Sadeq Khan

On 25 September 2007, the President of the United Nations General Assembly Srgjan Karim opened its annual high-level debate. He gave a call for action to sustain the international momentum generated by high-level meeting on addressing the problem of climate change the day before: “Climate change and its dramatic effects are increasingly visible and increasingly violent. The irony is that those least responsible for it will suffer most. Yesterday, many of you reaffirmed this, and sent a strong political message that the time for action had come.”
   General Ban Ki-moon was elated by the high-level meeting on climate change at UN headquarters in New York, which drew more than 80 heads of State or government, making it the largest-ever gathering on the issue.
   “I sensed something remarkable happening, something transformative – a seachange, whereby leaders showed themselves willing to put aside blame for the past and pose to themselves more forward-looking questions.
   “Countries will seek their own methods to combat climate change, but “the important thing is that all agree: national policies should be coordinated within the United Nations, so that our work together is complimentary and mutually enforcing.
   “We need a breakthrough – an agreement to launch negotiations for a comprehensive climate change deal that all nations can embrace. It will be difficult but I am optimistic. We are in a different place, today, than yesterday.
   “Our job is to translate the spirit of New York into deeds in Bali.”
   During the annual high-level debate of the United Nations, Chief Adviser of Bangladesh echoed the optimism of UN Secretary General, and said: “Earlier this week, we discussed the exceedingly important issue of climate change. The world leaders re-affirmed our shared commitment to addressing the issue of global warming. Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to global warming given that as much as 30 per cent of our land will be submerged if the Bay of Bengal rises by just one meter. The adverse effects of global warming, deforestation and increased salinity are already evident in Bangladesh. Floods have become an annual calamity, and this year our people have suffered particularly severe losses due to flooding. While the resilience of our people and quick mobilisation of our limited domestic resources helped us overcome the crisis this year, we envisage that this may become harder in the future. We, therefore, urge enhanced international cooperation to meet the challenges of global warming and its consequence.”
   At the United Nations in New York, U.S. President Bush also made some conciliatory noises over the climate issue. But back in Washington, he put together a climate summit of his own with only mid-level officials from 16 countries, the European Union and the United Nations participating. The US-based environmental group WorldWatch Institute said: “The White House summit was simply a change in tactics, not a change of heart.”
   After years of denial, the US White House-sponsored summit on climate change ended with President George W. Bush admitting that global warming was real and humans were responsible, and asking for heads of state to join him at yet another summit next year (when his presidency ends).
   It is doubtful if anyone of consequence will attend that future gab-fest since President Bush continues to push voluntary cuts to greenhouse gas emissions when the rest of the world, including much of the business sector, has already said that approach simply doesn’t work.
   President Bush has called for a “leaders’ summit” in 2008. Meanwhile the UN is going ahead with a post-Kyoto draft agreement to cap emissions at the upcoming UN Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCC) conference in Bali this December.
   Two weeks ahead of that conference, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon again issued a long statement to say: “We need a break-through: an agreement to launch serious negotiations for a comprehensive climate change deal that all nations can embrace. The challenge will be to lay out an achievable agenda of issues, from transferring alternative energy technologies to helping developing nations finance their own programs for fighting and adapting to climate change. We are all responsible for this. Climate change respects no borders; solutions must be global.”
   Ban Ki Moon did not complain about the indifference of many people (nations like the USA and Australia included) to the perils of climate change. But he did say they were underestimating the urgency of the problem. He said, “We all agree, climate change is real, and we humans are its chief cause. Yet even now, few people fully understand the gravity of the threat, or its immediacy. ....
   Last week, in Antarctica, I saw extraordinarily dramatic landscapes, rare and wonderful. It was the most vivid experience of my life. Yet it was deeply disturbing, as well, for I could see this world changing. The age-old ice is melting, far faster than we think.
   You have heard how the famous Larsen ice shelf collapsed and disappeared five years ago. A giant slab of ice 87-kilometers long - the size of some small countries - vanished in less than three weeks. What if this “Larsen effect” were to repeat itself on a vastly greater scale?
   At the Chilean research base on King George Island, scientists told me that the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet is at risk. Like Larsen, it is a continuous sheath of floating ice, comprising nearly one-fifth of the continent.
   If it broke up, sea levels could rise by six meters. Think of the effect on the coastlines and cities: New York, Mumbai and Shanghai, not to mention small island nations. It may not happen for 100 years - or it could happen in 10. We simply do not know. But when it happens, it could occur quickly, almost overnight.”
   A couple of days ahead of the Ban Ki Moon statement, Hurricane Sidr-struck Bangladesh. The entire country went out of electricity for the whole day following the strike. The coastal belt was cut off as fallen trees blocked the roads, river ways were lashed by tidal bore, and mobile phones were dysfunctional as well. Little could people know or imagine what a catastrophe had befallen “overnight” the inhabitants of the southern parts of the country, while other parts also experienced damages and losses in cyclonic winds moving overland at half the speed at which it struck the coastal belt and river banks. The devastation was terrible, with no roofs left over homes in village after village, and human casualties everywhere. Those in the north of Sunderbans thanked their stars that a good number of human lives were saved by the barrier put up by the mangrove forest on the path of the tornado. They lost much of their livestock and all of their crops, nevertheless. The forest itself bore the brunt of the fury of winds. Its trees and wild animals, tigers and deer alike, were dead, floating with the tides. After two floods, Bangladesh economy is now facing a state of food insecurity and enormous infrastructural destruction. It may take a long time to recover.
   As the disaster management capacity of Bangladesh stretched itself to its limits to cope with the situation the world community has come forward with assurances of help. First to arrive was US relief.
   The United States also assured long-term assistance for cyclone-hit people of Bangladesh in addition to its emergency aid of US$ 2.1 million. Our desire is to build a strong and long-term partnership with Bangladesh,” Director of US Foreign Assistance and USAID Administrator Henrietta Fore told reporters.
   Two US naval ships are on the way to Bangladesh. The first will arrive on November 24 and the second on November 27 with on-board helicopters, medical teams and emergency evacuation teams to join the relief operation.
   Henrietta Fore said, “This is a need and it will be a long-term need; the US will look into schemes on education, in health, assistance in rural electrification, telecommunication and construction of embankment.
   “This time is very challenging for Bangladesh; 46 per cent people of this country live on less than US$ 2 a day; many of these people lost everything. We are working with the government, the army and NGOs in a right way to rebuild houses, rebuild lives.”
   A C-130 US cargo plane had already landed at Zia International Airport with the first consignment of relief goods worth US$ 1,61,000, including blankets, hygienic kits, jerrycans, plastic sheets and energy biscuits. People of Bangladesh, those distressed and those relatively better-off, do appreciate the US gesture and the assistance. For longer-term safety of the country, however, our people would like to see the US administration to do its part and add to the momentum of the UN Convention on Climate Change conference in Bali.

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Finance adviser ignores ground reality

Shamsuddin Ahmed

Finance Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam has surprised those who are linked to agriculture. He viewed that the damage to Aman crop by the devastating cyclone would not affect the economy much. According to him, Aman is not a major cereal crop of the country. He is reportedly said that contribution of agriculture to the GDP is minimal and hence the loss to crops to the national economy would not be significant.
   According to the preliminary official estimate of losses caused to the standing Aman crops on 29,354 acres have been totally and 8,76,706 acres partially damaged in 28 districts. The extent of loss will be colossal when the complete picture is available. One can gestimate at this stage, the loss to Aman crop is 10 to 15 lakh metric tons. Farmers depend on Aman harvest for food requirement of the whole year. Those who have lost even half of the crop will suffer from a chain of problems. The impact of crop loss should be first measured by the difficulties it would entail to the farmers.
   Price of food grains has registered a stiff rise over the months – Tk 7 to 10 per kilogram. People are no doubt groaning under spiralling prices of daily necessaries. They were expecting a decline in rice price with the harvest of Aman crop. The hope is dashed by the damages to the crop caused by the cyclone. It is now apprehended that rice price may go up further, if not immediately.
   Everyone in this country knows Aman rice is our major food crop. This has been admitted in the Economic Survey of Bangladesh-2007 presented by Finance Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam himself while announcing the national budget in June. He gave the cereal crop production figures during the last financial year as Aus – 15.12 lakh, Aman – 108 lakh, Boro – 145 lakh, wheat – 7.2 lakh and Maize – 8.50 lakh metric tons. Aman production target set at 130.20 lakh metric tons could not be reached. Despite production of 283.87 metric tons of cereal crop the country faced a heavy shortfall of food grains requirement. About 25 lakh metric tons of food grains have been imported during the last ten months to the discomfort of the government. Truckloads of rice are still coming everyday from across the border to stabilize the market even when Aman harvest began.
   How much food grains will be required to import this year to meet the shortfall widened by the cyclone damage is a matter to guess. If Mirza Azizul Islam does not realise now, it may be difficult for him later when the demand for financing the huge quantum of food grain import to meet the shortfall. A former civil servant who also worked with UN agencies and IMF, the finance adviser proved to be least conversant with the reality of how much paddy yields how much rice.

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What delayed Dhaka’s appeal for int’l aid?

M. Shahidul Islam in Toronto

The global reach of the media has made the havoc wreaked by cyclone Sidr on the country an almost tangible phenomenon for millions of Bangladeshis living abroad. With tearful eyes, Mohammed Kamruzzaman, a bearded young imam at the Danforth Islamic centre and mosque, stands outside the gate of his Toronto seminary and asks pedestrians to donate for Bangladesh cyclone victims, a sight not uncommon anywhere across the world.
   When a passer-by, another Bangladeshi expatriate, asks him why he is collecting donations when the Bangladesh government has decided not to seek international aid, Kamruzzaman’s cold-stricken face contorts into a mask of fury. “The government is not dying, our brothers are. We all have relatives starving to death in our villages. Don’t you watch TV news,” retorts the homesick cleric.
   Such is the feeling among most of the expatriates who are constantly being fed with live footage by satellite TV channels about events back home. In the nearby Garoa restaurant, where ITV is beaming shots of floating corpses and weeping mothers in its midnight news, an assortment of community diners is engaged in ‘scholarly’ exchange of views on ‘home affairs’ while enjoying the delicacies of deshi fish bhuna, chicken curry or samosa. A young student of the group suddenly bursts into a rage, “They said people were evacuated to shelters and arrangements made for rescue and relief. Why then corpses are floating and thousands dying of hunger and diseases?”
   As the true extent of the horror gradually surfaces with each passing day, such concerns are aired more frequently—in living rooms and at street corners—and even seasoned experts find it hard to explain why the foreign affairs adviser announced on November 18 that the government would not ask for international aid, when the trail of death and destruction from the cyclone seems much too overwhelming than what was predicted initially. The adviser also reportedly said there were enough relief materials in the country, a statement which contrasts with the reality of inadequate stock of relief materials and lack of delivery mechanisms. Had not many of the victims wait four days before they could see anyone coming with relief?
   That anger however evaporated when the government revised its decision within 24 hours and the foreign adviser sent appeals for help to capitals of donor countries. The belated decision began to yield instant results and more and more countries came forward with fulsome amounts to help Bangladesh conduct the relief and rescue operations in a much more efficient manner.
   By the afternoon of November 19, Food and Disaster Management Adviser Tapan Chowdhury was able to tell newsmen that the donor countries and agencies pledged $140 million in emergency aid, of which the Saudi Arabia alone announced a grant of $100m along with 300 tonnes of food and relief materials for the cyclone victims.
   At the dawn of November 16, the decision to seek or not to seek foreign aid was a matter of life and death for millions of people trapped in the Sidr-ravaged areas. So was the difference in outcome. Within hours of the foreign adviser’s appeal for help, the amount of aid commitment rose from a paltry $25m to $140m. Why did the decision then come so late? Did it not send a wrong signal to the donors?
   The exact reason may not be known ever, but the initial decision of the government, announced on November 18, came as a surprise. It struck some donors with a sense of awe as, by then, many of them had committed to dole out over $25 million in cash and extensive investigations were underway to ascertain the extent of damage.
   Besides, before the foreign adviser informed the media on November 18 of the government’s decision not to plead for international aid, the donors had already taken initiatives on their own to help the victims. Douglas Broderick, representative of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), had by then told the food and disaster management ministry officials that five teams were already visiting the cyclone-affected areas to assess the extent of destruction and loss.
   The foreign adviser’s announcement was also preceded by a press briefing by Ayub Mia, acting secretary to the food and disaster management ministry, who said 42 representatives of donor countries and UN agencies held an emergency meeting earlier in the day to assess the relief and rehabilitation needs and committed to provide rice, blankets, tents and house-building materials in addition to financial help for the Sidr victims. Envoys of a number of donor countries also urged the government to seek assistance from the international community soon after the disaster had struck.
   At a time when the nation’s own resources and capabilities were seen stretched to the limit following the two successive devastating deluges in one season, seeking foreign aid was the most sensible way to share the pains with global neighbours, especially when the November 18 meeting of donors produced spectacular results in terms of initial commitments: the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) promising $7 million, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) $6.8 million, the United States (US) $2.1 million, the United Kingdom (UK) $5 million, a UK-based NGO $4 million, the European Union (EU) 1.5m euro, Germany $293,000 etc.
   Experience also shows a formal pleading for aid makes it somewhat incumbent upon donors to come forward. For instance, following the devastating cyclone of April 1991, the government immediately made an appeal to the global community for help and the result was significantly fruitful. Saudi Arabia alone gave $100 million for relief efforts. Other donors with substantive contributions included the EU ($12 million), the UK ($7 million), India ($5 million), Pakistan ($4.3 million), Japan ($2.5 million), and Canada $1.5 million.
   Although over 140,000 died in the April 1991 cyclone, the cumulative damage of cyclone Sidr is no less devastating, despite about 1.5 million coastal people evacuating to shelters before the storm hit thanks to the government efforts for which it deserves commendation.
   The government also seems to have underestimated the impact and the magnitude of the devastation caused by Sidr until the third day after the cyclone struck on November 15. According to an initial estimate, Sidr left an indelible mark of destruction on 962 unions in 133 upazilas, affecting 3.14 million people of about 887,000 families. The storm killed at least 242,000 livestock and completely destroyed standing crops on 23,122 acres of land, including 600,000 metric tons of Aman. About 273,000 houses were levelled to the ground, and 58 kilometres of roads totally ruined and 1,363km more partially damaged. Even the government’s death count is rising by the minute, while the Red Crescent fears the causalities may eventually go as high as 20,000, if the thousands of missing people are found not to have survived.
   The emerging magnitude of death and destruction being so horrific, a formal pleading for aid in the early hours of November 16 would have been more appropriate and could help mitigate the sufferings of the victims in a profounder manner, say observers. It is not cash or food that matters, the news of forthcoming help keep people alive during such disasters.
   The decision of the government was also inharmonious with the sincerity expressed by the UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, John Holmes, on November 16. Even before the partial extent of the damage became known, Holmes said in New York that his office would make available “several million dollars” in emergency aid. Then, the following day, a UN press release said, “The UN will offer more assistance to support the cyclone victims, given the availability of information regarding the damage.”
   There was also something wrong with the prediction made by our Met Office. Given that the US was one of the first respondents in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, one would presume that the US knew better about the likely impact cyclone Sidr would make upon landfall. Was Dhaka allowed to share that information with the US? Why the US had pre-positioned its resources in and around Bangladesh, if it did not know what was coming?
   However, despite being one of the first countries to respond to this disaster, the US seems to have diluted much of its goodwill by prompting its army to offer assistance to the Bangladesh army in its rehabilitation efforts. The offer has undoubtedly undermined the capabilities of our own armed forces that constantly train in such matters and respond to many such calls quite frequently.
   The collaboration between the US and Bangladesh armies is not new. But the US did not follow a protocol subtlety by deciding to dispatch, without prior consent from Bangladesh government, two US Navy amphibious assault ships from the Pacific command to join the rescue operations in the cyclone-devastated areas. The two warships, USS Essex and USS Kearsarge, are reportedly equipped with helicopters, hovercraft and hospital facilities.
   That may partly explain why the government delayed in pleading formally for international aid as a formal appeal for aid could have been seen to have legitimised the participation of US military personnel in the relief and rehabilitation efforts as it did in 1991.
   Exactly that is what seemed to have happened after the foreign adviser made the official pleading for aid on November 19. Hours after his announcement, two C-130 Hercules aircraft of the US Marine Corps landed in Dhaka to provide medical services to cyclone victims. They joined a pre-positioned medical team that was already in the country prior to the cyclone’s arrival.
   When eight American ships carrying 7,500 marines arrived off Chittagong port on May 16, 1991, without prior consent of the Bangladesh government, the incident sparked a furore between New Delhi and Dhaka. It took several years to mend the diplomatic rift created by the incident between the two neighbours.
   Despite assurances from the commander of that taskforce, Major General Henry Stackpole, who said, “We went to Kuwait in the name of liberty, and we’ve come to Bangladesh in the name of humanity,” India viewed the entire affair as a US intrusion into its backyard. The then prime minister of India, Rajib Gandhi, dared to oppose the US move publicly. Coincidentally perhaps, Gandhi was assassinated only weeks later by suspected Tamil assassins.
   Times have changed and India today is a major strategic partner of the US. Although we may not be absolutely sure why our government delayed in pleading for aid when millions of lives were at stake, it was however a serious policy stumble that will profoundly affect the ongoing rescue and rehabilitation efforts.

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Moinuddin Naser in New York

Representatives of more than 30 countries, including Bangladesh, attended a United Nations investment forum in Bangkok to drum up the finance for constructing the Asian Highway Network, an ambitious plan to crisscross the continent with 141,000 kilometres of high-quality road.
   About $26 billion has already been committed for upgrading the network, according to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), but a shortfall in funding estimated at $18 billion remains that is required to refashion 12,000 kilometres of roads to the envisioned standards.
   Twenty-eight countries signed a pact, developed in 2005 with the UNESCAP’s help, undertaking to make every possible effort to comply with the minimum desirable standards both in constructing new routes and in upgrading and modernising the existing ones.
   When the highway upgrading is completed, the 32-country network, “which will link cities as far apart as St. Petersburg and Singapore, and Seoul and Istanbul”, will facilitate trade and tourism as well as access to the landlocked countries.
   In the two years since the treaty came into force, over 10,000 kilometres of roads have been upgraded, mainly in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. So far, all sections of the network in only 13 countries meet the treaty’s minimum standards.
   Representatives of 10 international organisations and many members of the private sector are also attending the Bangkok forum.

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Bangladesh: worst victim of climate change

Abdur Rahman Khan

A land slide killed 87 persons in Chittagong during a monsoon rain last June.
   The twin floods of August and September affected 46 out of total 64 districts in the country killing nearly 1,100 persons and causing damage to infrastructure and loss to agricultural production. The consequential river erosion caused by flashfloods and receding flood waters rendered thousands of families homeless in September.
   Water logging in the southwestern region of Bangladesh is a wide-ranging disaster affecting the life and livelihood of about 500,000 people in Khulna, Jessore and Satkhira districts for the last three decades.
   And finally Cidr, a category four cyclone swept over the southern and central part of the country on November 15 causing colossal damage to life and properties.
   All these phenomena, disasters and calamities in Bangladesh are the vivid manifestation of dire consequences of global climate change as warned by the environment scientists.
   The UN-sponsored inter-governmental panel on Meanwhile, thousands of people made homeless by last week’s devastating cyclone are still waiting for aid to reach them, relief workers and local media said on Thursday.
   Reporters on the scene said food, medicine and drinking water were reaching survivors, but many were left out. Diarrhoea and other diseases have broken out in some affected districts.
   Officially, the cyclone killed more than 3,500 people. The Red Crescent believes up to 10,000 people may have perished. Cyclone Sidr was the worst disaster to hit Bangladesh since 1991 when another tropical cyclone killed around 143,000 people.
   The cyclone also damaged at least 20 per cent of the Sundarban mangrove forest and nine thousand shrimp farms in the coastal district of Khulna, Bagerhat and Satkhira. The loss in agriculture was estimated to be to the tune of taka 55,000 million .
   Almost a week after cyclone disaster, relief teams said they have reached the last remaining pockets of devastation. The military is at the forefront of the aid operation. The road communication with most of the affected districts was restored after cleaning the uprooted trees that blocked the highways and local roads. Electricity supply was also restored in 48 out of 56 affected upazilas in the costal region.
   Emergency aid is now pouring in from all over the world. But a desperate struggle lies ahead for survivors, many of whom have lost their loved ones, home and livelihood. The World Bank has committed 250 million US $ to the cyclone victims. The American Red Cross provided more than $1.2 million in financial assistance to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society. This included $1 million grant from USAID’s Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance for clean water and emergency shelter. UNICEF is mobilizing another 20 million dollars for the cyclone victims.
   Once the water and sanitation needs are identified, the American Red Cross will mobilize a specialist in the region to produce and transport safe drinking water and to promote good hygiene practices to prevent water-borne diseases.
   The government has announced to introduce vulnerable group feeding programme for next four months to support about 2.5 million most vulnerable families with food. The Government will also provide house building grants to the tune of Taka 5,000 to 10,000 per family in the affected areas.
   However, the aid agencies and donor communities recognized that Bangladesh’s response to cyclone is better than any advanced nation as the government and the people are facing the catastrophe with admirable courage despite many problems.
   Before the cyclone hit, the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, working with sister Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies deployed more than 40,000 volunteers to help people prepare for the disaster, which included disseminating early warning messages, mobilizing relief supplies and helping to evacuate thousands of people. These trained volunteers are credited with playing an important role in helping to move those at risk into some of the 2,000 cyclone shelters in the area.
   The dramatic lowering of the death toll in Bangladesh’s cyclone demonstrates the value of linking the world’s weather satellites and other steps that are being taken to curb such disasters, an intergovernmental group said in Geneva on Wednesday.
   The group — which is outside the United Nations but receives UN support — aims to take advantage of a new generation of Earth observation satellites and increasingly sophisticated modelling.
   “Bangladesh has a long history of major cyclones that have killed thousands of people,” said the 73-nation Group on Earth Observations.
   Hurricane expert Hassan Mashriqui of Louisiana State University said in the United States that his warning by e-mail to Bangladesh authorities helped guide the evacuation that saved lives. He said that international efforts to improve forecasting should be stepped up.
   The cyclone that hit the Bangladesh coast in 1970 killed 300,000 people, he said. Forecasting and disaster preparedness improved from the efforts of individual countries over the next two decades, and the death toll dropped to 140,000 when the next major storm hit in 1991.

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INQUIRY COMMISSION REPORT

Ex-chief minister masterminded murders of ULFA leaders’ kin

Nava Thakuria in Guwahati

Last week’s indictment of Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, a former chief minister of Assam, for masterminding assassinations of a large number of relatives of leaders of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) has rocked the nation. The series of killings took place between 1998 and 2001, when the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), a regional political party, was in power in the northeast Indian state under the leadership of Mahanta. A student leader turned politician, Mahanta became the chief minister of Assam for the second time after the AGP had won the 1996 sate assembly polls. He also held the home affairs portfolio.
   A judicial inquiry commission, formed on August 22, 2005 by the Congress-led Assam government, in its report submitted to the state assembly on November 15 indicted Mahanta for his leading role in the killings of ULFA kin. The Justice (retired) K. N. Saikia Commission of Inquiry on Secret Killings in the report said, “There is enough evidence to show that the then Home Minister was at the helm of these extra-Constitutional killings.”
   The AGP, floated after the successful culmination of the 1985 Assam Agitation, swept that year’s state assembly elections. As the AGP president, Mahanta took oath as the chief minister of Assam. In the next assembly polls, the regional party suffered a defeat and the Congress regained power in Dispur, the state capital. However, the AGP bounced back to power in 1996 and Mahanta returned to the chief minister’s office.
   Meanwhile, the ULFA militants, who had been, and are still, fighting New Delhi for an independent Assam since 1979, became more active in almost all areas of the Brahmaputra valley. Exasperated by the disruptive activities of ULFA armed cadre, Mahanta decided to tackle the issue of insurgency with an iron fist. He reportedly adopted the ‘tit for tat’ strategy of K. P. S. Gill, a former police chief of Punjab, to deal with the ULFA militants. The strategy dictated that if the armed insurgents continued with killing common people, arrangements should be made to assassinate the family members of the outfit leaders to make them suffer the pain of losing their near and dear ones too.
   During the tenure of Mahanta, as the chief minister holding the home portfolio, unidentified gunmen killed many family members and close relatives of ULFA leaders, including its political chief Arabinda Rajkhowa and publicity secretary Mithinga Daimary. The assassinations later became infamous as the secret killings in Assam that shocked the people of the northeast region and ultimately resulted in rejection by voters of the AGP in 2001 elections, in which the Congress won a sweeping victory and formed the state government under the leadership of Tarun Gogoi.
   The Saikia Commission also indicted the armed forces, pointing out that the assailants in each of the assassinations probed by it used sophisticated weapons of certain brands normally used by the police and other security personnel. The commission in its report specifically said that “the army was ubiquitous. By army we mean the armed forces of the Union deployed in Assam in aid of civil power.”
   The commission found many common characteristics in all the cases it had probed. Those include each of the victims was a family member or a relative of a ULFA leader; almost all the killings were committed at dead of night; the assailants spoke Asomiya, carried sophisticated firearms and the vehicles they used were mostly Maruti Gypsies and vans without any registration number plate; police patrolled the crime areas before and after the killings but not during them; investigations into the murders did not commensurate with the seriousness of the crime and modern, scientific methods of investigation were never used; the government never did condole the deaths, and no compensation was paid to the families of the victims.
   The Saikia Commission is the fourth one assigned to probe into the killings. The first commission headed by Justice (retired) Safiqul Haque was formed by the Mahanta government. It conducted an enquiry into just one of the murders, that of Ananta Kalita, but was dissolved by the Congress government in 2001. The second commission, this time instituted by the Congress government, was headed by Meera Sarma, a former Guwahati High Court judge. But, as Sarma expressed inability to continue with the inquiry, it was dismissed in 2003. The third commission headed by Justice (retired) J. N. Sarma, in its interim report said it could not gather enough evidence against Mahanta. The cabinet of Tarun Gogoi termed the findings inconclusive. However, the government had to submit both the reports, of J. N. Sarma Commission and K. N. Saikia Commission, to the assembly following an order of the Guwahati High Court.
   The Saikia Commission has won admiration of various organisations, including student bodies and rights groups. Two powerful student organisations, namely the All Assam Students Union, which had once been led by Mahanta himself during the days of Assam Agitation, and the Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chhatra Parishad, publicly termed the Saikia Commission fair and impartial. Both the student groups also have demanded stringent punishment of those found guilty of perpetrating the killings of innocent family members of ULFA rebels. Leaders of the Manav Adhikar Sangram Samity, a human rights watchdog, even set a three-month time for the government to arrest those found responsible for the killings.
   Unfortunately for Mahanta, who now leads a break-away Asom Gana Parishad (Progressive), his former colleagues in the AGP have asked him to shoulder the responsibility for the assassinations alone. Making public the party’s stand on the issue, AGP President Brindaban Goswami has declared that Mahanta must individually be answerable to his indictment. Goswami, who termed the policy of secret killings a violation of people’s fundamental and human rights, said, “Mahanta is answerable to the people of Asom after his indictment.”
   Gogoi meanwhile has announced that his government would form a panel of legal experts to examine the options for initiating actions against those indicted by the commission. Describing the 1998–2001 period, when the assassinations took place, as the darkest chapter in the history of Assam, the chief minister vowed not to spare anyone of the people involved in the killings. He also said his government would try its best to restore people’s confidence in the police at the earliest.

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Australia goes to polls tomorrow

Fazle Rashid in Sydney

Australia goes to polls tomorrow with anti-incumbency sentiments running high. The Labour led by Kevin Rudd is widely tipped to stage a cakewalk victory, ending the John Howard-led government's 11 years in office.
   Although foreign policy has not been a major issue in the campaign, it will undergo a dramatic change in the event of a Labour victory. Rudd will not only distance himself from George Bush, whose tenure at the White House is also coming to an end, but will also reduce Australia's presence in Iraq.
   While Howard, the incumbent prime minister, prides himself on the fact that he has been the closest ally of Bush since the exit of Tony Blair from 10, Downing Street, Rudd has no intention to cast himself in such a role.

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Glimpses of the Great

Mahatma Gandhi

K. Z. Islam

While in Noakhali Gandhi’s typist and shorthand secretary, Parasuram, resigned on New Year’s day 1947. He was shocked to find Gandhi sleeping naked with Manu. She also bathed and massaged his naked body, finding nothing wrong in doing anything Bapu asked of her. Gandhi insisted that he was never aroused when he slept beside her, or next to Sushila or Abha. He felt only as a “Mother” to these most intimate disciple-helpers. “I am sorry,” Gandhi replied to Parasuram. “You are at liberty to leave me today.” He woke that morning at 2 A.M. “God’s grace alone is sustaining me,” he confided to his diary. “I can see there is some grave defect in me somewhere which is the cause of all this. All around me is utter darkness.” He woke Manu, telling her “to remain alert and wide awake.” Pyarelal, Gandhi’s secretary reported that he muttered to himself: “There must be some serious flaw deep down in me which I am unable to discover…. could I have missed my way?”
   Rajendra Prasad heard about Parasuram, tactfully suggesting that it would be better for Gandhi to ask his grandnephew Kanu to take Manu’s place. “It is futile to worry,” Bapu replied to his friend. “Manu has come of her own accord. She was keen to come only to work under me and I agreed to it and she is working with zest. She is not as capable as Kanu, but where faith and purity exist talent and strength must follow.” Ramdas, Gandhi’s son also heard, and was worried about his father. “Don’t at all worry,” Bapu replied. “Manu has taken up a lot of work and... I have asked her to write about her sharing the bed with me.” He still felt himself surrounded by “darkness,” fearing that might indicate “a flaw” in his “method.” He was scrupulously truthful enough, and passionately introspective enough to ask of his son, “Could it be that I am nurturing only weakness in the name of non-violence!” Gandhi was testing the “truth” of his faith in the fire of “experience.” His had always been a practical philosopher, an activist faith. He appears to have hoped that sleeping naked with Manu, without arousing in himself the slightest sexual desire, might help him to douse raging fires of communal hatred in the ocean of India, and so strengthen his body as to allow him to live to 125 in continued service to the world. By January 19, however; less than a month since she had joined him, Manu showed signs of growing alienation. “I shall be happy if I know whether you will accompany me on the walk in the morning or in the evening or at both times.” She did not reply. Her withdrawal upset him. So he wrote, “I don’t know how I can help if you are scared all the time.”
   He felt so troubled about Manu’s anxiety and listlessness that he wrote to his old Calcutta comrade Satis Chandra Mukerji, seeking his opinion. “A young girl (19) who is in the place of a granddaughter to me by relation shares the same bed with me, not for any animal satisfaction but for (to me) valid moral reasons. She claims to be free from the passion that a girl of her age generally has and I claim to be a practiced brahmachari. Do you see anything bad or unjustifiable in this juxtaposition?” Mukerji chose not to answer that question. Manilal Gandhi, however; was shocked when he heard the news. “Do not let the fact of Manu sleeping with me perturb you. I believe that it is God who has prompted me to take that step,” his Bapu replied. “Do not get [Father-in-law] upset and bear with me. I write this because Kishorelal and others have got upset. I see no reason for that.” Gandhi asked a Bengali doctor he met to “suggest any recipe” for helping him live to 125. The doctor only advised him to return to Calcutta “to recoup his health.”
   District Muslim League Secretary Mujibur Rahman urged Gandhi to leave Noakhali, informing him that local Hindu and Muslim leaders could take responsible care of their own people. Some men asked him now if they too should sleep with young girls? “What he did was for all to do if they conformed to conditions observed by him,” Gandhi replied. “If that was not done, those who pretended to imitate his practice were doomed to perdition.”
   Gandhi believed, as he told Nirmal Bose, that “there is an indissoluble connection between private, personal life and public. . . . [Y]ou cannot overlook private deflections from the right conduct. If you are convinced ... you should pursue my connection with Manu and if you find a flaw, try to show it to me.” Nirmal argued against the practice but failed to convince Gandhi that he did anything inappropriate, since he firmly believed God directed his actions, and approved of his loving (nonsexual) intimacy with Manu. Gandhi then wrote to Vinoba to explain that he slept with Manu in order to test what had been “my belief for a long time that that alone is true brahmacharya which requires no hedges. . . . I am not conscious of myself having fallen. . . My mind daily sleeps in an innocent manner with millions of women, and Manu also, who is a blood relation to me, sleeps with me as one of these millions. . . . If I do not appear to people exactly as I am within, wouldn’t that be a blot on my non-violence?” A few days later Manu suggested that they stop sleeping together. Gandhi “readily agreed.

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PARIS EXPO OF BANGLADESHI ARTEFACTS

Irregularities, theft, mistrust call its rationale into question

Anisur Rahman

A government committee has found a number of irregularities in the process of sending nearly 200 Bangladeshi artefacts to the Guimet Museum in Paris for exhibition.
   Even more alarming is a report run by the daily Jugantor on Tuesday, which says 10 of the artefacts stored at the National Museum for sending to Paris had been stolen.
   The fact-finding committee formed by the government has become astonished to find that none of the documents for shipping the artefacts to Paris bears any countersignature of the authorities concerned. No video documentation of the artefacts has been done and their photographic documentation is also incomplete.
   The committee has found the descriptions of many of the artefacts inaccurate, inadequate, obscure or missing, and the number of items mentioned in different documents also varies from 168 to 189, which is highly confusing, a committee source said.
   The government formed the committee on October 25, headed by Abdul Momin Chowdhury, a former vice chancellor of National University. The other committee members are Professor KM Mohsin, Barrister Tania Amir, Sufi Mostafizur Rahman, a professor of archaeology at Jahangirnagar University, Major M Shamim Iqbal Miah, and Major M Akhlaq-Uz-Zaman.
   In a letter to the cultural affairs secretary on November 6, 2007, the committee said it would need some more time to correct the serious flaws in the shipment process to protect the national interests.
   
   Sonar Bangla Fair connection
   The holding of Sonar Bangla Fair in Paris depends on whether Bangladesh’s artefacts can be exhibited at the Guimet Museum, said the French chargé d’affaires in Dhaka, Jean Romnicianu, and the Guimet Museum president, Jean-Francois Jarriage, and its curator, Vincent Lefevre.
   They made the observation while exchanging ideas with a group of archaeologists and eminent citizens of the country about the ‘planned’ Paris exhibition of the representative artefacts of the Ganges delta at the French mission in Dhaka in the evening of November 18.
   The government fact-finding committee however is yet to find any connection between the exhibition at Guimet Museum and the much-publicised Sonar Bangla Fair mentioned in any official document.
   
   The Agreement
   A Dhaka-Paris agreement signed on July 31 caused a furore among archaeological experts, eminent citizens and people in general at home and abroad.
   Under the agreement, about 187 rare and priceless artefacts representing Bangladesh’s ancient history were to be shipped to France for an exhibition scheduled to begin on October 23 and continue till March 3, 2008 at the Guimet Museum. As per the contract, the scheduled launching date of the exhibition has already expired. In this context, a new contract, omitting all mistrusts, irregularities and disbeliefs, is due if the Guimet Museum still wants to go with the plan for the exhibition.
   According to newspaper reports, most of the archaeology experts and many civil society members were worried by the government decision to allow so many relics to be lent to a foreign government in this manner.
   The artefacts have been collected from five different museums in the country—the Bangladesh National Museum in Dhaka, the Barind Research Museum in Rajshahi, the Mahasthan Archaeological Museum, the Mainamati Archaeological Museum, and the Paharpur Archaeological Museum.
   Among the artefacts are a copy of Prajna Paramita (a Buddhist manuscript), terracotta heads dating back to the fourth century, a bronze sculpture of Lokanath of the eighth century, and stone sculptures of Nataraj, Mahamaya, Chamunda, Kalyansundar, Panchamukha Shiblinga, Surya, Nabagraha, Shyamatara, Marichi and others of the tenth century.
   
   Citizens’ concern
   Twenty-seven eminent citizens of the country in an open letter to the president and the chief adviser on October 18 expressed their deep concern at the move to send 187 archaeological artefacts to the Paris museum for exhibition.
   In the letter they alleged that some important procedures for organising the exhibition had been ignored.
   They said nationally and internationally reputed archaeologists and museum experts should have been consulted for selecting the artefacts from our museums for sending them to Paris for exhibition.
   They also stressed the need for a reasonable insurance coverage and observing due rules for striking a deal in this regard. The insurance money for the artefacts has been fixed at less than Tk 10 crore only.
   In this regard, they mentioned that Joachim K. Bautze, an eminent Indologist, in a letter to the French ambassador to Bangladesh on October 12 said, “For this amount of money you cannot buy even a fragment of a painting by Vincent van Gogh, but your government considers this adequate ‘according to international standards’ for the cream of the art of Bangladesh.”
   “This is more like a financial fraud,” Bautze observed.
   The citizens also claimed that proper security measures had not been taken for shipping the artefacts to Paris.
   The signatories to the letter include former professor of English at Dhaka University (DU) Khan Sarwar Murshid, National Professor Kabir Chowdhury, former professor of history Salahuddin Ahmed, journalist Kamal Lohani, Professor Dwijen Sharma, former DU professors Nawshaba Khatun and Ajay Roy, poet Belal Chowdhury, former professor Mustafa Nurul Islam, Professor Syed Akram Hossain, former professors Sanjida Khatun and Fahmida Khatun, economist Musharraf Hossain, former professor Serajul Islam Choudhury, artist Aminul Islam, former professor Borhanuddin Khan Jahangir, former adviser to a caretaker government Zillur Rahman Siddiqi, former chief architect of the directorate of architecture M Abdur Rashid, artist Syed Jahangir, architect and poet Rabiul Husain, artist Quayyum Chowdhury, Language Movement veteran Imdad Hossain, archaeologist and former secretary to the government Abul Kashem Mohammad Zakaria, artist Rafiqunnabi, and professor Bulbon Osman.
   While these artefacts were ready to be sent to the Guimet Museum on October 13 by a special cargo aircraft of Air France, the first joint district judge’s court of Dhaka upon hearing a petition issued a notice on the French ambassador and the secretary to the cultural ministry on October 11, asking them to show cause why an injunction would not be issued against sending the artefacts abroad. The notice was also served upon Homebound Ltd, the company assigned to carry the artefacts to Paris.
   The petition was filed by former director of archaeology department Nazimuddin Ahmed, former director general of the National Museum Professor Shamsuzzaman Khan, architect Shamsul Wares, art critic Mainuddin Khaled, and coin expert Nurul Islam.
   Meanwhile, five eminent citizens who were present at the November 18 meeting at the French House in Dhaka expressed their concern at the latest move of French officials for sending the Bangladesh artefacts to the Guimet Museum for exhibition. They are former secretary to the government and an eminent archaeologist AKM Zakaria, architect Shamsul Wares, and artists Jamal Ahmed, Shishir Bhattacharya and Nisar Hossain.
   They said the French side blamed the Bangladeshi officials concerned for the mistakes found by the government fact-finding committee in the process for shipping the artefacts to Paris.
   “The Guimet Museum is one of the 18 European museums that have not signed the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation Convention of 1995, although UNESCO headquarters is housed in Paris. We, the citizens of Bangladesh expect that the museums concerned will sign the convention to build their own image in other countries before they pursue any plan for an international exhibition. Our image is good enough, our museums do not buy stolen artefacts, but what about yours,” they asked.

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