In the last 48 hours quite a few things have happened where I am in Bangladesh. I relative of mine has been killed. He had nothing to do with supporting or not supporting the death sentence given at the War Crimes Tribunal. Just a lay person going about his day. At this stage it is not known whether the group of guys that attacked him were Shibir (Jamaat student wing), Chatra League (Awami League student wing) or Chatra Dal (BNP student wing). What I do know is that all three groups are beating each other up or any related to an opposition party.
A local restaurant has been ransacked after Chatra League goons demanded 400 portions of food for their party to celebrate the death sentence for Sayeedi which the restaurant refused.
A local motor showroom has been damaged causing lakhs (1 lakh = 100000) of damage in vehicles because the owner is known supporter of Jamaat.
A local chain of restaurants has been vandalized after refusing serve Chatra League goons who again demanded food for their party.
This is creating a lot of hatred and anger. This can only leader to major civil unrest and division. Chatra Dal and Shibir goons are looking for 'targets' to attack as revenge for Chatra League goons doings. Amar shunar bangla ... what a joke you are.
So it seems the current Awami League government is hellbent on bringing war criminals to justice by hook or crook. I personally am not too sure whether the whole of the Jamaat leadership consists of war criminals but what is apparent is that the trials are a farce - akin to a kangaroo court. This is a country where you can buy the High Court / Supreme court judges. This is a country where a war crimes tribunal judge is caught out having an online conversation about the trial he is presiding over. Who then subsequently resigns followed by another appointment and then a verdict: guilty and punishment is death. I believe war criminals from any war in the world should be sentenced to death. However if we are to take the scenario in Bangladesh it is hard to swallow the verdict as just. In December 2012 The Economist published a series of intercepted communications between the senior judge and an external adviser, suggesting close and prohibited collaboration between the judge, prosecutors, and the government The Geneva based International Commission of Jurists says the following:
"The ICJ says that the International Crimes Tribunal does not adhere to international standards of a fair trial and due process.
According to the ICJ, there are serious procedure flaws at all stages: pre-trial release has been routinely and arbitrarily denied; witnesses have been abducted and intimidated; there have been credible allegations of collusion between the Government, prosecutors and judges.
On 14 February 2013, a draft amendment was tabled in Parliament, retroactively changing the International Criminal (Tribunals) Act 1973 to enable prosecutors to appeal a life sentence and seek the death penalty."
With the above it is hard to justify the verdicts. Seeing the violence on the ground it appears to me it could cause a much more sinister civil unrest.
Why now?
My thinking on the current fast-track process is that AL are going to face an election next year. So by killing off the Jamaat leadership they will potentially kill BNP's main coalition partner.
Another angle is that it could also be a ploy to delay the election as they know the violence that will ensue the verdicts.
In my opinion it would have been better to put to the gallows Tareq and Koko Rahman (Kukur??) for the amount of crimes they committed by depriving the people of Bangladesh. At least there is national (again some suspect) evidence - but more importantly documented international evidence of their money laundering.
As a statesman/ woman - you have to ultimately see what such a tribunal will do - if it splits the people in two then is it worth pursuing in its current form? Sadly we don't have a stateswoman but a woman who thinks her father gave her the land and another woman who thinks her husband gave her the land. Both of which are thieving scums.
Military option
The last election brought about military intervention in the wise belief that the minus-2 solution would be taken on board by the people. The public were too shortsighted compared to the advance thinking the solution required. Ultimately they went back to calling the two respective women as their leaders by the two groups of people that divide Bangladesh. This time round there won't be such an intervention as AL (poss BNP involved??) have killed off at least 20% of the senior military leaders that Bangladesh has ever produced (it's first batch due to its infancy) in the Peelkhana (Pilkhana) massacre.
Reading this blog on the BBC made me feel very embarrassed. It was shameful already from the behaviour of the fans in Dhaka after Bangladesh's defeat to the West Indies team.
This blog highlights the gross incompetency of Bangladesh radio employees as they are late into their commentary box - in their own country. Presumably they hadn't finished their breakfast so they couldn't leave for the stadium.
The BBC team had to worry about more important things than breakfast. Theft, aggression, inappropriate behaviour towards women and then noise throughout the night. (Bengali's bark throughout the night - there's no sense of being quiet at least for the night in any place in BD)
The worst part is the behavior of the crowd towards the BBC team - especially towards the female members. Disgusting. Then again can we expect anything less from such race as ours? Oh I forgot we are a Muslim country so they guys must have been showing off their pious nature.
It seems that Starwood, the partner company running the Sheraton, is finally going to exit. There may be plenty of contractual issues around the renewing of the deal which I do not know. However one of the sticking points was the renovation of the hotel which BSL, the government owned shareholder, was against because the hotel is 'making a profit'. What nonsense and further proof fo BD governments lack of ability.
Even when this hurdle was overcome BSL wanted to be able to appoint the contractors for the works. Hahaha - 'our sonar people would like to tender and choose the contractors for the works so we can fiddle and get bribes and kickbacks'. I assume Starwood has enough experience of the neurotic corruption at every level in BD from the last 25 years experience in the country that they said - 'get lost'!
It's a shame really because the current psycho in charge of the country might make the future contract more 'managed by BSL' instead of the partner company.
I don't mind if BSL owned it 100% or was totally in charge of running it - if we knew for sure the BD guys would not be so politically chosen and in any case the certainty of absolute corruption from the gardener to the GM. Maybe in another 150 years (after a Tsunami has wiped away the population)?
I've been busy with a few things and havent been able to blog for a while. I've got plenty of things to blog about so hope to catch up with plenty of posts soon.
I read an article about the government planning to install speed monitoring devices to vehicles in Bangladesh. This is space age stuff for a bronze age country.
I can't simply understand the stupidity of this idea that they will monitor the speed of vehicles from a control center(s). LOL. Just imagine if these guys had some brain cells shared amongst them. They could have gone to Mars now. Screw NASA. These guy's are it! I mean really - is it really practical, feasible for a country like BD? In fact has such a thing been done anywhere in the world? I think not.
What is it trying to solve? The speeding problem and the killing of pedestrians. Right so fitting a remotely supervised monitor will solve this. Dream on. Instead of solving the utter lawlessness of the roads in Bangladesh again we are attacking the symptom instead of the cause. Bit like us fitting grills to all the windows in BD.
Another screwed up aspect is that the High Court ordered that the government have speed limiters fitted to all vehicles in the first place. Why have a parliament? Well I know the BD parliament is ineffective but seriously why don't we have judges just create laws in response lawsuits filed at the civil servants.
How stupid can it get? This is Bangladesh. It can only get worse.....
As you know by now the unfortunate incident of building blazes in Nimtoli, Dhaka.
We in Bangladesh are very lucky that such incidences are relatively rare considering the sheer unplanned nature of the whole country.
We have so many things going against us. 1. Road widths and the ever encroachment of the roads. The roads in Nimtoli, if you've ever been here, are in some parts so ridiculously narrow that rickshaws could have trouble. How are fire engines supposed to get to them?
2. Grills hinder any form of escape. In Bangladesh the fear of criminals makes all building owners turn their property into a modern prison with iron grills on all windows. This blocks any form of exit. Why do we need them above say 3 stories? Why do we need them at all? Instead of solving the crime problem we instead live with it and decide to solve the threat.
3. Overhead electricity. If as it is suggested that it was due to a transformer blowing up - then again there is no planning as to the location of theses transformers. Just place them on stilts - sometimes within arms reach of a building facade.
4. Zoning of commercial, industrial, residential properties. Apparently chemicals and other commerical substances in some buildings helped intensify the fire. This is my main bugbear. You can hear the media and the bangla masses blame the government - they should do something about the causes of fire. Well simple planning rules were demanded and enforced by civilized people of civilized nations over a century ago in other parts of the world. Here in BD we lay the blame solely on the government. Why don't the people demand proper zoning of buildings? and enforce them - themselves? Do they complain when someone rents the ground floor out as a shop? No - because they are doing the same. Bloody hypocrites.
We also had the building collapse the other day. The tilting buildings in Begunbari are now being demolished. Other's without approved plans will be demolished. What really will happen is that those unplanned building owners will now be spending five times as much in bribes to get their plans approved. Making those in the planning department even more fat and the whole story will be forgotten about.
So now there is a drive to make sure unsafe buildings are safe. The very concept of a building in Bangladesh is unsafe - it's clad in metal bars on all sides with a dodgy road that fire engines cannot get to. Together with a shop or some kind of commercial outfit usually on the ground floor. Not to forget the eyesore of a transformer on stilts outside the building - that's probably had a truck reverse into it so its leaning to the side a bit.
Of course they should do something about it. They being the government. Nothing for us, the public, to do is there?!
