NSC’s formation is being accelerated to take advantage of the absence of elected authority. No announcement so far places the NSC directly under political authority. It will become at least a parallel authority to elected politicians, or worse, as a superior authority constituted by the president. There will some political representation on the council, but that representation will probably be used to convey the NSC’s wishes, rather than the other way around. There will be no popular oversight on the NSC. Once created in this way, the NSC cannot be undone easily.

Danger 5: NSC will politicise the military. The most influential members in the NSC will be from the armed forces: the three service chiefs, the paramilitary chiefs, the intelligence agencies, and their associates. This institutional role of the military in policymaking, combined with a focus on internal security, will quickly involve military decision-makers in political controversies. This will compromise the professionalism of the military, and militarize professional policymaking. Do we really want a Pakistanisation of Bangladesh’s civil institutions?

Bangladesh does not have an external security crisis to require the setup of an NSC. We have a political crisis that requires a political solution based on strengthening democracy, not one that creates a set of non-democratic institutions. So we need to recognise the proposal for an NSC for what it mainly is: it’s an exit and entry strategy.