On July 16, Saad Hammadi, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor, on old newspaper of U.S.A., wrote from Dhaka, Bangladesh (synopsis): “Protests continued for a second day in Bangladesh after a war crimes tribunal investigating the country’s 1971 war of independence sentenced a top Islamist politician to 90 years in jail for crimes against humanity, raising worries about political stability.
Four people were killed in the clashes, including a child, and a number of others were injured today when opposition supporters for Ghulam Azam, the former chief of Islamic political party Jamaat-e-Islami, attacked police and set buses and trucks ablaze, prompting police to open fire.
‘The leaders of both the [country’s political] alliances have said there is a danger of extra-constitutional intervention,’ says Manzurul Ahsan Khan, adviser to the central committee of the Communist Party of Bangladesh.
“Much of the recent instability has been caused by the war crimes tribunal, set up in 2010 to look into charges of human rights abuses during the 1971 war with Pakistan.
“Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League-led government has arrested scores of alleged Islamist militants since taking power in 2009 and says the tribunal is needed to heal old wounds. Including Monday’s verdict, the Bangladeshi war crimes tribunal has sentenced five of the 12 accused of war crimes, three of whom have been given the death penalty. Mr. Azam was found guilty on 61 counts, including murder, incitement, and complicity to crimes against humanity, but he “has not been given the death sentence, considering his age.”
“Jamaat-e-Islami has called for a countrywide strike until Thursday, and analysts say the protests show no signs of letting up, as another verdict is expected tomorrow.
(That verdict has been given, a death sentence pacifying pro-secular agitators of the ruling camp.)
“Protests over previous verdicts turned violent. Pro-secular Bangladeshi youths, who took to the streets in February to demand capital punishment for all the war criminals shortly after the tribunal gave out its first verdicts, have once again returned to the streets to occupy Dhaka’s main intersection at Shahbag.
“The ruling Awami League has recently been losing popularity, facing corruption charges against its ministers, criticism over the controversial war crimes trial process, and its position against the opposition’s call for an independent interim government to handle upcoming elections. Some analysts worry the tensions could push Bangladesh’s democratic gains backward.
“The protests, which have repeatedly shut down the country, have hurt the country’s garment industry, as the industry reels from a series of high-profile disasters. One of the largest garment exporters to Western markets, Bangladesh estimates it lost some $500 million in orders to India alone in recent weeks because of blockades and shutdowns. Wendy Sherman, the US undersecretary for political affairs, expressed concern over Bangladesh’s repeated shutdowns during her visit in May.
Jamaat-e-Islami has criticized the tribunal for failing to maintain international standards and charged that the court proceedings are a way to target political opponents, rather than mete out justice. Though the government denies this, of the 10 people indicted on charges of war crimes, eight are from the Jamaat-e-Islami party and its ally, the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party.”
A day earlier, John Burke of The Guardian, United Kingdom observed on 15 July (abridged): “Even by the standards of south Asia, politics and history in Bangladesh make a particularly combustible mix. Indeed, the two have never really been separated.
“Pakistan had two wings ­ an Urdu-speaking West Pakistan bordering Afghanistan and, 1,400 miles away, East Pakistan, bordering Burma. The two were never likely to remain united. They spoke different languages, had different religious traditions, followed different leaders. The split, after years of tension, came in 1971, in a brutal war. West Pakistan lost, despite the aid of local Islamists and despite systematic atrocities. India helped East Pakistan.
“The current government is led by the broadly secular, broadly leftwing Awami League, the party that (the main independence leader) Sheikh Mujibur helped to found. The opposition is led by the more religiously minded, more business-orientated Bangladesh National party (BNP), founded by the soldier who eventually took power after a period of instability following Sheikh Mujibur’s assassination in 1975. The current prime minister and head of the Awami League is Sheikh Hasina, a daughter of Sheikh Mujibur who survived the massacre of the independence leader’s family in 1975. The leader of the BNP is Khaleda Zia, the widow of the man who eventually replaced Sheikh Mujibur and was assassinated himself in 1981.
“Bangladesh’s Islamists ­ who are electorally marginal, but can nonetheless swing the vote in dozens of crucial constituencies ­ are allied with the BNP. They have never admitted doing any wrong 42 years ago. The creation of a tribunal to investigate abuses during the 1971 war was thus good politics for the government.
“But the real trial of strength between the two parties is yet to come. The run-up to the next election, scheduled for the winter, is likely to be violent. The Awami League says that though incumbents usually lose, it is strong in rural areas and can win. The BNP dismisses this as wishful thinking and points out that recent local government elections have already seen clear wins for it.
The Awami League is unlikely to agree to the key demand of the opposition that a caretaker government takes over before the polls. The BNP will mobilise massive demonstrations with the aim of making the country ungovernable.
“Officials of both parties admit that the continuing confrontation almost certainly means that many will be injured and some will probably die. Clashes this week are, sadly, just the warm-up.”
Such simplistic observations in the foreign press do not reflect the depth of the crisis of fair governance and of transition of power in Bangladesh. Nevertheless, they astutely recognise that the political game of controversial war crimes trial is endangering the country’s power structure as well as the economy. After the 4-day dawn-to-dusk hartals accompanied by brutal police actions and violent reactions from agitators over the last working week, with 10 recorded deaths and many injuries, damages to vehicles and attacks on police posts, citizens in Bangladesh are beginning to wonder whether the polity may be simply resigned to endure the misery of “real trial of strength” between the two main contending parties and their respective allies in the “run-up to the next election” or boycott of election under the controversial Fifteenth Amendment designed by the Awami League.
Citizens, however, wonder whether the extent of violence already obtained in continuing confrontation may sooner “push Bangladesh’s democratic gains backward” than be suffered by the public and the institutions of the nation-state.