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Tuesday, September 25, 2007

[chottala.com] [25SEP] Bangladesh Update

[25SEP] Bangladesh Update

HEADLINES
  • Excerpts: Bangladesh govt may outstay welcome; McKinnon: Bangladesh's caretaker government is playing with fire by delaying elections until the end of next year and could lose popular support, the Commonwealth's most senior official said on Monday."They should not take the electorate for granted. Don't believe that just because they want you now they will want you tomorrow," Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon told Reuters on a visit to the Indian capital, New Delhi. "If you lose the confidence of the people, you are in big trouble," the New Zealander who heads the 53-member group of mostly ex-British Empire nations said in an interview. Bangladesh has been under a state of emergency since January when an army-backed interim administration took power after months of political violence, cancelled elections and banned all political activity.Normally an interim administration is supposed to be in place for just three months to supervise elections....MORE
  • Excerpts: Coming to America ; Dr. Ahmed neglected to mention, amongst other things, the concerted intimidation of the media by army personnel, the very well-documented beatings of journalists, the recent arrest of a cartoonist, and the talk-show "guidelines" handed down by the military government to television channels. The press in Bangladesh has been mostly bludgeoned into submission while the Chief Advisor maintains his government "believes" in freedom of the press.The interview to the foreign media was just in time for the visit to Bangladesh by John Gastright, the US deputy assistant secretary for South Asian affairs. In Bangladesh Gastright offered support for the military government in Bangladesh and said that the US looks forward to "full democracy" in Bangladesh. To underscore the point that Bangladesh was not being ruled by the military, Mr. Gastright, in an act of diplomatic jujitsu, met with General Moeen U Ahmed, Bangladesh's army chief....MORE
  • Excerpts: Looking west: the Fakhruddin paradigm; While the chief adviser is likely to have a fairly productive stay in the United States, especially after the support he has recently received from the US government through its visiting assistant secretary of state, John Gastright, his over-enthusiasm for speaking to the international media and gain support from the international community is certainly interesting. It is becoming increasingly clear that this administration, which hardly has any constitutional legitimacy any more, is seeking credibility and legitimacy from the international community to remain in power in this country. It is no secret that several foreign diplomats stationed in Dhaka played a direct role in bringing this military-driven government about, and has tried over the last several months to prop it up. That perhaps explains the chief adviser's obvious gratitude to our international `partners' and his tendency to explain his government's actions to the international community through the international media rather than to the people of this country through the local media. It may be noted that since the January 11 imposition of emergency, the chief adviser has not yet given a single interview to a local media outlet, either print or electronic, even though he has found time to speak to several foreign media organisations including the BBC......MORE
  • Excerpts: Dhaka's Garment Industry Is A Ticking Time Bomb; The Bangladeshi economy is dependent on its garment industry, which accounts for 75 percent of the nation's exports. Majority of the industry's workers are women. Their demand for better wages in not without basis. As early as 1994, a survey by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies noted a disparity in wages between male and female workers in the garment industry. According to the institute, 60 per cent of the female workers had wages lower than Tk. 900 a month. What worsened the wage disparity between the two genders was that better-paid jobs such as cutter, supervisor and operator were normally held by men, widening further the pay gaps, The New Nation reported. The wage disparity and continued exploitation of women workers is attributed to the submissive nature of Asian women. Thus, many factory owners prefer female over male workers not only because the women are more dependable employees, but they also do not protest. Other maltreatment committed against females in the clothing industry include attacks and sexual molestations while they are on their way home from the factory and incidents of fire-related deaths resulting from locked factories. n Saturday, the industry's workers decided enough is enough. Most of them are employed by the Nassa Group, whose clients include Wal-Mart in the U.S. and the U.K.'s Primemark. Although Nassa is considered one of Bangladesh's better employers, its work force of 27,000 demanded for higher allowances and their yearly bonus......MORE
  • Excerpts: Islam and politics in Bangladesh; It is clear that there is no consensus among Muslim since the end of Caliphate of Rashidun to reestablish the statehood in its true essence. What we see in the name of Islamic statehood is nothing but mockery of Islam and rather rule of dynasty instead of rule of collectiveness. A mad man like Mullah Mohammad Omar of Afghanistan can claimed to establish some sort of Caliphate. On the other hand, there is country like Bangladesh who created a façade of Islamic Republic, which is based on nothing but so-called utopian Islamic state. It character is such that drunk womanizer a dishonest man like Gen. Ershad has to give the legitimacy by his military sermon to declare Bangladesh a Islamic Republic. Jamaat-E-Islami and most of Islamic political entity in Bangladesh (elsewhere too) wants to establish the state based on Islamic theology such as Caliphate is nothing but another travesty and a slap over our religion. Jamaat or no other Islamic leader in Bangladesh or else where has the moral authority to form such government. Just think who are the people who lead this so-called Islamic party in Bangladesh, Golam Azam, Matiur Rahman Nizami self-proclaimed war criminals, master minder of thousands of Bengali during our liberation war are in the forefront of Jamaat-E-Islami of Bangladesh....MORE
  • Excerpts: DGFI - An Invisible Government Within CTG; The attitude of Present government clearly shows that they want to form an alliance of Jamat, Progressive Democracy Party (PDP), factions of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Awami Leauge etc. The whole process is being manifested by those two Brig. Gen. of DGFI. They are abducting politicians, businessmen, lawyers and important personalities, putting them under severe torture to make statement as their own will and fabricating false cases against the targeted politicians specially Sheikh Hasina who is considered to be the only obstacle in the road to their evil design of breaking political parties to form their obedient alliance to promote Jamat-E- Islami in to power. In the face of the demand of national and international communities the chief advisor Mr. Fakruddin Ahmed on 09.09.07 announced unconditional withdrawal ban on indoor politics. Immediately after the announcement of chief advisor some 11 points precondition on indoor politics were announced by Mr. Mainul Hossain, the law Advisor restricting in door politics all over the country except Dhaka. It is a common opinion of most of conscious citizen that those conditions were re-imposed by DGFI under the spokesman ship of the law advisor. The design of such re imposition of the restriction is to stop the voice of root level leaders and worker of AL and BNP against the desired reformation of minus two theories by some selected central leaders. The economic activities have been damaged due to fear of illegal arrest and false cases against businessmen by the DGFI men on fabricated charges.....MORE
  • Excerpts: Democracy in retreat around the world; Among the countries that have achieved economic success while maintaining or intensifying what the report identifies as political repression are Libya, Tunisia and Algeria. It adds that Egypt has been both economically unsuccessful and politically repressive and that democratic developments have been stopped in their tracks by coups in Thailand and Bangladesh.The survey of 30 countries comes as President George W. Bush prepares to address the United Nations on his "freedom agenda" for the world on Tuesday.On taking office for the second time, Mr Bush pledged that America would seek to end "tyranny in our world", and he prides himself on being a "dissident president". The White House says that "interrelated aspects of human freedom" will be at the heart of the president's efforts during his time at the UN – whether the issue is Darfur, governance in Africa more generally, or the Middle East peace process.....MORE
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Bangladesh Open Source Intelligence Monitors

 

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