AL expels 32 leaders

Ofiul Hasnat Ruhin

The ruling Awami League has expelled 32 leaders in two days on charges of contesting the municipal elections as rebel candidates in breach of party decision, sources in the party said.

The party also asked the presidents and general secretaries of Pabna, Rangpur, Kurigram, Khulna and Jessore district units to explain debacle in the municipal polls.

It also asked the president and general secretary of the Munshiganj district unit, Mohiuddin Ahmed and Lutfur Rahman, to explain why the district unit would not be disbanded on charges of working against the party-backed candidates, sources said.

Senior party leaders on Saturday afternoon made the decisions. They also requested the chief whip, Abdus Shahid, Rajbari lawmaker Zillul Hakim, Mymensingh lawmakers Matiur Rahman and Gias Uddin, Netrakona lawmaker Ashraf Ali Khan Khashru and Noakhali lawmaker Ekramul Kabir to work in favour of party-backed candidates.

The sources said the expulsion of some more leaders and activists was under way. They said punitive action would be taken against all the rebel candidates who either contested or are contesting the polls, in two days.

‘The party has expelled the leaders and activists on charges of breaching party discipline,’ the Awami League’s joint general secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif told New Age on Saturday, adding that action would gradually be taken against all such violators.

He said that the party decided to take punitive action based on the gravity of the offences but the leaders who contested the polls violating party decision would be expelled.

‘Thirty-two leaders and activists have been expelled till Saturday and the decision on the expulsion of some others is under way,’ a central AL leader told New Age, adding that the expelled leaders would not be allowed to join the party in future.

The Awami League’s organising secretary Sayeed Al Mahmud Shawpon, who was responsible for coordination of the party’s affairs regarding municipal polls in the Rajshahi division, told New Age that there were 49 municipalities in the division and it would take two more days to take action against the offenders.

The leaders expelled till Saturday are Abdul Wadud, Abdul Jabbar, Amirul Islam, Golam Kabir, Abdul Mannan, Mainul Hossain, Hamidul Islam, Abdul Hai, Younus Khan, Mohammad Faisal, Roman Ali, Badiuzzaman in the Dhaka division, Jasim Uddin, Akhtar Hossain, Abdul Wadud, Rezaul Karim, Mahbub Alam, Iqbal Patwari, Kamal Ahmed, Shahjahan Mallik, Fazlul Karim, Zakir Hossain, Yunus Bhuiyan, Rafiqul Haider and Babul Pathan in the Chittagong division and Sohel Ahmed, Nahid Ahmed and Abdun Noor in the Sylhet division.

The names of the five rebels expelled in the Rajshahi division could not be known immediately.

Earlier on Thursday, the AL president, Sheikh Hasina, also the prime minister, instructed the party’s general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam to take action against the rebel candidates so that the party could perform better in the polls to remaining municipalities.

After the instruction had been made, the party leaders decided to expel the rebel candidates instantly and asked local leaders and activists not to work for rebel candidates.

AL-backed candidates won 42 mayoral posts in Rangpur, Rajshahi, Khulna and Barisal divisions while BNP-backed candidates won 47 posts in the four divisions.   

Dhaka may arrest top Islamist leader for war crimes

Dhaka, Jan 30 (IANS) Bangladesh's top Islamist leader Ghulam Azam, who chaired the formation of the militia that allegedly killed thousands of unarmed civilians four decades ago, may be arrested on charges of committing 'war crimes', a media report said.

Mohammad Abdul Hannan Khan, the senior-most member of the International War Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh, said 'some progress' in investigation into the allegations against Azam had been conducted.

He, however, did not mention about any time-frame for Azam's arrest, The Daily Star reported Sunday.

Azam, 88, was the Ameer (chief) of the Jamaat-e-Islami in then East Pakistan beginning 1969. He led the formation of the Shanti Committee, Al Shams, Al Badr and Razakars -- various Islamist militia accused of acting on behalf of the then Pakistani Martial Law administration.

Ghulam Azam met Gen. Tikka Khan, the East Pakistan administrator, and expressed support, ten days after the freedom movement formally began on March 25, 1971.

He also lobbied against the acknowledgment of new-born Bangladesh after 1971 with the demand called 'Bangladesh Na Manjoor' (Bangladesh not approved). During this activity Ghulam Azam sent requests to Middle Eastern countries to deny recognition to Bangladesh. It continued until the late 1980s.

Azam remained in that post, through his detention and exile in Britain. For several years, denied Bangladeshi citizenship, he was living 'illegally', till the Supreme Court restored his citizenship in 1994 on the grounds that he was born in Dhaka.

He was the Jamaat chief throughout, till 2000 and has since 'distanced himself', from the party, The newspaper said.

If and when arrested, Azam would be joining five of the current top brass of the Jamaat that is the country's largest Islamist party.

The only other non-Jamaat person to be detained for 'war crimes' and up for trial is Salahuddin Qader Chowdhury, a businessman-lawmaker of the main opposition Bangladesh nationalist Party (BNP).

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government has updated a 1973 law to constitute a three-judge panel that is preparing for the trial of 'war criminals', which is an emotional issue in the country that claims three million perished during the 10-month freedom struggle.

The trial is expected to be wrapped up in three years' time. But Shahriar Kabir, convenor of a forum called Antorjatik Aporadh Tribunal Dhaka Sohayak Mancha (platform for supporting the tribunal) warned that unless the tribunal was adequately staffed, it could take much longer.

Investigator Hannan Khan also complained of lack of coordination with the government, the newspaper said.

An ancient vendetta continues to eat away at public life

Another BNP eviction

MORE than two years after the army aborted a dismal interregnum and released from jail the leaders of the country’s two rival political dynasties, the politics of hate and attrition grind away in Bangladesh. The thanks go mainly to the personal vendetta of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, one of the two leaders, against the other, Khaleda Zia.

On November 13th Mrs Zia was evicted from her home of nearly 30 years in Dhaka’s cantonment area. The move triggered a hartal, a protest strike called by Mrs Zia’s opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Violence broke out between her supporters and those of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League (AL). The country’s third political force, the army, has backed the High Court’s eviction order. Shrewdly, Sheikh Hasina has allocated the vast plot surrounding Mrs Zia’s home for housing for the families of 57 military officers killed in a mutiny early last year, soon after the AL swept to power.

The eviction is part of the League’s mission to break the BNP’s back. It is obsessed with airbrushing from history the legacy of the political dynasty founded by Mrs Zia’s late husband, General Ziaur Rahman, hero of Bangladesh’s war of independence against West Pakistan in 1971.

In February the government renamed Dhaka’s Zia International Airport after a respected Sufi saint. It has decided to “reprint” the 1972 constitution to reflect a landmark Supreme Court ruling in July which, among other things, declared null and void the rule of various military governments, including General Zia’s, following the assassination in 1975 of Bangladesh’s founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. (Sheikh Mujib, as he is usually known, happens to be the father of Sheikh Hasina.) In October a court issued an arrest warrant for Mrs Zia’s younger son in a money-laundering case. Four corruption cases stand against Mrs Zia, while 13 cases against Sheikh Hasina, filed during the army interregnum, have been withdrawn.

Yet the BNP was in a shambles even before the recent onslaught. The party has just 30 seats in a 300-strong parliament, which it boycotts. It is split: Mrs Zia can count only on the support of a minority of BNP leaders. Meanwhile, the leaders of the BNP’s main ally, Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Islamic party, have all been jailed. They stand accused of alleged atrocities during the country’s war of secession, and face possible execution. The alliance has hurt the BNP’s reputation, particularly internationally, says Moudud Ahmed, a former prime minister and Mrs Zia’s lawyer. Yet the BNP needs Jamaat-e-Islami’s electoral support.

Mrs Zia’s only hope is that people will get fed up with rising prices, power shortages and the open encouragement by Sheikh Hasina’s government of the kind of predatory capitalism not seen since, well, Mrs Zia’s rule in 2001-06. The government’s high approval ratings are on the slide. At some point, Mrs Zia appears to calculate, mass adulation will attach to her eldest son and heir apparent, Tarique Rahman, now in British exile. Yet Mr Rahman, who left army custody with a snapped spinal cord in 2008, is the symbol of Mrs Zia’s kleptocratic rule. He is loathed even among the BNP’s leaders.

Meanwhile, Sheikh Hasina’s vendetta has the support of the Indian government, with whom Bangladesh’s relations are much improved. The end to Mrs Zia’s political dynasty has become almost a tenet of national security for India, which sees her family meddling in India’s domestic affairs. This month Mr Rahman’s right-hand man told investigators that the Pakistan embassy in Dhaka and the United Liberation Front of Asom, a militant group fighting for an independent homeland for ethnic Assamese in India’s north-east, paid the BNP (for which, read Mr Rahman) and Bangladeshi spooks some $10m for the secret transshipment to Indian insurgents of ten truckloads of arms.

Western governments also oppose Mr Rahman’s return. They supported the thinly veiled army coup in January 2007, which prevented the BNP from stealing an election. The coup also brought in a crackdown on fringe groupings of Islamic extremists courted by the former BNP government. Continuing the crackdown is a centrepiece of AL policy.

Despite the government’s sliding ratings, popular support for Sheikh Hasina’s clan dwarfs that for Mrs Zia’s. And with such a tailwind, it is extraordinary how the League remains stuck in a divisive politics based on personal grievances that go back nearly four decades. Time, you might think, to get on with governing.

source:the economist