tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51015977025411072392024-03-13T16:59:48.223+06:00nEWS BD71BANGLADESH NEWS COLLECTOR nEWS BD71 is giving readers a service that collects and provides instant posts of news, articles,editorials and blogs which are being published in the top online news sources over the globe.Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comBlogger730125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-31990186109816273732012-11-30T20:51:00.002+06:002012-11-30T20:53:54.674+06:00India: Dream for secular republic unfulfilled <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ILy3Pn3RYe8/ULjH0R8O-OI/AAAAAAAAFAk/pFG1mfVmbq4/s1600/117561.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ILy3Pn3RYe8/ULjH0R8O-OI/AAAAAAAAFAk/pFG1mfVmbq4/s400/117561.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The terror attack on Mumbai in the night of November 26th was an
attack on India killing innocent people but it also confirmed the
weakness of Indian state in tackling the communal agenda. The police and
administrative set up were communalized and Muslim became more isolated
in this propaganda war. Isolation of Muslims in India is defeat of the
vision of our constitutional forefathers<b>.</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b> </b>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Today is a landmark date of Indian Republic as on this day in 1949
our constituent Assembly settled for the current constitution of India.
With different divergent views, India finally adopted a Republican
Democratic Constitution despite the tragic and disastrous accidents due
to partition in which thousands lost their lives for no fault of their
own and millions were displaced.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Paradoxically, the same day on November 26th, 2008, terrorists stuck
the financial capital of India and bled it in full force in an open
defiance to republican common sharing dream of a united India. Hundreds
of innocent lost their lives and many their whole world. The incident
changed the total perception of people in India and forced the
governments to adopt more such strategies which actually were
anti-democratic and against the basic preamble of our constitution. In
the name of fight against terrorism, innocent Muslim youths were
arrested in different parts of the country and thousands of them are
still languishing in jails waiting for their trial to take off.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Therefore, it is time for introspection as where our republic
failed and why? It is a well-known fact that despite partition in the
name of religion, Indian leadership chose to adopt a secular
constitution which means despite our prejudices we still attempted to
overcome those through constitutional measures</b>. For a country
which bore the brunt of partition in the name of religion, it was a huge
compliment and challenging task. While the leadership which fought for
the nation was by and large secular at least till Nehru was there at the
helm of affair, it started appeasing Hindu fundamentalists more and
more subsequently after his demise in 1964. The country had seen
communal disturbances in number of places and almost all the inquiry
commissions had pointed the involvement of RSS in the communal riots.
Meerut, Moradabad,, Aligarh, Kanpur, Bhivandi, Malegaon, Jabalpur,
Mumbai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad saw communal riots in different phases
which bled the nation.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In 1975 Mrs. Indira Gandhi imposed emergency on the country and
suspended all our rights including freedom of expression and right to
peaceful assembly. All the political leaders were arrested and
newspapers were not allowed to publish news items which were against the
‘interest’ of the government. She lost in 1975 resulting in the
formation of first non-Congress government of Janata Party under the
leadership of Morarji Desai which undemocratically used its power and
dismissed 7 congress ruled government immediately without allowing them
to complete their terms. The argument was that they have lost their
mandate. It was naked dance of dictatorial leadership who were elected
in the name of democracy. Indira Gandhi repeated it when she returned to
power in 1980 by dismissing the Janata governments in the states.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>1980s was a tumultuous phase in Indian democracy when power
started slipping out of the brahmanical domination and Congress played
shamelessly though, the Hindu card in Jammu and Kashmir and later in
Punjab.</b> The results were disastrous. To counter the demand of
more powers to the state raised by the Akali Dal, Indira Gandhi promoted
Bhindaranwale who used the opportunity to establish himself as the
biggest leader of the Sikh Panth. The Sikh Hindu divide grew in Punjab
resulting in the disastrous decision of the government to raid the
golden temple in June 1984 under code name ‘Operation Blue Star’. It
hurt the Sikh psyche tremendously and government did nothing to remove
them. They were isolated. Every Sikh became a suspect in the eye of
others. This was one of the most uncertain periods of Indian republic.
They were deeply hurt with the turn of events at the Golden Temple where
huge number of militants had gathered. The mix of religion and politics
could be best seen in Punjab and Akali Dal was no less responsible as
it was they who used it to the best and Congress was only trying to
consolidate the non Jats as well as Hindus in the state. The dirty game
of the political parties created an unbridgeable divide.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
On October 31st, 1984 Mrs. Indira Gandhi was brutally assassinated by
her own security staffs who happened to be Sikhs. The entire country
saw the violence against Sikh community and each one of them were
considered as a threat to the country. The national capital took the
lead in violence against the Sikhs and the might Indian state did not do
anything. Instead, it used the opportunity to consolidate the Hindu
vote bank further which resulted in the massive mandate to Rajiv Gandhi
in 1985 when elections were held in the country. It is essential to
examine the 1985 electoral mandate to Rajiv Gandhi where he became the
symbol of Hindu nationalism and the Sangh Parivar openly came in his
support. He used those symbols too to consolidate his position yet he
also initiated different political processes in various parts of the
country including Punjab and Mizoram. The results were positive yet
Rajiv lost in 1989 because he was surrounded by the coterie which
enjoyed his innocence. With a massive mandate in his pocket, he ignored
President Jail Singh who was loyal to his mother and sworn him as a
prime minister without even waiting for the Congress Party formally
electing him as leader.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Rajiv and his close associate Arun Nehru continued to play the Hindu
Card which resulted in opening up the lock of Babari Mosque for Hindus.
The government never challenged the local court order further to appease
the Hindus. At the same time when Muslim fanatics raised the issue of
Shahbano, the government over turned the Supreme Court order on the
rights of a Muslim woman who is divorced. The congress as usual wanted a
win-win situation for all the fundamentalists in the country and hence
it covers extra miles to appease every one without addressing their
social economic issues. The Ayodhya issue and Shabano case actually gave
the Hindu fundamentalists a big handle to brow beat Muslims in the
country. Under lot of corruption charges, Rajiv lost the next election
resulting in the formation of another non Congress government under
V.P.Singh which was supported from outside both by the left and the
right.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
In 1990, the prime minister announced acceptance of Mandal
Commission Report giving opportunity to OBCs to share power. This was
one of the biggest events of post independent India which shook the
Indian power structure. It developed a deep hatred towards the then
prime minister V.P.Singh in the Indian middle classes. The forces of
Hinduva felt the danger of OBC assertion and their alliance with Dalits
for the hegemony of the upper caste in socio-political life of our
country. They could not afford to openly oppose the Mandal commission
reports yet clandestinely fomenting trouble in Delhi against the
government decision. After much thought, they launched the Ram Temple
movement and under the grand design engaged the Shudra communities in
it. They created an enemy in the form of Muslims and isolated them
politically. The anti-Muslim feelings were created under the Ram Temple
movement turning them the main villain.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Congress and the mainstream parties did not take them openly. In
fact, Congress was in competitive mode for this Hindu communalism which
resulted in more isolation of Muslims. The biggest casualty of this
communalization process in India was the Hindutvaisation of
administrative set up particularly police and administrative bodies.
Unfortunately, media too became victim of it. In the post 1990s, media
used all the propaganda of the Hindutva forces and actively supported by
the police and intelligence services to defame and isolate Muslims
further. It culminated in violence against Muslims and systematic
onslaught on their places of worship with demolition of Babari Mosque on
December 6th, 1992. The then prime minister Narsimha Rao promised to
the nation that the Babari Mosque but instead no political party
including the secular ones dare to say that Babari Mosque should be
rebuilt to bring it the status quo level. No culprit of that heinous
crime against Indian constitution and secular ethos of the country ever
went to jail except for one day symbolic punishment to Kalyan Singh who
wanted to use this opportunity to garner their votes further.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
Ram Mandir movement legitimized the communalization of the
Hindutva brigade and brought them to power. It exposed the parties and
outfits which claims to be secular and yet became part of so-called
National Democratic Alliance. The culprit of the Babari demolition
became senior minister and presided over the same ministries which were
supposed to file cases against them. Lal Krishna Advani became the Home
Minister of the country and further communalized the entire bureaucracy.
Murli Manohar Joshi was made Minister for Human Resource Development
and he shamelessly pursued the brahmanical agenda in education
particularly in the school text books.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>In Mumbai, the award of the communal riots in 1993 with
active support of the Shiv Sena goons resulted in their attaining power
in Maharastra when it went to polls, while in 2002, Narendra Modi outdid
what Rajiv and his Congress had done to Sikhs in Delhi in 1984.</b>
The Muslims were the victims of Modi’s hate agenda as he wanted to
teach them a ‘lesson’ and finish their voices completely. Gujarat became
the biggest laboratory of Hindutva and brahmanical forces. Despite all
our war cries against him, Modi continue to become more powerful in the
absence of a credible secular alternative. This further marginalized and
isolated Muslims in Gujarat.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
On November 26th, 2008 the terrorists from Pakistan attacked Mumbai.
The country suffered and like all, many Muslims were also killed with
other citizens of the country. The war against terrorism became a war
against ‘Muslims’. This was suitable for the Hindu right wing which
always wanted to get legitimized in the din of ‘war against terror’.
Muslim and terrorism became synonymous terms with media actively
participating in it and became propaganda machinery of the state for the
same. It is ironical that while in all other matters particularly on
the issues of corruption, the media never bothered about the state
version but on the issue of Muslims, they became voice of the state and
were thoroughly communalized.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Thousands of Muslims youths are languishing in Indian Jails in the
name of ‘war against terror’. Many of them have not even been brought to
trial. It is shameful that a ‘secular’ administration and the state
could do nothing. It is the biggest blot to Indian state that it has
selectively made the state apparatus anti-Muslims. While identity
politics has become hall mark of Indian political system, Muslim
identity has become a drawback for the community. Any formation of
political front in the name of Muslims will be out rightly termed as
communal while the Hindutva-isation of our political set up is complete.
The Muslims youths are being detained for no fault of theirs. It is not
just state of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh where Muslim youths are in
jail without any trials. It is tragic a state of Uttar-Pradesh, Bihar,
Bengal, Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh where state government claims to be
‘secular’.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>War against terrorism cannot be won by putting innocents in
the jail just because of their religious identity of being a Muslim. It
is proved beyond doubt how the Hindutva forces are operating in the
country and communalizing the government apparatus and media.</b>
Our republic cannot hope to achieve its dreams of a secular socialist
India when its ‘second majority’ suffers the fate of being ‘foreigner’
and ‘suspect’ for every act of terror which is the case of individuals
or politically motivated terrorist groups. As we do not blame all the
Hindus for the fault of Hindutva organizations and their misdeeds
similarly, it is time when the media should stop branding every Muslim
as terrorist for the act and misdeeds of these unlawful outfits whose
agenda is to ferment trouble in India. The state apparatus will have to
be developed in a secular way so that they do not suffer from
prejudices. As long as we have political leaders without facing any
trial for their involvement in hate propaganda and instigating communal
violence, we will continue to have act of terror.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>As long as the Muslim youths are arrested without their
involvement for the troubles created by the terrorist outfits, we will
not be able to bring peace in the country. The answers to today’s
problems are more engagement of the community in administration, social
and political life</b>. The day, Indian society become inclusive
and our administration and judiciary secularized, the political goons
using religious identity as a tool to climb up the ladder and become
leader would be isolated. Communalism of all variety is dangerous for
the country and can be tackled both with greater administrative reforms
including secularization of it as well as a wider public debate on the
issue of democracy and secularism so that fringe elements everywhere is
isolated. If the Muslims, Dalits, Aadivasis in this country do not get
justice, it would be difficult for democracy to survive and then we will
have nobody to blame but to ourselves and our faulty political system
which is unfortunately strengthening status quo. The dreams of our
constitutional forefathers remain unfilled as the shortsightedness of
our current political class and legitimization of the communal
organisations as ‘nationalist’ political parties .</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
BY : <span style="color: #990000;"><b>Vidya Bhushan Rawat.</b></span></div>
</div>
Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-51529804558066807072012-11-06T02:47:00.000+06:002012-11-06T02:47:04.504+06:00Genocide of the Rohingyas of Myanmar <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1mBV-Xo1vUs/UJgloJdMVPI/AAAAAAAAE-w/dj7cD0mzkwU/s1600/n00178283-r-b-000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1mBV-Xo1vUs/UJgloJdMVPI/AAAAAAAAE-w/dj7cD0mzkwU/s320/n00178283-r-b-000.jpg" width="254" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Part 1: Current Situation inside Arakan</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Myanmar’s western state of Arakan (Rakhine) is again burning. In Mrauk-U, the former capital of the independent kingdom of Arakan,
hundreds of young Rakhine Buddhist men were on the march: packed on the
backs of pickups, on motorcycles, on trishaws, tuk-tuks and bicycles,
but mostly on foot. They carried spears, swords, cleavers, bamboo
staves, slingshots, crossbows and the occasional petrol bomb. Their
target: the unarmed Rohingya Muslims. As the Economist (dated Nov. 3,
2012) of the UK noted, one Buddhist terrorist tugged at an imaginary beard and made a grisly throat-cutting gesture.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Sadly, Mrauk-U is not the only town where Rohingya Muslims are facing
a genocidal campaign at the hands of Rakhine terrorists. From the
reports collected inside Myanmar,
there is little doubt that the Rakhine Buddhist terrorists, aided by
local and central government politicians, police and security forces,
are carrying out a pre-meditated genocidal campaign to exterminate and
drive out every Rohingya of Burma (Myanmar). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So atrocious and criminal this campaign is even the president of
Myanmar, who had previously tried to hide such targeted violence, had to
admit on Friday, October 26 (as reported in the pro-government
newspaper the New Light of Myanmar) that eight mosques (Muslim houses of
worship) and 2,000 of Rohingya homes were torched to completely destroy
these. His spokesman told the BBC this weekend that "there have been
incidents of whole villages and parts of the towns being burnt down in
Rakhine state." The actual facts and figures, however, are much worse!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<strong>It is feared that in the last week of October at least 5,000
Rohingya homes were burned to ashes. Satellite imagery shows the utter
destruction of a Muslim quarter of the coastal town of </strong>Kyaukphyu<strong>, from where oil-and-gas pipelines are to cross </strong>Myanmar<strong> to </strong>China<strong>.</strong>
In this latest genocidal campaign, the Muslim villages and localities
in townships are cordoned off and fire bombed. Anyone trying to escape
from their burned homes is shot dead by the Rakhine Buddhist terrorists
and their patrons within the government. Racist Rakhine politicians and
monks are creating an environment of racial/religious hatred and
intolerance which justifies all types of violence against the unarmed
Rohingya population. Many Rohingyas have, therefore, tried to escape to
the forest or the open seas, only to be hunted down there, too. Last
week, hundreds died when their boats sank in the Bay of Bengal. Others are forced to sneak out to Bangladesh. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Denied entry, many have ended up in squalid camps in Sittwe (Akyab) to
join others who have been confined there since early June. Dozens of
Rohingya girls were also kidnapped by the Rakhine terrorists to use rape
and kidnap as weapons of war to terrorize the Rohingya populace.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It is an all out extermination campaign against the Rohingyas of
Myanmar. In a statement dated Thursday, October 25, Ashok Nigam, a
United Nations official in Myanmar,
said, "The UN is alarmed by reports of displacements and destruction.”
He said that access to all affected people is critical and appealed for
immediate and unconditional access to all communities in accordance with
humanitarian principles.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As I have pointed out earlier in my speeches and writings, the Myanmar
government wants to hide its heinous crimes against the Rohingya people
and, thus, have not allowed access of the international media, NGOs,
aid groups and even the UN to the troubled region to investigate,
monitor and assess the scale of the violence. Since the elimination of
the Rohingya people one way or another is the declared state objective,
no aid has reached from the Myanmar
government agencies to the Muslim victims. And what is worse, even the
relief materials sent from the OIC and the Islamic Relief have not
reached the intended Rohingya victims. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Less than 10% of such aids have
trickled down to the victims. The Myanmar government, thanks to the
state-managed protests and demonstrations in October by racist Buddhists
that included monks, has also barred the OIC and Muslim relief agencies
from opening offices inside the Rakhine state to help the Rohingya
victims.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Not a single Buddhist terrorist has been punished for the gruesome
murder of Muslims, not then and not now. All what we heard from the
Thein Sein government was that it had identified the instigators behind
the violence and pledged to bring them to justice. But as we have
witnessed earlier with the June 3 lynching death of 10 Burmese Muslims,
such promises have not translated into justice, let alone created an
atmosphere that protects the lives and properties of the affected
Rohingya minority.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It is obvious that the Thein Sein government is playing the
cat-and-mouse game with the world community with false promises made to
divert attention away when the satellite pictures are too obvious and
difficult to hide such crimes, and once the outside pressure is low to
encourage and participate in this heinous crime. As such the pogroms
that started in June 3 with nearly a hundred thousand internally
displaced Rohingyas have only worsened with extra tens of thousands that
are now without any shelter. The once thriving Muslim localities now
look like bombed-out territories. No Rohingya has been allowed back in
to rebuild those properties. They have been caged in camps that look
like the Nazi concentration camps from which they can’t venture out to
fetch their livelihood without risking being shot by the Rakhine
Buddhist security forces. They have been placed there to slowly die.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Terrorizing the unarmed Rohingya population has become a Rakhine
national passion. The Border Security Force (NASAKA) continues to remind
the Rohingya people that Arakan is a Rakhine place where there is no
place for the Rohingya Muslims and that they must leave or will be
killed. Newer territories are added to the list of ethnically cleansed
ones to terrorize Rohingya Muslims and exterminate them. The Section
144, which prohibits an assembly of more than five people in an area, is
only applied against the Rohingya. They cannot go out to protect their
homes, shops, mosques, schools and villages from being looted and set on
fire by the Rakhine terrorists who are not stopped from committing such
crimes by the security forces.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In most cases, these criminal Rakhines are aided by the government. There have been cases, e.g., as in Kyauk Pyu Township,
in which instead of dousing the fire with water, the Buddhist firemen
sprayed gasoline into the fire to complete the destruction! "The firemen
threw petrol on the flames, as if it was water! The authorities are
one-sided. We can never trust them," said a local teacher to <span class="apple-converted-space">Pete Pattisson</span>,
a journalist working for the Independent (UK). Last Wednesday, the
entire Muslim community in Kyauk Pyu decided to flee in their fishing
boats, joining thousands of others trying to escape from being killed or
burned alive<span class="apple-converted-space">. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="apple-converted-space">Former Muslim
residents of Pauk Taw told the Independent that a government ferryboat
had rammed their fishing boats at sea, resulting in drowning deaths of
dozens. Those who had fled and made it ashore have been prevented by
government authorities from landing on the coast. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Satellite images of Kyauk
Pyu and its coastal surroundings, released by the Human Rights Watch at
the weekend, show the extent of the devastation. Where once there were
houseboats and floating barges moored along a harbor town packed with
houses, now there is charred desolation, with 811 homes and other
structures destroyed.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
All the victims in recent months have also been Muslims and yet the
Thein Sein government tries to portray the violence in the Rakhine state
as an interracial or communal riot.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
What is going on inside the Rakhine state is simply a <i>purposeful
policy designed by the Myanmar government in which the members of the
majority Rakhine ethnic group, which is Buddhist by faith, are willing
executioners to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the
civilian population of the Rohingya ethnic community, which are Muslims,
from the geographic areas of Arakan and Myanmar</i>. The United Nations
define such activities as ethnic cleansing. No hog-washing by the
murderous regime and its supporters at home and abroad will succeed to
hide such monumental crimes.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Part 2: Ethnic Cleansing of the Rohingyas of Myanmar</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people is a text book case. It has become a national project that is led by the Myanmar
state at the central level and the Rakhine state at the local level,
supported by a good percentage of the Buddhist nation and its dominant
Burman and Rakhine ethnic groups, and which employs large institutional
and material resources. The local Rakhine politicians and terrorists,
the Buddhist monks and mobs, and the entire state apparatus from the
local to the central government level are enthusiastic partners in this
project towards final solution of the Rohingya problem.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It was no accident, therefore, to witness demonstrations of monks,
esp. those organized by Young Monks Association, supporting Thein Sein’s
plan to expel the Rohingyas from Myanmar.
The largest such demonstration was led by Wirathu, considered a
venerable teacher by many Buddhists. He is a criminal who was imprisoned
in 2003 for inciting violence against the Muslims. It is no accident
that Suu Kyi spoke with forked tongues and that her NLD party has
actually been supporting the national project towards elimination of the
Rohingya people. Many of the so-called ‘democracy’ leaders have proven
to be no better than fascists and are actually worse than the KKK
members.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The worst criminals in this extermination campaign are, however, the
fellow Rakhine Buddhists, whose ancestors settled in Arakan beginning in
the 11<sup>th</sup> century, i.e., centuries after the darker
complexioned Indo-Bengali ancestors of the Rohingya people had already
settled in this coastal territory once ruled by the Hindu Chandra
dynasty, which had closer ties with Bengal (today’s Bangladesh). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
With that intrusion, albeit a violent one, of the Tibeto-Burman
people, the forefathers of today’s Rakhine race, who professed Buddhism,
the original inhabitant Hindus and Muslims gradually became minority
religious groups. However, in 1430 when two contingents of Muslim Army
from Bengal, comprising of more than 50,000 soldiers, restored the
fleeing Arakanese king Narameikhla (Maung Saw Mawn) to the throne of
Arakan, and a great many of them were asked to protect the regime
against any future Burmese invasion, the new settlements of the Muslim
garrison around the new capital city of Mrohang (Mrauk-U) greatly added
to the size of the minority Muslim community.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<strong>The Arakanese rulers of Mrauk-U dynasty adopted superior
Islamic culture from nearby Muslim Bengal/India, and issued coins with
Islamic inscriptions. They patronized Bengali literature. They also
adopted Muslim names, a practice that was to continue for generations
well into the 16<sup>th</sup> century. Muslims played major roles in
administration, courts and defense of this multi-ethnic kingdom that
maintained its independence for centuries until its annexation by the
Burmese king Bodawpaya in 1784.</strong></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Bodawpaya was a Buddhist religious fanatic who tried to demolish
everything Islamic. He introduced racism and bigotry into this
multi-religious region. He destroyed mosques that once dotted the
shorelines of Arakan and patronized building Buddhist monasteries and
pagodas. He massacred tens of thousands of Muslims, and took another
20,000 as prisoners during his annexation of Arakan. During his
tyrannical rule, some 200,000 Arakanese also fled to Bengal (today’s Bangladesh),
which by then was under the British rule. After 40-years of Burmese
rule (1784-1824), Arakan was occupied by the English East India Company
who ruled the territory until Burma won its independence on January 4, 1948.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
During the Second World War, taking advantage of the Japanese occupation of Burma,
the Buddhist forces which had allied themselves with the Fascist
Japanese Imperial Army against the British Raj, targeted the Indian and
Muslim population and their homes and businesses. Even the Rohingya
Muslims who lived in the western territories did not escape the
extermination campaign. Nearly a hundred thousand of them were killed in
that joint campaign. They were pushed out of the southern parts of the
Arakan state; and many managed to survive by living in northern territories, closer to the Bengal, where they were a solid majority. Another 80,000 settled permanently in Bengal to save their lives. Two hundred and ninety four Muslim villages were totally destroyed.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Even after </strong></span>Burma<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>
achieved its independence, sadly, the mass elimination and targeted
violence against the Rohingya and other Muslims continued. To the best
of my knowledge, at least two dozen campaigns have been directed against
them to ethnically cleanse them. These are:</strong></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
01. Military Operation (5th Burma Regiment) - November 1948<br /> 02. Burma Territorial Force (BTF) - Operation 1949-50<br /> 03. Military Operation (2nd Emergency Chin regiment) - March 1951-52<br /> 04. Mayu Operation - October 1952-53<br /> 05. Mone-thone Operation - October 1954<br /> 06. Combined Immigration and Army Operation - January 1955<br /> 07. Union Military Police (UMP) Operation - 1955-58<br /> 08. Captain Htin Kyaw Operation - 1959<br /> 09. Shwe Kyi Operation - October 1966<br /> 10. Kyi Gan Operation - October-December 1966<br /> 11. Ngazinka Operation - 1967-69<br /> 12. Myat Mon Operation - February 1969-71<br /> 13. Major Aung Than Operation - 1973<br /> 14. Sabe Operation February - 1974-78</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
15. <b>Naga-Min (</b>King Dragon) <b>Operation - February 1978-79 (resulting in exodus of some 300,000 Rohingyas to Bangladesh; 40,000 died)<br /> </b>16. Shwe Hintha Operation - August 1978-80<br /> 17. Galone Operation - 1979<br /> 18. 1984 Pogrom in Taunggok</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
19. Anti-Muslim riots - Taunggyi (western Burma), Pyay and many other parts of Burma including Rangoon - 1987-88</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
20. <b>Pyi Thaya Operation – July 1991-92 (resulting in exodus of some 268,000 Rohingyas to Bangladesh)</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
21. Na-Sa-Ka Operation – since 1992</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
22. Race riot against Muslims – March 1997 (Mandalay)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
23. Anti-Muslim riot in Sittwe – February 2001</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
24. Anti-Muslim full-scale riot in Central Burma – May 2001</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
25. Anti-Muslim violence throughout central Burma (especially in the cities of Pyay/Prome, Bago/Pegu) after 9/11 – October 2001</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
26. <b>Joint extermination</b> campaign – June 3, 2012 – to date.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Every attempt has been made by the Myanmar
government since the days of General Ne Win to ethnically cleanse the
Rohingya people and deny them human rights. They were declared
stateless, thus licensing every crime directed against them; not a
single Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was honored.
Here below is a shortlist of such crimes against the Rohingya people:</div>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li>•<i>Denial of Citizenship</i></li>
<li>•<i>Restriction of Movement or Travel</i></li>
<li>•<i>Restriction on Education</i></li>
<li>•<i>Restriction on Ability to work</i></li>
<li>•<i>Forced Labor </i></li>
<li>•<i>Land Confiscation </i></li>
<li>•<i>Forced Eviction </i></li>
<li>•<i>Destruction of homes, offices, schools, mosques, etc.</i></li>
<li>•<i>Religious persecution</i></li>
<li>•<i>Ethnic discrimination</i></li>
<li>•<i>Restrictions on Marriage of Rohingyas </i></li>
<li>•<i>Prevention of reproduction and forced abortion</i></li>
<li>•<i>Arbitrary Taxation and Extortion</i></li>
<li>•<i>Registration of births and deaths in families and even of cattle, and the associated extortion</i></li>
<li>•<i>Arbitrary arrest, torture and extra-judicial killing</i></li>
<li>•<i>Abuse of Rohingya Women and Elders</i></li>
<li>•<i>Rape as a weapon of war</i></li>
<li>•<i>Depopulation of Rohingya community</i></li>
<li>•<i>Confiscation of residency/citizenship cards</i></li>
<li>•<i>Internally displaced persons or undocumented refugees and statelessness</i></li>
<li>•<i>Destruction or alteration of historical Muslim sites and shrines to erase its symbolism or Islamic identity.</i></li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Part 3: All Over Arakan It’s Bosnia Again!</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In a meeting (in which I was invited to speak on the Rohingya
problem) held in Luton (located 30 miles north of London), UK, on
October 13, a British MP mentioned close parallel between what is
happening today against the Rohingya Muslims in Arakan and what happened
in Bosnia in the early 1990s against the Bosnian Muslims. He is right.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Arakan state, which per estimates made by Dr. Shwe Lu Maung alias Shahnewaz Khan, in his book – <b><i>The Price of Silence: Muslim-Buddhist War of Bangladesh and Myanmar – a Social Darwinist’s Analysis</i></b>
– had probably as many Rohingya Muslims as there were Rakhine Buddhists
living in its four districts before the latest extermination campaign
that began on June 3 of this year, is now almost devoid of any Muslim
village that is unharmed or intact by Buddhist Rakhine terrorism.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The UN and other international human rights groups have called the
Rohingya Muslims, and rightly so, the worst persecuted people in our
planet. Because of their race and religion, they are victims of genocide
in the Buddhist-majority Myanmar.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Truly, no other word in the English language but genocide can
describe what the Rohingya people are facing. The use of this term
should not come as a surprise since the Merriam-Webster dictionary
defines genocide as "the deliberate and systematic destruction of a
racial, political or cultural group.” As noted by experts, the term can
be applied to such destructions in whole or<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>in part of an<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>ethnic, racial,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>religious,
or national group. By any definition, the Rohingya people of Arakan are
ethnically, racially, religiously different than the Rakhine Buddhists
and majority Burmans in Myanmar.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In his book – <b>Worse than War </b>– Dr. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
cites five principal forms of elimination: transformation, repression,
expulsion, prevention of reproduction, and extermination. Transformation
involves the destruction of a targeted group’s essential and defining
political, social, or cultural identities. As I have mentioned earlier,
in spite of their ties to the soil of Arakan since time immemorial, the
Rohingyas are falsely alleged by the dominant ethnic groups as new
settlers from nearby Bangladesh.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Repression entails keeping the hated, deprecated, or feared people
within territorial reach and reducing, with violent domination, their
ability to inflict real or imagined harm upon others. Such repression
has been a regular feature of Rohingya life inside Myanmar.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Expulsion, often called deportation, is a third eliminationist
option. It removes unwanted people more thoroughly, by driving them
beyond a country’s borders, or from one region of a country to another,
or compelling them en masse into camps. The Myanmar government since the days of Ne Win has been guilty of this crime.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Prevention of reproduction is the fourth eliminationist act, which the Myanmar
government has been employing in conjunction with others. Not only are
the Rohingya families restricted from marrying, the women are often
forcibly sterilized, forced to abort and very often raped. In recent
months, during attacks on Muslim homes, villages and towns the
kidnapping of the Rohingya girls and women have become a recurring
event.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Extermination is the fifth eliminationist act in which the targeted
groups are killed, often with the excuse that their very existence poses
a mortal threat. It promises not an interim, not a piecemeal, not only a
probable, but a “final solution” to the putative problem. It is not
difficult to see why in recent weeks, poisoned oil and food were sold to
the Rohingya people by Rakhine businessmen to kill them. The latest
activities by the Rakhine terrorists, aided by racist monks and others
within the larger Myanmar
society, including murderous politicians and government authorities,
thus, clearly show that Rohingyas are victims of an extermination act.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A comparison with the previously cited list of crimes of the Myanmar
government clearly shows that Rohingyas are facing all the five forms
of elimination. It is a complete package of annihilation of the Rohingya
people!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Genocide requires preparation and planning. It begins in the minds of
men and needs mass mobilization to commit the horror against the
targeted group. The perpetrators or the executioners must not only feel
secure but also must be self-motivated and zealous to commit their
horrendous crimes. Often times, the task of preparing the mind is left
to ideologues and chauvinist intellectuals who sell the poison tablet of
intolerance against the targeted group. Without political leadership
the overwhelming majority of the perpetrators would not lift a finger in
harm. However, once set in motion, typically with a few encouraging and
enabling words, they, both the eliminationist regimes’ shock troops and
their societies’ ordinary members give themselves, body and soul, to
death. They do so easily, effortlessly. And this is what we are
witnessing today in Myanmar, esp. the Arakan state.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Taking a cue from other places where genocides have taken place, the
leaders of this greatest crime of our time - the Myanmar government, the
local Rakhine politicians and intelligentsia, and their racist Buddhist
monks within the general population -- have been feeding many myths for
public consumption that not only distort the history of the Rohingyas
and other non-Buddhists but also exaggerate the potential benefits that
could come from ‘purifying’ the soils of Myanmar and Arakan by
eliminating the ‘other’ people, esp. the Rohingya Muslims. Thanks to the
poisonous writings of Rakhine chauvinists like Aye Chan, (late) Aye
Kyaw, Khin Maung Saw and others, the Muslim population is deemed an
‘influx virus,’ a threat to the Buddhist identity of Myanmar,
esp. of Arakan. Thus, a pervasive slogan that is often heard and
discussed in the media is that the Rakhine people can’t live any more
with the Rohingya ‘terrorists.’ Forgotten in such biased reporting is
the mere fact that all the victims of the carnage have been Rohingya
people. It is they who are terrorized by Buddhist terrorism, and not the
other way around!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The causes of mass murder can often be found in the ideology that the
state espouses. Social and ethnic compositions are usually the fault
lines along which such elimination projects emanate. As I have noted
elsewhere, the Myanmar
government espouses a new Myanmarism in which racism and bigotry are
the defining ideologies to purify its soil of all the non-Buddhists and
non-Mongoloid races. Its mosaic of identities - ethnic, racial,
religious, linguistic and cultural, and the resulting diversity, which
could have been its greatest strength is seen in this toxic ideology as
its greatest weakness.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In 1935, years before the Jewish Holocaust happened in Germany, anti-Jewish racist and bigotry-ridden laws were promulgated in the German city of Nuremberg
stopping social and economic contacts with the Jews. The Jews also lost
the right to vote and hold office. Within the next eight years, 13
implementation ordinances were issued dealing with the enforcement of<span class="apple-converted-space"> the </span><i>Reich</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Citizenship Law that progressively marginalized the Jewish community in Germany.
Anyone violating these laws was punished by hard labor, imprisonment
and/or fines. Such laws were exploited by hard-core Nazis to destroy
properties of a people that the authorities would not generally protect.
Truly, it is hard to imagine the Jewish Holocaust in Europe
without those Nuremberg Laws. The recently issued religious edicts from
Buddhist monks banning social and economic ties with the Rohingya
people, in particular, and the Muslims, in general, is a sufficient
reminder and a dire warning about the ugly head of genocide that is
emerging now in Myanmar, esp. in its western state of Arakan.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As I have noted in my keynote speech at the Bangkok Conference on
“Contemplating Burma’s Rohingya People’s Future in Reconciliation and
(Democratic) Reform,” the new Myanmarism, espoused by the Buddhist
political leadership inside Myanmar,
is totalitarian and is akin to neo-Nazi Fascism. Its leaders and
followers erase distinction between politics and religion, wanting to
merge their racist and fascist politics with and subordinate to radical
Theravada Buddhism that is extremist, fundamentalist, racist, violent
and intolerant of all religions except its own. This toxic ideology is a
sure recipe for disaster in a country like Myanmar
with some 140 ethnic groups and minority Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and
Hindus comprising 15 to 20 percent of the total population. It breeds
intolerance and promotes violence that is officially sanctioned by
people in authority and supported by vast majority of its people as a
national project. This hybrid cocktail of Burmese racist supremacy and
intolerant Buddhism is a threat not only to its minority races and
religions, but also to the entire region.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Sadly, however, because of the western appetite for Myanmar’s natural resources, the crimes of the Myanmar
and Rakhine government are overlooked. And instead, the root causes
behind the targeted violence against the Rohingya Muslims are falsely
attributed to poverty and lack of economic opportunities – points
recently made by Victoria Nuland of the U.S. State Department.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
There is, however, no doubt that in spite of Myanmar’s enormous natural resources, the country remains the poorest of the ASEAN countries, and South-east Asia.
But to say that poverty is at the heart of the genocidal campaign is a
linguistic camouflage to justice U.S. State Department’s silence on the
grievous nature of the crimes committed by the murderous Myanmar
government. We have heard similar excuses during the Bosnian and Rwandan
genocidal campaigns. There are many countries with worse poverty but
the powerful majority there doesn’t commit acts of genocide against the
minority. For genocide to happen, it is always a national project in
which people of all walks of life participate, and that is what is
happening with the Rohingya problem inside Myanmar.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For years, China, India and other Asia Pacific countries have been doing business with the brutal military regime in Myanmar. Human rights were never a priority. Many of the European and North American countries were left out from a share at that Myanmar pie. For them to join in, they needed a face change with Myanmar.
And that devious process started first with the award of the Nobel
Peace Prize to Suu Kyi – who did not merit it, and then with the change
of the uniform of the old guards who not long ago had donned the
military dress to claim that they are reform-minded. It was a Glasnost
moment for Burma, which was renamed Myanmar.
That claim was followed with a controversial election held in 2010
(followed by a by-election in which Suu Kyi’s NLD enthusiastically
participated) to show that Myanmar was moving from a fascist military
oligarchy into a democracy, and then the trip of Suu Kyi as Thein Sein’s
unofficial ambassador to the western world pleading for opening up
trade and commerce relationship with the government. And in this warming
up session, the last play was played during Thein Sein’s trip to the UN
where he met with Ban Ki-Moon and other western leaders.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Soon thereafter one after another of the western governments, too
keen to eat their share of the pie, lifted all previous bans against the
murderous regime. They promised huge investments. Emboldened by such
moves, the Thein Sein government does not feel that it is obligated to
honor any previous pledge made to the world community. Soon after his
return from the UN session, the racist Buddhist monks conducted stage
managed demonstrations asking the government to force out or relocate
Muslims. In government managed newspapers, they announced dire
consequences against anyone doing any business with Muslims including
selling food and buying or renting out homes to and from them. As hinted
above, it is a copy of the Nazi era policy. It is a total package of
ethnically cleansing Myanmar
of the Muslim population, in general, and the Rohingyas, in particular.
So insidious is Myanmar’s Buddhist fascism, the Rakhine Buddhists
living inside and outside Arakan and their patrons in the
Buddhist-majority Myanmar do not want any Muslim, esp. the Rohingya,
living inside Myanmar, esp. in the Rakhine state.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As I have noted elsewhere, ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people has now become a national project in Myanmar
in which most Buddhists of Myanmar including the so-called democracy
icon Aung San Suu Kyi are willing participants one way or another. Even
when they are not personally participating in this heinous crime,
through their sinister silence and/or endorsement of the regime’s
anti-Rohingya policy and the genocidal campaign that is carried out by
criminal Rakhine Buddhists, they have essentially become partners in
this crime. The Rakhine Buddhists now have their own version of
Kristallnacht. They are mimicking the Nazi Party's series of pogroms in
1938, whereby one Jewish township after another was attacked. At this
rate of destruction, there won’t be any Muslim locality left inside
Arakan, their ancestral home.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
None of these attacks since June 3 are isolated, unplanned, or
spontaneous offenses. Already made stateless by the highly
discriminatory 1982 Citizenship Law that is at variance with scores of
international laws, the Rohingyas are falsely blamed by fascist Rakhine
politicians for crimes that they did not commit so that the Buddhist
populace could be incited to accept and assist the progressively savage
operations of "race purification." Lynching attacks are organized by Aye
Maung’s fascist party - RNDP and other equally racist Rakhine
politicians and greedy businessmen to loot Rohingya properties and burn
their homes, businesses and mosques. Rohingya property is confiscated.
In this task the Rakhine-dominated security forces and police are
willing partners. As a result, the Rohingyas are now caged in
concentration-like camps and ghettos or pushed into exile. The genocidal
program is progressing in fury and irresponsibility to the "final
solution"<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>to make them an extinct people.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
We can still stop this extinction if our powerful western governments
act. They can pressure the Thein Sein government through the UN
Security Council not only to stop this ethnic cleansing and restore
Rohingya citizenship, but also ensure that the Rohingyas are compensated
for their loss of lives and properties and live with safety and
security under UN-monitored safe havens created to the west of the Kaladan River. If the regime resists such tangible changes, the UNSC members can take the criminal leaders of Myanmar
and the Rakhine state to a Nuremberg-type trial for committing heinous
crimes against humanity, let alone ban all economic transactions with
the rogue regime.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Unfortunately, the attitude of the powerful nations towards the
Rohingya problem is a reminiscent of the Nazi era; they refuse to see
and hear the obvious truth. It is simply immoral and inexcusable. They
are buying and parroting the Myanmar
regime's argument, that the conflict is basically two-sided with two
large racial groups attacking each other. This is a false equivalence.
When all the townships that are burning, and refugees, are from one side
– the Rohingya, and when renowned activists, Buddhist monks, and local
Rakhine politicians and students are using language reminiscent of the
Nazi propaganda, something truly catastrophic is underway seeking "final
solution" of the Rohingya problem. Nothing can hide this ugly truth!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Rakhine (Arakan) state now looks like a prison-like ghetto for
the Rohingya people. Now, the Rohingya homes are ring-fenced by
burnt-out buildings and military checkpoints. Outside the capital city
of Sittwe (Akyab), up to
100,000 more Rohingyas are living in a series of sweltering refugee
camps where malnourishment and disease are rife and where security
forces and local Rakhine activists impede aid workers from operating
freely. As a result of years of persecution and a slow but steady
genocidal campaign, half the Rohingya population has already been pushed
out. Others living inside are counting their days to get out of this
living hell. Can our generation allow such an obliteration of an entire
community?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
How many Rohingya deaths and destruction of their homes would qualify
for these powerful nations to act and stop this most far-flung and
terrible racial persecution of our time? How can we ignore or tolerate
such a calculated, malignant and devastating crime, which epitomizes
racial hatreds, religious bigotry, terrorism and violence, and the
arrogance and cruelty of power?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It is sad to see that we have not learned anything from genocides of the past – neither from Hitler’s Germany nor from the more recent ones in Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda.
Linguistic camouflages are still used to minimize the nature of the
crime faced by the Rohingya people. Many reporters relaying the events
are using prefixes like “alleged” only to obfuscate what is really
happening. Many local reporters are absolutely biased and are guilty of
disseminating government propaganda.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In his closing remarks before the International Military Tribunal at
the Nuremberg Trials in 1946, Robert Jackson, the U.S. Chief Prosecutor,
issued the following warning: “The reality is that in the long
perspective of history the present century will not hold an admirable
position, unless its second half is to redeem its first. These two-score
years in the twentieth century will be recorded in the book of years as
one of the most bloody in all annals. Two World Wars have left a legacy
of dead which number more than all the armies engaged in any way that
made ancient or medieval history. No half-century ever witnessed
slaughter on such a scale, such cruelties and inhumanities, such
wholesale deportations of peoples into slavery, such annihilations of
minorities. The terror of Torquemada pales before the Nazi Inquisition.
These deeds are the overshadowing historical facts by which generations
to come will remember this decade. If we cannot eliminate the causes and
prevent the repetition of these barbaric events, it is not an
irresponsible prophecy to say that this twentieth century may yet
succeed in bringing the doom of civilization.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Witnessing the latest genocidal campaign against the Rohingyas of
Myanmar, it is obvious that we have failed on both counts - to eliminate
"the causes" and to prevent "the repetition of these barbaric events." </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://bangladesh-web.com/new/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2315:genocide-of-the-rohingyas-of-myanmar&catid=39:highlights&Itemid=438" target="_blank">Source :</a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-73298516492837656922012-11-05T05:08:00.001+06:002012-11-05T05:09:54.873+06:00Pakistani ISI circulating counterfeit currency in India and Bangladesh<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AX-HGxO74fg/UJb1RgfM4cI/AAAAAAAAE9A/8NRACOVQgk8/s1600/ISI-Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AX-HGxO74fg/UJb1RgfM4cI/AAAAAAAAE9A/8NRACOVQgk8/s320/ISI-Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Pakistani spy agency Inter Service Intelligence [ISI] is printing
counterfeit Indian and Bangladeshi currencies from the state-owned
security printing presses under special arrangement and circulating the
same through well organized network, which is coordinated by senior ISI
officials. Although India's National Investigation Agency [NIA]
estimated over 16,000 crore [1 crore = 10 million] of counterfeit Indian
currencies in circulation, the actual volume of such currencies are
believed to be much above the estimation. Despite such counterfeit
Indian currencies being regularly seized by members of law enforcement
agencies in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan and Holland, the
frequency of such illegal circulation could never be either contained or
stopped.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Central Economic Intelligence Bureau [CEIB] in India says that
the NIA, the CBI, the DRI and police have detected only 28 to 30 per
cent of fake currency actually circulating in the market. The quantity
of fake currency floating around in the country is enough to keep the
terrorist machinery well-oiled and running. The price of a counterfeit
Rupees 100 Indian note sold in by the ISI-run racket at the one fifth
prices to the distribution network. According to intelligence reports,
major portion of the fund received from the distribution of counterfeit
Indian and Bangladeshi currencies are used by ISI in giving financial
backing to various terrorist and jihadist outfits such as
Lashkar-e-Tayiba, Hizbut Tahrir, Hizbut Towhid and other militancy
groups in Jammu and Kashmir. ISI is also running illegal trade of
smuggling narcotics from Afghanistan and Pakistani frontier provinces to
various destinations in Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka and
Myanmar, while a large volume of such narcotics are re-directed to
various Western destinations by using Bangladesh in particular as
transit route. Few years back, a Bangladeshi business and manufacturing
enterprise named B D Foods, which has closer ties with Bangladesh
Jamaat-e-Islami were caught red-handed while shipping heroin concealed
inside raw fish.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In recent past, the Pakistani ISI also started pumping counterfeit
Indian currency via Vietnam as their previous route using Thailand has
already come to a total halt due to strict measures taken by the Thai
authorities. Counterfeit Indian currencies are being smuggled to India
by some assigned 'carriers' of ISI, most of who are females. Counterfeit
currencies are tactfully hidden within bodies of the carriers, while
they also use specially made suitcases which has metallic compartment to
hide the fake currencies. Counterfeit currencies hidden in the
compartments can easily cheat eyes of the scanners at Nepalese airport.
At the same time, counterfeit Indian currencies are also transported by
ISI 'carriers' inside electronic and electrical appliances, including
refrigerators. In recent past, Vietnam has turned into the major hub of
pumping counterfeit currencies to India via Nepal. The ISI men also send
package of counterfeit currencies through international courier service
on a regular basis.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
According to Indian intelligence sources, during 2011, ISI pumped
counterfeit Indian currency worth US$ 250 million. An ISI official named
Aslam Chaudhury plays key role in transportation of counterfeit Indian
and Bangladeshi currencies through their regional network of carriers.
Each year, ISI pumps counterfeit Bangladeshi currency worth more than
US$ 50 million. It was also revealed by the Indian intelligence agencies
that, ISI produces each of the RS 100 counterfeit notes at the cost of
RS 20 only, while the cost of production by the Indian federal bank is
above RS 38. The counterfeit currencies are printing in highest
precision and in most cases; these are similar to those of genuine
notes. ISI's agenda is not only to fund terror outfits through
distribution of the counterfeit currency, but also to put adverse
pressure on the national economy and monetary system in Bangladesh and
India.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The counterfeit Bangladeshi currency notes are pumped by Pakistani
ISI through a number of ways. In most cases, the counterfeit currency is
carried by few airline staffs, who work for ISI against healthy
compensation, while the distribution of counterfeit currency are
coordinated by unscrupulous employees of several nationalized financial
institutions. Counterfeit Bangladeshi currency is missed up with genuine
currencies and bundled by those bank employees and circulated to
people. In most cases, innocent people, who are deceived by the bank
employees with counterfeit currencies, end up into hands of law
enforcing and intelligence agencies, thus suffering legal consequences,
while the main culprits always remain out of reach. It is even learnt
from dependable sources that a section of employees working at the
vaults of the central bank are also linked with the counterfeit currency
racket and replaces the genuine notes with the counterfeits, while due
to high-precision printing methods, it is nearly impossible detecting
the counterfeit currencies even in the regular scanning devices.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Seeking anonymity, a senior government official in India said, most
of the counterfeit Indian currency notes seized by the law enforcing
agencies over the last few years have been of a higher denomination.
"Printing of high-quality fake currency of a higher denomination is
helping the counterfeiter earning huge profit, which is being used to
fund terror operations inside India, besides destabilizing country's
economy. Circulation of Bangladeshi counterfeit currency by ISI
significantly increased since Bangladesh Awami League came into power in
2009. In India, out of each of the four RS 1000 currency notes, one is
detected to be counterfeit. The situation is also becoming alarming with
Bangladeshi currency.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In 2009, Pakistani spy agency ISI eliminated Majid Manihar, who was
believed to be the top kingpin of distributing counterfeit Indian and
Bangladeshi currency in Nepal. Manihar was one of the key links of ISI
in Manihar and he is believed to be killed by the Pakistani spy agency,
when his son Vicky was arrested with counterfeit currency, which
resulted in Majid Manihar being under strict eyes of the Indian
intelligence. Manihar was shot dead in a hotel in Nepalganj in Nepal.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The ISI handlers were suspecting that Manihar was bargaining with
Indian agencies for the release of his son. They also feared an eventual
crackdown on their network. So, they got rid of Manihar by getting him
killed by hired killers. Manihar's son Vicky, after his arrest by a
district police team of India led by SP Lalji Shukla, had given some
vital leads about the fake currency business in the border area. He had
also revealed ISI's role in the FICN operations and his father's links
with Dawood Ibrahim.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In Bangladesh, the distribution of counterfeit currency note by ISI is
coordinated by a man named Ismail, who belongs to Aga Khan Community,
who has closer ties with Dawood Ibrahim and his network. Ismail, a
Pakistani citizen also is reportedly holding British passport runs a
huge distribution network of counterfeit currencies in Bangladesh, which
has a large number of female cadres in the racket. The racket also
maintains closer links with a section of unscrupulous employees of
various banking institutions in Bangladesh.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://www.weeklyblitz.net/2720/pakistani-isi-circulating-counterfeit-currency-in" target="_blank">Source : </a></div>
</div>
Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-39573340399247830512012-10-28T00:45:00.001+06:002012-10-28T00:45:20.146+06:00Tipaimukh Dam: Trans-boundary impact assessment and state of customary int’l law <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0C2LLSAjtnI/UIwrXecmAAI/AAAAAAAAE4g/tv_3Q-v1C-0/s1600/stop+tipaimukh+dam-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0C2LLSAjtnI/UIwrXecmAAI/AAAAAAAAE4g/tv_3Q-v1C-0/s320/stop+tipaimukh+dam-1.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The issue of utilisation of Tran boundary water resources (TWRs)
between India and its neighbours China, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and
Bangladesh is a crucial source of regional conflict. Bangladesh and
India share 54 TWRs. None of these water resources are being utilised
according to the international rules and practices or multilateral
integrated management planning. Riparian states are attempting to solve
the water inadequacy problem through national unilateral actions and
limited bilateral cooperation.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
These approaches do not offer the minimum sustainable benefits to its
riparian states. Rather, they are causing the depletion of available
water, and socioeconomic and environmental problems. The upstream state,
India constructed a series of structures, such as dams, barrages,
reservoirs or regulators to block the free natural and regular flow of
the waters of TWRs shared by the downstream state Bangladesh. Such water
controls are built on the Mahananda at Banglabandh, on the Teesta at
Gazaldoba, on the Manu at Nalkata, on the Khowai at Chakmaghal, on the
Gumti at Maharani, on the Ganges at Farakka, and on the Dakatia at
Kalsi.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So far the information available, none of these constructions project
followed the fundamental principles of international law relating to
the utilisation of an international water course, such as prior
notification, consultation, environmental impact assessment (EIA), not
to cause damage to other states, riparian right of access to water and
equitable sharing of water. Hence, the dire consequences of these
unilateral actions over the TWRs make Bangladesh worry about the
socioeconomic impacts of other future projects.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<strong>Recently, the upper riparian state India has initiated an
ambitious unilateral action plan to implement the Inter-River Linking
Project (IRLP) to link 37 rivers excavating 9,000 kilometres of more
than 600 long canals by building hundreds of reservoirs to give water
access to 150 million hectares of land in India from the waters of the
Brahmaputra to the Ganges, from the Ganges to the Mahananda and the
Godabari in the next decade. The IRLP is a big concern for downstream
Bangladesh and upstream Nepal.</strong></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Moreover, India has taken another initiative to build the Tipaimukh
Hydroelectric Project Dam (The THPD envisages construction of a 162.8
meter high rockfill dam, which will intercept a catchment area of 12,758
sq km ) on the river Borak to produce 99,000 megawatts of electricity
gradually within the next 50 years. The Borak is the main stream of the
branch river of Meghna in Bangladesh. These projects also indicate
immeasurable future threats for Bangladesh and some north parts in
India. These ongoing and future unilateral actions increase regional
tensions and mistrust. Bangladesh and downstream north-east States
Monipur, Mizoram and Assam (in India) are concerned about the
construction of THPD for hydropower generation over the Borak river,
which will reduce downstream water flow and cause socio-economic and
environmental impacts.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
India has conducted an EIA and environmental management plan (EMP)
within its territory for the proposed THPD. However, it does not assess
its downstream impact in Bangladesh. It has been criticised widely and
declared controversial due to lack of public participation and
consultations, EIA in all aspects and areas and providing information to
the stakeholders in north-eastern State Monipur and Bangladesh. Any
environment activists argue that it was prepared based on misinformation
and undermining the rich biodiversity, natural and cultural heritage,
impacts on the living planets and their rehabilitation and proper
management scheme. Hence, all downstream stakeholders demand a holistic
impact assessment on the proposed THPD.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Recently, India has agreed to conduct a joint investigation about the
EIA of THPD with Bangladesh. As part of the process Delhi has handed
over the six parts THPD reports to Bangladesh with a proposal of joint
venture investment in the last joint expert meeting held in August 2012.
According to the signed memo of joint investigation on 28th August
2012, the term of reference (TOR) for the assessment of THPD issues,
each country is envisaged for assessment in their respective sides.
However, Bangladesh is still awaiting for some specific project related
data and information from India. This paper investigates (a) why EIA and
EMP are important over the utilisation of TWR and (b) what fundamental
principles are available in the customary international law about these
issues.<br /> <br /><strong>The Citizens Concern for Dams and Development
expresses serious concern about the joint investigation initiative and
says that the Dam construction cannot be done only by the negotiation
between Central India and Bangladesh alone</strong>. It demands the
active participation of the indigenous peoples of Manipur (who will be
obviously affected) in the decision making process as they and their
land, rivers, forests and other resources will be directly affected.
They also demand to revoke (i) the Environmental Clearance granted by
the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) of the Government of India
because the affected peoples opposed all the five public hearings and
the construction of THPD and (ii) the MOU signed between the Government
of Manipur, the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation, the Satluj Jal
Vidyut Nigam Limited on 28 April 2012 without informing and taking
consent of the people of Manipur.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A wide range international legal instruments and forums, including
the recommendations of the World Commission on Dams (WCD), the UN
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
(UNCERD) and the provisions of the UN Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples recognizes indigenous people’s inherent rights over
their land, and that resources should be fully adhered to in its
entirely. In 2007 and 2011 the UNCERD have urged Indian Government to
respect the right to free, prior and informed consent of indigenous
peoples before THPD construction. The issue of stakeholder participation
has widely been discussed in the second World Water Forum (WWF, the
Hague 2000) which includes sharing of power, democratic participation of
citizens in elaborating or implementing water policies and projects,
and in managing water resources.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<strong><em>Paragraph 23 of the fifth WWF ministerial declaration
mentions that, good water governance requires multi-stakeholder
platforms and legal and institutional frameworks enabling the
stakeholders’ participation at the local, national and regional level.
Article 18 of the Berlin Rules on Water Resources 2004 also gives
importance about stakeholder participation in utilising a shared water
resource. Bangladesh needs to express their respect and standing about
the stakeholder indigenous peoples’ right and the importance of holistic
impact assessment, which will protect its citizen’s right more
effectively.</em></strong></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
International jurisprudence about issue of prior notification,
consultation and negotiation, EIA and EMP on any projects over the TWR
are quite clear. International legal instruments and international court
and tribunal decisions and awards relating to the utilisation of shared
natural resources have developed the principles of ‘states
responsibility’, ‘prior notification, consultation and negotiation’,
‘good neighbourliness’, ‘not to cause significant harm to other states’,
‘riparian states right of access to water’, ‘non-recognition of
unilateral action’ and ‘equitable and reasonable utilisation’. These
principles of international law require prior EIA on any form of a
unilateral project plan over the TWR at both the upstream and downstream
point to assess the Tran boundary environmental impact.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<strong>The UN Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm
Declaration 1972) and some other international instruments have imposed
responsibility on states to ensure that states’ activities within their
jurisdictions or control do not cause damage to the natural systems and
the environment of other states and regions or in areas beyond the
limits of national jurisdiction. The principle not to cause significant
harm to other states is reiterated in the UNGA Resolution on World
Charter for Nature 1982.</strong> It emphasises that early detection of
any degradation threats on a shared natural resource considering the
status of natural processes, ecosystems and species are very important.
It recommends for timely intervention and facilitation by riparian
states to remove such threats valuing relevant conservation policies and
methods (Paragraph 19). It asks states to give supreme importance to
protecting the resource, maintaining the balance and quality of nature
and conserving natural resources, in the interests of present and future
generations in using shared natural resources. The Final Act of the
Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) (1975)
has acknowledged the principles of international law relating to
ecological protection.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It requires states to cooperate to ensure the progressive
development, codification and implementation of international law as one
means of preserving and enhancing the human environment, including
principles and practices, as accepted by them, relating to pollution and
other environmental damage caused by activities within the jurisdiction
or control of their states affecting other states and regions. These
instruments have recognised the coordinated and integrated management of
TWRs planning to minimise socioeconomic and environmental impacts.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The UN Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States (1972) has
provided the responsibility of states not to cause damage to the
environment in other state’s territory and required states to cooperate
in international norms and regulations in the field of protection,
preservation and enhancement of the environment (Article 30). It also
provides that the environmental policies of all states should enhance
and not adversely affect the present and future development potential of
developing states. This responsibility was recapitulated in the
Convention of Bio-diversity 1992 in relation to TWR, which states that
‘damaging activities upstream frequently degrade the inland or coastal
waters of downstream states’ (Article 3).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Article 14 gives extra importance on the necessity of EIA and
minimising adverse impacts to maintain a sustainable ecosystem, wherever
appropriate. The UNGA Resolution on Cooperation between States in the
Field of the Environment (1972) asks states not to use TWRs in ways that
create significant harmful effects on zones situated outside their
national jurisdiction, rather to use the resource effectively through
bilateral and multilateral cooperation or through regional machinery, to
preserve and improve the environment.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<strong>Most of the South Asian states are parties to a number of
global environmental instruments like conventions, treaties and
declarations that are potentially applicable to TWRs management and
utilisation.</strong> Among them, the 1972 Ramsar Convention aims to
stop the progressive encroachment on and loss of wetlands as the
components of natural inland water systems (Article 5). This Convention
requires an understanding of the implementation of obligations between
states in respect of TWRs and coordinated conservation of wetland flora
and fauna. Provisions for preventing and mitigating harm related to the
utilisation of TWRs are also found in a number of conventions, including
the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 1994
Convention on Desertification.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Tran boundary
Context 1991 (Espoo Convention 1991) defines the term ‘impact’ from a
very broad aspects, which includes “any effect caused by a proposed
activity on the environment including human health and safety, flora,
fauna, soil, air, water, climate, the landscape and historical monuments
or other physical structures or the interaction among these factors; it
also includes effects on cultural heritage or socio-economic conditions
resulting from alterations to those factors”. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This Convention asks
states to take all appropriate and effective initiatives, either
individually or jointly, so that no adverse trans boundary environmental
impact can take place from proposed activities (Article 2). It
forcefully asks states to consider all anticipated affected stakeholders
as early as possible at the same time when informing its own public
about the proposed activity (Article 3). Article 4 obliges states to
furnish the environmental impact assessment documentation to the likely
affected stakeholders for their comments before taking any final
decision about the projects. Article 5 invites states to conduct
consultations, without delay, on the basis of the environmental impact
assessment documentation.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Sustainable approach for the integrated governance of TWRs through
multilateralism by which artificial structures like dams, storage
(reservoirs) can be built wherever necessary, and operated for
safeguarding the resource, the environment and the downstream impact.<br />To be continued.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://bangladesh-web.com/new/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1562:tipaimukh-dam-trans-boundary-impact-assessment-and-state-of-customary-intl-law&catid=37:editorial--commentry&Itemid=481" target="_blank">Source :</a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
</div>
Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-37662490266849234672012-10-27T20:21:00.002+06:002012-10-28T00:40:08.977+06:00ISI running sex racket to trap politicians<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AlXaEz7zOqc/UIvt2BpjtCI/AAAAAAAAE2w/srUQvsRInPs/s1600/ISI-Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AlXaEz7zOqc/UIvt2BpjtCI/AAAAAAAAE2w/srUQvsRInPs/s1600/ISI-Logo.jpg" /></a></div>
Pakistani spy agency, Inter Service Intelligence [ISI] is
running sex racket, which comprises cine stars, models, college and
university students as well as some housewives from lesser affluent
families, which is regularly used in trapping politicians, members of
the civil society as well as journalists, sexual acts with the ISI
planted hookers are videoed secretly, which are later used as tools of
blackmailing. In addition to hookers from domestic sources, ISI also
employs beautiful females from various nations including Tunisia,
Uzbekistan and few of the east European nations, who are brought into
Pakistan under the disguise of employees with few local enterprises,
which also are secretly owned by the Pakistani espionage organization.
Similarly, ISI traps female and male politicians, who get engaged into
illicit romantic or extra-marital relations and regularly bug their
telephone calls as well as secretly follow their movements within and
outside the country. In most cases, whenever political VIPs in Pakistan
get involved into romantic or extra-marital relations and plan their
secret sexual rendezvous, ISI will mostly install secret video cameras
within the posh hotels, guest houses or recreation clubs in that country
or would even follow them to foreign countries and try to grab as much
as evidence they could get on such romantic or extra-marital relations
of the VIP politicians.
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The ISI recruited hookers from Tunisia and the east European nations
as well as some of the Asian nations are also sent to a number of ‘enemy
nations’ of Pakistan, including India with the assignment of sexually
alluring high officials and politicians of those countries, thus finally
ending up with secret videos, which are mostly used for extracting
sensitive information from those targeted high officials and
politicians. If any of those high officials or politicians denies
meeting the requirement of ISI by providing sensitive information and
evidences, the videos of their sexual rendezvous are leaked by ISI to
public or in some cases, such videos are sent to the members of their
families with the ulterior motive of creating family jeopardy.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The sex racket traps of ISI, which is codenamed ‘Dilruba’ gets
funding from illegal drug trafficking as well as dealing in counterfeit
Indian currencies, which are regular source of hidden earning of the
Pakistani espionage agency. According to information, each year ISI
protected drug paddler traffic 50-55 tons of narcotics from the
Pakistani frontier and Afghanistan to various nations in Asia as well as
some of the Western destinations. On the other hand, counterfeit Indian
currencies are printed at least in two security printing presses in
Pakistan, which are owned and run by the Inter Service Intelligence.
Annually, these printing presses produce billions of counterfeit Indian
Rupees. In recent years, the same printing presses of ISI are also
producing counterfeit currencies of Bangladesh.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.weeklyblitz.net/2674/isi-running-sex-racket-to-trap-politicians" target="_blank">Source :</a><br />
<br />
<br />
</div>
</div>
Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-58990096507032210952012-10-25T03:19:00.000+06:002012-10-25T04:28:57.329+06:00Pakistan and the threat of extremism : Turning point?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i><b> </b></i></span></span><b><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Despite outrage over Malala’s shooting, the dark forces are gathering again.</span></span></i></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
MANY say they now realise it has taken a 14-year-old schoolgirl to
teach Pakistan the meaning of courage. Back in 2009 Malala Yousafzai
began chronicling the dark grip of the Pakistani Taliban on her
homeland, the pretty Swat valley in the country’s north. She had a
clear-eyed conviction that girls had a right to an education, something
the Taliban did their best to prevent, even after their local rule was
broken in an army offensive. She called the Taliban “barbarians”. On
October 9th the barbarians took their revenge, shooting her in the head.
She is now in a British hospital, in Birmingham, with a specialist unit
for war injuries. Doctors are impressed by her resilience.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Back home, says Nusrat Javed, host of a popular political show,
“Malala has liberated Pakistan.” Pakistanis have voiced unprecedented
anger against the Pakistani Taliban, calling for the peaceful majority
to reclaim the country’s destiny from gun-toting, head-chopping
extremists.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The question is whether political, military and religious leaders
have Malala’s gumption. Most condemned the attack without condemning the
Pakistani Taliban. A few went further. The army chief, General Ashfaq
Kayani, who had already taken a more aggressive stance against
extremists in recent months, sounded ready for action. After visiting
Malala in hospital in Pakistan, he said: “We refuse to bow before
terror. We will fight, regardless of the cost. We will prevail.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The obvious military response would be to go after the Pakistani
Taliban in their stronghold of North Waziristan, part of the lawless
tribal areas that border Afghanistan. The United States has long urged
the army to go after extremists there. The government coalition, led by
President Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), also proposed
a resolution calling for (presumably military) “practical measures” in
response to the attack on Malala.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It is all starting to look like the high-water mark of courage. No
national consensus exists about whether to fight the home-grown Taliban
or, in some unexplained way, to make peace with them. On October 16th
the main opposition party, led by a former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif,
opposed the government’s resolution, demanding proof that earlier
military operations had not weakened the country rather than
strengthened it. The PPP balked, and dropped its proposal. With an
election due in the next few months, politicians of all stripes are
cautious about advocating operations against extremists that could
result in a violent blowback across Pakistan.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Besides, the army appears not to have a plan and rationale for going
into North Waziristan. Past military operations in the tribal areas,
including in Swat, have not cleared them of extremists. The operations
were often half-hearted, leaving the tribal people deeply cynical of the
army’s intentions. After all, the army has long used jihadists as its
proxy warriors. Awkwardly, the leadership of the Swat branch of the
Pakistani Taliban is based not in North Waziristan but in Afghanistan.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And now, stung by the opprobrium, the Taliban is lashing out.
Pakistani journalists are under serious threat, while international news
organisations are lying low or scaling back their operations in
Islamabad, the capital. A smear campaign by religious conservatives has
begun against Malala, painting her as some kind of “American agent”. And
on October 15th over 100 Taliban attacked a police station near the
north-western city of Peshawar. After killing the local police chief and
five of his men, they sliced off his head and took it away as a trophy.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21564907-despite-outrage-over-malala%E2%80%99s-shooting-dark-forces-are-gathering-again?fsrc=rss|asi" target="_blank">Source :</a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-45386379047732877392012-10-17T18:55:00.002+06:002012-10-17T19:16:09.734+06:00RAW re-predicts doom of ruling party during next election in Bangladesh<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LSWpQfZSbEY/UH6vRhaVNCI/AAAAAAAAEpc/8FBZQ9ZPaY4/s1600/Research-and-Analysis-Wing-RAW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LSWpQfZSbEY/UH6vRhaVNCI/AAAAAAAAEpc/8FBZQ9ZPaY4/s320/Research-and-Analysis-Wing-RAW.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Indian intelligence agency – RAW, in its recent report has once again
forecasted massive defeat of the ruling Bangladesh Awami League, during
the 2014 general election in the country. It said, although Bangladesh
Awami League, under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina has been exhibiting
sincerity in strengthening relations with India, its popularity at home
has been miserably dropping down due to series of high-profile
corruptions, financial scams, campus violence, deteriorating law and
order situation, suffocation of media and freedom of expression. It
said, the ruling party, which even in the recent past enjoyed reasonably
good relations with the Islamic political parties and fronts despite
its secularist policy, some of the recent actions of Bangladesh Awami
League has not only created huge gap between them and the Islamic
leaders, but also giving wrong impression amongst the people,
interpreting the ruling party as "anti-Islam". On the other hand,
continuous repression on religious minorities, including Hindus and very
recent incident at the Buddhist temples at Chittagong Hill Tract areas,
the religious minorities are no more feeling comfortable under the rule
of Bangladesh Awami League. The vandalism on the Buddhist temples and
population in the eastern part of Bangladesh has already tarnished the
image of the ruling party at home and abroad.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The report said, the decline in popularity of the ruling Bangladesh
Awami League is even beyond speculations, while Bangladeshi masses are
openly expressing anger at the poor governance of the ruling party.
Taking advantage of such situation, main opposition Bangladesh
Nationalist Party has suddenly boosted its diplomatic efforts within and
outside the country, which is clearly aimed at winning a diplomatic
battle with the ruling party. While Bangladesh Nationalist Party is
intensifying its diplomatic efforts, including visit of former Prime
Minister Begum Khaleda Zia to China and her upcoming visit to India, the
ruling party as well as its foreign minister is rather sitting
reluctantly, as if they are prepared to accept the diplomatic defeat.
Dhaka's relations with Washington is already freezing down, which became
clear when the Prime Minister's office ignored repeated requests from
the US ambassador in Bangladesh, Dan W Mozena, who had been seeking
appointment to meet the Bangladeshi Prime Minister. Top brasses in the
foreign ministry had reportedly suggested its staffs to refrain from
showing "extra importance" to any of the members of the Western missions
in Dhaka.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Indian intelligentsia and political pundits had been expressing
concern over potential security threats to Indian soil, if Bangladesh
Awami League gets defeated in the next general election, as Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina has been taking numerous measures in uprooting
anti-Indian activities within Bangladesh as well as activities of the
separatist groups in India, who had been earlier using Bangladeshi soil
as safe haven. During Sheikh Hasina's current tenure, a large number of
members of the United Liberation Front of Assam [ULFA], including its
bigwig Aravind Rajkhowa, had been handed over to the Indian authorities,
while the Bangladeshi government is set in handing over ULFA leader
Anup Chetia and two of his accomplices to India in next few weeks. It
may be mentioned here that, Anup Chetia along with his accomplice Babul
Sharma and Laxmi Prasad had been serving in Bangladeshi prison since
1993. Anup Chetia and two others were arrested from Dhaka by the local
intelligence agency in 1993, when Bangladesh Nationalist Party [BNP] was
in power. Although Anup Chetia was arrested during BNP's rule, it is
rumored that the party had been extending support towards ULFA and other
Indian separatist groups while there is also allegation of providing
logistic supports by the BNP led government to these anti-Indian
elements. Currently, trial into the case of recovery of a huge arms haul
is continuing in Bangladeshi court, where leaders of Bangladesh
Nationalist Party and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami are accused of having
hands behind this arms trafficking, which reached Bangladeshi soil
en-route to separatist groups in the North-Eastern provinces in India.
Few of the top figures of country's intelligence and law enforcement
agencies are also accused in this huge arms haul.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Earlier on December 17, 1995, western nationals were arrested when
arms were being dropped from Latvian Antonov AN-26 aircraft at Indian
district of Purulia in the state of West Bengal. The chief accused "Kim
Davy" [real name Niels Holck, alias Niels Christian Nielsen] claims that
it was a conspiracy of the Indian government together with RAW and MI5
to overthrow the communist government in West Bengal and he was given
assurances from the central government about his safety and return to
Denmark. He further alleges that MP Pappu Yadav, who is in touch with
the Prime Minister of India, facilitated his safe exit from India. The
crew of the aircraft consisted of five Latvian citizens and Peter
Bleach, a British citizen and an ex Special Air Service operative turned
mercenary who was based in Yorkshire and involved in arms dealing. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
However, Annie Machon, the former MI5 officer, accuses Bleach of being
an MI6 agent in her book "Spies, Lies and Whistleblowers". In numerous
interviews, Bleach has always evaded questions on this subject and has
declined to answer questions on his military background. They were
arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment while alleged kingpin Niels
Christian Nielsen [aka Kim Peter Davy], a Danish citizen and member of
the Ananda Marga group, escaped. Later, an Interpol red notice was
issued against him. Following the intervention of Russian authorities,
the Latvian crew [who gained Russian citizenship while in Indian
custody] were later pardoned and released in 2000. An appeal has been
submitted by the pilot lawyer before the Calcutta High Court in March
2000 challenging the trial results and the judgment but it is still
pending. Peter Bleach, too, was released on 4 February 2004, via a
presidential pardon, allegedly due to persistent British Government
pressure. In 2007 Kim Davy was traced by Denmark authorities and on
April 9, 2010 Danish government decided to extradite Kim Davy to India
but Danish authorities failed to successfully defend their decision in
the Danish high court. The court, therefore, refused extradition of Kim
Davy to India. Further, Danish authorities decided not to appeal the
high court judgment to the Supreme Court.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The government in Bangladesh led by Sheikh Hasina also nabbed a
number of anti-India terror outfit, including Lashkar-e-Toiba, Sipah
Sahaba, Joish-e-Mohammed etc, which had been reportedly operating from
within Bangladesh. Some of these terror outfits reportedly had direct
links with Al Qaeda. When Bangladesh Nationalist Party led government
was in power, a team of Al Qaeda clandestinely visited Bangladesh and
held secret meeting with the local counterparts inside a warehouse in
Ashuganj area, which is 25-30 kilometers from Indian district of
Agartala. The international terror outfit Al Qaeda reportedly
established connections with a number of Bangladeshi Islamist and
jihadist groups. But, since Sheikh Hasina's government came in power,
jihadist operatives within Bangladesh have been significantly eliminated
with the help of Indian intelligence. The Indian intelligence strongly
believes that, during the rule of Bangladesh Awami League, threats to
India's domestic security from the cross-border terrorists is greatly
checked. For this particular reason, Indian intelligentsia is
recommending New Delhi's direct hands in ensuring Bangladesh Awami
League in continuing in the office, at least for another term, while it
categorically predicts a huge political doom to the ruling party, if the
election is participated by Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which may bag
brute majority in the election, mostly because of anger of the voters
over gross misrule of the grand alliance government led by Bangladesh
Awami League.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
While the possible outcome of the electoral result of 2014 polls in
Bangladesh is clearly going to be unfavorable to the ruling grand
alliance government, Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence [ISI] has
recently intensified its activities inside Bangladesh with the ulterior
motive of putting the ruling grand alliance government into further
political complicities. According to sources, ISI operatives have
suddenly become over-active in Bangladesh, while some of its jihadist
contacts are regularly holding secret meetings possibly to finalize
blueprint of anti-government sabotages in the country. Some of the ISI
operatives are regularly holding meetings at Dhaka's Banani and
Dhanmondi areas, while an ISI agent with extensive connection with local
Jihadist groups and fanatic clergies, is giving anti-government
provocations with the instigation of unseating the current government
much ahead of the next general election. The same ISI agent is also
reportedly holding secret meetings with some of the retired officers of
Bangladesh Army, which still is skipping attention of the Bangladeshi
intelligence.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
BY : <span style="color: #cc0000;"> <b>Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury.</b></span></div>
</div>
Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-70321518458037284162012-10-03T16:10:00.002+06:002012-10-03T16:10:58.777+06:00ISI behind attack on Buddhist temples in Bangladesh<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ko51oMMdU8c/UGwO_JOwPRI/AAAAAAAAEec/hC24yzKsR1Y/s1600/2685.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="141" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ko51oMMdU8c/UGwO_JOwPRI/AAAAAAAAEec/hC24yzKsR1Y/s400/2685.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Pakistani spy agency Inter-Service Intelligence [ISI] is believed to
be mastermind behind pre-planned attack on the Buddhist monasteries in
Bangladesh. Extremist Muslims and some unidentified people, who are
believed to be Rohingyas from the neighboring Myanmar vandalised and set
on fire Buddhist monasteries on September 30, 2012 on hearing of a
Facebook post desecrating the Qur'an, which was tagged on the wall of a
Buddhist youth by someone else. Within 24 hours of this notoriety, a
fresh spate of sectarian violence, two more Buddhist monasteries were
burnt down in the same locality. In Patiya of Chittagong, more than 500
workers of Western Marine set on fire two Buddhist temples, Kalagaon
Ratnankur Bouddha Bihar and Lakhera Abhoy Bouddha Bihar, and a Hindu
temple, Kalagaon Nabarun Sangha Durgabari after midnight past September
30. The total number of damaged temples in Cox's Bazar and Chittagong
now stands at 22.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
According to information, agents and operatives of ISI became
extremely active for past few months within the Chittagong Hill Tract
areas under the garb of non governmental organizations. They have been
giving provocations to the Muslim population in that area of "conspiracy
of vested quarters" of evicting them [Bangla speaking people] from
Chittagong Hill Tract areas with the help of the ruling party. They were
even instigated of waging secret war against the religious minority
groups in the locality, compelling them to migrate to India or Myanmar.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Pakistani intelligence agency has been working under various disguise
inside Bangladesh. Since March this year, ISI operatives in the country
are ex-armed cadres of now defunct Freedom Party. It may be mentioned
here that, Freedom Party was formed by the self-proclaimed killers of
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman following his brutal assassination in
1975. Founders of this so-called political party received millions of
dollars from Libya's former dictator Muammar Al Gaddafi. Freedom Party
was recruiting armed cadres from across Bangladesh with the ulterior
motive of staging another bloody coup in the country. The armed gangs of
Freedom Party made several assassination attempts on Sheikh Hasina and
members of her family. But, since few of the kingpins of Freedom Party
were hanged to death in 2011, most of its armed cadres went either into
hiding or joined local crime rackets. The armed cadres of the party had
been given guerrilla warfare training in Libya and Palestine which was
financed by Gaddafi and the Pakistani spy agency.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
During the tenure of Bangladesh Nationalist Party [BNP] led coalition
government [2001-2006], ISI were actively funding anti Ahmadiya
activities in Bangladesh, which were also silently witnessed by the
ruling party. The anti-Ahmadiya groups continued to attack and demolish
mosques of the Ahmadiya Muslim Jamaat as well continue numerous forms of
atrocities on this religious minority group in Bangladesh. It may be
mentioned here that, under Pakistani law, Ahmadiyas are not considered
as Muslims, while Bangladesh has never ceased the rights of Ahmadiyas to
be considered as Muslims.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It is even rumored that the August 21, 2004 grenade attack of
Bangladesh Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina was originally plotted by
the Pakistani spy agency, which later was implemented by some of the
influential figures in the BNP led coalitions government. In some of
secret meetings to finalize the August 21 attack, station chief of ISI
in Bangladesh or some deep-covered officials were present.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
When Bangladesh Awami League led coalition government came in power
in 2009, activities of Inter-Service Intelligence got significantly
tamed as the government was committed working in combating Islamist
militancy and religious extremism.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
ISI activities inside Bangladesh were significantly increased in the
recent months with the ulterior motive of putting the ruling party into
huge crisis both domestically and internationally. Its operations in
Bangladesh are divided into several segments namely propaganda,
information gathering, recruitment, guerrilla training and offensives.
Its propaganda plans are implemented by some of the big fishes in a
vernacular daily while a self-proclaimed ex operative of Bangladesh's
intelligence, who now works for the Pakistani spy agency is coordinating
media war against the ruling government in Bangladesh.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It may be mentioned here that, since independence of Bangladesh, this
is for the first time; the peace-loving Buddhist population in the
country has become victim of such nefarious brutality and barbaric acts.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Pakistani ISI has been actively involved in illegal trafficking of
drugs, arms and counterfeit Indian currency into various destinations in
India by using Bangladeshi territory as transit. It is confirmed by
dependable sources that, currently ISI is operating at least 50 business
establishments inside Bangladesh.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Giving strong reaction at the recent atrocities on the Buddhist and
Hindu populations in Chittagong Hill Tract, advocate Gobinda Chandra
Pramanik, secretary general of Bangladesh Jatio Hindu Mohajote
[Bangladesh National Hindu Grand Alliance] said, "the government needs
to give exemplary punishment to the perpetrators and their masterminds.
This is the most unfortunate situation for the religious minorities in
the country."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He said, "We strongly condemn such barbaric actions and equally
demand stern action against the members of the law enforcing agencies,
who silently witnesses such massacre on the monasteries and temples."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Gobinda Chandra Pramanik said, "We believe there is some hands of
foreign elements behind such notoriety and the government should
properly investigate and identify the culprits for the sake of image of
the country."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Commenting on such heinous crime, leading English language newspaper
The Daily Star in editorial comment said, "What happened in Ramu and
some other areas in Chittagong must be condemned in the strongest
possible terms. The outrage that was created by people burning down
Buddhist temples and houses belies the long tradition of harmonious and
peaceful coexistence between people of various creeds in Bangladesh.
Religious tolerance and peaceful coexistence are not only an article of
our people it is also enshrined in the Constitution of Bangladesh.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"The regrettable incident has struck at the very ethos and the
underlying essence of our long religio-cultural tradition. Whatever may
have been the causative factor, the violent reaction seems to have been
very well orchestrated. We believe that those who believe in the
fundamental message of Islam would have exercised more temperance in
addressing an issue centering on an anti-Islam picture on Facebook."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Some of the eminent columnists in Bangladesh are already predicting
'monster' behind such notoriety on the Buddhist and Hindu temples in the
Chittagong Hill Tract areas.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Columnist Syed Mansur Hashim wrote: "The outrage that some
unidentified trouble-mongers committed against Buddhist communities at
Teknaf, Ramu and Ukhia upazilas on the nights of Saturday and Sunday has
shocked the entire nation. Clearly, the perpetrators have tried to
besmear Bangladesh's image as a nation of religious tolerance and
harmony. The way Buddhist temples have been damaged and desecrated and
houses of Budhist villagers have been ransacked and set ablaze speaks
volumes for the monsters behind the mayhem."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He wrote, "The mob violence that engulfed Buddhist villages saw
widespread looting and the gutting of religious relics and monasteries.
With some of the most revered Buddhist temples in ashes, including the
250-year-old Shima Bihar in Ramu, communal harmony between Buddhists and
Muslims is effectively in tatters. The attacks were an attack on
harmony and on peaceful coexistence. But given recent events,
particularly the worldwide backlash of Muslims against a film made in
California mocking the Prophet Mohammad, religious sentiments had
already been heightened and subversive elements have taken advantage of
the situation to incite communal violence."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
English language daily The New Age in its editorial comment wrote,
"While it is absolutely unacceptable in a democratic political and
cultural dispensation to have the minority communities, religious or
ethnic or otherwise, assailed by the majority ones, a section of the
majority Muslim community resorted to rampant attacks on Buddhist
monasteries, Hindu temples and households in Ramu of Cox's Bazar on
Saturday midnight and Sunday."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://www.weeklyblitz.net/2617/isi-behind-attack-on-buddhist-temples-in" target="_blank">Source :</a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
</div>
Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-69165951510992298762012-09-26T22:56:00.001+06:002012-09-26T23:56:11.090+06:00Cold war inside Pakistani Presidential Palace<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D__utOxZJG8/UGMzlubXu9I/AAAAAAAAEbo/FVjoYmKFXHc/s1600/2672.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="362" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D__utOxZJG8/UGMzlubXu9I/AAAAAAAAEbo/FVjoYmKFXHc/s400/2672.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari became furious on his son
Bilawal Bhutto when the junior Zardari received a "special gift" from
his girlfriend and Pakistani foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar on the
day of Eid Ul Fitr. On the early hours of the day, Bilawal Bhutto
received a flower bouquet and a hand-written greeting card stating – "No
wonder we waited enough, not its time to give an end to our waiting.
Eid Mubarak!"<br />
<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Later President Zardari came to know about the contents of the
romantic greetings card sent by his foreign minister, he immediately
called Hina Rabbani Khar and expressed anger for her extra-marital
affairs with his "minor son". At this stage, Hina Rabbani Khar in harsh
tone criticized Zardari's "meanness" and asked him to refrain from
"poking nose into her personal affairs". The Pakistani foreign minister
even threatened to resign from the ministry as well as membership of
Pakistan People's Party if President Zardari didn't apologise for his
"inappropriate behavior". The matter was immediately brought into
attention of Bilawal Bhutto by Hina Rabbani Khar and on hearing the news
of his father's "rudeness" towards Hina; Bilawal also threatened of
leaving the post of chairman of Pakistan People's Party and leave the
country by the end of the year. It is learnt from dependable sources
within the Zardari family that Bilawal Bhutto has made his mind to bid
farewell to politics and leave the country either by end of 2012 or
early next year, while Hina Rabbani Khar is also expected to resign from
the ministry almost at the same time.<br />
<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
While the hidden cold war between the father and the son is getting
complex every day, Hina Rabbani Khar on the other end is negotiating a
settled divorce with her husband millionaire businessman Firoze Gulzar,
from whom she has two daughters named Annaya and Dina. One of the common
family friends of Gulzars and Khars is assigned to mediate the settled
divorce. It is learnt that, Hina Rabbani Khar is offloading her shares
of Polo Lounge in the name of her children following the settlement of
the divorce, while she also has signalled to waive Firoze Gulzar from
paying her any alimony after the divorce. Trouble between Hina Rabbani
Khar and Firoze Gulzar reportedly began two years back when Firoze was
caught in having extra-marital affairs with one of the female staffers
of his business ventures. She brought this matter to the attention of
her father and later they collected some evidence of extra-marital
affairs of Firoze Gulzar. At this stage, being terribly shocked at the
betrayal of her husband, Hina Rabbani Khar attempted to commit suicide
by taking sleeping pills. The incident was kept out of attention of
Pakistani media. During such extreme adverse time, relations started
growing between Hina Rabbani Khar and Bilawal Bhutto, which ultimately
turned into romantic affairs. It is learnt from the intelligence source
that, President Asif Ali Zardari is vehemently opposing his son's
willingness of knotting marital relations with a woman with two
children, saying it would not only jeopardize Bilawal's political career
but would also invite political doom for the ruling Pakistan People's
Party (PPP). Being aggrieved by his son's ego and determination in
making family with Hina Rabbani Khar, Asif Ali Zardari played key-role
behind using country's intelligence agencies in spreading the scandal
about the evasion of electricity bills worth 70 million Rupees by Galaxy
Textile Mills, a company owned by Khar's husband Firoze Gulzar and
father-in-law. The media reports also alleged that she and her husband
are also among many other beneficiaries of NRO - an ordinance drafted to
save corruption money and provide immunity to the corrupt.<br />
<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
At this stage, sensing his father's aggressive attitude towards Hina
Rabbani Khar, Bilawal expressed anger and even threatened of resigning
from the post of Presidency of Pakistan People's Party. He even told
Asif Ali Zardari that he would settle in Switzerland with Hina Rabbani
Khar and her daughters, though later he even told his father that, Hina
might leave her daughters with her husband after the divorce. It may be
mentioned here that, Bilawal Bhutto's mother Benazir Bhutto left a
hidden wealth worth a few billion dollars in Switzerland and Bilawal is
the legal nominee of all those properties. The secret affairs between
Bilawal Bhutto and Hina Rabbani Khar came to the knowledge of Asif Ali
Zardari, when the duo was caught in compromised situation inside the
official residence of the President, where his son Bilawal Bhutto also
resides. Later, President Zardari collected mobile call records between
Bilawal and Hina and found evidences of relations between the two. The
relations became much exposed to Asif Ali Zardari, when Hina Rabbani
Khar sent Bilawal a greeting card on his birthday on September 21, 2011
with hand-written message stating – "The foundation of our relations is
eternal and soon we shall be just ourselves."<br />
<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Asif Ali Zardari reportedly also made numerous attempts to reconcile
relations between Firoze Gulzar and Hina Rabbani Khar with the target of
making an end to Hina-Bilawal romance. But nothing worked as Hina was
unwilling for such reconciliation. A confirmed report of a Western
intelligence agency even stated Asif Ali Zardari's secret attempt of
getting Hina Rabbani Khar assassinated. Through one of his friends in
Dubai, President Zardari even contacted the underworld killer gang
offering US$ 2 million for the murder of Hina Rabbani Khar.<br />
<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Bilawal Bhutto is the legal nominee of Benazir Bhutto's secret wealth
worth US$ 930 million in Switzerland along with some properties. In
1994, executives of the two Swiss companies wrote, promising to pay
"commissions" totalling 9 percent to three offshore companies controlled
by Asif Ali Zardari and Nusrat Bhutto [Benazir's mother]. A Cotecna
letter in June 1994 was direct: "Should we receive, within six months of
today, a contract for inspection and price verification of goods
imported into Pakistan," it read, "we will pay you 6 percent of the
total amount invoiced and paid to the government of Pakistan for such a
contract and during the whole duration of that contract and its
renewal." Similar letters, dated March and June 1994, were sent by
Societe Generale de Surveillance, promising "consultancy fees" of 6
percent and 3 percent to two other offshore companies controlled by the
Bhutto family. According to Pakistani investigators, the two Swiss
companies inspected more than US$15.4 billion in imports into Pakistan
from January 1995 to March 1997, making more than US$ 131 million.
Bhutto family companies made US$ 11.8 million from the deals. For
Societe Generale de Surveillance, with 35,000 employees and more than $ 2
billion a year in earnings, the relationship with the Bhutto family has
been painful. In addition to doing customs inspections, the company
awards certificates of technical quality. In effect, its business is
integrity.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://www.weeklyblitz.net/2604/cold-war-inside-pakistani-presidential-palace" target="_blank">Source :</a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
</div>
Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-78157550161074090082012-09-23T07:26:00.001+06:002012-09-23T07:27:12.565+06:00High profile romance in Pakistan exposed<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7xy4oEZFGg4/UF5lUey4tjI/AAAAAAAAEVU/blCKBB-eJwI/s1600/2665.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="201" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7xy4oEZFGg4/UF5lUey4tjI/AAAAAAAAEVU/blCKBB-eJwI/s400/2665.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
One of the Western intelligence agencies have romantic relations
between youngest foreign minister of Pakistan, Hina Rabbani Khar and
Bilawal Bhutto, the son of President Asif Ali Zardari and slain
Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The report even indicated a
'cold feud' between the father and the son, following Bilawal's decision
of marrying Hina Rabbani Khar, as she is poised to end her marital
relations with millionaire businessman Firoze Gulzar, from whom she has
two daughters named Annaya and Dina. Born on November 19, 1977, Hina
Rabbani Khar hails from an influential feudal and landowner family and
is the daughter of politician and landowner Nur Rabbani Khar and the
niece of Ghulam Mustafa Khar, a former Governor of Punjab. The Khar
family has roots in the village of <i>Khar Gharbi</i> located in Kot Adu
– a tehsil (subdivision) in Muzaffargarh District in Punjab; and has
many land holdings. The Khar family owns an estate that includes
fisheries, mango orchards, and sugarcane fields as well as a local steel
mill.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
After graduating from local high school, Khar attended the Lahore
University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in 1995, and earned B.Sc. in
Economics with <i>cum laude</i> in 1999. The same year, she went to
United States to resume her higher studies and attended the
post-graduate school of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and
subsequently earned a Master's degree in Hospitality and Tourism
Management in 2002.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Hina Rabbani Khar was brought into national prominence and national
political arena by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in 2004, who publicly
appointed her into the Finance ministry. In previous 2002 general
elections, she successfully contested and secured the parliamentary
constituency of her father, after most members of the family were
disqualified. With financial support of her father, she campaigned on a
newly founded PML (Q Group) platform against Pakistan Muslim League.
After the elections, Khar was elected as a Member of Parliament,
representing the NA-177, Muzaffargarh-II constituency in Punjab, a
position her father had held previously, but a new law requiring all
candidates to hold a university degree meant he could not run that year.
<i>The Guardian</i> wrote, "In deference to local sensibilities about
the place of women, her landlord father Noor addressed rallies and
glad-handed voters; Hina stayed largely at home, with not even her photo
appearing on the posters." In 2005, she was elevated as the deputy
minister of economic affairs and served under Shaukat Aziz. As deputy
minister, she dealt extensively with the donor community during the 2005
earthquake that hit Northern Pakistan.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In 2007, she made an unsuccessful attempt to renew her alliance with
PML-Q, but the party denied her a ticket platform to campaign for
re-election in 2008, she was later invited by the senior members of the
Pakistan Peoples Party and successfully campaign for her constituency
for a second time. The PPP secured plurality of the votes and formed a
left-wing alliance with the Awami National Party, MQM and PML-Q. They
nominated and elected Yousaf Raza Gillani as Prime Minister.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It is learnt from the intelligence source that, President Asif Ali
Zardari is vehemently opposing his son's willingness of knotting marital
relations with a woman with two children, saying it would not only
jeopardize Bilawal's political career but would also invite political
doom for the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Being aggrieved by
his son's ego and determination in making family with Hina Rabbani Khar,
Asif Ali Zardari played key-role behind using country's intelligence
agencies in spreading the scandal about the evasion of electricity bills
worth 70 million Rupees by Galaxy Textile Mills, a company owned by
Khar's husband Firoze Gulzar and father-in-law. The media reports also
alleged that she and her husband are also among many other beneficiaries
of NRO - an ordinance drafted to save corruption money and provide
immunity to the corrupt.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
At this stage, sensing his father's aggressive attitude towards Hina
Rabbani Khar, Bilawal expressed anger and even threatened of resigning
from the post of Presidency of Pakistan People's Party. He even told
Asif Ali Zardari that he would settle in Switzerland with Hina Rabbani
Khar and her daughters, though later he even told his father that, Hina
might leave her daughters with her husband after the divorce. It may be
mentioned here that, Bilawal Bhutto's mother Benazir Bhutto left a
hidden wealth worth a few billion dollars in Switzerland and Bilawal is
the legal nominee of all those properties. The secret affairs between
Bilawal Bhutto and Hina Rabbani Khar came to the knowledge of Asif Ali
Zardari, when the duo was caught in compromised situation inside the
official residence of the President, where his son Bilawal Bhutto also
resides. Later, President Zardari collected mobile call records between
Bilawal and Hina and found evidences of relations between the two. The
relations became much exposed to Asif Ali Zardari, when Hina Rabbani
Khar sent Bilawal a greeting card on his birthday on September 21, 2011
with hand-written message stating – "The foundation of our relations is
eternal and soon we shall be just ourselves."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It may be mentioned here that, Bilawal Bhutto is 11 years younger than
Hina Rabbani Khar. Earliest this year, Bilawal Bhutto was caught in sex
scandal with some unknown females.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
BY : <span style="color: #cc0000;"> <b>Preeta Memon.</b></span></div>
</div>
Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-33243089378929961092012-09-22T07:14:00.002+06:002012-09-22T07:14:54.689+06:00Sister sledgehammer<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iZd2HerD8ZY/UF0QxYwgCoI/AAAAAAAAESc/w0HT5glK0jU/s1600/20120922_ASP001_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iZd2HerD8ZY/UF0QxYwgCoI/AAAAAAAAESc/w0HT5glK0jU/s400/20120922_ASP001_0.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<h1 class="rubric">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></span></h1>
<h1 class="rubric">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Locked in a painful clash, the Congress government, or its welcome new economic reforms, could now fail.</span></span></span></h1>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
HER voice is high and birdlike. Tiny, she is fond of finger wagging.
Her party, the Trinamool Congress, has just 19 of the national
parliament’s 543 elected members. She offers little beyond vague talk of
the “common man”, and after a year running West Bengal she looks
ill-at-ease in office. Yet Mamata Banerjee feels she is now a
sledgehammer in national affairs.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
On September 18th, in a tirade before cameras in Kolkata, she tried
to topple the Congress-led government in Delhi, led by Manmohan Singh.
Crowing that “the whole country is watching us”, she offered Mr Singh a
non-choice between risking swift political collapse or what amounts to a
slow, humiliating policy defeat. Congress’s leaders will probably find
another way out. But India’s already wobbly economy is likely to suffer.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Ms Banerjee, widely known as “Didi” (Bengali for elder sister), said
she would pull her ministers from the coalition government in Delhi and
end parliamentary support for it, on September 21st. Other parties may
be found to back Congress. If not, Congress, with 205 seats of its own
plus smaller allies, would be in a minority. Formally the government
still has until mid-2014 before the next election, but Ms Banerjee
predicts it would tumble in “three or six months” without her.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Her fury is over economic policy. She thrives on fights. The past
year has seen confrontations over rail fares, petrol prices, a water
deal with Bangladesh and foreign supermarkets in India. She is horrified
that Mr Singh and his new finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram,
have shown rare boldness by announcing economic reforms. The reforms
were long overdue. Yet it was sadly telling that neither Sonia Gandhi,
Congress’s cagey leader, nor her son, Rahul Gandhi, the tongue-tied
pretender, dared offer the prime minister public backing.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The reforms were supposed to cheer investors in need of encouragement
and tackle a dangerous budget deficit, which this year will easily
breach the official target of 5.1% of GDP. On September 13th diesel
prices went up for the first time in over a year, by 12%. The fuel,
which sells at well below the world price, is heavily subsidised. The
price rise means only the tiniest dent in the deficit. Similarly, plans
to cut subsidised supplies of household gas, which is widely stolen,
would help government finances only a bit. The idea was to signal,
especially to credit-rating agencies ready to recast Indian debt as
junk, that the days of profligacy are over.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The next day brought more. A politically sensitive plan was revived
to let supermarkets, such as Walmart and Tesco, set up in India. The
proposal was advanced last year, but stalled when Ms Banerjee threw her
weight behind objections, claiming that foreign retailers would cost
local jobs. For foreign investors waiting for straws in the wind, it
became a symbolic issue, though investment flows into retailing are
unlikely to be huge. This time round a proposed fudge would let
individual states veto foreign supermarkets, though that may not prove
legal.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Restrictions went, too, on outsiders’ single-brand shops, like
Sweden’s IKEA, selling furniture. The government told foreigners they
could buy minority stakes in domestic airlines. It also said it was
selling equity stakes in state-run firms, to help fill the public kitty.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Investors cheered, the stockmarket rose and Mr Chidambaram hinted at
still bigger changes to come. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Seemingly endless talk about corruption
fell away, a boon for Congress. But the political reaction, led by Ms
Banerjee, only mounted. The opposition parties—the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP), the Communists and various regional parties—organised
street protests and vowed to block change. Even a Congress ally from
Tamil Nadu joined the protests.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The BJP, which used its tantrums to stymie the parliamentary session
that has just ended, demands that MPs now reconvene. Its approach looks
risky: middle-class voters may think it is becoming anti-growth. But a
rumour also spread suggesting Congress only wanted more balanced books
so it could afford to dish out goodies in next spring’s budget.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Ms Banerjee’s stock is probably set to fall. Though outspoken, she
also looks untrustworthy and fractious. Yet she leaves Congress in a
bind. If Mr Singh pulls back hard on reforms, he will look craven and
cowed by an ally a tenth his party’s size. Yet becoming a minority
government is awkward too, especially given scandals over corruption and
Congress’s likely walloping in several big state elections next year.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So, as <em class="Italic">The Economist </em>went to press, Congress
was hunting for a replacement for Ms Banerjee’s support. That may be a
party which is not keen on early national polls. Perhaps parliamentary
backing could come from the 21 national MPs controlled by Mayawati, the <em class="Italic">dalit</em> (untouchable) leader from Uttar Pradesh.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
More likely the current ruler of Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party
of Mulayam Singh Yadav, with 22 national MPs, might be persuaded to join
if offered a big enough dollop of development funds for the state. One
way or another Congress should hang on. The trouble is that the prospect
of recasting India as open for reforms and higher growth could dim once
more in the coming days. The baffling swirl of Indian politics makes
for a gripping entertainment. But after the drama, will someone remember
the economy and India’s stalled development?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21563313?fsrc=rss|asi" target="_blank">Source :</a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
</div>
Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-79895500444563939592012-09-10T08:08:00.000+06:002012-09-10T08:08:54.464+06:00Illegal Bangladeshi migrants not behind Assam violence, says Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nH_dqD2Ab_A/UE1Ll8DU4SI/AAAAAAAAEDU/vl55FY58N9Q/s1600/Assam-Chief-Minister-Tarun-Gogoi-610x325.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nH_dqD2Ab_A/UE1Ll8DU4SI/AAAAAAAAEDU/vl55FY58N9Q/s320/Assam-Chief-Minister-Tarun-Gogoi-610x325.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said Muslims are outnumbering Hindus in Assam not because of the increase in illegal migration from Bangladesh but because Muslims are illiterate and bear more children. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Speaking to Karan Thapar on Devil's Advocate, the Chief Minister took full responsibility for the communal riots and said that there were multiple reasons behind it. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here is an excerpt from the interview: </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Speaking on Devil's Advocate with Karan Thapar, the Assam Chief Minister said that his desire to be a part of the Presidential race stemmed from his desire to assert his rights as a citizen of India and as a tribal. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Below is an edited transcript of the interview: </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> Hello and welcome to a special Devil's Advocate from Guwahati, an interview with the Chief Minister of Assam Tarun Gogoi. </i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Chief Minister let's start with the recent troubles in your state. Why is Assam so prone to ethnic and communal violence? Is it the demography, is it the geography, is it politics or is it just lack of economic development?</i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> Of course it is true that Assam is prone to all these clashes. I have seen 1960, 1972, 1983, all along and of course it is a complex state. And of course the reason is socio, economics, sometimes politics also; and economics may be one of the reasons. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> You are suggesting that there are multiple reasons. The BJP however, says, and many of you opposition leaders in the state say, that the real reason is unrestrained illegal immigration from Bangladesh. You strongly deny that, in which case how do you account for the fact that between 1991 and 2001 the two censuses for which we have accurate data, the Muslim population of districts like Kokrajar, Dubri, Balbata, Narbari, have phenomenally increased?</i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> You are absolutely right, the Muslim population has increased. But if you look at 2001 census the population growth of Assam is less than national average, almost 3 per cent. Then in 2011 also, in that provision also, growth of the population of Assam is less than national average. So, it is a clear indication that illegal migration has declined. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> Well, has it because may have grown at a lower rate than the nation as a whole but within Assam the Muslim population in these districts has grown much faster then the Hindu one. Let me quote some of the figures - Kokrajhar, 19 per cent Muslim increased, 5 per cent Hindu, Dhubri, 29 per cent Muslim increased, 5 per cent Hindu, Bongaigaon, 31 per cent Muslim increased, 2 per cent Hindu. Clearly this phenomenal Muslim increase can't be for natural reasons; it is to be because of immigration.</i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b>You see this is because of low literacy. Most of the Muslims are illiterate. Every family has six, seven, eight, nine, 10 members. Literacy is very low, it is because of illiteracy. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> You seriously are saying that Muslims because they are illiterate are creating more children than Hindus. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> Ya. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> You really mean that? </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> Yes, because of illiteracy. For example, empowerment of women is also done for birth control. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> This is a very controversial answer Chief Minister. People would say this is tantamount to saying that the illiterate breed more. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> Yes. I believe it 100 per cent. Kerala has the same; the Muslim population growth is higher. Assam is highest, second highest is West Bengal. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> And in every case you are saying illiteracy is the explanation, not as I'm suggesting illegal immigration from Bangladesh? </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> No, immigration has been there. Same case in the tea garden tribes, the birth rate is higher if you compare to Assamese people. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> Let me quote to you what Hagarama Mohirali, head of the border territorial council has just said, "There are over two lakh illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in Bodo districts. You question that? </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> I do question. There are no two lakh migrants, I can challenge. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> What are you estimates for illegal Bangladeshi immigrants? </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> I can tell you that even till today the pending cases in the tribunal are less than three lakh. Anybody can register a case. I tell you AGB can into power as you know, total case registered about 4.5 lakh. Out of them many have been disposed off also. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> So, what is the figure that you believe is the figure for the illegal Bangladeshi immigrants? </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> It is very difficult but as it is today the pending case in the tribunal but among them also all are not… </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> So, you are absolutely certain that Mr Mohilari's facts of the two lakh figures alone in the Bodo district is wrong? </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> No, no, he has never said it. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> He said it, he said it clearly to ‘The Indian Express' on August 6. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> He might have said. I tell you, he told that in the camps there are five lakhs or something. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> Let's not get caught in the figure, the figure might be disputable. The point that I am making is that you strongly and vehemently continue to dispute that illegal Muslim immigration from Bangladesh is a fundamental cause of the troubles we have just seen in Assam. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> I don't disputed it, it's a fact. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> It's a fact? </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> No, no, not the fact that.. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> The fact that migrant wasn't the problem? </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> Yeah. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> Alright, I'll accept that but I'll point out to you one thing that there are many in India who believe that the key problem in Assam is basically illegal immigration. You are saying that is the wrong understanding of the state. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> You see outside Assam, even inside Assam, there is a wrong perception of Assam. A perception is that Assam is not a safe place, there is a lot of insurgency. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> This is another wrong perception? </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> Yes and these are another wrong perceptions. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> Alright, then let's then come to what the analysts say is a second explanation for the troubles that you have in Assam. They say the very character of the Bodoland itself, an area where the Bodos because they are the single largest community have power but all the non-Bodos including the Muslims are probably greater in number and they feel unrepresented and they feel left out. And that is the fundamental cause of the bitterness that keeps erupting in violence since the creation of Bodoland. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> Before that also there were clashes. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> But the Bodoland has made it worst. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> No, no, here earlier when there was no power they were watched. Before 1996 that time… </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> But I quote it to you that Bodos represent something like 20 per cent of the population of the Bodo Territorial Administrative Area, they comprise 30 out of 46 seats on the BTC, which is 65 per cent. Twenty per cent population, 65 per cent seats. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> See, there is a case in the Sixth Schedule, there is about 35 per cent population. It is a true that Bodos are minority, Bodos are minority in the Bodoland, Bodoland Territorial Council. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> As a result of which the rest of the population feels left out, they almost feel disfranchised. That is why you have this bitterness which keeps erupting periodically. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> BTC, yes they are reservation but for the MLAs there is no reservation. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> But BTC has local control. Let me quote to you what the President of the All Assam Minority Student Union Abdul Rahim Ahmed has said. He says, "Bodos engineered the recent trouble because they wants to push the Muslims out of the Bodoland, then they could push their numbers to 50 per cent and demand a separate state." </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> They have been demanding separate state but to this group they entered into an agreement, agreeing to have a Sixth Schedule. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> That was in 2003, but since then it is alleged that they are trying to push Muslims out so that they can push their numbers up and demand a separate state. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> I tell you how the incident took place, August 19, one Muslim or one Bodo fellow sustained injury, second day four Bodos were killed by the Muslims. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> Quite right. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> Then how would you say how did it triggered. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> Chief Minister, by collapsing from the causes of the problem to how this specific instance happened and actually when it comes to this specific instance, people turn around and say that one of the problems was that you mishandled it. They say that you sided with the Bodos which are your allies in the government, as a result of which you were A – slow to respond and B – when you did respond, you didn't respond decisively. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> No, these are wrong perceptions. Bodos are also accusing me that you are soft to the Muslims because you are looking for their votes. They are saying why did you not arrest those people who were responsible for killing four Bodos on the first day 19th. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> Can I interrupt and tell you why people say that you were slow, because the first warning of trouble happened well before the July 19, well before July 6, they go back to May and June, when you had clashes over Eid gahas, when you had attacks on Muslims and Muslim property at that time. And your critics say that instead of heeding those warnings six to eight weeks earlier, you ignored them, you didn't take preventive steps. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> No, such incidents do take place everywhere, not only in Bodoland, you see Karbi Anglong, North Cachar hill, other places also. Such minor incidents do take place. Then July 6, it was also not by the Bodos, it was by KLO. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> But Chief Minister all these incidents happening should have been a sign to you that there was trouble beginning. Surely it was a warning to take preventive action. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> That way there is warning every where in Assam. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> And the people say the reason you didn't take preventive steps is because the Bodos are your allies, it is their support that is essential for you and therefore you said let me not take action, it will go against my government. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> This is absolutely wrong, it is a false propaganda, I don't depend on them. I have 78 members out of 126. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> But the Bodos are still part of your government. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> Of course they are part of my government but I don't need their support. And if that was the case why did I arrest a Bodo MLA. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> You may have arrested one single Bodo MLA, but look at what is happening to the 2,50,000 refugees living in camps. The vast majority of who are Muslim. Because the Bodos are creating obstruction in letting them go to their villages, they are now asked to prove if they are Indian citizens and fill up forms to show where they got their lands from. That is not only indefensible; it is a clear attempt to prevent the Muslims to go back. And once again your government is not preventing the Bodos from doing this. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> No, we will prevent it also. We have already said those who are displaced, Indian citizens, from the Bodoland will be rehabilitated. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> There is an interesting distinction you make because a moment ago when we began this interview, you said that illegal immigration from Bangladesh wasn't a problem and now you are asking people to prove their citizenship. Why because they are all Indians why should they prove it, because if there is no illegal immigration issue? </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> You see, for rehabilitation they have to give some proof, otherwise how do you rehabilitate them. He must have had a house, a paddy field… </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> But Chief Minister, these are people who had their villages burned, their houses destroyed, they found shelter in refugee camps. Now in their own state, they have to prove that they Indian to go back. They have to prove that they have land to go back. Why can't they just go back to the village they came from? </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> They are going, 240,000 have already have left… </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> But why are you creating the Bodos Territorial Council to lay down this condition before they can go back. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> You see this is for their own safety because we want to take them into confidence. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> So you are doing this for the safety of the Muslims not because you are under pressure from the Bodos. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> No, because the land administration belongs to them. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> Let me give you a final reason why people suspect that in fact you are siding with the Bodos and that is a very simple reason. The disarmament of the Bodos which was envisaged by the 2003 Bodo accord, nine years later still hasn't happened. And people can't understand because you have been Chief Minister right through that time. And once again they say the reason it has not happened is because Tarun Gogoi is soft and gentle towards the Bodos. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> There is no question of being soft. We are having talks with them. Everybody has arms, even Assam. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> So why have you not succeeded in removing these arms? Why have you not succeeded in disarming people?</i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> I will tell you why… I'm not talking about Bodos, for example ULFA, KLF, so many groups have come forward to talk. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> And they all have arms, so why haven't you failed to disarm people? </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> I will tell you why. Take the example of the government of India, Army is there… Counterinsurgencies they (Army) can do anything, why they have not done. It is not as easy as it appears to be. I will give you an example, lot of people don't know this, when they come for talks they don't disclose their correct picture of the arms they are having. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> Which means they are hoodwinking the government.</i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> To some extend. I will tell you. That was raised by Chidambaram, for one group, not for Bodos. I said suppose 80 per cent of the group surrenders and only 20 per cent remains. That means we have weakened 80 per cent. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> But 20 per cent remained and that 20 per cent was used by the Bodos, in some instances, when they were butchering Muslims. Just look at the figures of the 96 people killed 70 were Muslims, of the 450,000 made homeless, a vast majority were Muslims. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> Why Army has not been able to do it? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> You have raised a fundamental question about the Army. Why is it that the Army was unable to more effectively control the situation, after all there was a four-day gap between your calling the Army and their deployment, and during that period the situation sharply deteriorated?</i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> I will tell you why. I don't say Army alone, I'm also responsible. I'm head of a state definitely I'm also responsible. So there is responsibility of the Army, Assam Police, and CRPF, it is a combination of all; we call it a unified command. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> So was there an absence of clear cut division in authority? </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> No, normally we have been in best of relation, that's why we have been able to survive, sustain. Our unified command structure is the best in the whole country. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> But if it is the best in the whole country, then why was a four-day delay there. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> Because of the change in the procedure. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> Who changed the procedure? </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> Ministry of Home or Ministry of Defence. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> So the responsibility for the delay lies with the Ministry of Defence. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> Because of change of procedure. The change of procedure has delayed the whole process. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> But as a result of a change of procedure, which is clearly a bureaucratic thing, four days were lost, and lives were lost. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> The Defence Minister himself admitted. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> Did the Defence Minister also extend an apology to the people of Assam because as a result of a four-day delay, lives were lost, homes were lost, villages were burnet. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> That time I had less force because the situation of Assam was improving. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> And so they had withdrawn forces from Assam. Was that an irresponsible thing for them to do? </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> I'm not saying that, because there was a lot of pressure for the Naxalites and other left Left wing. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> So they took their eye off Assam. They became a little complacent because you had three good years, and they took eye off the state. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> No, they were in urgent need of CRPF. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> But they forgot that Assam breaks into violence periodically every three, four years. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> I was telling them this. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> You were saying this to you and yet they overrode you, they overruled you. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> They said it is not possible for them also, not that I didn't take it up. But I don't blame them. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> You may not blame them but they disregarded the advice of a Chief Minister who has a eleven-year standing.</i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> No, I didn't say disregard. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> They didn't listen to you. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> No, sometimes they can't accommodate, otherwise they are nice to me. They are very cooperative… Then to rush back it takes more then seven hours to come back, unless you keep a reserve force. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> So, they made two mistakes, one they became complacent because there had been no trouble for three years, and they disregarded the advice of a Chief Minister, then they wasted time coming back. And all of this was compounded by the fact that they changed procedures, so bureaucratic delay also compounded the situation. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> You see, this is change of circumstances… </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> My last question to you Chief Minister, you have been Chief Minister of Assam for 11 years, for most of that time you have been Home Minister yourself, you have been head of the unified command, you boost this is the best unified command of the country. How much of the responsibility for failing to effectively tackle the trouble lies with you, after all you had the power and the experience to anticipate that trouble would happen, you had the experience to speedup rehabilitation? Neither was done. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> Today I'm not the head of the unified command. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> But how much of the responsibility for the delay you take?</i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> I take 100 per cent responsibility. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> So things have gone wrong, the blame is yours. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> Yes. As a Chief Minister I take 100 per cent responsibility. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> So when the critics they, Tarun Gogoi is responsible, you say yes. </i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tarun Gogoi:</b> Yes. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karan Thapar:</b><i> Alright Chief Minister, those are brave words. Let's hope they don't go against you. A pleasure talking to you.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://ibnlive.in.com/news/bangladeshis-not-behind-assam-violence-gogoi/289952-37-64.html" target="_blank">Source :</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div>Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-12695829676982684992012-09-09T22:34:00.000+06:002012-09-09T22:34:03.832+06:00Assassination of Begum Khaleda Zia has planned<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Gv6-LLrtIuY/UEzDgJIfn9I/AAAAAAAAD98/bEyeW1h1SVw/s1600/759px-Begum_Zia_Book-opening_Ceremony,_1_Mar,_2010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Gv6-LLrtIuY/UEzDgJIfn9I/AAAAAAAAD98/bEyeW1h1SVw/s320/759px-Begum_Zia_Book-opening_Ceremony,_1_Mar,_2010.jpg" width="237" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to Wikipedia<strong> </strong>Ziaur Rahman, was a Bangladeshi politician, the seventh President of Bangladesh and an army officer, who read the Declaration of Independence of Bangladesh. During Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971, he was first a sector commander before being promoted to one of three brigade commanders of the Bangladesh Forces; his brigade was called the Z Force, after his first initial. A highly decorated and accomplished military officer, he became a Bir Uttom, the highest gallantry award for a living officer for his wartime services, and retired from the Bangladesh Army as a Lieutenant General.He later became the seventh President of Bangladesh from 1977 until 1981. During his administration, he founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), one of the two largest political parties in the country. He is popularly known as Shaheed President Zia, meaning “martyred Zia,” in reference to his 1981 assassination. His role during the assassination of Sheikh Mujib in 1975 and subsequent military coups have made him a controversial figure in Bangladesh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziaur_Rahman)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have been informed by credible intelligence sources that the recent change in high level of Bangladesh Army by promoting three Brigadier Generals to the rank of Major General is a minor change of a major plan suggested by India’s foreign intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing [R&AW].<br />
<span id="more-13273"></span><br />
Intelligence sources also shared that the one of the three new Maj Gens, Sheikh Mohammad Aman Hasan has been made the Director General of the Special Security Force (SSF), as suggested by R&AW. The suggestion was made to bring changes in high level of SSF to insure the security of Prime Minister Sekih Hasina.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The intelligence sources also informed that DGFI and NSI was instructed before to submit an extensive report on newly promoted high army officials. The newly promoted officials were reported as pro Awami League and one the officer’s relative is a politician of Bangladesh Awami League (BAL). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-99CsIDRtpsA/UEzEwMWnagI/AAAAAAAAD-E/a1V1Y-o5a_s/s1600/Research-and-Analysis-Wing-RAW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-99CsIDRtpsA/UEzEwMWnagI/AAAAAAAAD-E/a1V1Y-o5a_s/s320/Research-and-Analysis-Wing-RAW.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Intelligence sources has informed that R&AW has informed Sheikh Hasina that a group of Islamic terrorists who had attempted to kill her on August 21, 2004, the allies of same forces are planning to kill Hasina again.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to the sources R&AW had claimed to Hasina that they have helped here by giving credible information of probable assassination attempt at least 5 times in last years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sheikh Hasina has been suggested that to win in the next parliamentary election will be really hard due to bad performance of her government and strong position of the opposition parties. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">R&AW has suggested Hasina to make notable change in top, middle and lower level in Army, police and executive level of the government. A high level official of R&AW is working on that with different attachment of DGFI and officials of NSI and different policy makers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hasina has suggested to bring more amendment in the constitution before the election, the draft of the amendment is on process guided by R&AW.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">R&AW highly recommend assassinating Begum Khaleda Zia, who is widow of the President and former army Chief Ziaur Rahman, who was assassinated in 1981.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Begum Khaleda Zia, the longest-serving Prime Minister of Bangladesh Since the country’s independence in 1971. R&AW has trained a group of young men to kill Khaleda Zia.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The group has been trained in India and also trained by different level by Bangladesh army.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Intelligence sources have informed that they have setup people within BNP and they are keeping close eye of Khaleda Zia.The group has attempted one time in last month to assassinate Khaleda Zia but they had failed due to wrong information.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sheikh Hasina shared with R&Aw that she will fully cooperate with them to make sure the assassination of Begum Zia. She wants to make sure the revenge of her father’s killing by killing Begum Zia.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.nl-aid.org/continent/south-asia/bangladesh-assassination-of-begum-khaleda-zia-has-planned/" target="_blank">Source :</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div></div>Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-19548870207578889912012-09-09T08:13:00.002+06:002012-09-09T08:26:45.392+06:00Delhi worries on Hasina’s popularity slide<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Obt3mGzpZqU/UEv6xRbJ1DI/AAAAAAAAD5o/uwi4prgYS_o/s1600/640px-India_Gate-Delhi_India23.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Obt3mGzpZqU/UEv6xRbJ1DI/AAAAAAAAD5o/uwi4prgYS_o/s400/640px-India_Gate-Delhi_India23.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
The Times of India published an article entitled ‘India’s worries could mount with Khaleda Zia’a expected return to power in Bangladesh’ on August 29, 2012. It said that the India intelligence agencies were very worried at the rapid decline in popularity of the incumbent Awami League government and the expected return to power by BNP.<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The article mentions: “New Delhi has got unprecedented cooperation from the Hasina regime in busting the havens of Indian insurgent groups in her country as well as in the investigation of terror incidents with Bangladeshi linkages. However, as the popularity of the Awami League regime under Hasina dips, ceding ground to rival BNP, the agencies fear that the gains of the last few years may be reversed if Khaleda regains power.”<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It added: “Obviously, the Indian security establishment is keen to arrest the slide in Awami League’s popularity. Though there is little it can do to reverse the incumbency disadvantage, a positive development on the Teesta water-sharing pact, financial assistance for the Padma Bridge project and exchange of enclaves may go a long way in correcting the negative perception in Bangladesh that Hasina has not managed any major concessions from India. However, these will be possible only after UPA’s troublesome ally, the Trinamool Congress, is convinced to drop its reservations on Teesta and the enclaves…..Even as efforts will intensify over the next year to recover lost ground for Hasina, senior intelligence officials here claimed that Khaleda’s BNP alliance, saddled by corruption cases and expected conviction of its leaders by war crimes tribunals, could see a reversal in its growing popular perception closer to the polls, expected sometime in February 2014.”<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>Uncharitable, obscene</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This article is followed by more than four hundred comments from the readers, an overwhelming majority of whom are Indians. The language used by the Indians to demean the Bangladeshis is mostly uncharitable and obscene. It is obvious that most of them think that Bangladesh is still a ‘basket case’ and is dependent on Indian charity for its survival. The poor Indians seem to be oblivious of the fact that Bangladesh has surpassed India in almost all social and economic indices and in fact this year has left India behind in GDP growth rate. Industrial growth in India is plummeting while it is fast rising in Bangladesh.<br />
<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Indians know nothing about the tremendous progress Bangladesh has made in the recent years. They treat Bangladesh as a poor cousin of Eastern India which in turn is treated as a poor cousin of Western India. While India as a whole is communal, Eastern India is even more communal. It is common in this region for those who are considered to be of low cast to be submissive to the upper class Brahmins to be punished or even be killed. Thus like the lower caste Hindus, Bangladeshis have no business to be prosperous or successful and this may give rise to the anger and envy they feel towards Bangladesh.<br />
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<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">India will most definitely try their best to hold on to their assets in Bangladesh by influencing the public opinion whichever way they can. Ruthless persecution of the opposition parties seems to be high on their “to do” list. But this is unlikely to deliver the desired result as people tend to forget that what happened more than five years ago and are more likely to be influenced by the government’s inaction on a number of corruption and law and order issues that is plaguing the country today.<br />
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<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The only option left for India is to impress upon the western countries to allow the holding of the next general elections under the present Awami League government. This is the only way that Awami League can hold on to power. On the other hand, losing the next elections is not an option for this party. The Awami League is exactly in the same boat as the Caretaker Government of Fakhruddin and Moinuddin, a BNP victory in the 2014 General Elections will be very unhealthy for all the beneficiaries of the current government, exactly as a BNP victory in 2008 would have been to the last Caretaker Government. A defeat in the next elections is not an option for the Awami League and with its growing isolation, it will have to be more dependent on Indian support.<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Or6I-aq9IUc/UEv8LP6cQEI/AAAAAAAAD54/FPuYcMAMiAY/s1600/Sheikh+Hasina+Wajed+Bangladeshi+Prime+Minister+MMTTZm9HMI-l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Or6I-aq9IUc/UEv8LP6cQEI/AAAAAAAAD54/FPuYcMAMiAY/s400/Sheikh+Hasina+Wajed+Bangladeshi+Prime+Minister+MMTTZm9HMI-l.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>India’s NE strategy</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">India on the other hand has not been able to extract the desired tangible advantages that it wanted of Bangladesh. The Indian intelligence report clearly exposes their need for Bangladesh support to hold on to their remote north eastern territories. It is ridiculous to claim that insurgents there need Bangladesh support to fight Indian control there. If the Maoists in central India can effectively fight the powerful Indian army without any external support, it is most unlikely that the much better organised, far more experienced insurgents fighting in some of the most inhospitable terrains in Asia will need the support of Bangladesh.<br />
<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the contrary, the Indian army, whose recruits are mostly from the plains, do need easy access to these hilly battlegrounds which only Bangladesh can provide. India needs transit through Bangladesh for quick, and more importantly, cheap transport of weapons and personnel to their remote north-eastern battlegrounds.<br />
<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Certain developments in India have not been advantageous for the Awami League. The departure of “Kakababu” Pranab Mukherjee from the Indian central cabinet and the rise to power by Mamata Banerjee has left Awami League with no powerful friends in New Delhi. This means that India will not be able to oblige Bangladesh with anything that would be seen as a friendly gesture, i.e., Teesta Barrage waters or the exchange of enclaves. This would mean that India would be pressing for long term concessions from the Awami League without giving anything in return. The way things are in the country now, the Awami League may have to do just that if it wishes to stay in power.<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div></div>Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-13990737787988236582012-09-09T02:47:00.000+06:002012-09-09T02:47:48.850+06:00River Erosion Along India–Bangladesh Border: Source Of Violent Conflict – Analysis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ky0sYJueXwU/UEuu4KO4LrI/AAAAAAAAD2o/l1A5DsylPzk/s1600/2008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ky0sYJueXwU/UEuu4KO4LrI/AAAAAAAAD2o/l1A5DsylPzk/s400/2008.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">River erosion along the border often triggers violent conflicts between India and Bangladesh. These two countries share an international border of about 4098 km, 180km of which runs through the middle of shared rivers. When these rivers erode their banks on one side, sediments are deposited slowly onto the other, causing new land to build up. Both countries will then engage in military action in order to take over the new land.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Bangladesh, being the lower riparian state, faces a greater bank erosion risk on its side. The construction of various protective works on the bank of rivers on the Indian side drives the river wave to Bangladesh and causes river erosion. Therefore, Bangladesh loses its geographical territory to India in most cases. According to government accounts, Bangladesh has already lost more than 15,000 hectares of land due to such erosion, the result of 10 common rivers with India, as well as one with Myanmar. On the other side, the state of Assam in India has been worst hit with massive erosion by two major trans-boundary rivers – the Brahmaputra and the Barak near the Bangladesh border. This has resulted in not only territorial loss, but the destruction of housing, crops and arable land as well.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The serious threat of river bank erosion is that it gradually changes the river boundary which separates India and Bangladesh. Although the two countries share 54 trans-boundary rivers, border guidelines have only been framed for the boundary status of the Muhuri and Fenny rivers. Article 1 (5) of the 1974 Indo-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement states, “The boundary in this area should be demarcated along the mid-stream of the course of Muhuri River at the time of demarcation. This boundary will be a fixed boundary. The two governments should raise embankments on their respective sides with a view to stabilizing the river in its present course.” The same rule has been followed to set the boundary of Fenny River. For other common rivers, both countries treat the middle of a river as a borderline in the spirit of aforementioned 1974 Land Boundary Agreement.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, the agreement neglects to touch down on whether natural changes in the course of these rivers should affect the location of the boundary between two states. In the absence of such a provision, the border guidelines are misinterpreted by both sides that if river changes its course due to erosion or flood, then the mid-stream boundary line will also shift. Thus, a river eroding its banks on the Bangladesh side adds new alluvial land (locally known as char) to adjacent Indian territory and leads to disputes when civilians living on both sides claim this char land as their own. This type of dispute has been prevalent in 17 common rivers at the very least.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Disputes over shifting rivers and ownership of newly accreted land often spark violent armed conflicts between the Bangladesh Border Guard (BGB) and the Indian Border Security Force (BSF). For example, in the Sylhet-Assam border areas alone, the two frontier troops have confronted each other 77 times over the last 37 years to grab the new patches of landmass that have emerged from the Barak-Surma-Kushiara, clashes which resulted in the loss of more than 55 lives. It should be pointed out here that the border areas of India and Bangladesh are heavily populated and extremely poor. The livelihoods of people in these areas are inextricably linked to agriculture. So when new land materializes from a shift in the course of river, people on the both sides move in under cover of their border troops to occupy and cultivate it. The famous Belonia border conflict started when Indian farmers, under the protection of the BSF, attempted to harvest crops on nearly 50 acres of newly surfaced land on the river Muhuri on the Belonia sector, a border area between eastern Bangladesh and the northwestern Indian state of Tripura.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Fighting also breaks out on the border if any side makes attempts at embankment protection against erosion. Each side accuses the other of building various defensive structures include groins, spurs, weirs, and sluices along the banks of common rivers, which in turn leads to accelerated erosion, and therefore, loss of territory. Both sides claim their own erosion control measures are temporary while accusing the other of erecting permanent embankments.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In fact, conflicts over alluvial riverine islands and raising embankments have strained India-Bangladesh relations for decades. A surplus of suspicion and mistrust between two countries has made these conflicts very complex. As a result, livelihoods in the border areas of both sides are becoming increasingly vulnerable, uncertain and insecure. Many of the past border skirmishes have ultimately led to the deaths of innocent civilians.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In recent years, the issue of bank erosion was highlighted in several India-Bangladesh minister level meetings that ended without any positive outcome. The path to prevention of these border conflicts lies in the amendment of the 1974 Land Boundary Agreement in order to insert a provision that in any case of erosion and deposit (natural or artificial), the river boundaries of the two countries remains the fixed. This type of agreement settled the boundary dispute of Bangladesh with Myanmar over Naf River in 1966. There is also need to transform the India-Bangladesh animosity, distrust and suspicion that have grown up over the years into a new relationship that is based on mutual trust and cooperation. It is hoped that such approaches will allow people on both sides of the international river border to live in peace and prosperity.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><em></em></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><em><br />
</em></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><em><a href="http://www.eurasiareview.com/08092012-river-erosion-along-india-bangladesh-border-source-of-violent-conflict-analysis/" target="_blank">Source :</a></em></div></div>Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-40240905730948674152012-08-24T22:35:00.000+06:002012-08-24T22:35:41.131+06:00Is Yunus facing the fate of Socrates?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HmSUyifylnI/UDetQ7KIDoI/AAAAAAAADxs/mSAeR3dB4RQ/s1600/1234.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HmSUyifylnI/UDetQ7KIDoI/AAAAAAAADxs/mSAeR3dB4RQ/s400/1234.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This piece of article is being written at a time of rising tension between Sheikh Hasina, the prime minster of Bangladesh, and Professor Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist famous for his two theories -- microcredit and social business -- as well as for his successful practical work through Grameen Bank, which has already helped millions of poor women break the cycle of poverty. The former unleashed state institutions (e.g., Bangladesh Bank, Bangladesh Supreme Court) to remove the latter from Grameen -- <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD1">the bank</span> he founded in 1983. On August 2, 2012, Sheikh Hasina's mission to 'destroy' Grameen took an even more drastic turn: she approved a draft of "Grameen Bank Ordinance 2012" to increase <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD2">government</span> control over the bank. <br />
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Currently, that power resides with the bank's directors -- consisting of nine poor women -- who were elected by 8.3 million Grameen borrowers. The prime minister also ordered a fresh investigation into the activities and financial transactions of Yunus in his latter years as Managing Director of Grameen, but people see the move as nothing more than an attempt to destroy his image. Why would Hasina unleash state institutions to perform a character assassination on a man whom Bill and Hillary Clinton regard as the "saviour of poor people"?<br />
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This political vendetta by Hasina against Yunus could be understood as a modern-day replay of the famous conflict between <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD3">Socrates</span> and Alcibiades. Socrates who was sent to trial on the basis of two notoriously ambiguous charges: Corrupting the youth and impiety. A majority of the 501 dikasts voted to convict him and forced him to death by drinking Hemlock. In a similar reactionary spirit, Hasina, who labeled Yunus as a "blood sucker of poor people" -- unleashed Bangladesh Bank to remove him from Grameen -- and used the Supreme Court to justify her illegal decision. <br />
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Why did Alcibiades insult the Father of Western Philosophy? Because he thought that Socrates would become his political threat. Why has Hasina insulted the Father of Microcredit? There are three reasons: Nobel Prize, Hingsa (jealous) -- and politics. <br />
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The number one offence of Yunus against Hasina was wining the Nobel Peace Prize. As a result helping millions of poor people from below, in 2006, Yunus won the ultimate honor the world bestows upon its illustrious citizens, the Nobel Prize. Hasina did not like it. In fact, she thought that the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee would give her the prize for signing a peace treaty, the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in 1997. On March 9, her attorney general revealed the attitude when he famously said, "She should have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize…" He went on to challenge the wisdom of the Nobel committee for not awarding the prize to his boss, Hasina, for the CHT accord. The second reason is 'Hingsa': in addition to wining the Nobel Prize, Yunus also won a number of the world's most prestigious awards, including the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. At the <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD4">award</span> ceremony, President Obama said: "Professor Yunus was just trying to help a village in Bangladesh, but somehow he managed to change the world". As Yunus grew more famous, Hasina became more jealous, fearing Yunus' reputation would soar above her father, Sheikh Mujib. The Bangladeshis have a word for her emotion, 'hingsha,' meaning jealousy or hatred. The third of Yunus' offense against Hasina was trying to form a political party: in an interview with the AFP news agency in 2007, Yunus remarked that politicians in Bangladesh only work for money, saying, "There is no ideology here." On February 25, 2007, I accompanied Yunus on a tour to India, and, as a response to my question on Hasina, he said, "Neither peace nor economic development can be bought at the expense of political corruption." Later this year, Yunus decided to join in cleaning up corruption by launching a new political party, Citizen Power -- saying he had a mission to enter the political arena in his nation in the hope of changing its identity from "bottomless basket" to "rising tiger." However, Hasina not only warned Yunus to stay away from politics -- but also removed him from Grameen. Now she is trying to take the control of the bank by amending "Grameen Ordinance 1983". <br />
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However, like Socrates, Yunus did not fear his rival's power. In fact, he refused to obey this illegal order and told the bank's 8.3 million borrowers not to fear injustice when they have done nothing but stand up for their own rights. "This government decision will destroy the bank of the poor and the country's bank of pride," said Yunus, "I request the poor owners of Grameen to urge the government and their fellow countrymen so that they do not curb their rights to exercise ownership."<br />
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Yunus founded Grameen and nurtured it with his two world-acclaimed concepts: microcredit and social-business. But microcredit is not magic. In fact, microcredit is just an economic theory that does not work unless one tries hard enough and goes the extra mile with it. In this way, microcredit is no different from education; one can succeed only if one puts in the extra effort. In fact, building more schools, for example, in remote villages does not educate everyone, although it does increase the chances of that happening. By the same token, Grameen does not turn everyone into a successful person like Taslima Begum, for example; however, the microcredit loan it dispenses increases an individual's chances of rising out of poverty. For example, Taslima, who lives in Shibganj upazila, took a loan worth Tk 1,500 from the Grameen in 1991 to help her husband Abu Hanif run a mechanic's shop, and the two are now self-reliant. <br />
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Grameen considers the poor as 'bonsai' people -- they can unleash their potential if given a proper base from which to grow. Today, Grameen financially assists about 8.3 million poor, helping them unleash their potential. At the deepest level, the Grameen approach is about revealing unseen possibilities that can release the capacity within each poor person to break the cycle of poverty. All borrowers become owners of Grameen, by purchasing shares of the bank, a requirement when they register as members. In the three decades since Yunus gave his first loan to a group of Bangladeshi women, the number of Grameen borrowers has grown to over 8.3 million. <br />
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In fact, Yunus and Grameen's 8.3 million borrowers became a family. For the last three decades, they worked together, they prayed together, they struggled together, they attacked poverty together, and they even won the Nobel Prize together. When Grameen was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2006, the bank randomly chose one of its typical borrowers -- Taslima Begum -- to represent it at Nobel Prize ceremony in Oslo. If we multiply Taslima by 8.3 million borrowers -- we get a chance how Yunus' concepts and his Grameen Bank successfully empower women. This is why 8.3 million poor women regard Yunus as the father of Grameen. So the question is obvious: how can one remove a child from his father? However, Hasina removed Yunus from Grameen anyway. Now she is even trying to destroy it. This is why, 8.3 million poor women are very angry now. <br />
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Their anger may not see public expression in front of the prime minister's office, or at the Bangladesh Bank or the Supreme Court. However, it does find voice around the premises of Grameen Bank. It does find voice around the respective homes of these 8.3 women. In fact, a similar anger rages within 22,000 Grameen employees. However, they will not hold their anger in the closet forever. The anger is real; it is powerful. Hasina should not undermine the power of 8.3 million poor women, who are supported by all poor people of the world. She will make a big mistake if she ignores the roots of their anger: 8.3 million poor women do not want to see their Nobel Laureate humiliated by Hasina. Unless the Bangladesh government recognizes the right of 8.3 million poor women, its future is doomed. <br />
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I choose to support Yunus rather than Hasina's powerful regime because I believe abrupt and forced removal of Yunus from Grameen could damage confidence in the bank, which has 8.4 million mostly women borrowers and holds $1.5 billion in villagers' savings. One does not have to be Einstein to understand that the work of great people, including Socrates, Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, is tied to trials and tribulation. Every idea, every invention, every theory, every concept (e.g., microcredit or social business) has its own humiliating shortcomings. Yes, we can argue that Yunus, you should have known better. You should have done more for poor people of Bangladesh. You should have published more books. Instead, our government turns on him and says, "Yunus, you are a blood-sucker." <br />
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While the whole world -- including Bill and Hillary Clinton -- considers Yunus as saviour of the poor people, why would the prime-minster of his own country removed him from Grameen? While the whole world considers Yunus as innocent as Socrates, why would Hasina consider him as evil as "Blood-sucker"? Let's hope she won't force him to drink the Hemlock for "sucking the blood of poor people". <br />
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Rashidul Bari, a biographer of Muhammad Yunus, most recently authored the Grameen Social Business Model: A Manifesto for Proletariat Revolution. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=139930&date=2012-08-12&fb_action_ids=4433697319265&fb_action_types=og.likes&action_object_map=%7B%224433697319265%22%3A10151098801757884%7D&action_type_map=%7B%224433697319265%22%3A%22og.likes%22%7D&action_ref_map=[]" target="_blank">Source : </a></div></div>Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-31610145006686971342012-08-18T21:07:00.000+06:002012-08-18T21:07:01.255+06:00What They Said: Spreading Fear Across India<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8tTvF6ABMHI/UC-vgQ2ViYI/AAAAAAAADvw/Z_gsFVQSNwI/s1600/422912-IndiaAssamAFP-1345111499-337-640x480.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8tTvF6ABMHI/UC-vgQ2ViYI/AAAAAAAADvw/Z_gsFVQSNwI/s400/422912-IndiaAssamAFP-1345111499-337-640x480.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><em>Beginning in late July, riots broke out in the northeastern state of Assam between Bodo tribals and Muslims, described in news reports as long-settled immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh. Political analysts haven’t yet been able to explain what sparked these particular clashes, which continue sporadically, but say tensions have long simmered between these groups over land and resources.</em></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><em>The death count from those clashes has now reached 78, an aide to Assam’s chief minister told India Real Time on Friday.</em></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><em>Since the riots, attacks on people mistaken for being ethnic Assamese have taken place in Pune. Police say those attacks were instigated by a doctored video purportedly showing Muslims being assaulted in Assam. In Bangalore, thousands of migrants from India’s seven northeastern states scrambled to catch trains back home, after a mysterious text message warning of imminent attacks on northeasterners went viral this week.</em></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><em>Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said his government will work to ensure that Indians from the northeast – often mistaken by people in other parts of India as from being from China or Southeast Asia because of their looks – feel secure living and working in any part of the country.</em></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><em>Here is a round-up of what Indian newspaper editorials and opinion pieces had to say about these developments.</em></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The real reasons behind the riots are not known yet — and may never be known,” said <strong>Seema Chishti</strong>, writing in the <strong>Indian Express on Friday</strong>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">After all, a 28-year-old report examining why a brutal massacre took place in Assam in 1983 has never been made public, she noted.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">What is clear, she said, is that the clashes with Muslims in Assam have “proved extremely useful” for some Hindu nationalist parties, who in the past have done little to suppress such incidents and instead have used them as an electoral tool to capture votes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">She said the clashes were being portrayed as taking place between “local” Assamese and “outsider” Muslims even though Muslims have had a long history in the state.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“What is conveniently forgotten in the heat of the moment are crucial historical aspects,” she wrote. “Over a century ago, during British rule, Bengalis, including Muslims, settled down in Assam.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">A editorial in the <strong>Deccan Chronicle</strong> <strong>on</strong> <strong>Friday </strong>slammed the country’s administration for its inability to resolve the violence in Assam, or for that matter, to even arrive at an understanding of what’s happening.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“One side alleges that Bangladeshi immigrants, who are Muslims, taking over Bodo lands is the root cause. The other side claims that the people are Bengali Muslims from India,” said the piece.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It continued, “As a country we ought to be able to tell with some certainty whether those people are our citizens or not. If they are our citizens, they deserve the state’s protection. If they are illegal migrants they should be deported. Unfortunately, we are unable to answer the question convincingly.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a <strong>Hindustan Times</strong> column on <strong>Thursday</strong>, <strong>Varghese K. George </strong>noted that strengthening security forces along the India-Bangladesh border would do little to resolve ongoing illegal immigration, which some analysts say is one of the triggers for the violence in Assam.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The issue of unauthorized movement of people from Bangladesh to India must be addressed from a broader development perspective for lasting solutions,” he said. “Otherwise the debate on it will degenerate into xenophobic rhetoric.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">One long-term solution could be for Indian authorities to shift focus from “ruthless management” of the border to aiding Bangladesh in its development, he said, arguing that acute poverty and lawlessness is what compels Bangladeshi citizens to flee from their native land.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">An editorial entitled “Act Now” in the <strong>Deccan Herald </strong><strong>on </strong><strong>Thursday</strong> said rumors of impending attacks on northeasterners in Bangalore were so successful in getting many of them to rush home because of the “long-standing discrimination” northeastern Indians face when they leave their own states.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“In Bangalore, the rumors were allegedly spread through SMSes and social network Web sites like Facebook and Twitter,” said the piece. “Considering that there was no immediate provocation or any known incident to trigger such a mass exodus, it can only be the result of a deep-seated fear psychosis that has not been properly addressed.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The editorial continued, “While the country basked in celebrations of the 66th Independence Day, here was a danger signal, however minute, that we have all taken the slogans of ‘unity and integrity’ and ‘unity in diversity’ completely for granted.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a piece in the <strong>Hindustan Times</strong> <strong>on</strong> <strong>Saturday</strong>, <strong>NDTV’s Barkha Dutt</strong>, editor of its English-language news operations, also expressed worry about the country’s frayed social fabric.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“A decline in riots does not necessarily correspond with a decline in prejudice,” wrote Ms. Dutt. “Add to that the divisions drawn by and ideological polarization in our political discourse – and we find ourselves living with a perennial fire-warning against inflammable outbursts of hate campaigns.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“There is no doubt that there are primarily two things that make the Indian state distinctive – our democracy and diversity,” she said. “The fact that rumors, threats, falsified images on Facebook and Twitter, and in some cases attacks, were able to rupture the sense of social order has to make one wonder how deep the fault-lines were to begin with.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And in the <strong>Indian Express</strong> on <strong>Saturday</strong>, the paper’s <strong>editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta</strong> said it was a shame that so many Indians continue to be both ignorant and condescending about the northeast. It’s a part of India where there’s an egalitarianism and respect for labor that’s missing in many parts of Indian – and that should be emulated, he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">He described being in the northeastern state of Manipur, where the now-beloved Olympic bronze medalist Mary Kom is from, and watching ministers sit down with drivers and clerks to eat – something unthinkable in Delhi, for example. He also saw a driver thrash the minister he worked for at table-tennis while taunting him for becoming slow and lazy to the enjoyment of all present.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Show me a driver in the mainland who will thrash his minister at any game,” wrote Mr. Gupta. “Or, a minister who will take it in his stride.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mr. Gupta was referring to the region of India outside the northeast as “mainland,” a common usage, although the northeast is not cut off from the rest of India by a body of water.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/08/18/what-they-said-spreading-fear-across-india/" target="_blank">Source :</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div></div>Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-62519656313435089652012-08-16T23:32:00.001+06:002012-08-16T23:33:44.760+06:00What Does Assam Unrest Mean for India?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="background-color: black; clear: both; color: white; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-srYAqVC3mVA/UC0urS0IdfI/AAAAAAAADro/z0gt-Y3-FIQ/s1600/12azadm5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-srYAqVC3mVA/UC0urS0IdfI/AAAAAAAADro/z0gt-Y3-FIQ/s320/12azadm5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">The latest disturbances that shook entire North-East is a reminder to the power that be in the Centre and in the rest of the country. The conflict-torn Bodo territorial areas of Kokrajhar, Dhubri, Chirang etc. have sent a clear message that the hidden volcanoes in the North-East need to be defused with wisdom and courage by the Central leadership while taking the local leadership of the region in confidence. My suggestion to Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India from Guwahati last week to hold an urgent meeting of the National Integration Council to review the present situation that has erupted in Kokrajhar and areas around in active cooperation of the local political outfits as well as the civil society is essential to work out lasting solution to the situation that has remained boiling for six decades.</div><div style="background-color: black; color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Within a week nearly four lacs residents in Kokrajhar, Dhubri and Chirang turned homeless migrants. Half of them were aboriginal Bodos. 276 government schools, government buildings and public places were converted into so-called relief camps out of which half of the relief camps were filled with Bodo tribals. Each camper I visited with my team demanded security. The Bodos felt insecure in the presence of Muslim neighbourers. The same was the cry of the Muslim migrants in the Muslim relief camps. True four Bodos were brutally massacred in a village in Kokrajhar in the midnight of 19th July, 2012. Absence of the police and administration added to the insecurity and terror. The Bodo migrated asked for safety. </div><div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">The rumours created panic among the Muslim inhabitants in their respective areas. The Muslims rushed for safety in Dhubri. It is important to note that neither the Bodo nor Muslim migrants carried any ill-will or hatred for other community. Each delegation we met complained that the administration did not care for their complaints and failed to provide reasonable security. No one in the camp favoured illegal migration from Bangladesh. The Bangladeshis` hard stricken with poverty and rags have been crossing over from Bangladesh via Dhubri District (Assam) in boats under the cover of dark skies of the Brahmaputra river. There could be no fencing nor a boundary wall could be erected as was assured in the Assam Accord, 1985 for the reason that Brahmaputra, perhaps, the only male river in the sub-continent, was too vast and fast for setting up any obstacle or wall to check illegal migration from Bangladesh. Kokrajhar has no land connection with Bangladesh. Migrants flood to this area from Dhubri. Kokrajhar is the only geographical surface connection of the North-East with the rest of the country. </div><div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">The students of political science and the politicians, perhaps, have yet to understand that creation of Bangladesh had literally dissected entire North-East from the rest of the country. India as such has only a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b>single surface connection with the North-East through Kokrajhar District in Assam via Cooch Bihar in West Bengal</b>. Any mishap may damage the neck connection endanger the roads of National Integration with North-East having 4500 kms. long borders with foreign countries including Myanmar, Bhutan and Bangladesh. This region deserves an exclusive attention of the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b>Central government</b><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>to ensure that the sensitive borders along the North-Eastern States are kept cool and friction free. India has 4097 kms. long borders with Bangladesh only. On the other hand true there is literally no physical threat to the Indian side from Bangladesh but infiltration by the illegal poverty stricken migrants to India in lacs have created an alarming situation in the border districts. Infiltration had started before the creation of Bangladesh and remained unchecked even after the signing of 1985 Assam Accord by Prime Minister Shri Rajiv Gandhi with the leaders of Assam Movement. Since the division of Assam into seven sisters` states as described by a noted journalist Jyoti Prasad Sakiya, the predominant tribals in Nagaland, Mizoram, Tripura and Meghalaya have got a reasonable opportunity to share responsibility of administration in their respective states. The tribals in Assam have not been satisfied. Particularly the bigger tribes like Bodos have not got their due. Creation of Bodo Territorial Council in four districts of Assam has earned the displeasure of Muslim Minorities for several reasons. The Bodo Council has been established in the districts of Kokrajhar, Baska, Chirang and Vidulguri. This situation deserves a careful handling too.</div><div style="background-color: black; color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">To seek permanent resolution of the situation in Assam or for that matter in the North-East, we have to understand the genesis of the problem. The first blunder committed in dissecting entire North-East region, mostly Assam in 1947, by the acceptance of partition of Bengal. Already neglected people of the area started facing alienation rather entire population was segregated from the mainstream. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Secondly, the Central leadership failed to realize the effects of illegal migration from the areas, now designated as Bangladesh. The Central leadership, the Congress-run government in the Centre, gave laxity to the illegal migrants. The Congress leadership remained interested to raise their vote bank rather than caring for the national security. When Bangladesh attained her sovereign status in 1972, there were unaccounted number of illegal migrants who have already created space in different Districts of Assam. The Assam Accord signed on 15th August, 1985 in the presence of Shri Rajiv Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, could not be implemented at all. The Central government established a Tribunal in Assam to detect the foreigners was quashed by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court of India on 5th December, 2006 declared the so-called Illegal Migrants Detection Tribunal (IMDT) as violative of the Constitution of India. This IMDT provided protection to illegal migrants and was not in accordance with the spirit of the Assam Accord. The Supreme Court had directed the Govt. of India to constitute adequate tribunals to detect illegal migration in accordance with the Foreigners Act, 1946. </div><div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">This is unfortunate that Govt. of India failed to follow the direction of the Supreme Court. This was one of the principal reasons that the foreign agencies like ISI managed some frustrated, unemployed and educated groups of Assamese to float United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) with a manifesto to establish a sovereign state of Assam. Prominent functionaries of ULFA belong to the majority community, the Hindus. This is the outfit which have directly threatened sovereignty of India. ULFA has been financed, armed and provided all kinds of help and assistance by the ISI. The CIA has not admitted it openly sufficient but there is evidence that CIA have been providing all kinds of data to the ISI. The ULFA activists have become overactive with the ensuing unrest in Kokrajhar, Chirang and other sensitive bordering Districts of Assam. Had the governments at Centre and the State been sincere to implement the Assam Accord situation would have been different. This was the strong note which my team was served by the Bodoland Lok Sabha Member,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Mr. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Sansuma Khunggur Bwiswmuthiary<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and the local MLA of Kokrajhar, Mrs. Pramila during my one hour discussion with them in Kokrajhar last week. The Bodoland Students Union as well as All Assam Students Union (AASU) which have strong mass appeal in the region shared this feeling. Naturally, blamed the Central government for its failure to give attention to the Assam Accord.</div><div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background-color: black; color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"> Assam Accord has to be understood in substance for the removal of all doubts spread by the vested political interests about its bonafides.</div><div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background-color: black; color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">i). <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Clause 9 of the Agreement made bold and unambiguous assurances to stop infiltration from Bangladesh by erecting physical barriers like walls, wire-fencing and other obstacles.</div><div style="background-color: black; color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">ii). <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>It was also assured to construct a road along Bangladesh borders in Assam.</div><div style="background-color: black; color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">iii). <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Encroachment of tribal line was strictly taken into consideration with assurance that the land of the tribal shall be protected.</div><div style="background-color: black; color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">iv). <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>It was also assured that detection of the foreigners, illegal migrants into Assam shall be done in accordance with the Foreigners Act, 1946.</div><div style="background-color: black; color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Dr. Alka Sharma, a former MLA, AGP and widow of slain AGP Minister who had been actively involved in the activities of the civil society for the implementation of Assam Accord maintained that the national political parties have not been able to understand the genesis of the Assam problem. Naturally, they would not be in a position to appreciate the scientific solutions. The President of Assam High Court Bar Association, Mr. Ram Sakiya, doubted the sincerity of the Central leadership to implement Assam Accord. That was obvious from the fact, he observed, that the Central government has not constituted a necessary tribunal for the detection and expulsion of the illegal migrants as was the direction given by the Supreme Court of India while quashing the so-called Tribunal.</div><div style="background-color: black; color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">The Governor of Assam, a seasoned political figure in India, Mr. J.B. Patanaik, while appreciating the efforts of my team to visit Kokrajhar and other affected areas in Assam, admitted that the government has to restore confidence of the people and provide them reasonable security so that they may return to their homes without fear. He also agreed that the so-called relief camps were not adequate at all to provide shelter to nearly 400,000 migrants, both Bodos and the members of the Minorities. About half of them have returned back to their homes yet the government cannot be exempted from its responsibility to ensure urgent return and rehabilitation of the people in their homes. The Governor may himself lead peace march in the area to extend solidarity with the suffering people.</div><div id="yui_3_2_0_1_1345094986647766" style="background-color: black; color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Situation in Assam is more threatening than in any other parts of the country. The people in the entire North-Eastern region deserve urgent attention of Central leadership. Urgent measures have to be taken to work viable solution with Bangladesh so that illegal migration from Bangladesh shall be checked at the source. The Assamese Districts bordering with Bangladesh have to be cordoned properly and effectively as was assured in the Assam Accord. The Central government should constitute Tribunal in Assam to detect and deport the illegal migrants as were to be determined in accordance with the Assam Accord and the Supreme Court`s direction. The separatist groups like ULFA have to be disciplined without any delay and with a clear message that Assam and the rest of the North-Eastern States are unshakable and integral part of the Union. An urgent attention of the Union must be drawn towards the Indo-Burmese border which may be opened for trade between Manipur and Myanmar, very soon. The problem of Chakmas in Tripura hills is also a matter of grave concern for the security of the country.</div><div style="background-color: black; color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India, shall be doing a great service to the national security vis-à-vis North-East by convening an urgent meeting of the National Integration Council as he has done in the past on the issues relating to J&K. It shall be exemplary message for the people of North-East if such a meeting of the NIC is held in Assam with special invitations to the representatives of all legitimate representatives of all the political parties of Assam and the North-East. The Prime Minister himself represents the people of Assam in the Parliament and the people have great expectation from Dr. Manmohan Singh that he shall show the light to the new generations in Assam and in the North-East to strengthen the bonds of National Integration from Imphal to Delhi.</div><div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://thesop.org/story/20120816/what-does-assam-unrest-mean-for-india.html" target="_blank">Source :</a></div><div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"></div></div>Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-88168082519245053622012-08-16T23:14:00.000+06:002012-08-16T23:14:57.946+06:00Suu Kyi draws rare criticism <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-X9gGLTzS6XE/UC0qgDTb-VI/AAAAAAAADp4/khfu_i-LPPM/s1600/502cc533999f4.preview-620.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-X9gGLTzS6XE/UC0qgDTb-VI/AAAAAAAADp4/khfu_i-LPPM/s400/502cc533999f4.preview-620.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">She is known as the voice of Myanmar’s downtrodden but there is one oppressed group that Aung San Suu Kyi does not want to discuss.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">For weeks, Suu Kyi has dodged questions on the plight of a Muslim minority known as the Rohingya, prompting rare criticism of the woman whose struggle for democracy and human rights in Myanmar have earned her a Nobel Peace Prize, and adoration worldwide.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Human rights groups have expressed disappointment, noting that the United Nations has referred to the Rohingya — widely reviled by the Buddhist majority in Myanmar — as among the most persecuted people on Earth. They say Suu Kyi could play a crucial role in easing the hatred in Myanmar and in making the world pay more attention to the Rohingya.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As a new phase in her career: The former political prisoner is now a more calculating politician who is choosing her causes carefully.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Politically, Aung San Suu Kyi has absolutely nothing to gain from opening her mouth on this,” said Maung Zarni, a Myanmar expert and visiting fellow at the London School of Economics. “She is no longer a political dissident trying to stick to her principles. She’s a politician and her eyes are fixed on the prize, which is the 2015 majority Buddhist vote.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Rohingya have been denied citizenship even though many of their families have lived in Myanmar for generations. The U.N. estimates that 800,000 Rohingya live in Myanmar where they face heavy-handed restrictions: They need permission to marry, have more than two children and travel outside of their villages.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Myanmar considers the Rohingya to be illegal migrants from Bangladesh but Bangladesh also rejects them, rendering them stateless.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Long-standing resentment between the Muslim Rohingya and Rakhine Buddhists erupted in bloody fury in western Rakhine state in June. They attacked each other with spears and machetes and went on rampages burning homes and razing entire villages. Human Rights Watch estimates that 100,000 people were displaced by the fighting and says the government’s tally of 78 dead is “undoubtedly conservative.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Rights groups claim the government did little to stop the violence initially and then turned its security forces on the Rohingya with targeted killings, rapes, mass arrests and torture.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Most of the world’s outrage has come from the Muslim world. Saudi Arabia has accused Myanmar of launching an “ethnic cleansing campaign” and King Abdullah announced Saturday he would donate $50 million in aid to the Rohingya in Myanmar. Islamic hard-liners in Indonesia and Pakistan have threatened attacks against the Myanmar government.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation condemned the violence at a summit this week and said it will present its concerns to the upcoming U.N. General Assembly.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">But the outrage stops at Myanmar’s borders. A tide of nationalist sentiment against the Rohingya has put Suu Kyi in a no-win situation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Speaking up for the Rohingya would risk alienating Myanmar’s Buddhist majority and angering the government at a time when Suu Kyi and her opposition party are trying to consolidate political gains attained after they entered Parliament for the first time in April.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">By not speaking up, she has offended some of her staunchest supporters in the international community — the very groups who lobbied tirelessly for her freedom during 15 years of house arrest. Though, many are cautious about directly criticizing Suu Kyi, who is hailed as a human rights superhero and often called the Gandhi of this generation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch called it “unfortunate” that Suu Kyi did not confront the issue during her triumphant tour of Europe in June, shortly after the violence occurred.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">At news conferences in Geneva, Dublin and Paris, Suu Kyi dodged journalists’ questions about the Rohingya by giving vague, scripted answers about a need for “rule of law” in Myanmar.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The root of the problem is lack of rule of law,” Suu Kyi said in Dublin, seated beside the rock star Bono at a news conference.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Asked if the Rohingya should be granted Myanmar citizenship, the Oxford-educated Suu Kyi replied: “I don’t know.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Canadian-based academic Abid Bahar, a Bangladesh-born expert on Myanmar’s ethnic groups, said he was “shocked” by Suu Kyi’s failure to take a more principled stand.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“As a Nobel Peace Prize winner she has a big role to play, to work as a conscience for humanity, which she has ignored,” Bahar said. “I thought she was the only person the Rohingya could depend on.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">President Thein Sein’s popularity at home has surged since the June crackdown, analysts say. Many in Myanmar rallied behind his proposal in July to send all of Myanmar’s Rohingya to any country “willing to take them,” a suggestion quickly shot down by the U.N. refugee agency.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“This is an unexpected difficulty that we have faced in our march to democracy,” Thein Sein said in an interview with Voice of America broadcast this week. He denied accusations of genocide from Muslim countries, saying that images posted online showing piles of bodies were “fabrications” and from “incidents that happened in other countries, not here.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thein Sein has won widespread praise for introducing a wave of reforms since taking office last year, following decades of repressive rule. But the United Nations and others say the violence in Rakhine state shows Myanmar still has a long way to go, and needs to place human rights at the top of its reforms.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The situation in (Rakhine) state is giving the so-called new Burma a black eye — in the eyes of the international community,” said Robertson of Human Rights Watch.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“As a political leader with moral authority, Suu Kyi should take this on,” he said. “No one is saying she can dictate policy to the government, but if she speaks out everyone will pay attention.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/08/16/suu_kyis_silence_on_rohingya_draws_rare_criticism/" target="_blank">Source :</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div></div>Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-80445292267264152322012-08-16T22:25:00.001+06:002012-08-16T22:26:41.298+06:00Dhaka Forecloses the Grameen Brand<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o1sWse2sFOQ/UC0e924W6aI/AAAAAAAADnE/Z04ib_RuZ24/s1600/ab6621336454587.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o1sWse2sFOQ/UC0e924W6aI/AAAAAAAADnE/Z04ib_RuZ24/s400/ab6621336454587.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="color: #cc0000; text-align: justify;"><i><b>Bangladesh's government is taking over the pioneering microfinance bank, just as its founder feared.</b></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">For the past 18 months in Bangladesh, the specter of a government takeover has haunted Grameen Bank and its founder, Nobel Prize winner Muhammed Yunus. Many thought Mr. Yunus was imagining the threat, but this month the Awami League government of Sheikh Hasina finally showed its hand. Her cabinet decided to push the microfinance lender's elected board of trustees aside and give power to the government-appointed chairman to name a selection committee that will soon find a new managing director.<br />
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The decision marks a new turn in a campaign to vilify Mr. Yunus, which began last year when the government removed him from his long-time role as managing director. Then it ginned up a controversy that micro lenders were "loan sharks," when the opposite is true: These banks give poor borrowers an alternative to usurious moneylenders.<br />
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This time, the cabinet impugned Mr. Yunus's honesty by asking questions about whether he followed bank rules on tapping the bank's credit facilities when he was managing director. It also alleges that he wrongly received tax exemptions on his foreign earnings. Last week, it opened a tax investigation.<br />
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Grameen Bank is important because it established the microfinance model--banks that provide unsecured loans for poor women for investing in income earning projects. It has been copied throughout the world and inspired the phenomenal growth of micro finance. In 2006, both the Bank and Yunus were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for, as the Nobel committee put it, "their efforts to create economic and social development from below." By giving the poor the ability to help themselves, it undermines the culture of dependency on the government that ties the poor to Bangladesh's political parties.<br />
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In May 2011, I visited Dhaka and talked at length with Mr. Yunus, whom I have known since the early 1990s. He had been under attack by the Awami League government for some time. Even after he was removed from his position, he sought to ensure that the bank board could still elect his successor without political interference. It now seems all but certain that the bank he led to international renown will come under new management.<br />
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Many Bangladeshis I respect told me then, and still think today, that the Awami League is out to get Mr. Yunus by any means possible. The politicians believe, wrongly, that he is a long-term threat to their interests.<br />
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Many suspect that the root of the problem is that, when Bangladesh was under a military caretaker government in 2007, Mr. Yunus's name was briefly put forward in 2007 as a possible leader of a "third force" to replace the two dysfunctional major political parties led by Ms. Hasina and Khaleda Zia. Their personal animosity has made progress impossible. He never volunteered this idea, but he didn't reject it at first either. Nevertheless, this third party never took off.<br />
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In addition, most Bangladeshis say that Grameen Bank now provides low-hanging fruit for what is perceived as a corrupt government. Officials can loot the bank's substantial assets at will now. They can also tap its customer base of women borrowers and turn them into a serious vote bank by promises of loan reductions or write-offs.<br />
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World leaders need to take note of these perverse motivations in Dhaka and condemn them, but they aren't doing so. I came back to Washington after my 2011 visit feeling great foreboding about Grameen's future. The South and Central Asian Bureau of the U.S. State Department, however, did not share my concerns when I met with its officials. Their reaction was tepid then. Now, more than a year later with news of the cabinet's decision, I am told they are "working on it."<br />
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For all the laurels Mr. Yunus has received from the West, his strategy to protect the bank he founded didn't work, partly because Western governments failed him. In the 15 months since the attack on Grameen began, the U.S. and others have let themselves be distracted by other business and lulled into complacency by Ms. Hasina's waiting game.<br />
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Now it may be too late to save the bank. The U.S. is playing catch-up on an issue on which it had an early warning. By this time, Prime Minister Hasina is not inclined to listen to other governments and back off her determined course. I am sure it will take more than words to deflect it. The U.S. and European governments will have to threaten to cut off bilateral assistance programs and other aid through multilateral institutions like the World Bank.<br />
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Getting donors on the same page at such a late date will be a real uphill battle, and given all the other pressing issues in South Asia is a long shot. It is thus with a heavy heart that we must prepare for the disappearance of the pioneer of microfinance and the marginalization of its visionary founder.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444184704577588700270815144.html?mod=googlenews_wsj" target="_blank">Source :</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div>Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-15141667752946839292012-08-09T21:39:00.000+06:002012-08-09T21:39:45.403+06:00Once again Assam in deep communal turmoil<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-c1GdsUSkW6M/UCPZqFRjU3I/AAAAAAAADdc/TZIPCWTckp0/s1600/assam_1154058g.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-c1GdsUSkW6M/UCPZqFRjU3I/AAAAAAAADdc/TZIPCWTckp0/s320/assam_1154058g.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The fresh communal riot in India last week, this time in the eastern state of Assam left about 100 people killed. Four lakh people fled homes to take refuge in schools and other places. Houses were plundered and set on fire. The victims, as usual, were mostly Muslims. It is obvious that the communal disturbances in secular India have wounded the sentiment of the three neighbouring Muslim countries – Bangladesh, Pakistan and Maldives. Secularism in India is a façade. In fact, communalism is deeply rooted in the cast-ridden Indian society. The massacre of Muslims in Gujarat, demolition of centuries old Babri Mosque, killing of Christians in central India still reminded the horrors of communal atrocity. Only months ago, Allahabad witnessed a communal riot.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Although the incidents took place close to the Sylhet border, there was no reprisal in Bangladesh. Here the people have religious tolerance and live in complete harmony with minority communities. Details of the situation of riot torn three or four districts of Assam were not known. Borders were sealed by security forces of both sides to check infiltration. Scanty report was given by international news agencies. Al Jazeera TV channel showed footage of a couple of refugee camps. Hundreds of men and women, young and old crammed in a village school in Kokrajhar district. The victims narrating their woes said their houses were looted before setting on fire. Hunger and fear stalked their faces. Absence of water and sanitary facilities may cause health hazards. An elderly inmate of the refugee camp told the TV crews that they came under sudden attack with lethal weapons, reasons not known to them. There was no police or paramilitary forces to protect them. International wire services reported that the riot was triggered by a group of Bodo ethnic community shooting down two student leaders of Muslim settlers in a long running dispute over access to land. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The army and paramilitary troops in addition to state police remained deployed in Assam to fight a number of secessionist groups and Maoist insurgency that spread in and the adjoining states. The riot could be avoided with prompt action on the part of the government. Nothing would happen if the army personnel swung into action and stood in between the rioters. The carnage continued for three days before the army was asked to control the situation only after Muslim MPs of the state flew to Delhi and pleaded for it. JUD squarely blamed the federal home minister and state chief minister for not taking timely action and demanded their resignation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the blame game, the Congress accused the opposition BJP for inciting the Bodo community and its activists against the Muslim settlers. BJP had led the destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya and directly involved in Gujarat massacre in which about 2,000 Muslims were killed. Clearly, the administration had support behind the BJP actions. The daily Sentinel of Guwahati had quoted BJP’s central leader Sushma Sawaraj saying two years ago “if Bangladeshis staying in Assam illegally are to be deported, a movement like Assam agitation is needed, and if the youths of the state are ready for such agitation, BJP will extend its helping hand.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">How can the settlers be Bangladeshis? Assam with many resources had been a state of jungles with scarce population. Muslims, and not only Muslims but also Hindus had migrated from different parts before and after partition of India and settled in the state. They are holding national identity card and regularly take part or cast votes in elections to local bodies, state legislature and national parliament. Hindu settlers also came under attacks in occasional movement launched against non-Assamese – ‘Assam for Assamese’. ULFA was the pioneer of such movement.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is hoped that India will take into consideration of the deep concern of the Muslims across the world as it has demonstrated the anxiety and concern for the plight of Tamils of Sri Lanka. In fact, New Delhi mounted pressure on Colombo for providing autonomy to the Tamil populated northern province of Jaffna. Tamils had supported and assisted the LTTE secessionist fighters in the decade long war that ended three years ago. India’s Tamil Nadu state government had even asked New Delhi for military action against Sri Lanka to secure the extraordinary rights for the Tamils. New Delhi has not stopped at that. Being a member of UN human rights body, it orchestrated drawing charges of violation of human rights against Sri Lanka.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">BY : <strong style="color: #cc0000;">Shamsuddin Ahmed.</strong></div></div>Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-23672358562506144832012-08-09T21:23:00.000+06:002012-08-09T21:23:16.203+06:00Assam Muslim massacre linked to geopolitics, bigotry<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-B_n1g-vK0gQ/UCPV0vgG65I/AAAAAAAADbs/MtYOBsaOa1E/s1600/front01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="193" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-B_n1g-vK0gQ/UCPV0vgG65I/AAAAAAAADbs/MtYOBsaOa1E/s320/front01.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The gory tale of slaughtering innocent Muslims in Assam is something India should be ashamed of as the world’s largest democracy. The death toll is surpassing hundred, according to the latest count, while more bodies are missing or being discovered.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">The constant attack on Bangladesh as a source of illegal migration is not supported by facts either. According to the 2011 census, the population of Assam stands at 3,11,69,272, of which 1,59,54,927 are males and 1,52,14,345 females. The wolf crying about illegal migration is not supported by data that shows the decadal growth of the State’s population at 16.93 percent during 2001-2011, against 17.64 percent national average.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Two major phenomena explain the rioting more convincingly: Geopolitics and communalism. Geopolitically, western Assam, where the rioting is occurring, is crucial to the entire Northeast through which passes the only supply route to the whole region. Wedged between Bangladesh to the south and west, and China to the north, the region has no access to the sea closer than Calcutta, on the other side of the Shiliguri corridor, the utility of which is economically unprofitable for India as it entails 2000 km journey from Mizoram to the Calcutta seaport.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">During the 1962 Indo-China war, a Chinese military advance of 80 miles or so managed to cut off Bhutan, part of West Bengal and all of North-East India. The area is constantly patrolled by the Indian Army, the Assam Rifles, the Border Security Force (BSF) and the West Bengal Police. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Bangladesh and India having no free trade agreement, all land transportation between mainland India and its north-eastern states must use this circuitous corridor. Despite there being a major broad gauge railway line in addition to the old metre gauge line which connects the region with rest of India, national Highway 31 is the main conduit between Siliguri and Guwahati, Assam‘s capital.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">From a communal standpoint, the instances of rioting increased in frequency since 1996 following the birth of the Bodo Liberation Tigers Force (BLTF) which demanded a separate state for the Bodos, within the territories of Assam. In the four major riots between 1993 and 1998, an estimated 400 people have been killed, including Bodos, Muslim settlers and Adivasis.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Communalism is a quintessential Indian epidemic that must not be condoned any more. The current rioting is the sixth major tragedy in the Bodo belt of western Assam since 1993, and the fourth involving the Bodos and the Muslim settlers from East Bengal (now Bangladesh); the other two being between Bodos and Adivasi (tribal) Santhals of the Burmese descant. Public policies being equally responsible for fomenting these riots, the geopolitical machinations are too evident to bypass attention. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">For instance, the first clashes between the Bodos and the Muslim settlers took place in October 1993, leaving some 50 dead, mostly Muslims. It happened within months of signing the Bodoland Autonomous Council (BAC) Accord on February 20, 1993, between the Government and the rebellious Bodo leaders. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Accord stipulated that all villages with 50 per cent Bodo population would come under the jurisdiction of a newly created Bodo Council. This ‘conflict-provoking’ clause was enough to lead a section of the people to target Muslim settlers and the Adivasis in areas where Bodos were minority. Through violence, Bodo minority villagers strove to eject Muslim villagers to attain majority status in each village, leading to riots.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">The BAC was replaced by the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) that came into being after the signing of a Memorandum of Settlement on February 10, 2003. It was, in effect, a peace accord by which the BLTF laid down their weapons on December 6, 2003 under the leadership of Hagrama Mohilary, and, in return, Hagrama was sworn in as the Chief Executive Member (CEM) of BTC on December 7, 2003. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Comprising 35% of Assam’s territory (27,700 km), the area under the BTC jurisdiction came to be known as Bodo Territorial Autonomous District (BTAD), which spreads across four contiguous districts — Kokrajhar, Baska, Udalguri and Chirang. The areas housed only 29 per cent of the Bodo population at the time of the Accord‘s signing. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">There was another caveat: Although tribal lands are safeguarded by Chapter X of the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation Act of 1886 - which clearly mentions that the land ownership will be only at the hands of the tribal - this exclusivity over land of the tribal was scrapped in para 3 of the Sixth Schedule of the 2003 Memorandum of Settlement to facilitate land owning in the state by other settlers from different parts of India. It is in these localities where rioting has spread lately and Muslims are being slaughtered indiscriminately. There is even fear of an indigenous Muslim insurgency gaining foothold.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">That is expected too. The 1983 Nellie Massacre claimed over 3,000 lives, mostly Muslims, after the All Assam Students Union (AASU) went on a rampage targeting minorities following Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s declaration to hold elections in the state despite AASU’s opposition. The AASU’s foremost demand at that time was that electoral rolls be cleansed of illegal immigrants.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2008, further clashes between Muslims and Bodos resulted in 55 deaths, most of them Muslims, alleged to have migrated illegally from Bangladesh. Each time, illegal immigration was used as a ruse to conduct ethnic cleansing. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">This time too, BJP has alleged that illegal Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants were behind the ongoing violence in the Bodo Territorial Area District (BTAD). During a press conference in Guwahati last Thursday, BJP national general secretary and Assam in-charge, Vijay Goel, said, “The illegal Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants are behind these riots. The indigenous minority people are not involved.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">If riots in Assam are attributed to illegal migrants from Bangladesh, what can explain why Hindu-Muslim riots are recurring phenomena all over India. Bangladesh or Pakistan can not be blamed for India having 2000-odd castes, eight major religions and 15-odd languages spoken in various dialects in the 22 states and nine union territories; besides a substantial number of other tribes and sects. And, what explains why in 2002 more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed by Hindu mobs in Gujarat after a train fire killed 60 Hindus returning from a pilgrimage? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Gujarat riots left tens of thousands of people homeless after the rioters set fire to Muslim homes and businesses. The state government, run by the Hindu nationalist BJP, was accused of facilitating the attacks by looking other way round as the rampages went on. No convincing explanation can be offered either for the 1992 Bombay riot or the 2002 Godhra riot. Hence, blaming Bengali immigrants for the Assam riot is the worst form of communal bigotry. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">It’s time that the immigrant population of Assam be treated as equal as they’ve moved there since the Ahoms from Burma conquered the region in 1228 and ruled for six hundred years. Moreover, Bangladesh’s ties to Assam are more historic than that of mainland India. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first significant Bengali speaking migration to Assam followed the British conquest of Assam in 1826; due to the British recruitment of Bengali officials for Assam’s administration. In 1831, the Government of Bengal designated Bengali as Assam’s official language and, the services of Bengalis became indispensable in the government due to local teachers not being available to impart lessons in Bengali, which was Assam‘s medium of instruction. It was not until 1873 that the Assamese succeeded in persuading the British to recognize Assamese as a separate language. And, by the early 1900s, East Bengali (Muslim) migrant settlers already constituted twenty percent of the border district populations in Assam. Are they still settlers?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Finally, following India’s partition in 1947, the Indian and Pakistani governments established a two-year ‘grace period’ during which Hindus in Pakistan could settle in India and Indian Muslims could emigrate to Pakistan. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pakistanis who migrated to India during the grace period automatically became Indian citizens. That explains why Assam today has a substantial number of Hindu Bengalis too.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ignoring those facts, communalism has gone unchecked all over India, and, Assam bore the main brunt of this chauvinism. In the 25 years since the Nellie massacre, the anger against illegal migrants from Bangladesh played out over and over again, often fanned by communal politicians.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">The current rioting sprang from an incident of May 29 in Kokrajhar, whereupon the All-Bodoland Minority Students Union (ABMSU) had called for a shutdown following a declaration by the BTC that a part of forest land used as an idgah maidan was an illegal encroachment. The tension between the BTC and the ABMSU took an ugly turn on July 6 once a Muslim man was shot dead in the Muslim neighbourhood of Kokrajhar. Since when Muslims lost their right to pray in India or in any other country?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">As expected, clashes between the two communities continued on and off since, spinning out of control on July 19 when a leader of the Assam Minority Student Union and another one from the ABMSU were shot by unidentified gunmen. Next morning, few miles from Kokrajhar, four former cadres of the disbanded Bodoland Liberation Tigers were hacked to death, sparking all out counter attacks and rioting.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Look at the spins the politicians are putting to this tragedy. A letter written after the July 6 incident by a local Congress leader, Y.L. Karna, to the Assam Pradesh Congress president - with a copy to Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi - reveals Karna mentioned the July 6 incident and cautioned that communal passions were running high in the area. Yet, no one bothered to deploy troops in the vulnerable areas. Instead, Bodo Council chief Hagrama Mahilary has claimed that armed Bangladeshis from across the border had come in and incited the violence. His deputy at the Council, Kampa Borgoyari, went a step further to say, “it is not a case of Bodos killing Muslims, it is a case of Muslims killing the Bodos.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Worst still, members of the security forces joined the orgy of Muslim massacre, according to reliable sources. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Maulana Badruddin Ajmal, a Lok Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) and President of the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) said, ‘Armed men in olive green jungle fatigues went about killing Muslim settlers.’ </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">A human rights group is reportedly referring these allegations to the International War Crime Tribunal.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">BY : <span style="color: #cc0000;"> </span><strong style="color: #cc0000;">M. Shahidul Islam.</strong></div></div>Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-24813975009085249492012-08-09T20:31:00.002+06:002012-08-09T20:36:59.158+06:00Mass graves for Myanmar's Rohingya<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UnxxeUuG7H8/UCPJlbZczPI/AAAAAAAADaE/0pYk_KtBvYo/s1600/timthumb.php.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UnxxeUuG7H8/UCPJlbZczPI/AAAAAAAADaE/0pYk_KtBvYo/s320/timthumb.php.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A recent journey to western Myanmar has revealed a provincial capital divided by hatred and thousands of its Muslim residents terrorised by what they say is a state-sponsored campaign to segregate the population along ethno-sectarian lines.<br />
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Decades-old tension between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in coastal Rakhine state exploded with new ferocity in June, leaving at least 78 people dead and tens of thousands homeless. <br />
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Exclusive reporting conducted last week in the highly restricted region suggests that the long-term fallout from recent violence could be even more damaging than the bloodshed.<br />
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The United Nations has estimated that 80,000 people are still displaced around the cities of Sittwe and Maungdaw, and international rights groups continue to denounce Myanmar for its role in the conflict.<br />
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As it stands, any thought of reconciliation between local Buddhists and Muslims appears a distant dream.<br />
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Many Rohingya have fled the polarised region, fearing revenge attacks and increasing discrimination. Their status has sparked international concern and disagreement.<br />
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Rights groups have condemned the violence. The Myanmar government has denied any wrongdoing, while neighbouring Bangladesh has rejected an influx of refugees and slashed access to aid.<br />
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For those Rohingya caught up in the dispute, the day-to-day situation is rapidly slipping from desperate to dire.<br />
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<div style="color: #e69138;"><b>Social 'non-engagement'</b></div><br />
In Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state, the scars of recent conflict were everywhere. <br />
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Burned homes, shops and entire markets dot the Buddhist-majority city of nearly 200,000 people. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Traditionally Muslim neighbourhoods, such as Shwe Pyar, Nazi Konetan and Mawlike, were deserted, locked up, or living in deep secrecy.<br />
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Prominent mosques and buildings, many of which were burned in arson attacks during the violence, now bear signs from the municipality reading, "No one is allowed to enter". Locals told Al Jazeera the properties have been taken over by the state. In some areas of Sittwe, the devastation from the violence that peaked in June is comparable to Cyclone Nargis, which struck Myanmar in 2008.<br />
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Most striking was the almost completely absence of the Rohingya population that once made up nearly one-third of the city's residents, and the largest portion of its working class.<br />
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The impact of that loss was obvious. The Rohingya who worked as the city's ever-present rickshaw drivers and porters at the jetty and markets are now gone. There are no signs of Muslims at the airport, the boat that shuttles ferry passengers to outlying islands, or even the local busses that run from Buthidaung to Maungdaw, two Rohingya-majority states.<br />
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Local Hindus, and residents who appear to be of Indian descent, have taken to applying <i>bindis</i> on their foreheads to avoid being mistaken for Rohingya.<br />
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A range of interviews found that Buddhist Rakhines had collectively decided to practice a policy of "non-engagement" with the Rohingya. In practical terms, this meant a ban on businesses, as well as controlling access to food, medicine, travel and communication.<br />
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According to local sources, Rohingya are no longer allowed to enter the city's largest market or to travel from town to town.<br />
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<div style="color: #e69138;"><b>'Facing starvation'</b></div><br />
Outside Sittwe, where the fleeing Rohingya had gathered, the situation was worse. The village of Bhumei, a few kilometres to the west, was overrun by thousands of refugees who said they were forced from the city, first by mobs, then by security troops.<br />
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By local accounts, this camp is the biggest of the camps that have sprung up to shelter the displaced city dwellers.<br />
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The refugees endured the current monsoon rains in mud-floored tents, living mostly on bags of rice provided by the UN's World Food Programme. There is no clinic, proper bathroom or clean water, as witnessed by Al Jazeera.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The camp is surrounded by all hours by security troops. Many wonder if the soldiers are there to protect them from attacks from the Rakhine, or keep them under guard.<br />
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"Many of the refugees who fled from inside the city are manual labourers and daily wagers. We are having great difficulties just surviving each day. We fear what will happen to us if we go back to the town. We can't go there yet. Those who risked going back to their homes and shops were prevented by authorities on security grounds," said U Shwe Maung, a Rohingya refugee in Bhumei.<br />
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"We are sharing food with each other. We are now facing starvation. Even though we are provided food by the WFP, that is not enough for such a huge number of people like this," he added.<br />
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The Rohingya now forced to live in the Bhumei camp appeared desperate. One woman was crying in the street with her rain-soaked children on her lap. She said they were sick and there was no clinic to look after them or food to eat.<br />
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"We want to go back to our homes if the officials provide security for us," said Mahmud Shiko, a Rohingya in Bhumei. <br />
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"The police told me I'd find nothing back there if I return, but I still want to go back."<br />
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<div style="color: #e69138;"><b>Military accused</b></div><br />
The wave of violence in June was sparked by the alleged rape and murder of a Buddhist woman by three Muslim men in a Rakhine village.<br />
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Both ethnic communities attacked rival villages and neighbourhoods in the days that followed, destroying and torching homes, businesses and holy sites, according to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released last week.<br />
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The HRW report denounced both sides for the cycle of reprisal attacks, estimating that the death toll was far higher than the Myanmar government total of 78.<br />
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HRW also blasted Myanmar's security forces, sent in by the government, for standing down while the Rakhine and Rohingya groups battled each other. As the attacks escalated and thousands of Rohingya rioted, the report said that police and paramilitary troops fired on Rohingya protesters.<br />
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In an outlying area, according to the report, soldiers shot at Rohingya villagers as they tried to escape and looted food and valuables from their emptied homes.<br />
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Benjamin Zawacki, a Bangkok-based researcher for Amnesty International, described the violence as "primarily one-sided, with Muslims generally and Rohingya specifically the targets and victims".<br />
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HRW says hundreds of men and boys were rounded up in mass arrests, their whereabouts still unknown. Informal Rohingya estimates put the number of missing and arrested in the thousands.<br />
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On the hushed streets of Sittwe and in the tent city outside Bhumei, Rohinyga speak of the brutality of the Rakhine and the Myanmar forces, and of the many loved ones still missing from the conflict.<br />
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<div style="color: #e69138;"><b>Animosity abounds</b></div><br />
The alleged victims are not the only combatants talking about the violence.<br />
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In a series of interviews with off-duty security officers at bars and restaurants in Sittwe, a picture emerged of what some Myanmar military and police think about the Rohingya.<br />
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An ethnic Rakhine soldier from the 352 Light Infantry Battalion claimed he and his comrades killed "300 Rohingya" from Myothugyi village near the area of Three Mile between Buthidaung and Maundaw townships on the night of June 8.<br />
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The soldier, whose name has been withheld, explained that the killings took place when hundreds of Muslims blocked and tried to overwhelm the truck carrying his unit. The victims were unaware the truck, a civilian vehicle used for road construction, was carrying soldiers.<br />
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"I put the butt of my gun here at [the right side of] my waist and shot down many Muslims while keeping my left hand on magazines so that I could quickly fill up my bullets," said the soldier, now stationed at a village outside Maungdaw.<br />
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"There were so many dead bodies that we even had to call in a bulldozer to make a mass grave."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another ethnic Rakhine soldier boasted that he and his troops killed uncountable numbers of Rohingya in the village of Nyaung Chaung in the countryside around Maungdaw during the early June crackdown.<br />
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"We have even still kept this from our [commanding] officers," he said.<br />
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It was impossible to verify these claims. Even so, the uncaring nature of the statements shows the animosity that some who wield power have for the Rohingya.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
Such anger is easily apparent on the streets.<br />
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An educated Rakhine woman, visiting Maungdaw from the US where she has lived for 20 years, spoke bitterly when asked if the human rights she enjoys should be granted to Rohingya to ease tension between the communities.<br />
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"Human rights are for human being only. Are Rohingya humans?" she told Al Jazeera.<br />
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"We are the house owners and they are the guests. When the guests attempt to drive out the homeowners, human rights are no longer meant for them."<br />
<div style="color: #e69138;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #e69138;"><b>Government 'solution'</b></div><br />
The Myanmar government has strongly denied accusations of abuse from rights groups.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The government has exercised maximum restraint in order to restore law and order in those particular places," read a statement released on Monday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The government also denounced "attempts by some quarters to politicise and internationalise this situation as a religious issue", a sidelong reference to the criticism emerging from Muslim countries, such as Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, over the assaults on Rohingya.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then again, the government has, over the years, denied the entire existence of a "Rohingya problem", and even the Rohingya themselves.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Myanmar's formerly military government and its state-run media have strictly avoided the word "Rohingya", referring to the group instead as "Bengali Muslims", implying that the people are not indigenous and have migrated to Myanmar a fewl decades ago. The Myanmar immigration minister has repeatedly said that there are no Rohingyas in Myanmar.<br />
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Last month, in his meeting with a UN High Commissioner for Refugees delegation, President Thein Sein said refugee camps or deportation was the only answer for nearly the country estimate 800,000 to a million Rohingya Muslims.<br />
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"We will take responsibility for our ethnic people but it is impossible to accept the illegally entered Rohingyas, who are not our ethnicity," he told UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres, according to the president's official website.<br />
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The former general said the "only solution" was to send the Rohingyas to refugee camps run by UNHCR.<br />
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"We will send them away if any third country would accept them. This is what we are thinking is the solution to the issue."<br />
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<div style="color: #e69138;"><b>Uncertain future</b></div><br />
The government, when it does discuss the issue, blames the resentment and fear that the Rakhine have for the Rohingya on a potential population explosion that would see the group seize power.<br />
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Outside its capital city, Rakhine state is nearly two-thirds Rohingya. The adjacent states of Maungdaw and Buthidaung are already majority Rohingya, according to official figures.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The population fears, possibly stemming from cultural stereotypes, are an issue that 72-year-old Rohingya elder Sayyad Abdullah can appreciate. He has four wives, 28 children and, in his words, "lots" of grandchildren.<br />
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Last week, authorities cited Abdullah's family and quoted him in press briefings about the so-called population explosion. Abdullah rejected any desire for an autonomous state and said he was open to government measure to curb Rohingya families to one wife and two children, but not at the expense of dignity.<br />
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"We just desire equal rights like the Rakhine and the Burmese, and we want nothing more than a normal life," he told Al Jazeera.<br />
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Other Rohingya leaders say the perception of their community is wrong, and racist. The majority are impoverished farmers and labourers, but some Rohingya hold university degrees and own many businesses in Sittwe and Yangon.<br />
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Thein Zaw and Kyaw Hla, who are now overseeing the distribution of food aid at the Bhumei refugee camp, belong to the wealthiest class of Sittwe. They claim their forefathers have lived in Rakhine state for 350 years.<br />
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As it stands, the vast majority of Rohingya are denied Myanmar citizenship, cannot own businesses, marry or relocate. The president's proposal to relegate the Rohingya population to UNHCR-run camps seems unsustainable and humiliating.<br />
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Whether this long-simmering dispute is founded in race, religion or population, matters little to the Rohingya stuck in camps such as Bhumei. Nor to the Rakhine who live in majority Rohingya areas and claim to live in constant fear of attack.<br />
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Some scholars, such as Myanmar expert Bertil Linter, claim the animosity between Rakhine and Rohingya began during the Second World War, when Buddhists backed the Japanese and Muslims the British. Other experts say the rift began centuries before.<br />
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In either case, unless the government or international bodies intervene, the violence and discrimination seem destined to continue.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/08/201288114724103607.html?utm_content=features&utm_campaign=features&utm_source=twitter&utm_term=rss&utm_medium=tweet" target="_blank">Source :</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div></div>Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-49254719841363695012012-07-31T18:52:00.000+06:002012-07-31T18:52:25.370+06:00Targeted Massacre of Minorities in Assam<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qk8j8YL_UXA/UBfU8z3XYFI/AAAAAAAADWY/i24ZvRKlMDY/s1600/assam_violence_rt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qk8j8YL_UXA/UBfU8z3XYFI/AAAAAAAADWY/i24ZvRKlMDY/s400/assam_violence_rt.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">South Asia is really going to the dogs or so it appears these days. When we thought that we had seen enough of a pogrom directed by the Rakhine extremists and Burmese authorities against the Rohingyas of Arakan state of Burma (Myanmar), we are forced to witness yet another massacre of unarmed civilians in the state of Assam. <br />
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Assam, located next to Bangladesh on the north-east corner of India, has a long history of recurring violence targeting minority Bengali-speakers. In 1983 Nellie massacre when Indira Gandhi ruled India, the pogrom, carried out with crude weapons in a matter of a few hours, left some 5,000 people dead. The killers didn’t even spare young babies. <br />
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At the heart of Assam's troubles is a debate over the "infiltration" by outsiders, which has led to ethnic tension between the state's so-called indigenous population and Bengali-speaking people who have settled there for generations. Overlooked in this debate is the fact that all these territories were once part of British India with people – both Assamese and Bengali – living on either side of today’s border that separates Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan/ East Bengal) from the state of Assam in India. The Assamese were mostly illiterate people and so many Indians (mostly from the province of Bengal) were brought in to work as engineers, doctors, administrators, clerks, railway workers and other government related jobs. Many of the Bengali-speaking famers were also brought in to boost rice production in the area, especially around the ‘chars’ (river islands). Having lived there for generations, these so-called migrants are as Indian (in today’s parlance) as the ethnic Assamese or the tribes-people in the state.<br />
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Unfortunately, the ensuing change in demography, rivalry for land, dwindling natural resources and livelihood, and intensified competition for political power between the ruling party and the separatists has added a deadly force to the issue of who has a right to Assam. It is all about xenophobia. Successive Congress governments have used Assamese/Bengali Muslims as little more than a vote bank without recognizing their rights.<br />
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After the Nellie massacre and 1983 elections, India's federal government tried to placate local sentiments by signing an accord with the All Assam Students Union (AASU) in 1985 which was leading the pogrom against the Bengali-speaking settlers there. The hard-line Assamese, however, later described the 1985 accord as a "betrayal" and decided to wage an armed campaign against India to secede from India. <br />
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Twenty nine years after the Nellie massacre, a group of the separatist United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) is now negotiating with Delhi, asking for more concrete protection for indigenous populations against what they falsely describe as "relentless illegal migration from across the border". <br />
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The Bengali-speaking people in Assam have also become more assertive these days with the formation of the Assam United Democratic Front under a charismatic leader which seeks to protect the rights of minorities and their periodic ousting from settlements through violence. In 2011, it emerged as the main opposition to Assam's ruling Congress party, winning three times the number of seats won by regional Assamese parties and the Hindu nationalist BJP, which promotes Hindutva. <br />
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It is this emerging political prowess of the Bengali people in Assam which is being exploited as a boogeyman by the ruling Congress party and the Hindu extremists to promote or be indifferent to periodic rioting that engulfs the region. Four years ago, the Indian Army had to be called in to stop blood-letting. More than 100 Bengali Muslims were killed in one such raid at Bansbari, a makeshift camp for displaced Muslims in 1993.<br />
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The latest pogrom has affected four districts of western Assam, where the Bengalis (mostly Muslims) are pitted against tribes-people such as the Bodos, Rabhas and Garos. In Kokrajhar, the Bodo heartland, Muslims are regularly attacked by Bodo separatist rebels and this periodically erupts into full-scale riots. This latest conflict has left about 40 dead (all Bengali-speaking Muslims) and displaced tens of thousands. <br />
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As noted by Indian political commentator Aijaz Zaka Syed, “As usual, Muslims were caught in the deadly games of the Congress and assorted separatist groups. Our Hindutva benefactors added fuel to the fire by raising the specter of invasion by Bangladeshi Muslims. The same drama is being re-enacted today with consequences that could be even deadlier. Yet unlike in the past, this conflict isn’t communal or religious in nature. It’s an economic struggle for the land and dwindling natural resources.” <br />
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In this latest pogrom, entire villages have been burnt down while the state administration remains curiously clueless and indifferent. Delhi insists Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi is “monitoring the situation” and doing everything possible to restore peace. “This is little comfort to the community, though, which increasingly lives in fear, worrying the worst may be yet to come. Gogoi is yet to visit the affected areas. Not even a flying, whirlwind tour for the cloistered satrap,” writes Syed.<br />
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If the local Assamese administration and the federal Indian government are serious about the well-being of Assamese/Bengali Muslims as well as other communities living in Assam, they should take steps to cool down this simmering volcano that erupts from time to time. Lasting peace in Assam cannot happen when xenophobia is promoted. Period!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">BY : <span style="color: red;">Dr. Habib Siddiqui. </span>>>> E Mail :saeva@aol.com </div></div>Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101597702541107239.post-48239557078893906602012-07-29T02:13:00.000+06:002012-07-29T02:13:46.846+06:00Why is Assam burning?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_lblNewsDetailMain"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iShDgD3Y9Z4/UBRH6S49aCI/AAAAAAAADRY/_eRCg2wReC8/s1600/2012-07-25T120919Z_1_CBRE86O0XRL00_RTROPTP_3_OUKWD-UK-INDIA-ASSAM.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iShDgD3Y9Z4/UBRH6S49aCI/AAAAAAAADRY/_eRCg2wReC8/s400/2012-07-25T120919Z_1_CBRE86O0XRL00_RTROPTP_3_OUKWD-UK-INDIA-ASSAM.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>Most editors are failed writers, argued T S Eliot. By the same logic, television hosts must be failed politicians and activists, I guess. Every time I watch folks like Bill O’Reilly of Fox News and Arnab Goswami of Times Now, I am reminded of the Spanish Inquisition.<br />
<br />
While O’Reilly has spawned around himself an alternative universe of his own where Islam is out to capture the West and America and the shadow of Islamist terror is lurking in every nook and corner, our own answer to Murdoch’s hatchet man likes to think he’s holding his own court every night where he has to tackle the formidable challenges facing the great democracy with his profound wisdom and vision and come up with instant solutions.<br />
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With his full court in attendance and the whole nation dutifully watching and listening to him, Arnab is the judge, jury and executioner as he rails and rails against the usual suspects. It’s an endless treat to watch the Times Now host as he addresses the nation from his pulpit with the choir earnestly nodding in agreement, and angrily demands answers from the politicians – usually the prime minister himself, no less. <br />
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Forever outraged, our hero truly thinks he is God’s gift to mankind and has been sent down to watch over the national interests. And everyone is accountable to Arnab Goswami. While he finds something or the other to be outraged about every night, nothing gets him going like the never-ending shenanigans of our Western neighbours who are apparently forever plotting against Mother India. If it’s not Pakistan, then it’s Indian Muslims or “international Islamist terrorists,” who deserve his outrage. In any case, as far as he is concerned they are all one and the same!<br />
<br />
The latest to provide grist to the Times Now mill is the unfolding mayhem in Assam, the Indian state bordering Bangladesh. Scores have been killed in attacks largely targeting Muslims and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes. While the state government blames both sides-Bodo tribesmen and Bengali-speaking Muslims – for the violence, the majority of the victims are once again Muslims.<br />
<br />
Entire villages have been burnt down while the state administration, as is our tradition, remains curiously clueless and indifferent. Delhi insists Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi is “monitoring the situation” and doing everything possible to restore peace. This is little comfort to the community, though, which increasingly lives in fear, worrying the worst may be yet to come. Gogoi is yet to visit the affected areas. Not even a flying, whirlwind tour for the cloistered satrap. <br />
<br />
There are reports of totally deserted villages and total absence of security forces in the troubled areas. While police are patrolling urban areas, it’s free-for-all for marauding mobs in interiors.<br />
<br />
Assam has a long history of recurring violence targeting minorities. However, what remains forever seared in public memory is the 1983 Nellie massacre when Indira Gandhi ruled from Delhi with her famous iron fist. The pogrom, carried out with crude weapons in a matter of a few hours, left 1,819 people dead. Independent sources suggest the toll was as high as 5,000. The killers didn’t even spare young babies.<br />
<br />
As usual, Muslims were caught in the deadly games of the Congress and assorted separatist groups. Our Hindutva benefactors added fuel to the fire by raising the spectre of invasion by Bangladeshi Muslims. The same drama is being re-enacted today with consequences that could be even deadlier. Yet unlike in the past, this conflict isn’t communal or religious in nature. It’s an economic struggle for the land and dwindling natural resources.<br />
<br />
In the end, it’s a humanitarian tragedy, and which is how it should be viewed. People hadn’t even recovered from the havoc wreaked by one of the worst floods in history when they were driven from their homes by people with whom they have lived for decades.<br />
<br />
Even Arnab Goswami opening the discussion on Assam began by arguing that no one should “communalise” the issue. Yet, this is precisely what he and his guests ended up doing. Instead of showing some sympathy for the victims and what they have just been through, all Muslims are there condemned as “Bangladeshi infiltrators.” Indeed, the nation is warned of “thousands of international Islamist fundamentalist terrorists with heavy weapons invading from across the border.” Not surprisingly, there was no one to present the other side of the storym except for a state minister who kept mumbling, “I don’t disagree with you.”<br />
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In fact, listening to the finger-wagging television pundits you would think the entire Northeast has been taken over by Bangladeshi infiltrators and Pakistani terrorists and Delhi and thousands of its security forces and intelligence agencies haven’t the faintest idea.<br />
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Extreme as it is, Times Now – from the Times of India stable – is hardly an exception. There are many out there who routinely tap into this reservoir of hatred and our deep-seated fear of the Other.<br />
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Is this how responsible media should function? What’s the difference between this scaremongering and the Nazi demonisation of Jews? As journalism students and rookies, we were told ad nauseam by our teachers and editors that the media’s job is to inform, educate and act as a watchdog of society. A journalist’s job is to speak the truth and report facts as truthfully as possible and let people draw their own conclusions. The media’s job is to stand up for the weak, not join the witch hunt.<br />
<br />
Many from my tribe routinely quote C P Scott, the legendary editor of The Guardian, that comment is free but facts are sacred. How many of us really believe in it, though? How many of us pause and ponder before passing off blatant lies, innuendos and our prejudices as facts, endangering lives and putting an entire community in the dock?<br />
<br />
If I had been one of those watching that Times Now “debate,” I would have probably rushed to join the bloodthirsty mob rampaging across Assam to teach a lesson to the “international Islamist terrorists,” as Arnab calls those fear-stricken, bruised and battered people running for their lives with their humble belongings.<br />
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But all this is in a day’s work for television pundits and journalists. Who gives a damn who killed whom and what havoc your words wreak in an already inflamed land, as long as you have your TRPs up and your audiences suitably agitated. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? So what if Assam has always had a large Muslim population, as much as 30 percent, and most of those being terrorised as “outsiders” have been there for ages, since long before the Partition? <br />
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Of course, given the porous and indistinct nature of the India-Bangladesh border, it’s possible some Bangladeshis might have now and then crossed over to this side. But as Congress leader Digvijay Singh points out, there has been a similar movement of migrants from the Indian side as well. With the Bangladeshi economy doing well in recent years, people have been moving to work in Bangladesh. Besides, weren’t we all part of one country not long ago?<br />
<br />
The BJP has a point when it claims all this is a result of the Congress’s vote bank politics. Indeed, successive Congress governments have used Assamese Muslims as little more than a vote bank without recognising their rights. <br />
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If it were serious about the well-being of Muslims as well as other communities, it would have taken steps to cool down this simmering volcano that erupts from time to time. There’s no peace where there’s no justice. Muslims, or for that matter any other community, need no special treatment. They just need what’s their due. Recognise everyone’s rights and give their due. That’s the only way to lasting peace in Assam.<br />
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<a href="http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-123076-Why-is-Assam-burning" target="_blank">Source : </a><br />
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</div>Admin.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15779884355133821523noreply@blogger.com