Ethnic riots sweep Assam, at least 30 killed

Police shot dead four rioters in Assam on Tuesday as security forces struggled to contain ethnic fighting that has killed at least 30 people and left riverside hamlets ablaze, forcing tens of thousands from their homes.

Rioting between Bodo tribespeople and Muslim settlers has raged for days in a region near Bangladesh. Some victims died of machete wounds, said aid workers who has seen the bodies.

Police opened fire on rioters burning property in the Bodo-dominated Kokrajhar district, killing the four, police inspector general S.N. Singh told Reuters. Police found four more bodies in a neighbouring district.

"More and more villages are being burnt by attackers this evening. Violence started again in the evening after a brief lull," said a district civil servant, who asked not to be named.

Earlier on Tuesday, hundreds of men armed with spears, clubs and rocks attacked an express train passing through Kokrajhar, injuring several passengers. In another incident, several people suffered bullet wounds and others were injured in a stampede when police fired to disperse a gang of 400, a senior police official said.

Soldiers and federal paramilitary troops patrolled Kokrajhar town and outlying areas on armoured vehicles mounted with machine guns. Some police complained they were ill-equipped to deal with the riots, despite government assurances more security reinforcements were travelling to the region.

Rival mobs have spread to rural areas in three districts, targeting hamlets along river banks and in the jungle. About 500 villages have been destroyed by arson, said police.

Ringed by China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan, India's northeast is connected to the rest of the country by a narrow land strip called the chicken's neck. Home to more than 200 ethnic and tribal groups it has been racked by separatist revolts since India's independence from Britain in 1947.

In recent years, Hindu and Christian tribes have vented strong anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment against Bangladeshi settlers. The Bodo tribe has clashed with Bengalis in deadly riots several times since the 1950s. Thirty years ago, about 2,000 people, mainly Muslims, died in riots in Assam.

The latest violence was sparked on Friday night when unidentified men killed four youths in Kokrajhar district, police and district officials said. In retaliation, armed Bodos attacked Muslims, suspecting them of being behind the killings.

Hagrama Mohilary, the leader of the tribal council governing the region, warned that former separatist rebels had joined the violence to protect Bodo villages. He called for the rebels, who are officially observing a ceasefire, to lay down their arms.

Bodo tribes shot at Muslim villages close to the border with Bhutan on Monday night, a senior police officer who asked not to be named told Reuters. He said no casualties had been reported.

Assam's chief minister, Tarun Gogoi, told TV network CNN-IBN he hoped the situation would be under control within two days. He said about 30,000 villagers have fled their homes and taken shelter in relief camps, but local officials said the numbers were at least twice that.

The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) criticised Gogoi for not stopping the rioting and Prime Minister Manomhan Singh called the chief minister asking him to do everything possible to halt the violence. The Hindu nationalist BJP has in the past been accused of fanning religious conflicts.

Tribal leader Mohilary said relief camps were overcrowded and short of food and medicine because roadblocks across the region had stopped supply trucks.

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If Burma won’t take them why won’t you, Bangladesh?

The calamitous ordeal of the Rohingya community of Myanmar has received woefully inadequate media coverage over the years despite having been declared one of the most hectored, tyrannized and aggrieved tribal minorities in the world by the United Nations. This observable fact can be unswervingly attributed to the thought-out recalcitrance of the media oligopolists to underlining the copious atrocities being committed against Muslims in different parts of the world in general as part of a ploy to legitimize the ongoing war on terrorism.

For decades these ill-fated people have been shunned, browbeaten and subjected to ghastly physical and emotional abuse by the Government of Myanmar which indefatigably maintains, the fact they are Muslims who verbally communicate in a local dialect of Bengali is reason enough to believe they are illegal Bengali immigrants. This unsubstantiated assertion is effectively countered by the veracity of the centuries-long existence of this specific ethnic group in the Arakan region. Conversely, the Government of Bangladesh contends the Rohingyas are native to Myanmar with no ties whatsoever to Bangladesh.

This insalubrious predicament has resulted in the denial of citizenship and insufficient access to basic rights and privileges including food, shelter and education to the Rohingyas by the central government of Myanmar. The former are vituperatively subjugated in different ways some of which include absolute and unwarranted exclusion from the larger Buddhist communities, forced toilsome labour, prohibition from working in either the private or the governmental sector and/or enlisting in either the police or the armed forces. There is also a severe restriction on each family from having more than two children by virtue of Burmese law.

Be that as it may, in spite of all obstacles and adversities the Rohingyas have managed to placidly dwell in synchronization with the Buddhist Rakhines in the Arakan region. While many have fled to countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Pakistan to escape oppression, the bulk of the younger generation has relocated to the adjacent state of Bangladesh which is currently home to an estimated 300,000 Rohingyas. Since Bangladesh is indigent, over-populated and bereft of resources, the Bangladeshi government has finally banned Rohingya fugitives from entering into the country. Therefore the majority of dispossessed Rohingyas is now apprehended by the Bengali border security personnel while attempting to cross over and is afterwards battered and discarded into the UN refugee camps situated alongside the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. It is estimated that approximately 30,000 Rohingyas currently reside in these camps. Those fortunate enough to have lived through the tribulation seek refuge in villages located at a convenient distance.

It was not until recently that the troubles of the Rohingyas spiraled out of control. The incident which led to the mass genocide and ethnic cleansing of this already heinously maltreated race was the alleged rape and murder of a Buddhist woman by three Rohingya males. Immediately afterwards the local Arakanese Buddhist population in cahoots with the political leadership and law enforcement officials of Myanmar retaliated by brutally assaulting, torturing, raping and murdering scores of innocent Rohingyas including men, women and children while concomitantly annihilating their homes and businesses.

The recurrent violence and blood-shed have compelled large numbers of Rohingyas to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh in boats and fishing trawlers some of whom are reported to have been ravaged by freebooters whilst on the way. Nonetheless, the Bangladeshi government is reluctant to accommodate more of them in lieu of the aforementioned reasons and the emphatic denial of Burmese citizenship to the Rohingyas. Consequently they are forced to retreat to their native soil wherein they are more than likely to be victimized by the vicious local Buddhist inhabitants.

The refusal of the Bangladeshi Government to open its borders for the Rohingyas irrespective of escalating global pressure and scrutiny has sparked a furor within and outside the country as this conduct infringes upon more than just a few international UN laws pertaining to refugees. According to a recent survey conducted by The Daily Star the overpowering majority of the general public of Bangladesh, as opposed to the government, is in favour of the Rohingyas being granted safe passage into the country. Many of these individuals have displayed auspiciousness candidly by forming and/or joining different support groups for the Rohingya populace on face book and other social networking sites.

Given the dourness of the wretched plight of our Rohingya brothers and sisters it is vital that all Muslim nations should conjointly endorse this worthy cause by pressing for Bangladesh to open its borders for them, in turn, pledging munificent moral and financial contribution for their subsequent rehabilitation. Additionally they should ensure the Bangladeshi government that each in its own right and individual capacity is agreed upon sharing the burden by offering to allow and to accept into its domain as many Rohingya refugees as possible. This enterprise is bound to profoundly assuage if not completely resolve the misery of these tormented, destitute and vulnerable souls.

Do you think Pakistan should take up the plight of Myanmar's Rohingya immigrants at the global level?

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Myanmar : Violent Religious Bigots Seek Shelter

Fighting continues in the tribal north. For the last decade, there have been ceasefire deals that tend to collapse into a period of heavy combat followed by another ceasefire. The Shan, Kachin, Wa and some smaller tribes maintain armed and organized militias which can delay, but not stop army movements in the sparsely populated north. The militias do prevent the government from maintaining regular control of the tribal north. This pattern has persisted since the 195os because of corruption and ethnic tension between the northern tribes and the more numerous lowlanders. About a third of 58 million Burmese belong to various minorities and most of them are in the rebellious tribes of the north. The current ceasefires in the north are still broken when the army moves troops around and tribal militiamen open fire because they suspect the soldiers are up to no good. The troops have, in the past, regularly entered villages and engaged in looting and rape. The tribes don't forget this sort of thing. 

 

Decades of Burmese broken promises makes negotiations difficult, but the tribes are anxious to get access to teachers and medical care, as well as trade with the south. So the peace negotiations regularly alternate with periods of violence. The lowland Burmese have never had control of the tribal uplands. In fact it was the British colonial troops that gained some control over there tribal areas, and then made them part of post-colonial Burma in 1947. Britain had taken control of Burma in 1885, ending a thousand years of independence. During that thousand years the lowland kingdoms did not control the tribal areas most of the time. The British policy up north was to keep the peace and not exercise a lot of control over. That suited the tribes, who retained a lot of autonomy and were able to trade with the more advanced (in terms of economy, education and so on) south. The British encouraged trade with the tribes and brought peace and prosperity for over half a century. After 1947, the lowland Burmese sought to impose the control of their corrupt government which was eager to exploit, and not help, the independent minded tribes. That led to over half a century of perpetual rebellion.

 

Ethnic and religious violence, that was particularly intense last month, continues in the northwest ( Rakhine State, the northwestern coast just south of Bangladesh) but at a reduced level. There have been several hundred casualties, most of them Moslem and thousands of buildings destroyed. This has displaced over 40,000 people. The Moslems and Buddhists have never gotten along and there's always been some tension. Until recently, the military government suppressed any open talk of these tensions. But since the elections last year, there's been more freedom of the press and that has included more public discussion by Buddhists about how much they dislike the Rohingyas. 

 

Rakhine State has a population of 3.8 million, with about 800,000 of them Moslems, mostly Rohingyas. These are Benglais, or people from Bengal (now Bangladesh) who began migrating to Burma during the 19^th century. At that time the British colonial government ran Bangladesh and Burma, and allowed this movement, even though the Buddhist Burmese opposed it. Britain recognized the problem too late, and the Bengali Moslems were still in Burma when Britain gave up its South Asian colonies after World War II (1939-45). 

Bangladesh has refused to take these Moslems back as Bangladeshis, and the Rohingya have come to consider themselves a separate group. Burma never let the Rohingya become citizens, which helped stoke tensions between the Moslems and Buddhists. Bangladesh has long had too many people, and illegal migration to neighboring areas has been a growing problem. In the 1990s, an outbreak of violence led to over a quarter million Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh. Some 28,000 are in refugee camps in Bangladesh, another 200,000 live outside the camps in Bangladesh and some are in Thailand, where they are considered economic migrants, and thus illegal. This year Bangladesh changed its refugee policy and refused to accept any more Rohingya, considering the refugee camps an unfair burden caused by Burmese refusal to absorb the Rohingya in their territory. This has led to Burma creating heavily guarded camps for these displaced Rohingya. Aid workers call these camps prisons, but the Burmese want to limit the movement of Rohingya who consider themselves at war with Buddhists. No Hindus, Christians or Buddhists in this region have fond memories of Moslems, who have been around for over a thousand years as invaders and violent religious bigots. These memories are sustained by the current wave of Islamic terrorism around the world. The UN is trying to get Burma to absorb the Rohingya, but the Burmese believe that absorption is not practical and these Moslems must move to a Moslem country (preferably Bangladesh, where they came from.) The Burmese resent the UN interference and have arrested some aid workers who are helping the Rohingya.

 

As part of a deal with India, Burmese troops moved into areas near the Indian border where Indian rebels groups have long maintained camps. But none of the camps have been shut down yet. When the camps are shut down, India will respond with economic aid and investment deals. 

 

China continues to expel tribal refugees (Kachin) from Burma. The Chinese do not want a lot of these refugees because their refugee camps tend to become bases for armed Kachin and smugglers. 

 

July 10, 2012:  The United States has lifted some of the economic sanctions imposed on Burma (because of its decades of military rule). The new elected government is showing signs of dismantling many aspects of the military dictatorship. That said, the new government is still full of retired generals. While these guys talk of changing their old dictatorial ways, the reforms are not coming quickly. The U.S. lifted some sanctions because the government replaced some hardline generals with some less hardline ones. The problem is that all these senior army officers stick together and the new democracy initiative is seen by many as an army scheme to get out from under all the sanctions and revive the economy while not threatening the wealth and power the army leaders have built up in the last half century. Burmese reformers are pressuring the retired generals to allow more change. This sometimes irritates the generals, like the growing tendency among Burmese to call their country Burma. The generals have insisted, for decades, that the country be called Myanmar. But because the generals were so hated, most Burmese saw "Myanmar" as another name for oppression and military dictatorship. Most Burmese prefer "Burma", which harkens back to better times. 

 

July 9, 2012: Police and soldiers raided a methamphetamine lab in Shan state, seizing $3.7 million worth of meth (in pill form) and raw materials. This included 73 kg (161 pounds) of the pills ready to be smuggled into China or Thailand. Heroin and meth production has increased in the last few years as a way for the tribes to raise money for weapons and other military supplies. The government has pledged to shut down drug production by 2014. That is unlikely to happen, but the police and soldiers can do a lot of damage.  

 

July 4, 2012: In the south, along the Thailand border, police arrested 80 Thais and accused them of illegal logging. There's a lot of this going on along the border, and those arrested belonged to a gang that apparently did not pay bribes to the right people. Police also seized bulldozers (for creating roads) and heavy trucks (to carry out the logs), as well as heavy duty saws. 

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RWB concerned at illegal arrest, beating of journos

Reporters Without Borders, an international organisation that advocates press freedom, expressed concern at the illegal detention and serious mistreatment of Bangladeshi journalist Mutafizur Rahman Sumon of news site justnewsbd.com, who remains behind bars.

Sumon, 28, was arrested on 13 July in Dhaka. He must be freed immediately and be given medical attention for injuries suffered at the hands of authorities, the Paris-based rights body said in a statement posted on its website on Wednesday.

“We demand that the government investigate the arrest and mistreatment by security forces,” Reporters Without Borders added. “These actions cannot go unpunished.”

The arrest was prompted by Sumon’s campaign against impunity for crimes against media workers, the organization said, in declaring its support for the campaign, it said.

Sumon was leaving a computer store when officers in civilian clothes from the Detective Branch of the Bangladesh Police forced him into their vehicle.

“According to the Crime Reporters Association of Bangladesh and members of Sumon’s family, the police, commanded by Inspector Motlab Hossain and took Sumon to a secret location. He was held there for three days, during which time he was beaten, threatened, and deprived of food and sleep”, the statement said,

Colleagues and relatives who have visited Sumon in prison are gravely concerned for his health, it mentioned.

Sumon, according to his uncle, linked his arrest to his participation in several demonstrations by media workers protesting the absence of progress in the investigation of the double murder of Sagar Sarowar and Meherun Runi, husband-and-wife journalists who were killed on 11 February, according to the RWB statement.

In another disturbing development, correspondent Ayaz Azad of the daily Dainik Jaijaidin was attacked on 14 July by machete-wielding students of the Chhatra League (student branch of the ruling Bangladesh Awami League) on the campus of Islamic University in the Kushtia district of southwest Bangladesh. The journalist was hospitalized for injuries to his shoulders, it said.

Bangladesh ranked 129th out of 179 countries on the 2011-2012 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.

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Suicidal foreign policy isolates Bangladesh Further

Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni recapitulates the urgency of protecting the interest of the country by denying shelter to the ill-fated Rohingyas, a marginalized Muslim community of Myanmar who urgently need to enter Bangladesh to avoid sure massacre in their homeland. She is desperate in claiming that considering the far-reaching interest of the country Rohingyas will not be allowed shelter in Bangladesh. But the same foreign minister either handed over or assisted to handover some basic strategic keys to India that are inseparably related to the existence of Bangladesh.

She and her colleagues utterly failed to comprehend the blunder while surrendering those keys. The basic reason is that avoiding the internationally accepted norms they define everything on the basis of their own choice and interest. Many terms like friendship, democracy, independence and sovereignty, even freedom fighters and pro-independence and anti-independence forces, and so on are defined in different way suiting their interest. The critics opine these peculiarities are the revelation of digitalized ambiguities.

On the basis of the utopian digitalized foreign policy the government discovered the interest of the country in denying the Rohingya to enter Bangladesh and push them back what is equivalent to death penalty. The government claims pushing the Rohingyas to the cave of death inside Myanmar it protects the interest of the country. But the same government availing lame excuses forgot the strategic interest of the country when it agreed to provide free naval, road and railway corridors, ports, lands, and even access of Indian Army to Bangladesh. Though these concessions are very crucial to Bangladesh Dipu Monis did so in the name of strengthening and cementing friendship with India.

The inner reason of such one-sided foolish generosity is that India is their personal and party ally, such an ally that openly declared that it will not remain idle if Dipu Monis face any crisis in Bangladesh. India pledges to rescue/ or salvage them. Such report flashes off and on that to rescue Dipu-Monis helicopters, i.e., Indian Air force, are kept ready in Kolkata and Agartala. Dipu Monis never protested such aggressive and defaming official statements and reports. Observers believe such naked assurance is the outcome of those strategically important concessions that were unhesitantly given away to India to keep Bangladesh under Indian grasp. Through such gestures Dipu Monis couldn’t fetch any benefit for Bangladesh, rather seriously compromised the foundation of our sovereignty. Hundreds of instances could be cited to justify how Dipu Monis sacrificed the vital interest of Bangladesh to please their Indian friends. Now the same class denies entrance of the Rohingyas in the name of protecting the interest of Bangladesh. What a sheer mockery it is!

Shelter to the moribund Rohingya Muslims was denied as it will not fetch any returns from any source. So it is unimportant to protect them from sure death. Many analysts who are knowledgeable on the Chanakya (Koutillaya)-policy of India opine that India the former footman of late communism and defunct Soviet Union now leans to America in order to besiege China and impose its (India) supremacy on its neighbouring counties. Observers believe it (India) suggested our policymakers not to shelter the Rohingyas. Its policymakers silently observe the annihilation of the Rohingyas in their doorsteps, as if, nothing happens in Arakan Hills.

Observers believe that India designs to orchestra and prolong meaningless dispute and conflict between Bangladesh-Myanmar to encircle Bangladesh from all sides. The current anti-Rohingya massacre is one of those intrigues. The immediate goal of the present conflict is to isolate Bangladesh further so that Bangladeshi Muslims cannot get shelter in their doorstep Myanmar on the face of any internal turmoil or Indian aggression in the form of rescuing Dipu Monis or crushing the patriots whom the ruling class brands as anti-liberation forces and fundamentalists. It is strongly believed Dipu Monis were asked to deny repeated requests of international community to shelter the Rohingyas in Bangladesh territory.

Observers allege Bangladesh government knowingly undertakes inhuman stand in response to Indian pressure though it is quiet aware that the Rohingya Muslims have little security in their abode. It is the humanistic and moral responsibility to shelter the endangered people irrespective of caste and creed. The inhuman instance that the government sets against the imperiled Rohingyas will be a boomerang, as none of the international community will come forward help us if we ever face such manmade debacle. The far-reaching consequences of government denial to UN, American, Canadian or EU request will isolate us further that may cause our country and people.

Deterrence on the visit of UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) officials to Bangladesh-Myanmar border indirectly brands UN as our rival. Only the future can say what adverse impact it will ascribe on Bangladesh for such unstudied and immature diplomacy. We send thousands of our soldiers under UN Peacekeeping Mission who work in many disturbed regions around the world to deter ethnic violence and political annihilation and restore peace. But we cannot play any meaningful role by providing shelter to the aggrieved and innocent people who standing on our doors and beg and cry to save their lives from communal riots. Rather we make cruel joke with them by providing some food and fuel to ply their boat.

The Non- resident Bangladeshi intellectuals and analysts expressed their deep anguish against the Indian government, the lone ally of the incumbent government that deters it from taking even humanitarian step by providing mere shelter to the Rohingyas in our soil. They alleged that this self-styled fake superpower (?) frequently, pokes its nose into the internal affairs of its neighboring countries, stands ready to rescue its allies in Bangladesh, shelters rebels of Bangladesh, Myanmar, China, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Maldives, Sri Lanka, and sent its soldiers to Sri Lanka, Maldives and Afghanistan, didn’t utter single word favoring the Rohingyas, not to speak of providing shelter, because such anti-minority massacre occurs in her soil almost daily. They (intellectual and analysts) opine, India’s evil counseling obstructs the AL-led government that prompted the Dipu Monis to denounce American, Canadian, UN or European Union repeated requests to open our border for the fleeing Rohingyas. It is India that also provokes Myanmar not to construct a road through its territory to facilitate Bangladesh to have direct road connection to China and other Southeast Asian countries, as it will reduce Indian business in Bangladesh. That will also frustrate Indian policy of encircling Bangladesh and keeping it within the Indian radar. Persuading the incumbent Sheikh Hasina government, this self-styled fake superpower though hobnobs with America to encircle China conveys this message to America that it is not ready to allow America to play even minimum role in the region and USA bossing will no longer be entertained. India finds USA middling in this region a threat to her (India) hegemonic aspiration.

Dipu Monis’ allege that international community did nothing in repatriating

those Rohingyas who earlier were sheltered in Bangladesh. So Bangladesh has no room to aggravate the burden sheltering the Rohingyas further. Though such allegation is valid, still we can’t allow the fleeing Rohingyas to be killed once they reach our door. Can we hide our diplomatic failure in repatriating the Rohingyas back who are in Bangladesh for years? Did we hold any meaningful and serious dialogue in any international forum on this issue? How many times we asked China, an ally of both Bangladesh and Myanmar help repatriation of the Rohingyas? Did we raise the issue before UN, OIC, even SAARC or any other international or regional body? It is the outcome of the Indianization of our foreign policy. We don’t have any reliable friend around the world. India is a friend of a particular party or parties, but not of Bangladesh and it (India) relentlessly works to keep Bangladesh isolated from the rest of the world. Can we push back the Rohingya refugees unilaterally without international support? Do we have such influence and ability to persuade or force Myanmar to take the Rohingyas back home? If we do have it, why we utterly failed to do that? If we had such power, Myanmar would have never dared to touch the Rohingyas.

The reality is that we lag behind in all aspects. We don’t have power or international lobbying to compel Myanmar to repatriate its nationals. Still we can’t allow the Rohingyas die keeping our door closed. Requesting the international community to play their due to role in expediting early repatriation of the Rohingya refugees, we could table some preconditions that could strengthen us diplomatically and even financially. Through this we could satisfy all the groups. Our present policy will simply isolate us further. We have become friendless and segregated and isolated us. We can’t say who guides us? Who dictates our internal and external policies?

On the other hand, the international community is puzzled while the Muslim world baffled seeing the unusual happenings inside the country. What type of democracy we are practicing? Seeing the digitalized version and prodigy of democracy that includes willful exercise of power, shackling the political dissents, kidnapping, secret killing, remand, trouncing, culture of contrived cases, accumulation of power to an individual, wrangling between the parliament and judiciary, and so on the international community jeers at us.

Their studied conclusion is: how the incumbent government that was democratically elected by the people denies democratic rights to its opponents, tramples down (under police boot) the opposition activists, fastens the activists with rope like cattle, shackles (on the foot of) the dignitaries, lifts the opponents from the streets and vanishes them forever whose near ones don’t know whether they are alive or dead, allows random killing everywhere - from bedroom to the streets - could shelter the alien Rohingya refugees in its soil, as their death matters little to it (government).

We are being isolated from the rest of the world due to all these reasons and above all, the erroneous foreign policy that closes all doors for us. Our foreign policy confines us to the pound of an expansionist ally. We are friend neither of America, nor China. Japan or Muslim World suspects our sincerity. We don’t attach importance to UN. To what destination we are leading to? Many of our tested allies are no more with us. Those who should have sided with us, now are irritated to us. We are folding ourselves from rest of the world and it seems we are being transformed to the status of Bhutan and former Sikkim. Sikkim withered away from the world map about four decades ago. Neither the king nor the premier of Bhutan needs to go abroad, as he has no function and none feels importance to invite him to visit any country, because the international community knows someone controls and performs the external services of Bhutan. Observers apprehend Bangladesh gradually proceeds to that direction.

Real independence and sovereignty of any country is ventilated through its foreign policy. Many observers of home and abroad allege that our foreign policy fatefully encages to Indian orbit. The international community though doesn’t verbally express, but solidly feels who now dictates Bangladesh. It is our responsibility to reverse the mindset of the international community. We must comprehend this reality that a country in the truest sense of the term can’t remain as sovereign if it is dictated and controlled by foreign guardian. Under such situation a country degrades to merely government and flag-centric.

The government of such country is chosen and changed according to the signal and choice of that regulatory guardian. Trade and commerce, internal administration, even culture and literature of such country are controlled by the same mentor. Whatever it desires, the ruling class remains obliged to provide it. If the ruling elites ever behave disloyally, they are replaced by new ones. The new elites also enjoy the blessing of the mentor and act upon its suggestions. The mentor, suiting its interest and intention uses them as the pawns of chess. It is better to brand them as ‘robot’. We don’t desire to be used as robot of any power. We will formulate our vision exercising our sagacity, prudence and talent. We are to justify that the nation that achieved its independence through unprecedented sacrifice can determine and implement our external policies. It will be fallacious if anyone miscalculates us as robot.

In many countries robot-like human beings appear in different ages. Robot doesn’t possess its own intelligence and conscience. It is nothing but a machine. It acts simply according to the programs planted by its user inside it. Such people could also be compared to parrot. A parrot can only utter whatever it is taught and the parrot-like human being does what its mentors tell. He/she can neither exercise his/her own judgment, nor do what should be done. Such mercenaries and vested interests are turned, as if, to something like handicapped. They serve for the mentors at the cost of their national interest. Due to self-centered sabotage of these handicapped surrogates many independent and sovereign countries in various stages of history reduced to the status of ill-fated Bengal (under British rule), Kashmir, Sikkim, etc., the toadies like Mir Jafar, Sheikh Abdullah, Nur Mohammad Taraki, Haffiz Ullah Amin, Landup Dorjji are documented as hated traitors. We are to remain vigil and act judiciously so that we are not portrayed like those traitors mentioned above. *

BY :  Mohammad Zainal Abedin.