SOUTH ASIA: BANGLADESH                                                                                                                          News Briefs

After the Revolt

Guest Writer: Hiranmay Karlekar
Consultant Editor, The Pioneer

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has weathered a very serious threat to democracy and modernity in Bangladesh, to her Government, and to her own life, posed by the 33-hour mutiny staged by personnel of her country’s para-military border force, the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), on February 25-26, 2009. The threat to her life became clear shortly after the mutiny began when some of the mutineers told reporters inside the BDR headquarters that they would call a ceasefire only after talks with her and the Home Minister, Sahara Khatun. Saying that they would not talk to anybody else, they said, "We will allow the PM and cabinet members in [into Pilkhana, BDR’s headquarters in Dhaka which was venue of the mutiny]. We will tell them our demands. You ask them to come right now. We will call ceasefire once they are in." This was a trap laid in the hope that Sheikh Hasina, who has inherited both her father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s courage and proneness to emotional surges, would fall for it. Fortunately she did not.

Nor was there any doubt from the very beginning that the mutiny was not a spontaneous explosion of fury, but the result of a carefully-planned conspiracy. Bangladesh’s The Daily Star noted, on March 6, 2009, that those investigating the mutiny said that telephone records of some of the suspects indicated that it was planned at least two months ago. The report quoted a senior official of a law enforcement agency, who requested anonymity, as saying "Most likely the networking among them [mutineers] began much before that. Further investigation will shed light on that." Sheikh Hasina herself left no one in any doubt when, addressing a seminar in Dhaka on March 3, she disclosed that conspiracies were still being hatched, and designs harboured, against Bangladesh’s democracy, independence and sovereignty. Agents of the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose help the Bangladesh Government had sought (along with Scotland Yard’s) to unravel the secrets of the mutiny, were also reported to have confirmed that the mutiny was a result of a conspiracy.

Those who actually staged the mutiny and brutally killed 73 persons, including 56 Army officers seconded to the BDR, were no doubt jawans (troopers) of the Force. It would, however, be naïve to believe that they were acting on their own to have their grievances met. Were that the case, they would have bargained with the Government, holding the army officers as hostages.

The fact that the mutineers killed so many officers so brutally, suggests that the aim was to provoke the Army to retaliate in kind, potentially leading to countrywide clashes with the BDR. The Army has a strength of 250,000, while the BDR has 67,000 personnel. In such a scenario, the demand for the imposition of martial law, facilitating the ouster of the Awami League Government which has behind it the massive popular mandate it received in the elections held on December 29, 2008, would have been likely. The argument would be that a democratic Government which could not prevent Bangladesh from being plunged into such a crisis, could not be trusted with the responsibility of being at the helm at such a critical time. And this would have been accepted by a country in the midst of a terrible civil war.

Had the plan to murder Sheikh Hasina succeeded, moreover, there would not only have been general acceptance of a military takeover but the absence of the only leader who could have opposed it. As she survived, one could see an attempt to turn the Army, charged with emotion following the brutal killings, on her. That a large section of at least the officers corps was deeply angered was clear from the sharp exchanges that occurred between her and nearly 800 officers of all ranks, whom she met in Dhaka on March 1.

The actual details of the plans will perhaps be revealed by the investigations that are under way. Two things, however, saved the day for Sheikh Hasina and Bangladesh. The first is that she quickly realized that she had been duped into offering a general amnesty by representatives of the mutineers, who had not told her about the mass killings of Army officers, and made it clear that the amnesty did not apply to murderers, looters and others guilty of heinous crimes. She followed this up by the meeting with the officers where she demonstrated exceptional strength and control. The second thing was the leadership of the Army, which acted with restraint and stood by the democratically elected Government.

While all this is gratifying, it does not mean that those who tried to destabilize Sheikh Hasina and Bangaldesh’s democracy would not make another attempt. It is necessary to identify these elements and the process must begin by looking at people who have the most to lose from the continuance of the present dispensation in Dhaka.

The list is headed by those who have been identified as war criminals. Bangladesh’s Law Minister, Shafeque Ahmed, has described them as "those who acted as auxiliary forces of Pakistani occupation forces and committed crimes against humanity" including killings, looting, rape, arson and forcing people to leave the country.

The Jamaat-e-Islami was the most important of the fundamentalist Islamist organizations that had collaborated with the Pakistanis during the Liberation War of 1971. On November 5, 2008, the Sector Commanders’ Forum, representing sector commanders of the liberation forces during the Liberation war, had made public its preliminary list of 50 war criminals, which included the names of the Ameer (Chief) and Secretary General of this fundamentalist organisation, Matiur Rahman Nizami and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojahid, respectively.

Bringing war criminals to justice was one of the more important promises made by the Awami League in its manifesto for the parliamentary election held on December 29, 2008. In her first Press Conference after her landslide victory, Sheikh Hasina made it clear that the promise would be acted upon. On Januray 29, 2009, Bangladesh’s Jatiya Sangsad (National Parliament), passed a unanimous resolution calling upon the Government to ensure immediate trial of war criminals. Participating in the discussion on the motion, Sheikh Hasina had said, "The war criminals must be brought to justice, no matter what." On January 30, 2009, Bangladesh’s Home Minister, Sahara Khatun, announced that her Ministry has asked the authorities concerned to guard all exit points so that no war criminal could flee the country, adding that "all relevant information about war criminals has been sent to the respective places."

The Jamaat, which was severely mauled in the elections, has been showing signs of serious anxiety. A two-day meeting of its highest policy-making body, the Majlish-e-Shura, was held in Dhaka on January 29 and 30, to discuss a strategy to face the situation. Among the measures considered was the rendering of an apology for the party’s political stance in 1971, while denying participation in atrocities, and the replacement of leaders who might be proclaimed guilty in a ‘transparent UN-supervised trial’. The Jamaat’s desperation has been heightened by the fact that, with the exception of the Islami Oikya Jot (Islamist Unity Group), neither of the two other parties of the four-party alliance, which ruled Bangladesh form 2001 to 2006 and fought the last elections together, is prepared to stand by it on the war criminals’ issue. Supporting a transparent trial, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the alliance’s main constituent, and the Jatiya Party, made it plain that the Jamaat has to face the music on its own.

There is another matter which must be troubling the Jamaat considerably — the Government’s decision to scrutinize the activities of NGOs which received approval during the rule of the four-party Government in which the Jamaat’s Secretary General, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojahid was the State Minister for Social Welfare. A total of 473 local and 25 foreign NGOs were approved during this period, against a total of 2,367 local and foreign NGOs approved since 1990. According to Bangladesh’s Finance Minister, A.M.A. Muhith, the objective is to find out whether these have any links with terror fundings. From this there is only a short step to scrutinizing the gigantic business and industrial empire the Jamaat controls and which has kept it always flush with funds.

In such a situation, the Jamaat can weather the crisis and retain its leadership only if the Awami League Government is removed. Since the latter’s massive majority in Bangladesh’s Parliament makes a constitutional ouster impossible, the only way out is a violent overthrow. It is important to remember that some of the leaders of the mutineers are said to have been members of the banned Islamist terrorist outfit, the Jamaatul Mujaheedin Bangladesh (JMB). Moreover, terrorist outfits like the JMB, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh (HUJI-BD) are furious with the Army and the Rapid Action Battalions which have spearheaded Governmental action against them. Significantly, the mutineers at Pilkhana were reportedly looking especially for Colonel Gulzar Uddin Ahmed, one of the outstanding officers of the Bangladesh Army, who had spearheaded the campaign against these organizations and played a key role in the arrest of Bangla Bhai, the Operations Commander of JMJB and Shaekh Abdur Rahman, chief of JMB, both of whom have been hanged. Colonel Ahmed was killed most savagely.

The Jamaat has been the fountainhead of fundamentalist Islamist ideology in Bangladesh and, along with its students’ front organization, Islami Chhatra Shibir (Islamist Students’ Camp), the nursery of their leaders. Both Bangla Bhai and Shaekh Abdur Rahman had Jamaat backgrounds. During the rule of the four-party coalition, the Jamaat had done everything possible to stall action against these organizations, which had unleashed a reign of terror in Bangladesh. In fact, Jamaat leaders, such as Matiur Rahman Nizami and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojahid, had, until his arrest, even denied the existence of Bangla Bhai, dismissing him as a phantom created by the media.

The Jamaat is clearly a serious source of threat for Sheikh Hasina: the other is Pakistan, acting through its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate. To all purposes, the Jamaat is Islamabad’s political striking arm in Bangladesh. Those identified as war criminals were its agents in 1971, as they are now. It is not surprising that Zia Ispahani, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari’s Special Envoy to Bangaldesh, declared in Dhaka, on February 16, 2009, that this was "not the right time" to initiate the trial of war criminals, as there were a number of issues on which Bangladesh and Pakistan could cooperate.

Pakistan has particular reason to be unhappy. It has been using Bangladesh, with its porous border with India, as a launching pad for cross-border terrorist strikes against the latter. Sheikh Hasina has made it clear from the very beginning of her second term as Prime Minister that she would not allow this to continue. Visiting Pilkhana on February 24, 2009, the day before the mutiny, in connection with the observance of BDR Week – 2009, she had stated in her address to assembled personnel of the para-military force that Bangladesh would not allow the use of its territory as a springboard for terrorist activity, and believed in maintaining good relations with all its neighbours.

That the mutiny began the next day was, perhaps, pure coincidence. The fact remains, however, that Sheikh Hasina will have to tread carefully. She has several battles in hand. The manner in which the case pertaining to the massive arms seizure in Chittagong on April 2, 2004, is proceeding, tends to bear out the long-standing suspicion that some tall poppies of the BNP were involved, as had been functionaries of Bangladesh’s National Security Intelligence (NSI) and Pakistan’s ISI. The tallest among these tall poppies, with close links to the ISI as well as the Islamist terrorist organizations, is suspected to have had a hand in the mutiny.

Sheikh Hasina’s problems have been aggravated by the fact that she can hardly rely on two of Bangladesh’s five intelligence agencies — the Directorate-General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) and the NSI. Both have very close links with the ISI. In fact, the glaring intelligence failure, which enabled the mutiny, raises many questions. In a signed editorial in The Daily Star of March 12, 2009, Brigadier General Shahedul Anam Khan, the paper’s Defence and Strategic Affairs Editor, wondered "whether or not it was a case of failure of intelligence or a failure to recognize the intelligence indicators, or a case of willfully overlooking the indicators." If the last of these is the case, it would imply complicity with the mutiny. Sheikh Hasina has, of course, replaced the leaders of both agencies. But both organizations require root-and-branch reform. That will take time.

What needs to be done without delay, however, is to proceed with the trials of war criminals and to ask the Army and the Police to arrest the BDR mutineers who have fled with huge quantities of arms and ammunition. They pose a threat to her and to as Bangladesh as well.

[South Asia Intelligent Review]

News Briefs

Bangladesh to raise new border force: The Government will disband its mutiny-hit paramilitary unit the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) and raise a new force to guard its borders, a top security official said on March 21, 2009. A mutiny that began on February 25 at the BDR headquarters in Dhaka and then spread to a dozen other towns killed at least 80 persons, mostly Army officers. "A new border force will be raised soon with disciplined and competent troops, including those not involved in the BDR mutiny," Brigadier-General Moinul Islam, the new BDR chief told border security officials at Mymensingh, 150 km north of the capital Dhaka. The former BDR chief, Major-General Shakil Ahmed, was among the 57 officers killed in the mutiny. "The BDR which has been maligned by the last month's mutiny will stand disbanded," Islam said. Reuters, March 21, 2009. Reuters, March 21, 2009.

12 militant outfits active in the country, says Home Ministry: The Cabinet on March 16, 2009, returned to the Home Ministry its report on the activities of militant outfits in Bangladesh asking it to give more information about such organisations and their networks. The report named a dozen such outfits with information on their sources of funding, links to political parties and their operations. Home Secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikder placed the report that named 12 militant outfits – the Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI-B), Hizbut Towhid, Ulama Anjuman al Bainat, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Islami Democratic Party, Islami Samaj, Touhid Trust, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), Shahadat-e-al Hikma Party Bangladesh, Tamira Ar-Din Bangladesh (Hizb-e-Abu Omar) and Allahr Dal. The Government has so far banned four Islamist militant outfits – the JMB, HuJI-B, JMJB and Shahadat-e-al Hikma. New Age, March 17, 2009.

Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh involved in BDR mutiny, says Minister: On March 12, 2009, the Commerce Minister Lt Col (retired) Faruk Khan, who has been coordinating the investigations into the February 25 and 26 killing of 74 people, including 52 Army officers, at the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) Pilkhana headquarters, linked the killings to the militant outfit, the Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). He said some of the BDR personnel arrested for their involvement in the mutiny have connections with the JMB. "We have gathered that a number of BDR jawans arrested in the mutiny case were involved in JMB somehow or other. I won't give more details as that might alert others having links to the mass killings," he told reporters. Daily Star, March 13, 2009.

[South Asia Intelligent Review]