RATER ZONAKI
Column: Humanity or Humor?

Bangladesh's military-controlled government has been holding a series of "dialogues" with the country's various political parties ahead of expected general elections that are supposed to reinstate a civilian government. Yet, in the latest twist, a number of party leaders are publicly demanding that this dialogue be held in the presence of army officers.

During one such dialogue with Election Commission officials on April 27, the government-backed splinter group of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by Lt. Gen. Mahbubur Rahman, demanded that the army should also be in control during the elections. "A strong presence of the army troops during elections should be considered, and the troops should be given magistracy powers (while on duty at the polls)" he said, according to media reports.

Suranjit Sen Gupta, a former parliamentarian and member of the Awami League Presidium, said there was no need to include army representatives as observers in any government-party talks. "The army is not a third party; they are the first party to the government and an important part of it," he said during a discussion arranged by the BBC in Dhaka last Saturday. If army officers joined the dialogue, their presence would not be "unofficial," he pointed out.

Gupta's colleague, Sayed Ashraful Islam, acting general secretary of the same party, spoke along the same lines at a recent meeting with the media in Dhaka. "All the tusks of an elephant, whether they are in the front or inside the mouth, are its own," he said. "The armed forces are the same; like the tusks of the elephant, they are part of the government…The Awami League has no objections if they take part in the dialogue between the government and the party."

There are few things that politicians of rival parties agree on, yet on this matter of including the army in political discussions, they suddenly all seem to agree. The politicians not only expect the armed forces to participate in their dialogues, they now also want them to have "magistracy powers" during the general election.

Such statements are provoking questions in the minds of the common people of Bangladesh. Why should the armed forces be part of the political dialogue? Is this even permissible under military rules? What of the legitimate political institutions of the country? Why are the politicians and officials holding "dialogues" rather than proceeding with the general election, which is constitutionally overdue?

It is extremely unfortunate for the nation that its politicians, who are supposed to establish a culture of democracy and protect and nourish its democratic institutions, have completely failed to do their job in the past. Now they are again raising their voices to validate the abusive actions of the military officers.

It appears that the attempt to give magisterial powers to the military, though apparently suggested by some politicians, comes actually from the generals to further their ill-motivated political ambitions.

In the mid-1970s, when Gen. Ziaur Rahman, the founder of the BNP, came to power through a coup and counter-coup by the army, the tradition of establishing retired military bureaucrats in political office began. Over the next decades, leading political parties competed to nominate army officers for parliamentary seats and Cabinet posts. This was done without prior assessment as to what the officers would contribute to the nation. It was merely a power game for the political parties.

The parties have failed to realize their proper role or to behave with integrity in accordance with their status. Instead, on many occasions they have imposed unexpected and intolerable burdens upon the nation, under which Bangladesh has been bleeding since its inception. Ironically, although the politicians invoke history in public speeches and call upon everyone to learn its lessons, they themselves learn nothing.

Everybody -- except the politicians -- believes that the politicians have repeatedly failed to lead the country according to its needs and priorities. They have consistently pursued power and money, applying the meanest tricks against one another and ignoring basic ethics, without a modicum of patriotism or love for the people. The perverted nature and practices of the politicians have deepened the problems of the country and prepared the ground for the present situation.

The politicians who seek to legitimize the suppressive actions and abuses of the military-backed government should be identified. They have no right or authority to deprive the Bangladeshi people of justice. The people must resist the attempts of these derailed politicians to engage in "dialogue" that will protect their own interests, with suicidal results for the nation.

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(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in Hong Kong, working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a Bangladeshi national with a degree in literature from a university in Dhaka. He began his career as a journalist in 1990 and was engaged in human rights activism at the grassroots level in his country for more than a decade. He also worked as an editor for publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues and contributed to other similar publications.)

6 May 2008
Link: http://www.upiasiaonline.com/Human_Rights/2008/05/06/military_power_and_perversion_opolitics/2122/