 |  |
|
| Todays NewspaperEditorial |
|
| Editorial |
« Previous News | |
Straight TalkLong March for a Short Cause
To begin with let us congratulate all those who were involved with the movement for the trial of perpetrators accused in crimes against humanity and war crimes they committed in 1971. A special tribute is due to Shahid Janani Jhanara Imam on this day for initiating the movement in the early nineties for the trials of the criminals of 1971. At last the Commander-in-Chief of Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh in 1971 Ghulam Azam has been arrested on last Wednesday and sent to jail by the International Crimes Tribunal. This is one day that the people of Bangladesh have waited for long forty years. Now the nation will wait for the trial to begin and conviction to take place. A special thanks to the present government for taking this bold and much awaited step. | Abdul Mannan |
The opposition in the National Parliament BNP completed its two day long march to Chittagong on the day Ghulam Azam's charge sheet was accepted by the Tribunal. To conclude the long march BNP chairperson addressed a big public rally in Chittagong's Polo Ground on 9 January 2012. Before the public meeting I happened to be in Chittagong for few days and as a person who was born and brought up in this historic Chittagong city I was saddened and frustrated to see an expression of vulgarity and excesses committed by the local leaders of the four party alliance and the Mayor of the Chittagong City Corporation obviously by spending public money. Any one belonging to Chittagong feels proud because this city is considered as the citadel of revolutionary activities in different periods of history. In 1857 after the sepoys revolted in Barackpore of West Bengal against the colonial British rulers under the leadership of Mangal Pandey, it was sepoy Rajab Ali in Chittagong who fired the first shot in the eastern part of the sub-continent to announce their participation in the revolution. In the 1930s the youth of Chittagong under the leadership of Mastarda Surya Sen took up arms to free the country from the British. The battle of Jalalabad fought between these youths and the British forces have created a new chapter in our history of valour and courage. Chittagong is the only district in British India which was freed through an armed struggle by these young men and women and remained so for about three days until it was reclaimed by the stronger British Forces. Chittagong produced the first woman martyr, Prithilatha Wadadar in British India. Chittagong also gave birth to such revolutionaries like Kazem Ali Master, Moniruzzam Islamabadi, Jatra Mohan Sen and Joytindra Mohan Sen. In 1971 the first declaration of Independence of Bangladesh by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was read out from Chittagong on 26 March by Awami League leader M A Hannan. Mahatma Gandhi acknowledging the spirit of this port city said 'Chittagong to the Fore.' The same Chittagong on 9 January witnessed a show of different kind.
Though BNP launched the road march to Chittagong on expensive air-conditioned cars and SUVs, in reality it was a mile long car rally. This was their fourth such rally, the previous ones being to Sylhet, Rajshahi and Khulna all presumably called to protest against the 'misrule' of the present government and to 'save' the country being 'taken over' by India. But in reality it was a demonstration of strength to come back to power and abandon the trial against the criminals of 1971. A couple of weeks before this rally, Barrister Moudud demanded in public that the International Crimes Tribunal be disbanded and those arrested for committing such crimes be freed. These were the two agendas on the card, one of BNP and the second one of their close ally Jamaat. The total budget for the entire Chittagong show according to the media reports was ten crores, though BNP says it was only two. Whatever is the figure it is known that the bulk of the money came from Jamaat's coffer as presently their existence is at stake. The whole of Chittagong was covered with digital banners and festoons and the Chittagong City Corporation Mayor Monzurul Alam was quite generous with the tax payers' money in pressing all the logistic services of the Corporation for making the public show a success. Before he got elected the incumbent Mayor promised that once elected he would not raise the holding tax of the residents of the city, but before the turn of the year after his victory raised the tax, in some cases by tenfold.
The Chittagong show was more of a Jamaat-e-Islami show. The whole city was covered with coloured posters, festoons and banners of Jamaat demanding the release of their arrested leaders and withdrawing of cases filed against them. Few former Freedom Party leaders jumped the BNP bandwagon and declared their allegiance to BNP. Surprisingly even the now defunct Muslim League surfaced and put up few green coloured posters protesting the 'misrule' of the present government and demanding installation of a Nationalist Islamic Party in power! They did not forget to declare their support to BNP's stand against the party in power, Awami League.
BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia spoke for 45 minutes in the Chittagong rally. What she said was the run of the mill stuff and half of her speech was India bashing. It was also the same old story amplifying the 'failure' of the present government and her pledge what she and her party would do if voted to power again. She and her party was in power twice before but did not say why she could not deliver during that time. However for the first time she said that during her previous rule there may have been some mistakes and promised that they will not be repeated in future. She fell short of apologising for all the misdeeds and corruptions committed during her time. Surprisingly also for the first time she brought the Bangladesh Armed Forces in her speech this time and mentioned the 'disappearance' of army officers and said 'even army officials are now disappearing. Many officers have lost their jobs.' She promised those who lost jobs in the army, police and civil administration during this tenure, will be taken back. (Will this include the son of Ghulam Azam?). Coincidently, in the morning of January 9, the banned Islamist militant outfit Hizb-ut Tahrir Bangladesh had sent leaflets in sealed envelopes to several local daily newspaper offices reading the same allegation attributed to Khaleda. The leaflets also asked the army to come forward to oust the ruling Awami League-led government. By all definition this is a near seditious comment, coming from no less than a person other than the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament and to many it was tantamount to instigating both the armed forces and civil administration. It would have made some sense if she would declare how many army officers lost jobs during her previous tenure and would they also be taken back. She could also have gone back and declared how many army personnel were hanged on flimsy grounds during her husband General Zia's rule and would they be compensated. As expected the following day the Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR) came down heavily on the comments by Begum Zia and in a press release said 'addressing a rally at the Polo Grounds Zia made false allegations that army officers are being abducted to destroy the army….(the remarks) are misleading and provocative. The nation does not expect such false, provocative and irresponsible statements from a person who is holding a responsible position as that of leader of the opposition.' Through Begum Zia's speech an evil attempt was made to tarnish the image of a well-disciplined force like the army and create chaos the ISPR observed. No doubt that Begum Zia through her speech attempted to instigate the armed forces against the government and fish in troubled water as is currently happening in Pakistan. The similarity between the contents of Hizbut leaflet and Begum Zia's comments regarding the armed forces needs to be scrutinized more carefully. She still cannot forget for being thrown out by a court order from her cantonment residence which she occupied for about two decades.
Honestly speaking it was the Jamaat that benefitted the most out of the BNP rally in Chittagong, and even some of their leaders who were in hiding for avoiding arrest came out of their hideouts and spoke using the BNP rally. Though Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury was not on stage as he is in custody being tried by the International Crimes Tribunal, his entire family was on and his wife and son demanded unconditional release of SQC. People will not be surprised if in the near future the family members of Ghulam Azam demand his release from a BNP platform.
Though BNP's two day car rally clogging the vital Chittagong-Dhaka national highway that links the port city to the capital causing immense misery to the people, it must be thanked that finally BNP has thought of shunning the politics of hartal, at least for the time being. Only if they could realize the truth that hartal and other forms of violence will not take them to power. For such a short agenda one needs to be more pragmatic and practice something more pro-people. Finally the government needs to be felicitated for facilitating the BNP and their allies for holding the car rally and public meetings peacefully, though peace was marred in all venues of meetings because of the inner feuding of the BNP-Jamaat alliance.
The writer is the former Vice-chancellor, Chittagong University.
--
__._,_.___
