Watching the watchmen not follow the money

Responding to a question from a fellow MP on 28 October 2009, the Finance Minister reportedly told the Sangsad that the Bangladesh Bank or the Finance Department had no information about:

• how much money allegedly siphoned off overseas under the BNP-JI government has been recovered or by whom;
• who actually laundered the money in the first place; or
• whether any action has been taken against anyone for laundering the money.

This was reported by Amader Shomoy, Amar Desh, and Naya Diganta.  Of course, the latter two newspapers are firmly in the anti-liberation camp sympathetic to BNP-JI, and the first will print any old rubbish has a history of printing false inaccurate news.  So I wanted to know what the pro-liberation progressive mainstream newspapers such as Prothom Alo and Daily Star said. 

May be I am looking at the wrong places, but I couldn’t find anything on the 29 October edition of either papers.   

I don’t want to get into a debate about Tarique Rahman’s guilt or innocence.  Nor do I want relitigate 1/11.  But I do wonder why the largest national dailies have not reported this. 

It’s not like these papers have been silent on this issue.  Prothom Alo reported on 5 February that the Prime Minister has set up an inter-departmental task force to follow the money trail.  And Daily Star reported on 12 March 2007 that Tarique Rahman had admitted,  in the face of ‘extensive questioning’, to holding bank accounts in five countries, and the investigators were to ’seek assistance from the Bangladesh Bank (BB) and the foreign ministry to know how much money he has in those accounts and how he sent the sums abroad’.

Star reporters like Julfikar Ali Manik are making up fantastic stories finding information that links Hawa Bhaban to the 21 August attack.  Why aren’t they following the Hawa Bhaban’s money?   

Was the task force set up by the PM in February incompetent? 

Did the investigators in charge of torture extensive questioning took the money themselves (I think the Bangla term is chor-er upor batpari)? 

Or was there no money in the first place?

These are important questions that we need to know the answer to.  Somehow, I doubt we will.

(Crossposted at UV)

On Bhola-3 by-election

They just had a number of off year elections in the US. Pundits are analysing the results in New Jersey and Virginia governor races and the Congress by-election (or whatever it is called over there) to draw inferences about President Obama’s popularity with the voters.

Let’s leave that analysis to the Americans and think about the upcoming by-election in Bhola-3. In the absence of credible opinion poll (what happened to the Daily Star Nielsen poll?), this will be a good guide to the current political trends in Bangladesh.

I do some aggregate number crunching in what follows.  BNP may well reclaim the seat, but the magnitude of the victory will point to how (un)popular the AL government is.  But this is based on no knowledge whatosever about the local issues.  Anyone in the house from Bhola to enlighten us?

What do you see through your rear window?

Rear Window is a 1954 Hollywood classic.  Set in Manhattan, James Stewart plays a photographer nursing a broken leg.  He sits bored in his Greenwich Village apartment, passing the time by spying on his neighbors — a dancer who likes to practice in her underwear (it’s summer), a woman who lives by herself, a musician working at his piano, and several married couples, including a salesman with a bedridden wife.  As the movie progresses, Stewart, his girlfriend Grace Kelly, and us the viewers, start suspecting that the salesman has killed his wife.  But we never know until the very end whether there really was a murder, because all the unusual things raising suspicion had reasonable, innocent explanations.  Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, the movie is considered as one of the best thrillers ever made. 

I have often wondered what would happen if the movie was set in today’s Dhaka, where life is every bit as hectic and alienating as it is in 1950s (or even present day) Manhattan.  Dear reader, if you were sitting with a binocular in the balcony of your Uttara/Mohammadpur/Poribagh/Shantinagar flat, and saw suspicious going ons in the neighbouing building, what would you do?

A tale of two advisors

Dr Akbar Ali Khan and Lt Gen Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury have many things in common.  Both reached the top in their respective fields.  Dr Khan became the country’s top bureaucrat, and is a rare public servant who enjoyed confidence of both Awami League and BNP.   After a distinguished career that included commanding the Bangladeshi contingent in the first Gulf War, Lt Gen Chowdhury also rose to the top of his profession. 

In November 2006, both joined Iajuddin Ahmed’s caretaker government.  At that time, the partisan media dubbed both of them as favourites of Tarique Rahman and the dreaded Hawa Bhaban.   And then in December that year, they both resigned (with two other advisors), saying Iajuddin wasn’t serious about a fair election.  Their actions led credence to the fear of election rigging.  The four advisors were idolised by the media.  And after 1/11, both Dr Khan and Lt Gen Chowdhury were appointed chairmen of agencies that could, in theory, be enablers of fundamental reform.

With the election of the Awami League, both of them found it difficult to stay in their positions.  Both eventually resigned.  No one expects the agencies they led after 1/11 to make any difference to anything.

Even though both had to resign, one of them is a hero in my book, the other a mere has been.  Some of what these two distinguished gentlemen have in common symbolise what has been wrong with Bangladesh.  However, comparing what they don’t have in common perhaps point to how we can improve things. 

What divides us

One of the coolest people I met at the BDI Conference at Kennedy School a few days ago was Lawrence Lifschultz, whose Bangladesh: The Unfinished Revolution should be a must read for anyone interested in the country’s politics, governance, and history.  Without necessarily accepting its normative/prescriptive judgment, it is easily one of the best positive/descriptive account of what happened in Bangladesh in 1975. 

At the risk of sounding heretical, 1975, not 1971, is the pivotal year for Bangladesh — Forum’s Zafar Sobhan once told me.  1971 is settled history.  The important issue of war crimes trial notwithstanding, there is no political division over 1971 — no one is really anti-1971, no one says Bangladesh should become East Pakistan.  The division is, or has been for much of the past 3 decades, over the direction a sovereign Bangladesh should take, with 1975 providing the crossroads.  How one interpretes 1975, who one considers to be the heroes and villains of that blood-stained year, have been the key determinants of one’s politics until recently.

 Last September, two prominent Bangladeshi political scientists echoed these points in back-to-back interviews to Prothom Alo.  There is much that the professors predicted right.  And there is some that they missed.  I thought it would be a good idea to revisit these interviews a year on. 

The PM’s UN speech

There are 192 countries in the United Nations.  Many of their leaders attend the General Assemby every September.  This year has been noted for the first UNGA speech by President Obama.  The Bangladeshi Prime Minister also gave a speech.  As has been noted, Bangladeshi media chose to focus on the speech being in Bangla, even though that’s routine for the country’s heads of government.  This post focuses on what she actually said. 

About 20 para, of which only about half that the world is interested in, of which only one that actually made a strong argument.  Madam Prime Minister, next time do better.

On the law and order problem

The first, and so far only, opinion poll on the performance of Bangladesh’s current government’s performance found law and order to be the area of its greatest weakness.  That was in April.  Casual observation of the media — newspapers as well as TV news and talk shows — suggest the law and order has slided a lot further in the months since.  Anecdotal evidence from friends and family support the view.  Syeed Ahamed puts it this way:

Such social disorder contradicts the whole purpose of having a national government. Citizens elect a group of persons among themselves as the government of the country so that law and order is maintained. It is perceived as a “social contract” between the people and the government, implying that the people give up some rights to the government in order to receive social order. Most historical accounts suggest this as the reason of establishing states and affirm that the principal task of the government is to maintain law and order. Issues such as taxation, budget, development works, and poverty reduction came much later as other government duties.

And the government’s reaction — return of the ‘crossfire’ under a new name — suggests that it is taking the problem seriously. 

When one starts thinking about the issue, the following points/questions stand out:

1. Crossfires aka encounters aka gunfights aka extrajudicial killings are clear violation of Awami League’s election pledge.

2. It’s not even clear that we have a violent crimes problem that require such drastic measures.

3. The real law and order problem has no quick fix. 

Indo-Bangla relations

The Bangladeshi Foreign Minister recently visited India, and the Prime Minster is supposed to visit New Delhi shortly.  This follows a highly publicised visit by the Indian Foreign Minister in February, after the new government took office in Dhaka, but before the Indian election.  There are media speculations about a ‘package deal’ being negotiated resolve various outstanding issues. 

There is no foreign relationship more important for Bangladesh than that with India.  Therefore, whatever is in this deal (if a deal is indeed being negotiated), it is imperative that it is scrutinised carefully.  And every conscious citizen — regardless of technical expertise, political affiliation, or access to the media — has a responsibility to participate in the discussion.  Indeed, a discussion needs to happen in India too, because if Bangladesh develops a permanent antipathy towards India, the consequences will be bad for everyone.

Any discussion on this topic should begin with two points.  

First, this need not be a zero sum game.  Bangladesh’s gains do not have to come at India’s expense, or vice versa.  India and Bangladesh are not locked in some Manichean, existential conflict.  Win-win solutions are possible on all the issues.

Second, it is easy, and pointless, to spend endless amount of time in a dialogue of the deaf discussing how one country has never done the right thing by the other. 

This post is an attempt to summarise the issues, with some tentative views.  They are by no means exhaustive.  Nor are they beyond debate.  In fact, I am actively soliciting debate.

With the long introduction out of the way, over the fold are what I think the issues that need to be resolved.

Eid Mubarak

It was amazing at the local mall last night.  I had no idea my little town was home to so many Muslim families.  My wife quipped, they should give Ramadan sale.  I’m sure in a few years, they will. 

I have just come back from the chand raat at the local Islamic Centre.  I’ve never felt the spirit of the Eid — ঈদ ঈদ লাগা — this much outside Dhaka. 

It’s not quite watching BTV, but close enough.

Eid Mubarak.

On the IMF’s generosity to BB

The IMF has recently offered Bangladesh a $700m soft facility to assist with the  impact of the global economic downturn.  According to media reports, Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman said: ”We received an e-mail from the IMF … saying it had decided to give the loan assistance to help Bangladesh face the adverse affects of the global economic downturn, and boost the economy.”  The central bank is reported to have received the money earlier this month. 

This post summarises some thoughts on the issue.