Oh noo we are busted.... !!!! These guys are smart!!
@Sami, Your Indo-BD transit fetish can be paralleled only by your fetish for BD garment sector and the Indian evil plan to sabotage it.
This is little bit off topic... but for you regarding unrest and sabotage in garment sector by India...
India blamed for backing destruction of Bangladeshâs garment sector
Sat, 2006-05-27 01:13 admin
* News
By Sunita Paul
Is Bangladesh the target of yet another attack? The attack this time was against its economic power-house - the garment industry - unlike the countrywide bombing campaign in August last year, which was apparently motivated by religious extremism. Last year's attack was directed against the judicial institutions and internal security of the country.
The target this time is the country's economy in general and its export industry in particular. The Jamiat-Ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) carried out the August attack. Its leaders are now facing prosecution. Who are the leaders of this attack? Who have masterminded it and who are those 'unknown people' who carried out the attacks on so many factories?
Business leaders say that about two hundred thousand illegal foreign workers are engaged in the country's garment sector, mostly of Indian origin, besides Korean and Chinese, and their identities and nexus with local people should be made clear.
It is more important, they say, in view of the fact that not a single Indian-owned garment factory in the Dhaka EPZ came under attack.
It is clear that the factory workers at almost every place tried to resist organized gangsters but failed before their swift and blitzkrieg tactics. They proved highly to be skilled, trained and motivated in indiscriminate destruction of properties including office furniture, sewing machines, raw materials and finished stocks.
The headline of a story in a local daily yesterday read: 'Uncertainty over supply of 2.1 million T-shirts to World cup football.'
The story said Germany is the biggest buyer of apparels from Bangladesh in the European Union. It is holding the World Cup soccer competition this year and German buyers have ordered T-shirts from Bangladesh. A factory at Gazipur is at present working on it, but miscreants have looted several lakh T-shirts with the World Cup logo printed on them. And all these took place under the noses of a visiting German business team who are here at this moment to place more buying orders for other merchandise.
Business leaders tried to figure out the impact of the many instances of arson and destruction on the garment industry. One of them said the fate of supply orders worth about $I billion have become uncertain. He said most of the affected factories were working on summer orders. He pointed out that this impact cannot be ascertained only in terms of financial losses. The blackening of the country's image will have a more significant impact, forcing buyers to move to new supply sources.
Another BGMEA leader said many foreign buying teams were in the city last week to see the factories and place new orders. They have just left the country and may not come back again.
Industry leaders were frequently blaming a neighboring country for targeting Bangladesh's apparel industry in recent times. They said it is out to expel Bangladesh from its leading position of a garment exporter in the global market.
The fact that the phasing out of the multi-fiber agreement (MFA) did not erode Bangladesh's export potential and, to the contrary,
its sales to the EU and US grew phenomenally may have encouraged the foreign quarter to mastermind the blitzkrieg, they argued. That the country's export earning is increasing by about $1 billion annually on account of garment export may not be good news to many of its competitors, particularly across the border.
The BGMEA leaders are trying to sell the conspiracy theory, and the targeted destruction that was carried out by 'unknown miscreants' seems to bear them out. The fact that due to the huge amount of orders for knitwear from the EU, Bangladesh's major export houses have been overbooked for the next two years, may not be acceptable to certain quarters.
Moreover, the fact that Bangladesh's economic growth is one of the fastest in South Asia in recent times may have encouraged RMG competitors to try to deal a fatal blow to this sector which fetches 75 per cent of the country's export earnings. So the country's economic interest is under attack this time, said business leaders. Such attacks on garment factories were also seen in the past, but the extent of destruction was limited and mostly confined to vandalism and arson. People behind these sabotage attempts then tried to take up the issue with buyers' coalitions in the US and European countries in a bid to have Bangladesh black-listed. They tried to blame Bangladesh for not going along with 'compliance' issues. Their ploy, however, did not work.
The question is how to identify the perpetrators this time and how to isolate them from the industry.
The BGMEA leaders said those who carried out the attacks were not factory workers. They said 90 per cent of the garment workers are female, and if it were a genuine workers' uprising, as some people including some Awami League leaders have said over the past few days, the presence of female workers would have been predominant. But they were seen nowhere.
Today's reports and some photographs showed that female workers at the factory gates were crying after seeing the extent of the destruction of their factories. Male workers equally tried to resist the arsonists, who were mainly youths reportedly mobilized on a rental basis.
The question is: Who have mobilized them and paid them? Different analysts ruled out the notion that furious workers have done so because of low pay and other grievances.
They simply said that workers could not burn the workplaces which provide them with livelihoods.
The Minister for Commerce and Water Resources, Hafizuddin Ahmed, said some factories might have problems with workers, but not all.
But the fact that the arsonists did not come from within the workers has given rise to other questions.
Why did those people who have no business with the factory management wreak such destruction? He said most factories which bore the brunt of the violence are model factories in the industry, which have no labor problems.
They have no outstanding wages, have little dispute with the workers, and they are obeying trade rules and other compliance issues. Why should they be the targets? The problem is that, the Minister said, no particular quarter is claiming responsibility so that a dialogue can be started with a view to politically solve the problem.
A total of 300 factories were attacked, and scores of them were set ablaze along with factory vehicles and private cars. Some arsonists even tried to destroy the Sharif Melamine Factory at Rupganj yesterday, but the workers resisted them.
Why have all industries become targets including textiles?
Former DCCI president Saeeful Islam said the pharmaceutical and plastic sectors may be the next target. This is a war on the economy and the enemy must be eliminated. Business leaders have therefore demanded a state of emergency, deploying of the army and authorization to shoot arsonists at sight. Meanwhile, BGMEA leaders and leaders of the garment workers agreed today at a meeting with the government to increase workers' salaries and give other benefits including overtime and holiday facilities so that trouble-mongers cannot take advantage of the frustration and rage of ill-treated workers.
It is becoming clear that some NGO activists were involved in the destruction, and most of them are working for a US buyers' coalition which is a wing of the US textile lobby in the domestic sector. Some fear that these people may be working for the cause of a third party. The government has already arrested some of them.
The violence drew further strength from the instigation of the 14-party opposition combine.
Some Awami League leaders sought to identify it as part of a mass uprising and even went to the affected spots at Ashulia to foment unrest. However, it did not work. BNP secretary-general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan blamed the Awami League for fanning the fire. A director of the FBCCI, the apex trade body of the country, even blamed Dr Kamal Hossain by name for instigating violent young people by paying a visit to Ashulia at a time when they were engaging in arson. He demanded a resolution condemning Dr Kamal for instigating the arsonists.
The FBCCI leader further demanded that politicians should refrain from making statements on business issues. Most FBCCI leaders and other chamber leaders also blamed a section of the press for filing misleading reports that suit the causes of certain political parties. They also urged the political parties to give undivided support to the industry sector and stop taking up positions in the interest of their party politics.
'If the industry does not exist, your politics will not exist,' they warned.
There are allegations that the Awami League wanted to spread the violence and arson all over the country and to other industries.
Its aims were to force the government to attack the workers and mobilize the army to handle the situation. There could be some firing incidents and probable deaths. It could give them the opportunity of bracketing the army and the government together for taking an anti-people stand in election politics.
The government, however, was alive to this danger and in the process delayed adequate mobilization of forces, giving the arsonists more time to wreak havoc, particularly on the second day.
The government leaders, however, said they were not aware that incidents would take such a serious turn. It came as a shock, said the State Minister for Home Affairs, Lutfozzaman Babor. He now says that the situation is under total control. Armed forces will stay in the industrial belt and nobody will be able to indulge in renewed violence.
Thus, while the big political parties remained engaged in power play, the conspirators moved on to carry out their game plan against the country's economic interest. Who are the people behind this plot? Is it the JMB men again or those
who are traitors, those who are in the payroll of a big neighboring country?
- INS + Asian Tribune -
