Shamsuddin Ahmed

The prediction of Gwynne Dyer has come true. From thousands of miles away in London, the veteran columnist wrote in 2006 that the Maoists in Nepal "are only miles away from taking over power".
   The victory of the Maoists has belied the expectation of most diplomats in Kathmandu who were given to believe that the people of Nepal revered the King as divine incarnation. They would not vote for the party that declared an end to the centuries-old monarchy in its election manifesto. Election results came to the consternation of Maoists' rivals - the Nepali Congress and its associates, who have long ruled the impoverished country-and most commentators as well.
   Until King Gyanendra bowed to mass upsurge two years ago, the Maoists had fought guerrilla war against government forces for a decade. The US government had declared the Maoists 'a terrorist group'.
   Former US president Jimmy Carter, who was in Nepal as election observer during the voting, has expressed the hope that his country (USA) would change its attitude towards the Maoists and recognise the elected government in Nepal.
   During the Maoist insurgency, India used to accuse China of arming, training and financing the Maoists, whose aim is to overthrow the world's only Hindu monarchy and establish a people's republic. Sunanda K Datta Ray, a former editor of Statesman, as back as 2002, saw the rise of Maoists as "a danger for India in Nepal". He wrote in the International Herald Tribune (on June 6, 2002), "Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government agreed to ... give full military and political support to Nepal to fight the guerillas." BJP in a resolution on April 18 said, "Now Nepal is being declared a secular state. We hope Nepal will not become anti-Hindu and anti-India." It said India should keep a watch on the developments in Nepal and take "timely steps".
   Indian media manifested a shock at the Maoist victory. "There is a collective shock in the Indian government about the Maoists sweeping to power in Nepal ... India read the tea leaves so desperately wrong," commented the Times of India.
   India's concern is not without reason. First, it sees the end of 1950 peace and friendship treaty with Nepal. Second, what is considered more perilous is Maoist rule in Nepal will encourage the Maoist movement in the Indian States, especially those bordering on Nepal, which are heavily crowded by Maoists.
   Under the Indo-Nepal peace and friendship treaty, people of both the countries could freely travel across the border and reside in either place, and do preferential trade. India maintains security posts in Nepal's northern border with China and Indian military mission in Kathmandu for ensuring its security needs.
   Any traveller to Kathmandu will find the business and economic interests wholly controlled by the Indian nationals. Indian currency is accepted in hotels and by retailers. Maoist leaders have recently sounded about scrapping the peace and friendship treaty and review of water and irrigation agreements with India, which they consider detrimental to the interest of the country. Young Communist League, the youth front of the Maoist communist party, is louder in demanding the scrapping of the peace treaty and withdrawal of Indian troops, estimated at 6,000, from the Nepalese soil at Kalapani close to the border with China.
   Indian Institute of Conflict Management in its recent report said Maoist violence affects a total of 192 districts in 16 states. Former chief of Intelligence Bureau said nearly 40 per cent of India's landmass and 35 per cent of the population are affected by the Maoist insurgency.
   Reuters reported on August 10, 2007 "77 per cent of people earn Rs 20 a day in Shining India" that gave rise to Maoist insurgency. Jagmohan writing in Frontline in its February 2, 2008 issue, said Maoist movement has entered a stronger phase. Three major groups - Maoist Communist Centre, People's War Group and CPI (ML) - have merged to form a united outfit, CPI (Maoist), with the objective of seizure of power. It supports the struggle of the sub-nationalities for self-determination, including right to secession. This being the internal situation, the worries of New Delhi have intensified.
   Bangladesh is a close neighbour of Nepal but has no common territorial border. Political observers here do not see the prospect, even in distant future, of Maoist movement and has little or no impact of the emergence of Maoists in power in Nepal.
   The ideology had long melted away with the passing of hardcore Maoist Abdul Haq and Mohammad Toaha who had worked underground since the 60s (Toaha later shunned the path and was placated by Ziaur Rahman to be elected to Parliament). Their followers have been derailed from the true Maoist ideology and few are still thriving in southwestern districts on extortion in the name of class struggle. Police intelligence says most of the activists have fled across the border or returned to normal life under strict vigilance of the law-enforcing agencies.
   Political observers here keenly monitoring the developments in Nepal believe that whatever the Maoist leader Prachanda had said so far, he is to walk an extremely tightrope in dealing with India. He cannot nor is likely to venture for scrapping the peace treaty or throw out Indian soldiers from the Nepalese soil until and unless he has secured alternative supply lanes to his landlocked country.
   It is widely speculated that Gyanendra will seek political asylum in India, which, however, has been dismissed by his press secretary. But will he live at home as a commoner? Prachanda has already urged the king to leave the palace or be forced out. In the event New Delhi grants Gyanendra political asylum, India will become the home of two adversaries, one of China and the other of Nepal, with governments in exile.
   New Delhi has virtually accorded Dalai Lama's office at Dharmashala the status of a government in exile. A deputy secretary-level officer from the foreign ministry remained deputed to the court of Dalai Lama to percolate the government policy and guide the Dalai Lama. One lakh Tibetans allowed to live in India are seeking independence from China.

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Will Maitree Express turn out to be
a train to nowhere?

Sunanda K. Datta-Ray in Kolkata

The romance of the railroad generated confidence long before strategic writers recognized connectivity as an essential element of bonding. One of history's best-known examples is British Columbia's refusal to join the Canadian federation until the Canadian Pacific Railway was built. But romantics on either side of the Bengal-Bangladesh border would be well advised not to be carried away by the heavy symbolism of the flower-bedecked Maitree Express running for the first time in 43 years on Poila Baisakh.
   True, India has no major political problem with Bangladesh, like the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan or the border with China. But the state of mind that generates mistrust is the most dangerous of all dividing factors for it can breed monsters out of trivialities. So, when Pranab Mukherjee told the Bangladeshi daily, Prothom Alo, that "the depth of political relations between our two countries is now as deep as it should be", it sounded like a realistic admission that, train or no train, there never can be a return to the euphoric high noon that animated the two Bengals in 1971. The external affairs minister's compliment to the interim government for cooperating with India is even more revealing. Despite its achievements, this government is not politically accountable. It is an executive regime that can take sensible decisions regardless of grassroots reactions but enjoys no popular mandate. Precisely for that reason, it may also run counter to the popular mood. An election may not uphold its values and virtues.
   A small detail like the Maitree Express's change of engine and crew at the border, however cordially carried out, highlights the absence of trust between the two countries. Born on the rail track, as it were, and bred in railway saloons and station retiring rooms, I have a nose for these minutiae. For all the bickering between Singapore and Malaysia, the train from Kuala Lumpur drives right into Singapore's heart. The quaint little station at Tanjong Pagar, the tracks, rolling stock and staff all belong to Malayan Railways. The same crew and engine serve the entire route. There would be no train if Singapore demanded proprietary rights. In the early Fifties, the vivid green Parbatipur Express, with its huge white Arabic lettering, swept past our bungalow in Kanchrapara as a mobile manifestation of Pakistan's Islamic personality. I doubt if the engines and crew were Indian.
   As a reporter covering Ireland's Troubles in the late Sixties, I often rode the train from Belfast in British-held, fiercely Protestant Northern Ireland to Dublin, mellow capital of the predominantly Catholic Irish republic, and back. No one was aware of when and where we crossed the border. Yet, those were the days when the Provos, the murderous Provisional Irish Republican Army, and the Royal Ulster Constabulary each defended its pitch with the fervour they devoted to god and Caesar. The railway could be ignored because the substance - Protestant supremacy, Catholic emancipation - mattered more than the symbol.
   For Bengalis, the symbol always takes precedence over the substance. The tearful passengers on the train were refugees of the spirit, dwelling nostalgically on the innumerable plates of chicken curry they had devoured (or had heard of being devoured) on the pre-partition Goalundo-Narayanganj steamer. Their objective is not sound political and economic relations between the Republic of India and the People's Republic of Bangladesh with an 89.7 per cent Muslim population whose 'state religion' is Islam. They yearn for the consolation of a mythic East Bengal where hilsa was sold as a whole fish, not chopped into pieces, and a goat slaughtered for meat.
   I say 'mythic' because there are far more East Bengal zamindars in Calcutta today than ever existed in real life east of the Padma. But real or imagined, that lifestyle presumed a communal hierarchy - Muzaffar Ahmed of the National Awami Party called it the "two-hookah" culture - that played no small part in East Bengal's choice in 1947. Beneath the bravado, Bangladesh lives in neurotic fear of attempts to undo that decision. So does Pakistan. When a sentimental Bengali gushed during the Calcutta visit of Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, Pakistan's suave former high commissioner, that the British mischief of partition should be undone so that India could be united, he saw it as further evidence of Hindus still not being reconciled to Pakistan.
   There are some similarities with Russia's complex-ridden relations with Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Georgia. They have little in common with each other but are strongly united in their suspicion of Russia, of which they were once a part. Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Abkhazia, the secessionist Tskhinvali area of Georgia and Ukraine's flirtation with the North American Treaty Alliance would not have looked like serious casus belli if it had not been for underlying misgivings. But there is a difference with the subcontinent. Russia aggressively cuts off gas pipelines, threatens Nato missiles and makes open overtures to breakaway regions. India is placatory, overlooking even an estimated 12 to 18 million illegal migrants in our midst.
   That does not appease a people who may now have revised their liberation history, but who are haunted by the fear that what was done in 1971 can be done again. That apprehension surfaced within months of Mujibur Rahman's return to Dhaka, to the disgust of India's first high commissioner, Subimal Dutt, who was a member of the Indian Civil Service but also from a modest Chittagong family, and culminating in Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's visit in August 1974, months before the night of Dhaka's long knives. Visible linkages like trains do have a place in diplomacy, but mainly to impress and involve the populace in official goodwill initiatives. That counts for little among an effervescent people whose quick changes of mood are woven into my childhood memories of Direct Action Day when it was "Allah ho akbar!" one moment and "Hindu-Mussalman bhai-bhai!" the next.
   Even if the next set of elected Bangladeshi politicians retains the present regime's efforts, there is no guarantee that political exigencies will not tempt them again to change course. Paradoxically, the Bangladesh-India relationship is part of the equation between the two Bengals that is subject to all the emotional vicissitudes captured by Muzaffar Ahmed's two-hookah analogy compounded by the village-city complex. Dhaka may long ago have far outstripped Calcutta, as rich Bangladeshis never tire of reiterating, but objective fact does not exorcise subjective reaction rooted in the past. If Bangladeshis had not been so mercurial, Inder Kumar Gujral would not have warned, when he was in office, against buying Titas gas direct even from Hasina Wajed's government, suggesting that only a multinational middleman could absorb shocks. New Delhi's insistence even now on protecting the train and Mukherjee's "as deep as it should be" are reminders of strictly limited expectations.
   The emotional Bengali public is another matter. Large sections of it imagined in 1971 that Epar Bangla Opar Bangla were about to unite. Even if that hope was belied, they expected free travel without the fuss and bother of passports and visas. That, too, was just wishful thinking, as any Indian who had suffered the indignity of the foreigners' registration office in Dhaka's Lal Bagh should know. Bangladeshi uniforms have replaced Pakistani uniforms, but the men inside are still the same.
   Some caveats must be entered. There has always existed in Bangladesh a substantial, reasonably liberal constituency that harbours only friendly feelings for India. Greater interaction, courtesy Maitree Express and other follow-up forms of communication, may strengthen this lobby and help to dissolve Bangladeshi reserve. On the other hand, too many people from Calcutta, especially non-Bengali traders, may again arouse economic fears. Also, the understandable and unavoidable ambivalence of Bangladeshi Hindus, about 9 per cent of the population, is a permanent irritant. The Maitree Express is an attractive idea, but no one should be surprised if it turns out to be a train to nowhere.
   Courtesy: The Telegraph, Kolkata

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Coal mining: National interest must be prioritised

Faruque Ahmed

The government should arrange a dialogue between the proponents and the opponents of the open-pit coal mining with the object of removing the bottleneck in the way of developing the country's coal mine. This was observed last week at a roundtable by FBCCI president Anisul Haque. It is very important at this time when the country is facing acute energy crisis as the gas reserve is dwindling fast, he said. But who will arrange the dialogue?.
   The energy crisis is further aggravating because of a crisis of credibility of the top managerial persons now heading the Energy Ministry. Speakers at a discussion arranged by the Citizen Commission last week at the Jatiya Press Club alleged that the Energy Ministry this time is working as 'corporate lobbyist' of the multinationals vying for concessions for coal mining and new gas field development. When there is such a credibility gap, the prospect of arranging such a dialogue remains a far cry.
   
   'Doubtful' credibility
   Some discussants demanded the dissolution of the post of the Special Assistant for Energy and the removal of the new boss. They questioned the appointment of a person having 'doubtful' credibility in the post and suggested that the Caretaker Government (CG) may better drop this post to create two more such posts - one for taking care of spiralling price and the other for employment creation. It will be more in line with the broader expectations of the nation, the speakers argued.
   Dr Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmed, president of Bangladesh Economic Association (BEA), in the same way criticised the Energy Ministry's move to hold the third round of bidding for offshore gas blocks saying this unelected government has no right to lease gas blocks to multinationals. It should leave it for the next elected government, he said.
   Blaming the Energy Ministry's recent move to further tailor the coal policy apparently to tune it with the need of some multinational companies, he suggested the taking of a holistic approach to the matter from the viewpoint of broader national interest without taking the multinationals' interest into consideration.
   Only two days after, special assistant in charge of the Energy Ministry spoke in a symposium on the issue of "Mining and Community Livelihood in Bangladesh." The symposium arranged by Petrobangla, a subsidiary of the Energy Ministry taking care of the country's gas field development and its purpose in the retrospective was to highlight the care and expenditure that the multinationals take in the mining localities in rehabilitating people who got displaced in the process.
   Dr M Tamim told the symposium, "Decision to develop the coal mines should be taken right now to ensure energy security and diversity of energy resources. We can not wait anymore," he said the Energy Ministry is now working to prepare a relevant policy paper and update the Mines and Mineral Rules 1968 to expedite development of the country's coal mines.
   
   Social impact review
   essential: Kuntala
   International mining expert Ms Kuntala Lahiri Dutt and David Laurance took part in the event from abroad. Lahiri, an Australian University fellow, in her presentation emphasised the need for community participation in coal mines operation activities. She said social impact assessment is essential along with empowering the community people including the women while running the mines.
   She said, mining companies are now being treated as the change agents and to ensure positive change to the community people, there should be a community development wing with every multinationals engaging in mining. Tamim said coal policy should protect the local interest and in doing so involving local experts and ensuring full compensation must be ensured to the community people.
   But as the discussion continued at the symposium as also in the nationwide debate, the multinationals remain everywhere as the invisible third party without names. And such practice is only adding to the distrust and distancing a very critical segment of the people from the Government.
   Critics say the presence of the third party in the country looking for mining rights is only complicating the coal mining decision in the one hand and the row between the proponent and opponent of the open pit mining is aggravating on the other. Even those who want to join the open pit mining camp are remaining away from it as they believe it may ultimately benefit some foreign companies without significant gains to the nation. So opposing the open pit remains a noble job at least for the time being.
   Moreover, the controversy relating to the top brass of the Energy Ministry is only compromising the capacity of the Government to deliver the goods at this critical time when the nation desired much from authorities to deal with energy problems both in the short term and long term basis. Such credibility gap may continue to undermining the gas block bidding as well as finding a way to coal mining.
   Another question is increasingly coming to the fore as the energy assistant is talking
   more on the coal mining. He is talking of quick decision, involving of local experts, ensuring of full compensation to local people and creating of local community development wing with mining activities. Critics say he meant as if ensuring full compensation is the only the right of the local people and some charitable gesture will be enough to buy their support.
   He is also speaking of preparing a relevant policy paper and it all is indicative of a mindset supportive to the cause of multinationals vying for the coal mine development in addition to gas exploration rights.
   Critics say never and nowhere the energy special assistant is speaking of immediate need for setting up of the Coal-bangla; which the newly framed coal policy has suggested to expedite the development of coal mines. He is nowhere talking of immediate requirement of training manpower at home and abroad to create large number of engineers and technicians as part of preparing the nation to take up the job of mining or new gas fields development.
   Rather the statement has a kind of predestined reference that the nation is going to handover coal mines to foreign companies and whatever responsibility the leadership of this government or its officials have, is to preside over the handing over.
   There is no policy statement from any quarter that tells the nation that time has come to slowly take over the mining and gas exploration. At a time energy resources are becoming scarce and highly expensive they are quoted very often saying, it is a big job, it requires big investment and we do not have such resources except the window to hand over it to multinationals. They would never turn to creating new companies, mobilize capital, they never speak of involving the national resources available at home and abroad or bringing the local private sector to promote such activities the way they speak of involving the local community people supportive to external miners. They run the negotiations in top secrecy and make the deal with IOCs in similar secretive way.
   Prof Mahbub Ullah at a roundtable last week dealt with the issue wondering whether someone is out this time to create scare in the national mindset to facilitate quick deal making for off-shore gas and coal mining.
   He wondered why some people in the past told that the country has enough gas reserves for up to 2025 to support export and now saying we do not have it beyond 2011. He said the same quarter worked for IOCs that time. Who can say they are not speaking this time also for somebody like in the past, he said expressing the apprehension that some external forces might be working from behind to take control of the country's scarce natural resources.
   He apprehended that the country may witness a de-industrialization process if the leadership continues to ignore vital national interest.
   Journalist Amanullah Kabir wondered why the government does not take up short-term and long-term programmes to create enough manpower like engineers, technicians and geologists. Who are those forces creating impediment on the way, he questioned. He cautioned against conspiracies to block any national efforts to develop gas and coal.
   He said these forces are working to de-politicise the nation to make it vulnerable as a cowardly spineless nation to allow the exploitation of its resources by multinationals. "The nation must remain vigilant against such forces", he emphasised.

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Joseph Stalin

K. Z. Islam

Once, during the civil war that followed the Russian Revolution, a father and his two young sons were brought to the desk of a Red Army field commander, accused of sympathy for those in power before the revolution. Without hearing the evidence - scarcely even looking up from his work - the commander ordered, "Shoot them!"
   That Red Army officer, Joseph Stalin ((1879-1953), was destined to become dictator of all Russia and leader of a regime that reached around the globe. To the people of his own country, Stalin's slightest wish was law. His picture, watchful and stern, appeared in the schools, factories, and public squares of Moscow. But it also peered from the walls of dreary huts and hovels in distant Siberia, where in subzero temperatures wretched prisoners struggled to stay alive, condemned for even hinting at criticism of Stalin, the "beloved father" and "saviour of the Soviet peoples."
   As the Russian dictator once put it, "Nothing is sweeter in life than vengeance - to identify an enemy, lie in wait for him, and after plunging in the knife to go home for a good night's sleep."
   In 1936 and 1937, Stalin put on trial, or simply arranged to have executed, almost all of the old Bolsheviks-the men who, along with himself had made the revolution. At last, in the summer of 1940, an assassin hired by Stalin followed Leon Trotsky to his place of exile in Mexico, splitting open the head of the one-time Communist hero with an iron-pointed stick.
   By the end of 1938, Stalin had only to pick up the telephone to order the execution of any person in all of Russia. Stalin's own wife, Nadya, pleaded with him to stop his brutal purge, or "cleansing out," of enemies. When he refused, she threatened to divorce him. Finally, after a bitter quarrel in public about his deeds, Nadya returned to her room, put a pistol to her head, and committed suicide.
   For many years afterward Stalin visited the grave of Nadya, usually at night. Standing alone, under floodlights, he would gaze at the sculptured image of her that he had arranged to have placed there. '
   Until 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, Stalin thought that Russia had the most to fear from such capitalist nations as Britain and France. Hitler, however, made communism-and particularly Russian communism-his special foe.
   It was, therefore, a surprise to much of the world when, on August 23, 1939, Germany and Russia signed an agreement not to attack each other for ten years.
   Finally, on June 22, 1941, wave after wave of German planes launched a surprise attack on the Soviet Union. One hundred and forty-seven divisions of Nazi troops poured across the Russian border. Caught unprepared, the Red Army reeled backward all along a 1,500-mile front.
   For several months the Germans steadily advanced. Finally, they entered the very suburbs of Moscow. Still, the Russians refused to surrender.
   Then, in December 1941, Stalin threw four hundred thousand fresh Red troops into battle. He had withdrawn them from Manchuria, where they had been braced for an attack by the Japanese. The Japanese instead, bombed Pearl Harbour bringing the United States into the war, and Stalin rushed the soldiers into combat against Hitler's legions.
   Those troops - along with the terrible winter, for which the Germans were not prepared -turned the tide. Many months passed, with heavy losses on both sides. But, particularly at Stalin-grad and Leningrad, the Nazis suffered horrible defeats. Eventually, the German army found itself in full retreat.
   Joseph Stalin - the man of steel - stood alone as the hero of the hour, the man who had inspired the Russian people to turn disastrous defeat into glorious triumph,
   As Nikita Khrushchev, one of Stalin's successors as head of the Soviet Union, once put it, "In everything about Stalin's personality there was something admirable as well as something savage.
   "Admirable . . . as well as . . . savage."
   Khrushchev's comment may be a fitting summary of Joseph Stalin's contribution to human history.

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US attacks Pakistan nuke plant

Sorcha Faal

In a world spinning rapidly out of control, and towards total nuclear chaos, Russian military officials reported that on April 8 that United States Special Forces Troops stationed in Afghanistan launched an attack against Pakistan's Khushab Nuclear Facility which produces enriched plutonium for that Muslim nation's nuclear arsenal.
   Western media sources, though confirming an explosion, and two deaths, at the Khushab Nuclear Facility have issued one of their 'standard' news blackouts on this attack [of Tuesday, 8 April 2008] as the United States prepares for its imminent escalation of the Middle East War with an attack on Iran, and which, these reports state, this attack upon Pakistan was meant to deter that nation from becoming involved.
   US junta's corrupt mercenary
   Though the United States has been reported to be working through 'secret channels' to insure the survival of Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf, against that Pakistan's newly installed coalition Government [of PPP, PML-N, ANP, JUI-F], his fall appears imminent, and with his ouster the US [Bush-Cheney junta] would lose their only ally in that volatile region.
   These reports continue by stating that the US War Leaders became 'alarmed' by the statements made by Pakistan's new government about the planned release of the 'father' of their nuclear weapons programme, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, and who the Americans had labelled as one of their top enemies for his [alleged] selling of nuclear secrets to Iran.
   Objective: Total war
   The effect of this new attack by the U.S. against Pakistan, these reports say, is two-fold in its objectives, and which are: (1) To show the new government of Pakistan the full 'power and resolve' of American Military Forces, and (2) Convince Pakistan's new government that without Musharraf leading them, they face certain destruction.
   At this time it is not known what the reaction of the new Pakistani government will be to this latest attack upon their sovereignty, but it can be stated, and by their past actions, that the US is fully prepared to embroil the entire world in Total War prior to the collapse of their economy.
   As the prices of oil on the world markets surge towards record heights and as the American people are now being warned that their petrol prices are about to go over $4 a gallon, and as the U.S. Federal Reserve continues to pump billions of more dollars into their rapidly failing banking system, it goes without saying that the once great United States appears, indeed, to be on the verge of imminent collapse.
   So dangerous has the situation in the United States become, that The New York Times itself, which bills itself as the 'nation's newspaper', is now writing about the growing dangers facing the American people, and Alex Williams wrote on 6 April entitled: "Duck and Cover: It's the New Survivalism" saying Survivalism, it seems, is not just for survivalists anymore.
   They stockpile or grow food in case of a supply breakdown, or buy precious metals in case of economic collapse. Some try to take their houses off the electricity grid, or plan safe houses far away. The point is not to drop out of society, but to be prepared in case the future turns out like something out of "An Inconvenient Truth," if not "Mad Max."
   Source: http://www.InformPress.com

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