Mon 2 Jun 2008
In a major army reshuffle, Lt Gen Masud Uddin Chowdhury, Principal Staff Officer to the Armed Forces Division, has been transferred to National Defence College as its commandant. Lt Gen Zahir has been transferred from NDC to Ambassadorship, although the Dhaka rumor mill says he has refused the posting and asked for retirement.
Last February’sstory on Lt Gen Masud Uddin.
Tacit’s update on internal army struggle.
Rumi Ahmedprovides a primer.
Gen Moeen meets President.
And who in the army is behind the recent arrests of political leaders?
June 2nd, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Generally, everytime Moeen goes to meet the President, it is to get President Iajuddin Ahmed to sign important files about the army, which Iajuddin does since he is in charge of the Ministry of Defense during this government.
Generally, moves like these are delayed since the people being transferred inevitably find out and lobby against them by using their own contacts. The fact that this one went through in the same day indicates that Lt. Gen Masud has no supporters left within the army brass.
This move very neatly completes the sidelining of Masududdin Chowdhury that Moeen began last year by transferring him from control of the 9th Division to the post of PSO, which though immensely powerful in the current government, does not control any units. It also indicates the complete consolidation of the army with Moeen, for the moment. What he does with it now remains to be seen.
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:24 am
More details here:
http://www.shamokal.com/details.php?nid=95031
1. Lt Gen Zahirul Alam was supposed to have been sent to Australia last October. If you want to get a potentially troublemaking general out of Dhaka then you send him to Australia. For example, the last government sent Lt Gen Harun (army chief during 2001 election) there. Alam was supposed to have gone there in October. The fact that it took this long probably suggests that there was an anti-Moeen wing in the senior brass. That this is finally happening means that Masud and Z Alam are no longer as strong as they once were.
2. I wonder what’s happening to Lt Gen Jahangir Alam, the quarter master general. He was apprently superseded by Moeen during the last government because the latter hails from the same part of Noakhali as Mrs Zia. He was the PSO during 1/11. Was he allied with Masud?
3. According to Tacit’s analysis, it is not Masud Uddin, but Hasan Mashud (retired army chief, head of ACC) who is the hardliner. Hasan Mashud’s hardline attitude - no political games, lock ‘em up and throw away the keys because Bangladesh needs a cleansing - has been noted by many ‘in the know’ (of course, people ‘in the know’ often turns out to know very little).
4. Right from the beginning of this regime, Moeen has been portrayed in a relatively benign fashion. He is a scholar-general, what with his speech about indigenous democracy or Harvard talks. He is a progressive, what with recognising the father of the nation and trying the war criminals. Meanwhile, there has been a whispering campaign of ‘accept Moeen because if he is removed there are hardliners like Masud, or the DGFI types appointed by BNP, or all those Jamaat agents’. I wonder how much of this is disinformation spread by a very media savvy general. Why do we give Moeen the benefit of doubt? How do we know that it’s not him who is the hardliner, and the other generals like Z Alam and Jahangir Alam are being sidelined because they want to take the army back to the cantonment?
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:38 am
The most interesting aspect of this news is that the source of this news is ‘anonymous sources’. Usually changes in military top brass comes to the press via ISPR. But ISPR has not distributed this vital news so far and ISPR sources, when contacted by media men 1 AM last night, expressed their ignorance of the news. It was only verified by Iajuddin’s office that Gen Moeen had the files signed by Iajuddin yesterday.
This unprecedented delivery of the news inflates the rumors of conflict within the military heirerchy. It can be guessed that Moeen and his DGFI mini cabinet leaked this news to the press to dilute or prevent any effort by Masud and Z Alam to stop the transfer.
I feel the qualification that helped Masud get the 9th Divn GOC job has turned out to be his bane in post post 11/1 military government. Moeen could convince his mini cabinet of generals that Masud, being related to Syed iskander, can not ultimately be trusted.
It is worth mention that Moeen superseeded six senior Maj Generals to become army chief. Leaving Masud alone, both Z Alam and Zahangir are also Moeen’s batch mates. In fact Z Alam won the sword of honor in Moeen’s batch. Zahangir was apparently in Moeen’s good confidence as everytime Moeen leaves BD, Zahangir takes over as acting army chief. Now looks like Moeen superseeded M G Zahangir to make Maj Gen Mubin the PSO.
By this time it should be clear to all of us as who is the real snake.
It will be interesting to see who replaces Masud as the chief coordinator of the national coordination committee on serious crimes. I guess it will be Gen Mubin.
Catching on Jyoti’s comment, I also want to guess that in fact it may be Masud who was unhappy with the recent spate of arrests, hence he was removed.
Again, I do not believe Hasan Mashud Chy has any role in all these power game. He is happy to use/abuse his power as ACC chief.
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:18 am
Some interesting observations http://bdfact.blogspot.com
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:07 pm
i witnessed tacit’s statement about lower ranks’ dissatisfaction with proceedings about a few months ago. the officer who spoke to me was then diverted to the acc where he now interviews titas gas people all day and feels good about himself.
i dont want to speculate about masud and moeen, but i know that mashhud is very much the ascetic sort who does not like luxuries and such. he has a reputation for going to weddings and frowning about the decorations.
in any case, what makes us think that the arrests would not have been even greater is masud was in charge? maybe the hardliners’ wanted to do away with elections altogether. my point is not to disagree but to say that we have all become horserace betters instead of political observers.:) which is not good for the country at all.
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:20 pm
[...] at Unheard Voices respond to the news of a major army reshuffle in Bangladesh. Posted by Neha Viswanathan Share [...]
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Regarding my comments about Hasan Mashud Chowdhury, let me clarify here. First, let’s get this straight, all power flows from Moeen’s barrel. He is the ultimate source of authority in BD ever since 1/11. At that time, he needed someone to carry out the tainting and blackballing of politicians that would create a vacuum large enough for him to step in. The ACC was his tool for doing so. Hasan Mashud, a retired army chief who had done much to bring about 1/11 by resigning as an advisor and had a fairly clean reputation until then, was handpicked for the job.
Now in the beginning, Moeen’s brief to HMC was to spread his net wide, to go all-out, and to do as much damage to as many people as possible. HMC took this to heart, and started his nation-wide propaganda campaign to boost his role. Then, when requests began to trickle in from Moeen’s DGFI people to spare this or that politician, HMC’s conflict with Moeen began, because HMC was much too committed to the “clean up the country, no matter what the cost” mantra given to him initially to change courses. I personally believe that HMC has greatly abused the powers that were given to him, and that could have been used to bring about a real qualitative change to Bangladeshi society. HMC’s only defense against charges like that are to keep charge-sheeting and prosecuting as many people as possible, so that he is not seen as someone who is complying overtly with requests of fine-tuning, political or otherwise.
Of course, please note that even this facade of bull-headedly taking on all involved is very much that, a hollow facade, and fine-tuning is blatantly going on. The real mark of independence for HMC would have been to charge someone currently in a position of power, not someone who was in power five or ten years ago. Almost all the secretaries who had been charge-sheeted in the GATCO case had to be dropped from the final ACC report. If they had not been dropped, one of the people serving with Minister of State capability in this regime, Manik Lal Samaddar, would also have been charge-sheeted in this case. And HMC’s stock would have gone up in my eyes.
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:01 pm
maybe its just the logical sidelining of a colleague, who has familial baggage, and would have (the wrong) conflicting interests if he became the next chief.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:02 am
Tacit, thanks for clearing that up.
Rumi bhai, Jahangir Alam was the PSO at the time of 1/11. He was also promoted to Lt Gen along with Masud and Zahirul Alam. One rumour has it that he is a close ally of Moeen’s, and is slated for the next chief once Moeen’s term expires in May 2009.
June 6th, 2008 at 4:10 am
The arrest drive goes on despite removal of Masud uddin Chowdhury. This may give us an indication that who actually was the hardliner in Military top brass.
And, on a different note, ISPR has not yet sent any press release on these transfers.
June 6th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
And on top of it, this has happened yesterday..
http://amadershomoy.com/online/news.php?id=21437&sys=3
Who knows, what is happening inside?
June 8th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Looks like he is going overseas, maybe to Australia?
Masud moved again
Sun, Jun 8th, 2008 6:05 pm BdST
Dhaka, June 8 (bdnews24.com) – Regarded by many as a key player in the 1/11 changeover, Lt Gen Masud Uddin Chowdhury is having to clear his desk for a second time in less than a week.
Chief coordinator of the corruption-busting task forces since they came into being, the general has now been transferred to the foreign ministry for possible appointment as an ambassador.
On June 2, he was ordered to leave his position as principal staff officer to the Armed Forces Division and made head of the country’s top military school, the National Defence College.
A government announcement Sunday said his services were now being placed under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and that President Iajuddin Ahmed had signed necessary orders.
His latest transfer puts all speculation to rest about his role in the anti-corruption national committee that oversees the much-feared task forces.
A graduate of the National Defence College, Lt Gen Masud Uddin Chowdhury was inducted into the army from the Jatiya Rakhshi Bahini and rose to become a two-star general when Khaleda Zia was prime minister.
As she returned to power in 2001, Gen Masud, then a brigadier general, was made head of the Counter-Intelligence Bureau at the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence.
A recruit of the 6th batch of the JRB, he joined the powerful paramilitary in May 1975.
Gen Masud is the brother-in-law of Khaleda’s once-powerful younger brother, former major Sayeed Iskander.
On January 11, 2007, he was the general officer commanding of the powerful 9th Infantry Division and believed to have played a vital role in enforcing emergency declared on the day by the president.
Last year, he was promoted to the three-star rank, along with two others.
June 9th, 2008 at 9:35 am
How come Masud’s Rakkhi Bahini beginning hasn’t been as well publicised as his relation (through marriage) with Mrs Zia? Wasn’t Rakkhi Bahini raised from the hardest of hard core Mujibist cadres? As far as I can tell, only Tacit noted in a post in January 2008.
Meanwhile, the musical chair continues.
MSP Aminul Karim promoted Lt Gen, made new NDC head
Mon, Jun 9th, 2008 2:24 pm BdST
Dhaka, June 9 (bdnews24.com)—Military secretary to the president Md Aminul Karim, and newly appointed principal staff officer of the armed forces Abdul Mobin, have been promoted to the rank of lieutenant general, a government official said Monday.
In the latest of a series of army shuffles, Karim was also appointed head of the National Defence College, secretary to the president Md Sirajul Islam told bdnews24.com by phone.
The posting to the country’s top military school was made vacant as Lt Gen Masud Uddin Chowdhury was transferred Sunday for the second time in under a week, this time to the foreign ministry for possible appointment as an ambassador.
Abdul Mobin was appointed as PSO on June 2.
June 9th, 2008 at 10:48 am
In the meantime, you can read up on Aminul Karim here..This post was made two months ago.
http://shadakalo.blogspot.com/2008/04/lecherous-generals.html