Drishtipat Blog

1. ONE of the most commendable acts of the current CTG is the reformation of the ACC with its new leadership.
2. It is not transparent to the people the index that was used by the ACC to prepare the list of the potential wrong-doers and their subsequent internment. The wealth of a few big shots as disclosed by the ACC is so meagre, in the context of present Bangladeshi elites, it would, in fact, tend to establish their honesty…
3. Disclosure of the actual wealth was a two-way sword for the discloser. If one discloses his actual wealth, he could be directly admitting his ill-gotten part of the wealth for which he might not have paid income taxes. If one did not disclose the actual income, he could be found guilty of concealing his wealth
4. Unlikely that the non-paying 99.6% of the people would seriously concur with the ACC’s view and drives to punish only a few of those 15 million, who should be in the tax net to start with, for evading a part of their due taxes.
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1. In the Graveyard of Hope- Faruq Wasif
2. Messiah Syndrome- Shameran Abed

Bangladesh is the name of hope’s graveyard. Bangladesh is another name for waiting. Here, everything almost arrives, but nothing actually, finally comes. But even within the darkness, the possibility of the arrival shines like the morning star. Even though in exchange for our nose, a blade we received, we still hope that some day our noses will heal. We are waiting, hope, sister to waiting, will one day return. The train of history will stop at our platform. We wait. This is our life’s force in this unspeakable reality. We water the grave of hope and bring forth the grass of sorrow. Waiting, brother of hope, keeps us awake. We traverse decades. We come through death, war, pestilence and famine. (more…)

This TIB report has been dedicated to all the Non Resident Bangladeshis and Bhodroloks who naively thought Bangladesh has become a corruption free zone since 1/11. The coffee has been served. When/if you wake up, please smell it. The much talked about train called Bangladesh, that was supposedly derailed, has still not gotten on track. We just changed drivers who are still driving it in the wrong direction — and under the tracks.

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Army golf club (Photo: Munem Wasif)
A law suit has been filed against AL leader Shaikh Hasina for accepting a donation of three crore taka for the Bangabandhu Trust and allegedly giving undue favour to Summit corporation for a power plant. Fair enough. If this can be proven, this should be punished. If the the former prime minister has created a situation where the business men had no choice but to give this donation to get the business, that is unwarranted. There is a bit of conflict of interest there. But we will let the court decide who is guilty and who is not.

But get this. A few weeks ago, a commenter had this to say in a thread in this blog

Despite Sidr, rising food prices, the army has been able to ‘collect’ 25 crore for a new club house for the Army Golf Club (Kurmitola). This has been possible due to multiple ‘donors’. I attended their lavish party for this ironic cause. The reality at the party was that the donors had to donate.

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Ever since 1/11 there has been endless debate as to the parameters of the role of the caretaker government. Under the constitution, the caretaker government is tasked with assisting the Election Commission in “holding the general election of members of parliament peacefully, fairly, and impartially.”

However, what this means in practice is subject to different interpretations. The minimalist view was that put forth by the Iajuddin-led caretaker government prior to 1/11 — the holding of elections, whether participated in or not, whether free and fair or not, full stop.

Prior to 1/11 there were plenty of supporters for this self-evidently preposterous position. Glaring inaccuracies in the electoral roll, partisanship of the Election Commission, the endemic use of money and muscle to influence voters — none of these were deemed problematic.

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In Bangladesh general peoples’ disgust over corruption can’t be over emphasized. The collective anger, hatred and the plea for a relief is enormous. It is clear that, even in the short term, people are ready for any sort of sacrifice, like giving up their fundamental rights like freedom of speech, freedom of meeting, politics etc, if that helps routing out corruption from the society. In this context, it is not very surprising that this current government has enjoyed an overwhelming public support despite many drastic measures.

It is also not a meticulously hidden secret that General Moeen U Ahmed is the de facto ruler of the country although he maintains that he is merely the army chief under civilian leadership. Let me give some example why I say so. Example 1. Remember the camera front outburst of estranged Magistrate Rokonuddoula? He was saying that he visited General Moeen three times regarding the separation of judiciary issue and Gen Moeen rebuffed the demand to halt stripping administrative magistrates of judicial power. Why a leading administrative magistrate will go to army chief for such a purely non military issue and how the general will give decision in that regard? In Example 2, General Moeen has been repeatedly making statements about election date. In an ideal civil government, the army chief will only be there to help out the civil administration during election time. When or whether election will be held or not, that is purely the decision of the civil cabinet and the election commission.
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Bangladesh has avoided the top 10 for the first time in 6 years and is not perceived to be one of the ten most corrupt countries in the world. Bangladesh’s ranking has improved and its better than 13 countries. However, the CPI score remained at 2.0 like last year. In effect, this means that the perception about Bangladesh’s corruption has not really improved. Only other countries have fared worse. Burma was ranked the worst.

Western governments have accused Burma’s junta — which seized power in 1988 — of turning what was once a jewel of Southeast Asia into one of its most miserable places through repression, mismanagement and corruption.

Burma’s business elite thrive by serving the generals, while many in the country go without regular food and electricity, the top U.S. diplomat in Burma, Shari Villarosa, told reporters earlier this year.

Details at BBC

the full list here

The foreign press is offering their own analysis to the recent development. First one from CBS.

Zia was elected in 1991, Hasina in 1996, and Zia again in 2001. And after each election, a well-worn pattern emerged: the winner distributed plum jobs and lucrative contracts to supporters; the loser did their best to make the country ungovernable through strikes and protests.

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Only the most die-hard Zia and Hasina supporters are sorry to see those days go.

But with the initial euphoria that accompanied the imposition of emergency rule wearing off, concerns are growing about what the generals plan to put in the place of the political elite that it’s working so hard to discredit.

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Webster dictionary explains the meaning of corruption as
1. impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle, depravity
2. decay, decomposition
3. inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (as bribery)
4. a departure from the original or from what is pure or correct.

Where as world bank’s conventional definition of corruption is ”the ‘abuse of public office for private gain”. Liberating ourselves from the way World Bank wants us to think, if we stick to the broader and a more meaningful meaning of Corruption, as noted in the Webster, I believe corruption is not definitely something that was created during last 15 years of democracy.

For the sake of time and space I’ll confine myself to the most recent history of our political geography and will start on June 23rd. June 23 of 1757  was the day when general Mir Zafar betrayed his leader Nabab Shiraj ud Doula and helped Col Clive win the battle of Plassey. I don’t know whether Mir Zafar stole money from the exchequer, but I know, for sure, that his act of treachery/ corruption sold the independence of Bengal to East India Company.

Then we saw repeat of this history many times, Mir Zafars kept on returning on every act of the political theater of Bengal. British Raj created a Babu class who will act against the interest of their creed and the country for materialistic benefits. Material benefit drove people to sacrifice their loyalty, allegiance, virtue all throughout the history.
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Bricklane, Bangla TV channels and the whole community are abuzz by the latest scandal to rock the Londoni Bangladeshi community. Unlike other times, this one is homegrown and we don’t have any Monica Ali or Salman Rushdie to blame. But over the last two years coupled with TV channel called Channel S, their unlimited access to the Bangladeshi power base during the last government, Dr. Fazal Mahmood, the managing director of both Channel S and First Solutions, and his cohorts shamelessly used the pitch “trust us because we are from the community”. Along with using the local pitch they also used Islam to get the trust of people in the community. They took an office in the London Muslim Centre. They filled up channel S with Jamat sympathizers, they (the same business group) had regular programs in TV asking for unregulated contribution to Islamic charities. In the end, as it transpired they just played shamelessly and irresponsibly with the hard earned money of the blue collar workers. On Friday night, when callers where calling the Bangla TV channel in a live show talking about how they got scammed, it was painfully depressing for the viewers. One person re mortgaged his house and sent 70 thousand pound only to see it disappear. One person’s money sent for his mother’s treatment did not make it to Sylhet. Now why are people so angry at them?

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The much talked about reform proposal has arrived in BNP. While the proposal calling for joint leadership looks really good in paper, the people who it is coming from are a bit problematic. The proposal came from none other than Abdul Mannan Bhuia, the current sec General of BNP. If you didn’t know any better, I wouldn’t blame you if you had thought that secretary was just appointed in the party. However, this very same person was the secretary for the last 5 years — supposedly the years of massive corruption and family dynasty done under the name of his party. What was his role during that time?

If you recell, Oct 27th, 2006, a group of BNP leaders left the party with exactly the same accusation and formed a new party called LDP. At that time, the very next day their houses were attacked, their cars were torched by the BNP goons. What was Mannan Bhuiya’s role during that time ? He said that if a few people leave BNP, it doesn’t hurt the party. In effect, Bhuiya alligned himself perfectly with the people whom he is calling corrupt today in spite of that open revolt inside the party.

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Read it however you want, but Jalal Alamgir makes a very powerful case in his write up in DS today.

And if you’re still unsure about mala fide intent or want to uncover a tragic “conspiracy against the state,” this is where I suggest you look. After years of theft and abuse of power, our interest unquestionably is to secure justice, but some within the government are trampling the integrity of that effort by once again using it as a boxing arena to carry out their personal vendetta.

He has also launched a website as well. Particular highlight is the charges brought against him.

Mash’s take here which sums it up well.

Last time we highlighted it.

If you want to send your protest, go here

Also see Case against Adab officials.

Moudud and beer cans

This blog has previously covered the parlous state of Bangladesh Biman and the hair-raising corruption that seems to be the defining feature of that organization. In spite of regular doses of bad news across many fronts - massive financial losses, horrible safety performance, nonexistent customer service, pukurchuri on the grand scale, defaults on international airport fees and fuel charges, etc etc - in spite of all that, none of our previous elected governments seemed to be much interested in pursuing any sort of reform. An attitude of “jemne choltese choluk” prevailed. Indeed, in the very recent past the mahouts of this white elephant had the audacity to ask both the Finance Ministry and the World Bank for large bailout packages. The lowest of many low points came two months ago when a Biman plane was responsible for shutting down Dubai airport, one of the world’s major aviation hubs. It has seemed to many that it’s only a matter of time before a major accident involving Biman happens somewhere, bringing both the carrier and our country into the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

It is therefore welcome news that the CTG government appears, at long last, to be trying to fix this broken-down company. (BBC story here). This morning, 1400 job cuts were announced as the first major step of a tentative privatization initiative. Details of the scheme are unclear and appear to be contradictory - for example, the government speaks of ‘public limited company’ status by middle of this year while at the same time it wishes to hold on to a 100% stake for now. That doesn’t add up. Other details should raise eyebrows even higher: the MD Mr MA Momen wants a USD 43-million parachute package for the laid-off employees, which translates to roughly 31,000 USD per employee.

Nonetheless, these baby steps are in the right direction. It is not that the loss of 1400 jobs is cause for celebration, especially in a poor country like Bangladesh. Rather it should be set in the context of Biman’s unrivalled record for corruption and waste. Our taxpayers are not obligated to provide life support for an indolent and inefficient state sector indefinitely. Far better that the outfit should be sold off promptly to the highest bidder and that the operation should be run on the same competitive principles that have seen private airlines thrive all across South Asia, including Sahara and Jet in in India and our very own GMG in Bangladesh.

Of course it must be remembered that in the past, many a proposed reform has come unstuck in the face of determined, even violent, union opposition. Here’s hoping that this is not another false dawn for our national carrier.

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.

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Ki Ashai badhi khelaghar, bedonar baluchore…

Rival BNP and Awami League leaders, hardly seen together during peace time, come closer in a prison van on their way to the Dhaka central jail on Monday. Seated in the front row from left are Nazmul Huda of the BNP and Mohammad Nasim of the Awami League and in the second row, Salauddin Quader Chowdhury of the BNP and Pankaj Devnath of the Awami Swechchhasebak League.
— Abu Taher Khokon , New Age