Three reasons why RAB should be disbanded
THE Rapid Action Battalion is a rabid child born out of a miasma brewed over decades by a nefarious nexus of military, business, politics, and polity; you reap what you sow! Mary Shelley’s eight-foot-tall monster, despite a hatred for his creator, was sensitive and benevolent at times; and at Victor’s death, he was curiously sad. His look was hideous, but he was not! On the other hand, behind the facade of smart law enforcement, some elements of the battalion are indeed hideous. It is surprising to see a rather half-hearted call for disbanding the battalion even after a flood of allegations and some prima facie evidences of high crime surfaced over the past few weeks.
‘If 4,000 members of RAB have been officially punished in the last few years for criminal acts — not the usual killings for which they appear to have impunity — it’s an ominous sign’ — thus goes Afsan Chowdhury in a recent column (‘RAB, writ and nuisance’, bdnews24.com, May 21). Yes, this is an ominous monstrosity and this has to be stopped. Yes, RAB needs to be disbanded as a goodwill gesture to demonstrate that the nation is serious about a lucent future.
I believe RAB has to go for three very important reasons. First, RAB has no business to exist to begin with; second, RAB has to go to save the integrity of the armed forces; and third, RAB has to go to prevent internecine warfare among the ranks of law enforcement agencies.
By the end of 2002, thanks to the Hawa Bhaban-BNP-Jamaat triumvirate, law and order was at nadir. The then prime minister, Khaleda Zia, capitulated that her home ministry was ineffective by inviting hundreds of armed forces personnel. They were trained to kill and they did. Soon the ‘Operation Clean Heart’ morphed into a fateful ‘Operation Heart Attack’! There was significant national and international outcry. Amnesty International, in its 2003 report on Bangladesh, described the events as: ‘On 17 October (2002) some 40,000 army personnel were deployed across the country in a joint army-police crackdown on crime named “Operation Clean Heart”. By the end of the year, more than 10,000 people, including members of opposition and ruling political parties, had been arrested. Many were subsequently released. In the same period, at least 38 men died, allegedly as a result of torture in army custody. Despite international calls for independent inquiries into these deaths, no investigations were carried out.’ As usual, the government cried foul and failed to listen. On the contrary, the government of Khaleda Zia abetted the rogue elements of army personnel by enacting the Joint Drives Indemnity Act of 2003.
Eventually, the government was forced to stop the joint drive on January 9, 2003; however, the genie was out of the bottle by then. The government found an easy way of weeding out criminals as well as opponents without going through the long tortuous way of proper policing and prosecution. And a year later, on March 26, 2004, RAB was formed as an elite force by an immiscible mishmash of the armed forces, police, Bangladesh Rifles (now Border Guard Bangladesh) and Ansar. Thus, at its very inception, RAB is tainted with burden of state-sanctioned extrajudicial killing. The recent spate of media reports of RAB involvement in abduction, enforced disappearance and gory killing of Narayanganj 7 is just a continuum.
Khaleda Zia had asked for a panacea to cure the impotency of her abject administration vis-à-vis law and order; she got RAB. The military-backed government of Fakhruddin kept it going. And the present government of Sheikh Hasina, having squandered all the goodwill of people, has become too dependent on law enforcement outfits — and she got a rabid RAB!
To begin with, RAB is a misfit. If Operation Clean Heart was wrongheaded, RAB, by its history, is hydra-headed. It has no business with the business of law enforcement. Its existence, by corollary, is a vote against an enhanced, updated and capable police force that we dearly need.
The principal purpose of an armed force is to protect the country from external aggression. At trying times, its service also can be called upon by the government, e.g. during natural disaster, etc. In every democratic country they are kept away from the seat of power. Their contact with general public is kept to a minimum for good reason. Armed force is supposed to be a disciplined fighting machine that shall fight and die for the country — an ethos immortalised by the 1854 poem of Lord Tennyson, ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’: ‘Theirs not to reason why,/Theirs but to do and die:/Into the valley of Death/Rode the six hundred.’
To preserve this kind of cohesion and spirit, the military must adhere to certain principles with commensurate policies. Unfortunately, our military does not heed this calling; thus, we see active duty military officers running public medical college hospitals, various government agencies and, of late, manning RAB. It is also unfortunate that ours is the military manning the biggest contingent of mercenary (!) soldiers for the international community, what they are not meant for to begin with. I, however, have no qualm as to this particular mission — subject to contrary views, it does enhance our branding to a certain extent.
RAB, on paper, belongs to the home ministry. It is more like the police or the BGB or the Ansar, albeit with no established clear command and control. Military personnel in RAB work for the home ministry but answer to the defence ministry — a situation murky enough to confound anyone. And in some way, there is a tacit understanding that they belong to the highest authority, the prime minister. A fickle junior minister for home thus has no chance to tame even the junior-most of RAB official.
Since its inception in 2004, RAB has killed over 800 citizens of Bangladesh in so-called ‘encounter’, commonly known as ‘crossfire’. However hideous those 800 citizens might have been, they too were entitled to the legal protection enjoyed even by the prime minister of the country. They were not to be executed without legal proceedings, however tortuous the road may be.
Tenuity of the judicial process is no ground for extrajudicial killing. And this message has not been lost, either domestically or in the international arena. Because of RAB misdeeds, the public too harbours a subliminal non-kosher perception about the military; subliminal because I do not have hard data to support this comment. However, isn’t sunshine always self-evident?
Endless talk-shows in the electronic media and endless reports in the print media are now talking about military complacency as to involvement of military personnel, of course on deputation, in abduction, enforced disappearance and killing — well, it used to be a taboo until now.
International outcry is unmistakably loud. Even on May 22, while attending a certificate ceremony of RAB officials, Dan Mozena, the US ambassador, expressed extreme displeasure of the US government. Various international human rights organisations including Amnesty International are vociferous in condemnation. As the parent organisation of the rabid RAB officials, the armed forces cannot avoid responsibility.
Being members of a law enforcement outfit under the home ministry, RAB officials have all the opportunities to quench their avarice, if they wish, which officials in armed forces do not have. If the police are corrupt, RAB with its lack of significant accountability is bound to be more corrupt; this is just being human.
Thus I see no sane reason why the armed forces shall continue to juxtapose its image with that of an already tarnished organisation that does not belong to them to begin with.
The internecine fight within the ranks of law enforcement outfits, especially between the police and RAB, came to the forefront last week when the Dhaka Metropolitan Police website flashed a news item citing 18 RAB personnel being withdrawn because of unprofessional conduct. RAB protested vehemently, and forced the DMP website to remove the post in haste. This kind of intra-mural fight is very natural because of the immiscible construct of RAB.
Police officers rightfully may question the legitimacy of military supremacy in areas where they should have an inherent right, and a better understanding. Such encroachment never goes smooth. One example that we never learned from is the military supremacy of another home ministry outfit BGB that left scores of military officers dead. It is funny that we changed the name from BDR to BGB and left the culture of unease and conflict unresolved. Recent reports of minor clashes between the police and RAB talks volume that begs for careful heed.
The three reasons aside, there is one more overarching reason and that is to send a message to the nation as a whole — the administration is serious and means business. In this prime minister-centric political universe of today’s Bangladesh, I shall end by paraphrasing Bruno (1548-1600): ‘… earth is but a planet, the rank she holds among the stars is by usurpation; it’s time to dethrone her.’ Bruno was killed, but his Copernican helio-centrism stood the test of time.
With due prudery, I say to the prime minister, ‘you are but a prime minister, the rank you hold among us is by usurpation; for God’s sake, listen to the people’s voice and let the sun shine … none but you have the power … do you? And it is wise to remember that power is fugacious and the Limons shall not wait forever.’
THE Rapid Action Battalion is a rabid child born out of a miasma brewed over decades by a nefarious nexus of military, business, politics, and polity; you reap what you sow! Mary Shelley’s eight-foot-tall monster, despite a hatred for his creator, was sensitive and benevolent at times; and at Victor’s death, he was curiously sad. His look was hideous, but he was not! On the other hand, behind the facade of smart law enforcement, some elements of the battalion are indeed hideous. It is surprising to see a rather half-hearted call for disbanding the battalion even after a flood of allegations and some prima facie evidences of high crime surfaced over the past few weeks.
‘If 4,000 members of RAB have been officially punished in the last few years for criminal acts — not the usual killings for which they appear to have impunity — it’s an ominous sign’ — thus goes Afsan Chowdhury in a recent column (‘RAB, writ and nuisance’, bdnews24.com, May 21). Yes, this is an ominous monstrosity and this has to be stopped. Yes, RAB needs to be disbanded as a goodwill gesture to demonstrate that the nation is serious about a lucent future.
I believe RAB has to go for three very important reasons. First, RAB has no business to exist to begin with; second, RAB has to go to save the integrity of the armed forces; and third, RAB has to go to prevent internecine warfare among the ranks of law enforcement agencies.
By the end of 2002, thanks to the Hawa Bhaban-BNP-Jamaat triumvirate, law and order was at nadir. The then prime minister, Khaleda Zia, capitulated that her home ministry was ineffective by inviting hundreds of armed forces personnel. They were trained to kill and they did. Soon the ‘Operation Clean Heart’ morphed into a fateful ‘Operation Heart Attack’! There was significant national and international outcry. Amnesty International, in its 2003 report on Bangladesh, described the events as: ‘On 17 October (2002) some 40,000 army personnel were deployed across the country in a joint army-police crackdown on crime named “Operation Clean Heart”. By the end of the year, more than 10,000 people, including members of opposition and ruling political parties, had been arrested. Many were subsequently released. In the same period, at least 38 men died, allegedly as a result of torture in army custody. Despite international calls for independent inquiries into these deaths, no investigations were carried out.’ As usual, the government cried foul and failed to listen. On the contrary, the government of Khaleda Zia abetted the rogue elements of army personnel by enacting the Joint Drives Indemnity Act of 2003.
Eventually, the government was forced to stop the joint drive on January 9, 2003; however, the genie was out of the bottle by then. The government found an easy way of weeding out criminals as well as opponents without going through the long tortuous way of proper policing and prosecution. And a year later, on March 26, 2004, RAB was formed as an elite force by an immiscible mishmash of the armed forces, police, Bangladesh Rifles (now Border Guard Bangladesh) and Ansar. Thus, at its very inception, RAB is tainted with burden of state-sanctioned extrajudicial killing. The recent spate of media reports of RAB involvement in abduction, enforced disappearance and gory killing of Narayanganj 7 is just a continuum.
Khaleda Zia had asked for a panacea to cure the impotency of her abject administration vis-à-vis law and order; she got RAB. The military-backed government of Fakhruddin kept it going. And the present government of Sheikh Hasina, having squandered all the goodwill of people, has become too dependent on law enforcement outfits — and she got a rabid RAB!
To begin with, RAB is a misfit. If Operation Clean Heart was wrongheaded, RAB, by its history, is hydra-headed. It has no business with the business of law enforcement. Its existence, by corollary, is a vote against an enhanced, updated and capable police force that we dearly need.
The principal purpose of an armed force is to protect the country from external aggression. At trying times, its service also can be called upon by the government, e.g. during natural disaster, etc. In every democratic country they are kept away from the seat of power. Their contact with general public is kept to a minimum for good reason. Armed force is supposed to be a disciplined fighting machine that shall fight and die for the country — an ethos immortalised by the 1854 poem of Lord Tennyson, ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’: ‘Theirs not to reason why,/Theirs but to do and die:/Into the valley of Death/Rode the six hundred.’
To preserve this kind of cohesion and spirit, the military must adhere to certain principles with commensurate policies. Unfortunately, our military does not heed this calling; thus, we see active duty military officers running public medical college hospitals, various government agencies and, of late, manning RAB. It is also unfortunate that ours is the military manning the biggest contingent of mercenary (!) soldiers for the international community, what they are not meant for to begin with. I, however, have no qualm as to this particular mission — subject to contrary views, it does enhance our branding to a certain extent.
RAB, on paper, belongs to the home ministry. It is more like the police or the BGB or the Ansar, albeit with no established clear command and control. Military personnel in RAB work for the home ministry but answer to the defence ministry — a situation murky enough to confound anyone. And in some way, there is a tacit understanding that they belong to the highest authority, the prime minister. A fickle junior minister for home thus has no chance to tame even the junior-most of RAB official.
Since its inception in 2004, RAB has killed over 800 citizens of Bangladesh in so-called ‘encounter’, commonly known as ‘crossfire’. However hideous those 800 citizens might have been, they too were entitled to the legal protection enjoyed even by the prime minister of the country. They were not to be executed without legal proceedings, however tortuous the road may be.
Tenuity of the judicial process is no ground for extrajudicial killing. And this message has not been lost, either domestically or in the international arena. Because of RAB misdeeds, the public too harbours a subliminal non-kosher perception about the military; subliminal because I do not have hard data to support this comment. However, isn’t sunshine always self-evident?
Endless talk-shows in the electronic media and endless reports in the print media are now talking about military complacency as to involvement of military personnel, of course on deputation, in abduction, enforced disappearance and killing — well, it used to be a taboo until now.
International outcry is unmistakably loud. Even on May 22, while attending a certificate ceremony of RAB officials, Dan Mozena, the US ambassador, expressed extreme displeasure of the US government. Various international human rights organisations including Amnesty International are vociferous in condemnation. As the parent organisation of the rabid RAB officials, the armed forces cannot avoid responsibility.
Being members of a law enforcement outfit under the home ministry, RAB officials have all the opportunities to quench their avarice, if they wish, which officials in armed forces do not have. If the police are corrupt, RAB with its lack of significant accountability is bound to be more corrupt; this is just being human.
Thus I see no sane reason why the armed forces shall continue to juxtapose its image with that of an already tarnished organisation that does not belong to them to begin with.
The internecine fight within the ranks of law enforcement outfits, especially between the police and RAB, came to the forefront last week when the Dhaka Metropolitan Police website flashed a news item citing 18 RAB personnel being withdrawn because of unprofessional conduct. RAB protested vehemently, and forced the DMP website to remove the post in haste. This kind of intra-mural fight is very natural because of the immiscible construct of RAB.
Police officers rightfully may question the legitimacy of military supremacy in areas where they should have an inherent right, and a better understanding. Such encroachment never goes smooth. One example that we never learned from is the military supremacy of another home ministry outfit BGB that left scores of military officers dead. It is funny that we changed the name from BDR to BGB and left the culture of unease and conflict unresolved. Recent reports of minor clashes between the police and RAB talks volume that begs for careful heed.
The three reasons aside, there is one more overarching reason and that is to send a message to the nation as a whole — the administration is serious and means business. In this prime minister-centric political universe of today’s Bangladesh, I shall end by paraphrasing Bruno (1548-1600): ‘… earth is but a planet, the rank she holds among the stars is by usurpation; it’s time to dethrone her.’ Bruno was killed, but his Copernican helio-centrism stood the test of time.
With due prudery, I say to the prime minister, ‘you are but a prime minister, the rank you hold among us is by usurpation; for God’s sake, listen to the people’s voice and let the sun shine … none but you have the power … do you? And it is wise to remember that power is fugacious and the Limons shall not wait forever.’
