Tiki Tam Tam
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Taken over by 'conspiracies'
Star Report
Conspiracy theories swirled in Bangladesh in the wake of popular frustration with the prevailing political dynamics during the final months of the last BNP-Jamaat coalition government.
A classified cable of the US embassy in Dhaka, sent to Washington on May 31, 2006, detailed conspiracy rumours regarding "alleged moves to subvert or substantially change the electoral process".
Patricia A Butenis, the then US ambassador, wrote that the least far-fetched theory might be that incumbent premier Khaleda Zia would, as an insurance policy against defeat in the next general elections, engineer her ascent to the presidency before the polls.
Butenis wrote, "…Bangladeshis sound us out about mostly civilian 'third force' scenarios to save Bangladesh from the 'two ladies'…" She was referring to BNP Chairperson Khelda Zia and Awami League President Sheikh Hasina.
Most of the theories were related to the elections expected in January 2007.
According to the cable, AL leaders "offered three scenarios", and the first one was BNP winning the election by massive rigging, with or without AL participation.
AL was worried that its archrival BNP, alarmed by private polling showing an AL landslide, would find a pretext to postpone elections by months, if not longer, to give it time to recover from its political woes, like rising prices and power shortages.
Saber Hossain Chowdhury, Hasina's then political secretary, speculated that JMB [Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh] terrorism could conveniently resume during the caretaker government to plunge the country into fear, and justify delay or radical changes to the constitution, Butenis wrote.
AL also feared that BNP might force the then president Iajuddin Ahmed to resign and replace him with Khaleda, either to ensure election rigging, as insurance against retribution after an AL election victory, or as a part of a switch to a presidential-style of government, the cable said.
"For months, there has been speculation that Zia would move to the presidency after the election to make way for her son [Tarique Rahman] to become prime minister."
Butenis said in the cable that Hasina, after garment factory riots the previous week, publicly asserted that the then president Iajuddin Ahmed's departure for medical treatment in Singapore "stemmed from a conspiracy to depose him so that Zia could become president now to 'engineer' BNP's re-election, presumably by using her authority to BNP advantage as commander-in-chief during the caretaker government".
"The BNP, the AL notes, forced B Chowdhury to resign the presidency in 2002 apparently on a trivial matter, and could easily oblige Ahmed, ostensibly on health grounds, to step down," the cable read.
The then prime minister Khaleda Zia's parliamentary affairs adviser SQ Chowdhury had long championed a presidential system and argued that Bangladeshi democracy had evolved beyond the need for a caretaker system, it added.
On BNP's own conspiracy theories, "beyond the AL and India permutations", Butenis wrote that the then state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar told a US diplomatic personnel that an increasingly restive civil society, particularly efforts by micro-credit pioneer Muhammad Yunus and a local NGO to promote "clean candidates" in the election could force the BNP-led government to resign if it got "green light" from the international community.
Babar was worried that the international community might be fed up with corruption and poor governance, and "mistakenly decide that a non-BNP government would best serve its interests".
Butenis informed Washington that the international community, and especially the US government, appeared in several rumours. Proponents of a "third force" solution often said US government support was critical to their success.
"Some AL leaders, including probably Sheikh Hasina, suspect the USG backs BNP because of its successes against JMB, while some BNP and especially JI [Jamaat-e-Islami] members think the USG backs the AL because of Indian influence and a shared 'anti-Muslim' agenda," the cable said.
Delay in releasing information about the then president Iajuddin Ahmed's hospitalisation in Dhaka, coinciding with heightened tensions over the garment factory riots, fuelled rumours for 36 hours in business and political circles that Iajuddin was dead, it added.
Taken over by 'conspiracies'
This is a good commentary from a leading Bangladeshi newspaper as to what ails Bangladesh and its politics of thrust and parry.
It indicates that Bangladesh's interest is not paramount to either of the leading political parties. It is merely the intent to stay in power, by hook or by crook and reducing the Constitution to merely a piece of bromo paper!
It also is a pointer to the rather vacillating thoughts we encounter on the issue of BD, its politics and progress.
Compassion must be displayed while handling the issues.
