Behind facade, Bangladesh treading on Pakistan's path

By Mahendra Ved Apr 18, 2007, 12:40 GMT

New Delhi/Dhaka, April 18 (IANS) The impending exile of former Bangladesh prime ministeof Pakistan, has also lived in London for much longer.

Prospects of a 'deal' between Bhutto and President Pervez Musharraf regime only underscore the point that politics and politicians have to survive in the two countries on the basis of 'deals'.

While Hasina is currently in the US, Khaleda is headed for Jeddah along with her family. The hard bargaining she appears to have driven before agreeing to quit may ensure that her detained elder son Tareq, whose trial is to begin soon, is spared.

Details of the Dhaka deal are not known. But it does remind one of the 'understanding' President Pervez Musharraf reached with Sharif, with the Saudi royalty playing the facilitator. Sharif cannot return home for 10 years - till 2009. Similarly the Zia family's return may also be time-barred.

The Bush administration has been quick to approve of Bangladesh's developments. Nothing else can explain the 'courtesy call' to Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed by US envoy Patricia A. Butenis Monday afternoon even as the former's officials were negotiating with Zia. Butenis expressed 'satisfaction' at the Ahmed administration's 'actions' on deciding a time frame for elections.

Both the US State Department and Butenis have been harping on early elections. But according to Dhaka media reports, Ahmed reminded Butenis of what he had told Richard Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, at the 14th SAARC Summit in New Delhi - that the stalled general elections will not be held till end-2008.

There is a seeming contrast in the way the US wants to deal with Pakistan and Bangladesh. It could not prevent Musharraf's emergence, partly thanks to 9/11. But in Bangladesh, it seems to be discouraging a direct military takeover.

Martial law is unlikely and the civilian façade would remain. The Bangladesh Army has already been reminded that its role as a UN peacekeeper - Dhaka has dispatched over 40,000 soldiers over the years in an undoubtedly lucrative opportunity - could be lost if it takes power directly.

This may not be needed either. Serving and influential retired soldiers are in key positions. The armed forces are part of the 'Joint Forces' conducting raids and investigations against the corrupt - a euphemism for the leading role they are playing along with the paramilitary Rapid Action Battallion (RAB).

The new political scenario seriously threatens the nation's secular polity and opens the vast political space to Islamist forces.

This is because most Islamist politicians, particularly those of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), are free after 13 weeks of a nationwide drive by the Ahmed regime against crime, corruption and religious extremism. There seems a clear lack of will to touch political activists wedded to religion.

When murder and extortion charges can be slapped on Hasina and Tareq Rahman and a score of former ministers and lawmakers of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) are being detained and prosecuted, the absence of JEI and other Islamists in the list appears glaring.

JeI was part of the Zia-led coalition that ruled Bangladesh during 2001-06. Its chief, Motiur Rahman Nizami, was the industry minister. But neither Nizami nor two other ministers nor a dozen lawmakers of the party have been arraigned.

It is well known that they were part of the political culture of 'chandaabaazi' (extortion) and utilised power to consolidate their political base, setting up banks and hospitals.

The prolonged ban on political activity thanks to the national emergency could, however, allow for realignment of forces.

There could be a move to set up the much-speculated National Government, taking in people of different hues, probably led by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus. Minus the two women leaders, cadres of the Awami League and BNP could desert these parties to join Yunus' nascent Nagorik Shakti.

Ultimately, the democratic process that Bangladesh experienced between 1991 and 2006 could be undone or an institutionalised role for the civil-military bureaucracy could be consolidated, as has happened in Pakistan.

© 2007 Indo-Asian News Service