Sanjiv Bhatt

The vindictive agenda being pursued by the Gujarat government is once again reflected in the arrest of whistleblower police officer Sanjiv Bhatt. The 1988 batch IPS officer has accused Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi of complicity in the 2002 communal riots. Bhatt was arrested following a complaint filed by KD Pant, who worked as a subordinate with Bhatt in the state Intelligence Bureau. According to Pant’s complaint, Bhatt had forced him to file an affidavit in which Modi had been named as accused. The specific reasons cited against Bhatt were unauthorized absence of duty, non-appearance before a departmental panel and alleged misuse of official vehicle. The Narendra Modi government had ordered the suspension of Bhatt on August 8, 2011 on the grounds that his conduct was unbecoming of an IPS officer.

This was because Bhatt had handed over, about 600 pages of documents to the Central Bureau of Investigation which could incriminate several politicians, police officers and bureaucrats for their active connivance in engineering the riots of 2002, whose countless victims are still struggling for justice. On September 27, 2011, Bhatt filed an affidavit in the Gujarat High Court, alleging that Chief Minister Narendra Modi and the former Minister of State for Home, Amit Shah had repeatedly sought to pressurize him to withdraw his report and destroy the evidence he had placed on record regarding the murder of former minister Haren Pandya.

Mr. Bhatt in the affidavit said; I was removed from the post of Superintendent of Police in-charge of the Sabarmati central jail and was kept without a posting for over two-and-a-half months for not withdrawing my report the very important documentary evidences regarding the role of certain highly placed State functionaries/politicians and senior police officers in the killing of Haren Pandya. Earlier, a youth from Hyderabad was arrested on murder charges with allegations that some riot victims had hired him to murder Pandya, who is believed to have played an active role in the communal program against the Muslims. The trial court had acquitted the youth for lack of evidences.

As the Haren Pandya murder case remains unsolved, Mr. Bhatt’s claim of possessing documentary evidence that would point to his killers is crucial piece of evidence to solve this murder mystery. Bhatt had earlier courted the Modi administration’s disapproval by disclosing his presence at the meeting where Chief Minister Narendra Modi directed law enforcement officers to “allow the Hindus to vent their ire on the Muslims.”  Although Modi’s complicity in the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom has been documented by several independent human rights groups, this was the first time a state functionary had come forward with direct evidence of Modi’s involvement in the pogroms of 2002 that resulted in the massacre of 3000 Muslims.

Bhatt’s affidavit in the Supreme Court has alleged that the 2002 riots took place with Modi’s tacit approval. He had also accused Modi of asking cops to ignore calls for help from Muslims during the riots. He alleged that SIT probe details on riots cases were leaked to a top law officer of the state government. Against this backdrop, Sanjiv Bhatt’s arrest by the Gujarat government and the harassment of his family by repeated raids on his home, amounts to a witch-hunt that raises dubious questions about the government’s motives.

Even social crusader Anna Hazare has come out in support of Sanjiv Bhatt. Hazare castigating the move to arrest Bhatt has said; ‘What was the need for the state government to interfere and arrest Bhatt when the Supreme Court was fully aware of the matter. What Narendra Modi has done is wrong; It is not good for democracy in the country.’

The Gujarat government’s alacrity in arresting Bhatt stands in stark contrast to its criminal inaction against police officers who have been charged with complicity in the riots. It is equally remarkable that barely any arrests or convictions have happened in over 2000 cases filed by the victims of the 2002 massacres.

The irony that some like Babu Bajrangi, Haresh Bhatt and Ramesh Dave who have confessed killing hundreds of people in sting operations, that was telecast to the entire nation, are still at large. Whereas, whistleblower officers like Sanjiv Bhatt, Rahul Sharma and R. B. Sreekumar and human rights activists Teesta Setalvad and Shakeel Tirmizi have been subject to arrests and intimidation on dubious charges.

This is not all, former Minister of State for Home Amit Shah, who was arrested on charges of running extortion and a fake encounter killing racket is currently out on bail. The fact that Amit Shah was the Minister of State for a portfolio held by Modi himself, and the Gujarat government’s repeated but failed attempts to protect him are clear evidences of the government’s dubious role towards law and oro der.

Added to it is the case of the former head of Gujarat ATS (Anti-Terrorist Squad) D G Vanzara who is serving his time in jail on charges of fake encounters. Vanzara’s closeness to Modi once made him the most powerful police official in the state. Still more, Maya Kodnani, a former minister in the Modi government was forced to resign after her arrest on charges of inciting and arming a communal mob that slaughtered and burnt alive 98 Muslims during the 2002 riots.

The fact is that Maya’s mentor was Narendra Modi who kept her in his cabinet until the findings of the Special Investigation Team appointed by the Supreme Court made her a political liability. It may be prudent that the CBI should conduct a full-scale investigation into the allegations made by Mr. Sanjiv Bhatt against Narendra Modi and other state functionaries. The probe should be without any regard to the status and position of the people he has implicated.  One hopes that despite the active subversion of justice and intimidation of activists and whistleblowers by the state government, the long arm of the law will catch up with the perpetrators of the pogroms of 2002.

It is the Gujarat government’s dismal record in upholding the rule of law that should serve as a context in which Bhatt’s arrest. It is clearly part of a pattern of vendetta against whistle blowers and human rights activists. The Gujarat government’s sinister pattern of complicity and deceit are apparent in the arrest of Sanjiv Bhatt. It’s high time that the Gujarat government should eschew the sectarian agenda that have marked Mr. Modi’s 10 years as Chief Minister.

AUTHOR: Mujtaba Syed
URL: http://mujtabas-musings.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: syedalimujtaba [at] yahoo.com

SS Officers

The site 25 Leaks has published a 2008 State Security Police document, detailing some of the new departments established within the now dissolved apparatus. Tons of names are listed and I invite you to check them out and come forward with any more information you have about them. These officers who ran Mubarak’s gestapo should be held accountable and treated as the bosses of a criminal syndicate.

Among the names on that list is SS General Rushdi el-Qamari who’s been profiled previously in the Piggipedia. It turned out that the man, who served and still serves as the interior ministry’s representative on the NTRA board and who oversaw the telecommunications shut down during the January uprising, was the director of a department in SS called “The General Information Department,” serving as the head of the “Telecommunications and Coding Group”.

AUTHOR: Hossam el-Hamalawy
URL: http://www.arabawy.org
E-MAIL: hossam [at] arabawy.org

This scenario was never imagined three decades ago, when the country was born through a bloody war of liberation in 1971 on the principles of secularism and democracy. Apparently secularism and human rights have been enshrined in the constitution written in 1972. Subsequently the non-state actor, the sabre-rattling militaries doctored the constitutions and took the dangerous path of Islamisation of the secular state.

Bangladesh was thrice partitioned[1] on the basis of religion – Islam within a span of 66 years. East Bengal or Bangladesh was a historical reality. In 1971 it has been curved out of political boundaries of what was eastern province of Pakistan after a bloody civil war by the nationalists, and of course the secular forces.

In the twentieth century, communal issues increasingly dominated politics. There was hostility and ultimately racial conflicts occurred intermittingly. Racial riots wrecked the traditional secular image of Bengal, on the eve of the second partition of Bengal in 1947.

Between 1946 (East Bengal) and 2001 (Bangladesh), there were scores of incidences of racial violence, which resulted in deaths and deliberately encouraged migration. Peace-loving Hindus and Muslims had little or nothing to do with the riot (Hashim, 1974. pp. 117).

Muslim leaders of Bengal who later dominated and dictated politics, persuaded their anti-secular believes. This phenomenon spilled over into post-liberation Bangladesh.

Secularism of islamisation
The pro-nationalist politicians and military dictators in Bangladesh have used the religion Islam as a tool to consolidate their power base. This created a yawning space for Islamist radicalist in a nation where secularism has been practiced for centuries among the apparently peasantry society in ancient Bengal[2].

The Maoists extremists, who are politically out of the “red book” demonstrated that radicalism can survive for more than three decades in the western region[3] of Bangladesh. This has given hope to radical Islamists, who are produced in Madrassah[4] in the rural settings. The funds from get-rich-quick Muslims, and also blessings from oil-rich Arabs for the cause of spread of Wahabism[5] have significantly given rise to their numbers.

Radical Islamist
Gradually Bangladesh became exporter of foot soldiers for Islamic radicalism in South Asia countries for couple of decades. Later their presence were felt in Central Asia to the Far East. The first batch of hundred’s of mercenaries reached Lebanon in early 1980s, to help create an “Islamic Palestinian” state. The entire batches of mercenaries from Bangladesh were detained, after Israel invaded southern Lebanon.

Separately a second group of mercenaries were recruited by rogue military officers, who were dismissed from Bangladesh Army in mid 1970s. They were also self-proclaimed assassins of Shiekh Mujibur Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh in 1975. With collusion with Muslim Brotherhood, the rogue officer founded the Freedom Party in Bangladesh, which envisaged an Islamic nation. They had recruited several hundred educated youths and had sent them to Libya in the 1980s to turn Bangladesh into an Islamic state.

During the Afghan war against the Russians by the Mujahideen, hundreds of youths from Bangladesh were recruited and smuggled into Pakistan to join the Islamic militants for jihad. The flights of Jihadist occurred with the full knowledge of the dreaded Pakistan and Bangladesh military intelligence.

“Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries on earth, on the brink of being a failed state. And that makes it a perfect target for Al-Qaeda and its ever-expanding network of Islamic extremist organisations. The overwhelming majority of Bangladesh’s 130 million are Muslim, which certainly helps. Virtually unnoticed by the world at large, Bangladesh is being dragged into the global war on terrorists by becoming a sanctuary for them,” writes Jane’s Intelligence Report (25 January 2005),

Jihadist Nexus
Why Bangladesh security agencies got involved with the Islamic terror network? Former security officers argue that they need information of terror network. But this argument does corroborate with their intelligence gathering methodology and their analysis of the situation.

There is evidence that Bangladesh military intelligence[6] have generated funds from gunrunning, timber smuggling and drug trade in the later years of 1970s.

The money was channelled into purchase of weapons, shelter and rations for the half-hearted Muslim militants to curve an independent state for Rohingya[7].

With tacit approval of United States government, Bangladesh military leader General Ziaur Rahman, a liberation war veteran gave the responsibility to Brigadier General Nurul Islam Shishu for the covert operation.

They presumed that Burma (Myanmar) had an unpopular military government, therefore it would be easy to intimidate them to create a homeland for the Rohingya Muslims. After Burmese authorities unearthed the plot, they expelled the Bangladesh military attaché from Rangoon (Yangon). Soon hell broke out by the Burmese army creating a crisis, which forced thousands of Rohingya’s to flee into Bangladesh territory and sealed the border 1978. The militancy and refugee situation created a diplomatic row and invited international uproar against Burmese junta.

Troops both from Burma and Bangladesh intermittingly fought “undeclared” war in 1978. However, the security agencies continued with the moneymaking business overtly for raising funds for the clandestine operations.

A Saudi daily published an article of an exiled Rohingya leader, which exposed Bangladesh military intelligence’s involvement in the Rohingya operation. Later a prestigious Washington daily published a CIA document, which describes how Bangladesh planned to raise foreign currency from the Rohingya militancy to strengthen the appalling financial condition of the military junta.

The second largest Muslim democracy, Bangladesh is today the site of al-Qaeda-run training camps financed by Middle Eastern charities and organisations, including backing from rogue elements within the Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.[8]

A Bangladesh security agency has developed a nexus with Jihadist and militant leaders of troubled states of North East Indian. Indian always blamed ISI for the covert operation in northeast Indian, which both Pakistan and Bangladesh continuously denied.

Hundreds of foot soldiers from Bangladesh were discovered in Acheh province of Indonesia, in Burma, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Bosnia, Tajikistan and Egypt. The Jihadists were exported by Harkat-ul-Jihad-Al-Islam (HuJI) as part of establishment of global terror network.

In an interview with the CNN in December 2001, American “Taliban” fighter, John Walker Lindh, relate that the Al-Qaeda director Ansar (companions of the Prophet) Brigades, to which he had belonged in Afghanistan, were divided along linguistic lines: Bengali, Pakistan (Urdu) and Arabic,” which suggests tat the Bangla-speaking component – Bangladeshi and Rohingya – must be significant.[9]

Most security specialists and researchers have established that 15,000 strong terrorist group HuJI (Movement of Islamic Holy War) has direct links with terror network Al Qaeda. In a statement released by US State Department on May 21, 2002, HuJI is described as a terrorist organization with ties to Islamic militants in Pakistan.[10]

According to a former senior Bangladeshi intelligence executive, Jemaah Islamiya leader Hambali, arrested in Thailand in August 2003, had already taken the decision to shift JI elements to Bangladesh to shield them from counter-terrorist operations in Southeast Asia.

According to US State Department, HuJI headed by Shawkat Osman aka Maulana or Sheikh Farid in Chittagong has at least four militant camps in Bangladesh.

To keep the Burmese government in good humour, Bangladesh shut down the militant’s camps of radical Islamist Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) led by a medical doctor Muhammad Yunus. Those camps were later taken over by radical Islamist.

A journalist working for an English language newspaper in Bangladesh reported that in early 1990s that couple of Bangladesh embassies in the Middle East have reported missing of passports. Later it was transpired that diplomats in Saudi Arabia issued passports to Pakistan militants in the kingdom to enable them to escape to Bangladesh. Other extremists from Pakistan – perhaps also Afghanistan – appear to have been able to enter Bangladesh in the same way during that period (Lintner, 2002).

TIME magazine[11] claim that fighters from Taliban and Al-Qaeda have entered Bangladesh after United States invaded Afghanistan. Videotapes showing al-Qaeda in training that were unearthed by CNN in August include footage from 1990 that feature Rohingya rebels.

These men’s fleeing from troubled Afghanistan were instrumental in raising HuJI in 1992, allegedly with funds from Osama bin Laden. The existence of firm links between the new Bangladeshi militants and Al-Qaeda was proven when Fazlul Rahman, leader of Jihad Movement in Bangladesh (to which HuJI belongs), signed the official declaration of “holy war” against United States on February 23, 1998. Other signatories included bin laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri (leader of the Jihad Group in Egypt), Rifa’I Ahmad Taha aka Abu-Yasir (Egyptian Islamic Group), and Shiekh Mir Hamzah (secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan).[12]

The Indian police in New Delhi arrested two Bangladeshi nationals suspected to the HuJI militant outfit, allegedly sent by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence to disrupt Republic Day celebrations in January 2006[13].

Conclude
A culture of violence, especially among the young, is emerging, and many young Islamic militants now are armed. The role of the madrassah in shaping the next generation of Bangladeshis also cannot be underestimated.[14]

The nationalists Islamist chauvinist government has done enough to stump lawlessness unleashed by the Islamic Jihad’s of both home-grown and those believed to be from the terror-network. The recent spate of bomb blasts in August 2005 was a bid to terrorise the opposition political parties and secular activities organised by cultural activists, have brought renewed fear that the process of elimination of opposition has began in Bangladesh.

The Bangladesh military intelligence presently has turned into Frankenstein, like in Pakistan and once in the Latin America. The parliamentary sub-committee on defence has failed to bring the dreaded security agency under parliament scrutiny.

The non-descriptive marriage of criminalization of politics and shattered bureaucracy is reined by the military intelligence (DGFI). There are evidences that the dreaded military intelligence has been harbouring fall-out Muslim Jihad’s from Afghanistan and militant leaders from the insurgency troubled northeast Indian. The trade-off for DGFI was their hands on gunrunning and drug trade from the Golden Triangle.

The military security agency has upper hand over Bangladesh state and politics. This leverage was given by General Ziaur Rahman (1977-1981) and later legitimized by General H.M. Ershad (1982-1990) to organize the political parties to ensure their stay in power.

Bangladesh, is a place where crime, politics, and violence all cross paths, making independent journalism in this country of 146 million people a very dangerous profession, observes a mission report of the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in February 2003.

Those journalists reported the rise of radical Islamists and security issues were harassed, intimidated and imprisoned. The government sharply reacted after articles written by Bertil Lintner in Wall Street Journal and Far Eastern Economic Review, Alex Perry of TIME Asia magazine. Both of them have been blacklisted from entering Bangladesh again. The British Channel 4 TV journalists along with their Fixer Saleem Samad were detained, tortured and intimidated. International uproar has secured their release.

It is indeed a losing battle of the proactive secularists entailed with the civil society and the human rights organizations to forge a common platform against Islamist. Suspected Muslim extremists bombed these soft targets, who disapproves secularism.

[1] Kabeer, Naila. 1997. A thrice-partitioned history, in Ursala Owen (ed.) INDEX on Censorship 6/1997, pp. 59. London: Index on Censorship.

[2] Bengal – presently split into east and west. Subsequently East Bengal became Bangladesh and West Bengal is a province of neighbouring India.

[3] The western region, bordering India is rife with criminal gangs, outlawed political groups, and drug traffickers.

[4] Koranic schools teaches conservative Islamism in their curriculum, hate against non-Muslims, specially Jewish. The religious schools that educate millions of students in the Muslim world, have been blamed for all sorts of ills since the attacks of September 11, 2001 (Alexander Evans, Understanding Madrassahs, Foreign Affairs Journal, January-February 2006)

[5] Strictly follows Sharia laws, specially force women to wear veil

[6] Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) was formed in 1977 for covert military operations in Burma and North Eastern India states. The dreaded security agency was involved in blackmailing politicians to joining the military dictator General Ziaur Rahman to legitimize his political ambition

[7] Ethnic Muslims are minorities in northwest Burma. However, Burmese authority claims the Rohingya are migrants from neighbouring Chittagong, Bangladesh during the famine in 1943

[8] Blackburn, Chris, 2006. Is Bangladesh new front for America’s War Against Terrorism?

http://bangladeshwatchdog.blogspot.com/2005/12/is-bangladesh-new-front-for-americas.html

[9] Transcript of John Walker interview, CNN, December 21, 2001, as quoted in Lintner’s paper (Honolulu, 2002).

[10] Partners of Global Terrorism 2001, the office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, May 21, 2002

[11] Deadly Cargo, Alex Perry, Time Asia, October 14, 2002

[12] see ERRI Daily Intelligence Report, ERRI Risk Assessment Service, June 11, 1998, Vol.4-162, as quoted in Lintner’s research paper (Honolulu, 2002).

[13] http://bangladeshwatchdog.blogspot.com/2006/01/bangladeshi-jihadi-detained-in-india.html

[14] Lintner, Bertil, 2002. Religious Extremism & Nationalism in Bangladesh, paper presented at Religion & Security in South Asia, August 19-22, 2002 organized by Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies, Honolulu, Hawaii

AUTHOR: Saleem Samad
URL: http://bangladeshwatchdog.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: saleemsamad [at] hotmail.com

The new independent state of Bangladesh emerged as a secular polity with a constitutional embargo on religion in politics. Despite the constitutional prohibition, the military regimes to further legitimise their power indulged the Islamist to preach political Islam.

Since early 1970s, religion plays a significant role in the state system of today’s Bangladesh.[1] General Ziaur Rahman (1977-81) rehabilitated the religion-based parties in politics, the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh soon began to advocate political Islam. To compete with the Islamist, the nationalist parties have rewritten their political strategy and adopted Islamic culture in mainstream politics, which irked the secularist and the apparently independent press. 

The u-turn from secular politics to political Islam has further deepened the racial problems of the Muslims sects, Hindus, and other religious and national minorities. 

The rise in militancy and the decline of law and order has been mainly attributed to the radical Islamist parties, which form part of Khaleda Zia’s Islamic nationalists coalition government. 

Begum Khaleda Zia heads the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and her party could not form a government on her own. This lead to a pact with the main Islamist party the Jamaat-i-Islami, a radical movement with parties operating in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Jamaat has always had a violent and subversive past. It was firmly against the establishment of Bangladesh in 1971 and wanted to remain part of Pakistan.[2] 

Jamaat-e-Islami advocates political Islam, implementation of Sharia and blasphemy laws. Dominant nationalists have favoured the doctrine of political Islam, like BNP and Jatiya Party. Both are brainchild’s of military usurpers. This concept has radicalized the political base of the majoritarian Muslim population. The majoritarian believes Bangladesh is a “moderate Muslim country”, which apparently describes a modern Bangladesh. The secular groups have rejected the moderate Muslim nation theory. The secularist argues it is yet another step towards Islamisation of Bangladesh. 

The Jamaat set up the notorious al-Badr, mainly student paramilitary group, which worked closely with the Pakistani forces to fight the Mukti Bahini (liberation fighters) and helped to round up and murder leading intelligentsia. These actions helped to ostracised party, many of its leaders had to go into exile, but over the years it has managed to claw their way back to power. 

Not all of the ruling coalition are happy with the arrangement with the Islamist parties, some MP’s are even revolting against this alliance. Abu Hena, a sacked MP from ruling party, was expelled from his party because he could no longer tolerate the subversion and tactics of his own ruling party because they had made a Faustian bargain with the patrons of the Islamist militants. 

It must be noted that Al-Qaeda leaders such as Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, Yasir al-Jazeeri, Ahsan Aziz and Mustafa Ahmed Hawsawi were all captured in the homes of Jamaat-e-Islami leaders in Pakistan. 

The recent capture of two most wanted fugitive home-grown Islamic vigilantes in one week brought relief at home and praise from the United States, but experts say the South Asian country needs to do more to guard against radical Islam.[3] 

Siddikul Islam aka Bangla Bhai, leader of the outlawed Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh was caught on Monday, four days after the mastermind of the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, Shaekh Abdur Rahman, surrendered to authorities. 

The two men were the most wanted fugitives in Bangladesh, the world’s third most-populous Muslim country, and their groups are blamed for hundreds of bombings since last year. 

The discourse of the paper is to argue when an U.S. official involved in counter-terrorism said “Bangladeshi extremists don’t appear to have joined the global jihad, but the possibility remains a cause for concern.” 

US government analysts have been shown to be categorically wrong in their assessments. The fact that Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuJI), a member of Usma bin Laden’s International Islamic Front (IIF), has a Bangladesh branch is also alarming as it shows that western intelligence agencies have shown relatively no interest in developments within Bangladesh. 

Whereas the security experts on South Asia warn against playing down the problem or viewing the two high-profile arrests as sufficient to win Bangladesh’s struggle to maintain secular politics. 

South Asia expert Hussain Haqqani of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said: “The real problem in Bangladesh is that the government has never fully acknowledged the extent of the Islamic militant problem in the country. 

Alarmed Eliza Griswold writes in New York Times that in Bangladesh, the region, has become a haven where jihadis can move easily and have access to a friendly infrastructure that allows them to regroup and train. 

Recently held international conference on Intelligence Summit[4] near Washington concluded: Bangladesh is perhaps becoming the most important country in the War on Terror today; the unravelling situation will have a profound effect on South Asia and beyond. 

The infiltration of al-Qaeda and the suspected involvement of the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) shows that the United States and its allies must face tough questions if they are to succeed in rolling back radical Islamism.  Bangladesh is seen as an important keystone for Islamists as they believe they can implement their totalitarian designs on the country with relative impunity, Chris Blackburn concludes in his International Intelligence Summit 2006 Report: Bangladesh. 

A Bangladesh born expatriate lawyer, Maneeza Hossain[5] in a study published in conservative Hudson Institute opines that these groups reject accommodation with a democratic system and have adopted radical Islam under the influence of oil-rich Middle Eastern states which fund them. 

Hossain’s article, “The Rising Tide of Islamism in Bangladesh,”[6] says the country’s porous borders and the growing role of the main port city of Chittagong in the arms trade makes radical Islam a regional if not global security issue that requires more attention from the United States.[7] 

With a similar argument, New York Times in December 29, 2005 edition in a headline ask “Why Americans should care about the increasingly radical insurgency”[8] and comments: What Bangladeshis want is continued international pressure on the BNP to distance itself from the militancy. 

Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries on earth, on the brink of being a failed state, and that makes it a perfect target for Al-Qaeda and its ever-expanding network of Islamic extremist organisations.[9] Virtually unnoticed by the world at large, Bangladesh is being dragged into the global war on terrorists by becoming a sanctuary for them, says Janes Intelligence Report. 

US officials say they are “looking closely” at Bangladesh as Islamic organisations proliferate amid political violence that has flared since bitterly contested parliamentary elections in October 2001. These were won by a four-party coalition headed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). It includes three religious extremist parties, which are staunch supporters of Islamic fundamentalism. 

Neighbouring India, which has had turbulent relations with Bangladesh since it gained independence from Pakistan in 1971, alleges that there are 195 camps in Bangladesh where guerrillas seeking autonomy or independent statehood in north-eastern India are being trained. 

Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s government in Bangladesh has repeatedly denied it supports anti-Indian militants or allows Islamic organisations, some of them linked to Al-Qaeda, to flourish. Given the BNP’s reliance on its Islamic partners, that position is to be expected. The US and its Western allies are gradually waking up to the potentially explosive situation developing in Bangladesh, which former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, leader of the Awami League, the main opposition party, calls the “Talibanisation” of Bangladeshi society. 

After United States invaded Afghanistan, the remnants of Talibans and mercenaries fleeing from troubled region were instrumental in raising Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI)[10] in 1992 in Bangladesh territory, allegedly with funds from Osama bin Laden. The existence of firm links between the new Bangladeshi militants and Al-Qaeda was proven when Fazlul Rahman, leader of Jihad Movement in Bangladesh (to which HuJI belongs), signed the official declaration of “holy war” against United States on February 23, 1998. Other signatories included Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri (leader of the Jihad Group in Egypt), Rifa’I Ahmad Taha aka Abu-Yasir (Egyptian Islamic Group), and Shiekh Mir Hamzah (secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan). 

As researcher and reporter on conflict and Islamic terrorism, has Bangladesh demonstrated it’s sincerity in tracking and destroying the dreaded terrorist outfits HuJI, Lashkar-e Tayyiba (LeT) and other Jihadist outfits having link with terror network. It seems that Bangladesh security agencies have not taken cognizance of those organizations listed as terrorist outfit by United States.[11] 

In separate raids four young Bangladesh nationals allegedly belonging to the banned outfit LeT[12] and HUJI[13] militant outfit in January and February 2005 allegedly trained by Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s notorious security service. Indian authority claimed that they have informed about Bangladesh about the arrests. 

Hundreds of foot soldiers from Bangladesh have been discovered in Acheh province of Indonesia, in Burma, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Bosnia, Tajikistan and Egypt. The Jihadists were exported by HuJI  and LeT as part of establishment of global terror network. 

CONCLUSION 

Bangladesh has made a step which has dumbfounded many external analysts as the efficiency of the Bangladeshi government has raised certain questions and probably helped answer a few. Why have two militant leaders, which the government always stressed where ‘made-up’ products of the media and the opposition have been arrested within days of each other? The recent tour of President Bush to India and Pakistan has probably spurred the BNP government to act. The rise of links between militants and the Jamaat must also have played a part; the reports from foreign media have also had an impact. The questions is can the government stop and arrest the foreign backers of these terror groups and will it act against high profile leaders? 

Why the kingpin Maulana Fazlur Rahman does not have an award over his head, when the nation is glued to only homegrown terrorism by Islamic vigilantes, specifically Jama’tul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). 

The Jamaat’s links to militancy and subversion are numerous and it is up to the Bangladesh government to show that it is sincerely committed to routing out and arresting the financiers and planners behind the militancy. The BNP Government and authorities must also show that it is willing to confront the radical anti-democratic ideology of Mawdudi that drives the militancy even if it means they will probably have to forfeit power in the elections in 2007, because the how could the BNP form an alliance with a party which seeks to undermine democracy, the rule of law and the spirit of liberation? 

[1] Prof. Islam, Sirajul, 2000. State and Religion, Banglapedia, Asiatic Society, Dhaka. 

[2] Chris Blackburn. Bangladesh: Make or Break? March 2006. 

[3] Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent. Bangladesh bomber arrests said only the beginning, Reuters. 8 March 2006 

[4] Intelligence Summit, was held near Washington DC during 17-20 February 2006. http://www.intelligencesummit.org/ 

[5] Maneeza Hossain, Manager of Democracy Programs at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Washington, USA. 

[6] Published in Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, Volume 3, February 16, 2006, Hudson Institute, Washington, USA. http://www.hudson.org/files/publications/TRENDS3.pdf    

[7] Paul Eckert, Reuters. 8 March 2006. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N07422016.htm 

[8] By Eliza Griswold, The New York Times. Why Americans should care about the increasingly radical insurgency, Dec. 29, 2005, at 7:18 AM ET 

[9] Is religious extremism on the rise in Bangladesh. Janes Intelligence Review, May 2002 

[10] The HUJI to which the duo belonged is an offshoot of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) 

[11] US State Department, Foreign Terrorist Organizations, October 11, 2005. http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/37191.htm 

[12] http://www.hindu.com/2006/02/28/stories/2006022817481400.htm 

[13] http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=94653 

AUTHOR: Saleem Samad
URL: http://bangladeshwatchdog.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: saleemsamad [at] hotmail.com

“I should kill you,” the high-ranking Dhaka policeman said. He drew his pistol from his holster, shoved me to the floor and pressed the muzzle to my temple. “You are a traitor. You have betrayed your country. How dare you describe the nation as a haven for al-Qaeda and the Taliban?”

My troubles began last November when Britain’s Channel 4 asked me to set up interviews and translate for a crew it was sending to Bangladesh to make a documentary on the state of the country. As a long-time reporter in Bangladesh, I was delighted to take the job. But these are perilous times in my homeland. The government holds power with the help of fundamentalist Islamic groups that are changing Bangladesh’s secular character; local Hindus and Christians are fleeing to neighboring India in the thousands, and the authorities are furious at media reports that Bangladesh is playing host to jihadis from Afghanistan and beyond. Rather than address these concerns, the government has systematically muzzled journalists and opposition leaders who try to get the story out. Since October, more than 4,000 people have been arrested and 44 have died in custody during a government crackdown supposedly directed at organized crime and euphemistically called Operation Clean Heart.

In this environment, foreign reporters are routinely denied visas to Bangladesh. So Channel 4′s crew-British reporter Zaiba Malik and Italian cameraman Bruno Sorrentino-entered as tourists. The authorities were tipped off by a pro-Islamic daily, and we were tailed by police intelligence agents. On Nov. 25, Malik, Sorrentino and Bangladeshi interpreter Priscilla Raj were arrested at the border with India and charged with sedition. I wasn’t with them that day. Hearing of their arrest, I decided to lay low. I slept at a friend’s home and instructed my 18-year-old son to empty our house of my papers and to hide my hard drive. But the police were tapping my brother’s phone, and they heard me tell him where I was. They showed up at my friend’s flat at 3 a.m., and I went peacefully. The government charged me with sedition and conspiracy to defame the country.

At the police station, I was held in a 3-meter-by-4.5-meter cell with up to 15 other detainees. The conditions were foul. There was one squat toilet in the floor of the cell and neither soap nor drinking water. We were told to drink from the toilet tank. On the third day I got dysentery. We slept without blankets on the bare concrete floor. The mosquitoes were relentless.

We were given sodden rice and plain dhal to eat. Every few hours I would be woken up and pulled from the cell to answer questions. The same high-ranking officer who brandished his pistol would force me to sit on the floor with my legs extended so he could thrash my left kneecap with his baton. The police wanted a full accounting of the time I spent with the Channel 4 crew: the places we went, the sources we met. I had done nothing to be ashamed of, so I told them everything I knew.

A military intelligence agent present at these interrogations demanded to know where my hard drive was hidden. He threatened to hurt my son and wife. But I would not give up my life’s work.

Finally, after five days of interrogation, I was loaded into a police van and driven to a prison in Dhaka, where I was given a cell to myself with a sink and enough blankets to make a mattress. The prison hospital gave me painkillers for the throbbing in my knee. Compared to my treatment at the police station, this was luxurious. Then, after 50 days in custody, I was finally released on bail on Jan. 18, thanks in large part to pressure from Paris-based Reporters Without Borders and New York’s Center to Protect Journalists. But the police have yet to return my passport, credit cards, ATM card, mobile phone or address book. And I must still go before the courts to face the charges against me, which carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. I am confident the High Court will acquit me of all charges.

The Channel 4 crew was deported back to Britain before Christmas without suffering physical abuse. But Raj has told me that her interrogators tortured her with electric shocks. Before the arrests, however, the Channel 4 team got 80% of their film footage out of the country. The documentary has yet to be broadcast, but if the world is able to see-and read-how Bangladesh is being transformed into a repressive nation, then the suffering and anxiety I and my family have endured will be worthwhile. But for now, I feel I have emerged from a small jail only to enter another, much larger prison.

AUTHOR: Saleem Samad
URL: http://bangladeshwatchdog.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: saleemsamad [at] hotmail.com

The authoritarian regime of Mubarak was armed mainly by the US. But also arms sales from the Netherlands are bigger than one would expect. The sale of armoured personnel carriers (a small kind of tanks) during the mid nineties is still one of the biggest sales in the history of Dutch arms.

In 1994 the Netherlands sold 599 YPR-765 and 12 M-577 tracked armoured vehicles. In 2005 a next sale of 431 YPR’s followed. The Dutch government defended this last sale by stating “that since 1994, as far as is known, Egypt used neither military equipment nor the armed forces against civilians.”

Follow-on deliverances continue as can be seen in information published by the Dutch government on arms sales. In a December 209 spreadsheet is a sale for armoured vehicle technology valued over one million euro’s (see table 2).

The deliverances are significant, not only because of their size, but also because of the potential use of this kind of weaponsystem during teh repression of popular protests. Small arms in the end do not convince really angry and desperate people. The bullets are taken as an inescapable part of the protests. That’s horrible, but the cruel reality. When armoured vehicles – in case of the Dutch ones also fitted with 25mm cannons – are deployed the military crew is invulnerable, but the protester defenceless and a easy prey.

In Cairo, until now luckily it is a different story with the army on neither side and waiting its chances. Before it was even seen on the side of the opposition: “(…) their displays of support for the protesters were conspicuous throughout the capital. In one striking example, four armoured military vehicles moved at the front of a crowd of thousands of protesters in a pitched battle against the Egyptian security police defending the Interior Ministry.”

The Netherlands sold more arms to Cairo like technology to produce night vision goggles. But the sale of the armoured vehicles remains the most important, although neglected by the press. If they will be or will not deployed against the masses protesting lies in the future. Let’s hope not.

Read more about Dutch arms export to Egypt? SURF HERE

AUTHOR: Martin Broek
URL: http://broekstukken.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: m.broek@xs4all.nl

Updaid/NL-Aid heeft deze zaak aangegrepen door de Samenwerkende Hulporganisaties te vragen naar bewijsvoering omtrent output in Haïti en in Zuid-Azië na de tsunami maar we ontvingen een mail dat alles boekhoudkundig is aangetoond. Updaid/NL-Aid vecht al jaren tegen deze vorm van bureaucratie . Boekhouding is een administratieve afhandeling maar zegt niets over output. Ontwikkelingslanden zijn meester in valse bonnetjes, valse adviseurs, fake-NGO’s en het creëren van mystieke sferen. Boekhouding toont helemaal niets aan. Updaid/NL-Aid maakt zich ernstig zorgen om de effectiviteit en daarmee de legitimiteit van de Samenwerkende Hulporganisaties.

Inmiddels zijn deze zorgen neergelegd bij Voordewind, maar Updaid/NL-Aid heeft dezelfde zorgen neergelegd bij het IOB (Inspectie Ontwikkelingssamenwerking en Beleidsevaluatie). Updaid/NL-Aid heeft geen goede ervaring met het IOB omdat zij niet controleren op output. Ook het IOB gaat niet verder dan de controle op de boekhouding. Updaid/NL-Aid schreef enkele grote boekhoudkundige organisaties aan met de vraag hoe dit nu zit, te weten: de Nederlandse Orde van Accountants-Administratieconsulenten; het Koninklijk Instituut van Registeraccountants, een professor ‘development economics’ en een bekende onderzoeker in de fraude. Onderstaande compilatie hebben we voor u op een rij geplaatst.

‘De meeste goede doelen zijn stichtingen; voor zover een stichting geen commerciele onderneming drijft zijn er geen verplichtingen in BW2 over verslaggeving. Aangezien de meeste instellingen ANBI’s zijn, is het aan de belastingdienst om de boekhoudingen te controleren. Op dit moment ligt er een concept wetsontwerp inzake de publicatieplicht van stichtingen.’

‘Een balans en een winst en verliesrekening moet wel op de juiste wijze de feitelijke toestand beschrijven. Wanneer dat niet het geval is kan sprake zijn van balansvervalsing hetgeen een misdrijf is. Dat hangt vooral af van de mate waarin de fout bestaat en ook van de mate van bewustzijn dus van opzet.’

‘U hebt groot gelijk: de boekhouding zegt heel weinig over effectiviteit. Accountantscontroles e.d. zijn zeker nuttig, maar kunnen hoogstens (namelijk als valse bonnetjes worden ontdekt) vaststellen of het geld werkelijk is uitgegeven aan de opgevoerde posten. Dat is mooi, maar zegt niets over effectiviteit. Wat de burger (belastingbetaler of donateur) wil weten is, wat er door de hulp is veranderd. Bijvoorbeeld: zijn er kindertjes naar school gegaan die anders thuis zouden zijn gebleven? Die lastige vraag staat centraal in impactevaluaties. Je kunt makkelijk vaststellen of er meer kinderen naar school zijn gegaan (veel consultants verdienen met rapporten daarover veel geld), maar of dat door de hulp komt (het “attributieprobleem”) blijft meestal buiten beeld.’

‘Je doorziet het prima. Slechte praktijken kunnen helaas langdurig standhouden.Verantwoordingen (financieel of niet-financieel) in ontwikkelingslanden zijn al heel lang onbetrouwbaar (geweest). Ethiek is soms ver te zoeken.’

Bron: NL-Aid

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´ontwikkelingssamenwerking ontwikkelt geen samenwerking´

Het digitale boek ‘ontwikkelingssamenwerking ontwikkelt geen samenwerking’, betreft een uiteenzetting van opinies geschreven door drs. Hans R.J. Sluijter, vanuit zijn functie als voorzitter van stichting Updaid in de jaren 2008-2010.

Inhoudsopgave:

Proloog
Hoofdstuk 1: Fraudezaak NOVIB en SACCS
- 1.1 Ambtelijke dwalingen
- 1.2 Het geluid van het hout

Hoofdstuk 2: Effectiviteit andere ontwikkelingsorganisaties
- 2.1 Inleiding
- 2.2 PR-shoppen met Kidsrights
- 2.3 Ontwikkelingsorganisaties leveren geen bewijzen
- 2.4 Geen verantwoording door verantwoordelijken
- 2.5 Salarissen directeuren goede doelen in Nederland
- 2.6 Salarissen directeuren goede doelen in België
- 2.7 Onderzoek over mislukte projecten
- 2.8 De geheime roze formulieren van Buza
- 2.9 Nelson Mandela en Thabo Mbeki beticht van genocide
- 2.10 Conclusie

Hoofdstuk 3: Theoretische kaders
- 3.1 Statistische feiten
- 3.2 Hoge ambtenaren laten docenten in Tanzania hun kinderen lynchen
- 3.3 Circulatiesnelheid
- 3.4 Systeemdenken in kwadranten
- 3.5 Duivelsdriehoek
- 3.6 Afhankelijkheidsrelatie

Epiloog