Bangladesh-Conspiracy Circle is now complete

Mozammel H. Khan

Published on February 13, 2007

 

Mr. Iajuddin Ahmed, the self-assumed Chief Adviser (CA) of the caretaker government (CTG) spared no time in installing four advisors to replace the four who resigned from the government to protest his dictatorial, partisan and unconstitutional behaviours in running the affairs of the state at the most crucial juncture of nation�s history.

His mentor, the outgoing PM Khaleda Zia over the last two years was delivering repeated sermons to the nation that her opponents are involved in conspiracy and are all out there to destroy the democracy and development that her government has so painstakingly carried out over the last five years. Even today (December 13) she called upon all to free the country from the hands of "local and foreign conspirators". She further alleged that her opponents have destroyed the sanctity of all the constitutional institutions, such the EC, the Supreme Court, the President and the Constitution.

Conspiracy as defined by Random House Dictionary is �an evil, unlawful, treacherous or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons�. Whatever activities or action plans that have been formulated by Khaleda Zia�s opponents as regard to the above institutions are made public and are carried out in broad daylight together with tens of thousands of attendees. So they could be termed anything but conspiracy.

In fact, the sanctity of those institutions has been systematically demolished one after another, by the BNP and its co-accomplices and on most occasions, it was done by conspiratorial means. Let us concentrate our attention to each of them separately.

Never before in the history of this country, was the Election Commission manned by a group of partisan, incompetent and people with absolute moral bankruptcy. Their ethical standard is so low that they even lack the articulation to hide their partisan feelings. In the words of the Dr. Akbar Ali Khan, �the EC became so controversial that no one wanted to join the body�. Instead of alleviating the situation, Iajuddin Ahmed has accelerated its sliding by appointing two more birds of the same feathers by means, which truly fits the characteristics of conspiracy as defined by Random House. Did the opponents of Khaleda Zia play any part in that conspiracy?

Mr. Iajuddin Ahmed, as President of the Republic, without exploring the three other options as stipulated in the constitution, to appoint CA of the CTG, has appointed himself the CA of the CTG. This was a flagrant violation of the constitution. The constitutional stipulations in this respect are so clear that one does not have to be a Kamal Hossain of constitution or a Harold Lasky of political science to comprehend them. Even a person who did not pass the matriculation exam should be having no difficulties to conceive the violation.

Here again, conspiracy was so evident that the President�s office did not have time even to invite the leader of the opposition of the erstwhile parliament in the oath taking ceremony while the Presidential staff had enough time to invite even the low level leaders of the BNP led alliance. Even the member of the public did not know who was going to be their �saviour of democracy� until it was announced by the cabinet secretary seconds before the ceremony. If this was not a conspiracy, then what was it?

The aggrieved political leaders filed a writ petition in the superior court challenging the constitutional legality of Mr. Iajuddin�s assumption of the chief of the CTG, a conventional avenue in any Republic where rule of law and constitution prevail. After due hearings, when the judges were about to deliver their ruling, the Attorney General (AG), a henchman of the BNP, personally delivered an order on a plain paper from the Chief Justice (CJ) staying the delivery of ruling, an unprecedented phenomenon in the country�s legal chronicle.

In the past, the same CJ allegedly dismantled the HC benches more that a dozen times whenever a ruling was issued against the government. What the CJ did in collusion with the AG on November 30, which the constitutional expert Dr. Kamal Hossain has attributed as �killing his own baby� is a classical example fitting the exact definition of conspiracy (I could be charged with contempt!). Did the opposition political parties have any hand in that conspiracy? If the person occupying the highest constitutional office of the Republic violates the constitution, where else other than the highest court of the land a citizen could seek redress? The broken doors and windows of the Supreme Court premises could be repaired rapidly, but the justice which was denied its normal course, in an issue of such national importance, could be beyond any redemption.

The office of the President was the last hope of the people of the Republic when all the other organs of the State have been politicized and made crippled by the five year�s of atrocious governance of the BNP led alliance. They even drove their own party man out of the office of the President as soon he tried to become the President of all citizens of the State rather than that of the party alone.

The former President Dr. B Chowdhury had no constitutional or legal obligation to resign when the BNP parliamentary party asked him to do so. The constitution has empowered the parliament, not any political party, to impeach the President under a set of well defined circumstances, none of which was applicable for President Chowdhury. His decision to resign from his position was absolutely based on ethical consideration since he realized that he, any more, did not carry the confidence of the electorates who have elected him. On the same token, Mr. Iajuddin Ahmed�s acceptance of the Presidency was an unethical act, since he knew very well the reasons behind his predecessor�s departure from the highest echelon of the State. Did the opponents of Khaleda Zia have any conspiratorial hand in demeaning the sanctity of the highest constitutional office of the Republic?

I met Mr. Iajuddin Ahmed some thirty years ago in the residence of his fellow soil science graduate in Illinois and was not at all impressed with his intellectual standing on any issues relating to politics and society. Since he was hand picked by his mentor as the President, his numerous activities clearly portrayed him as his master�s voice. As titular head of state, he was obediently carrying the wishes of his mentor. Depth of his moral depravity could be evidently extrapolated from his utterance of the name of our founding father as �Mujibur Rahman� (even his arch political rival addressed him as Sheikh Shaheb) in his last written speech in the parliament.

On October 29, when he declared himself the CA of the neutral CTG, baring the fact he was a loyal party follower, citizens by and large expected that he would rise on to the occasion, at the fag end of his life and career, and conduct himself to uphold the letter and spirit of the CTG.

Contrary to their expectation, Iajuddin Ahmed has shrouded himself in secrecy (along with his BNP appointed staff without any shred of accountability and transparency) and has been carrying out the acts of conspiracy one after another to implement the blue print of his mentor bypassing the council of advisers, all whom collectively constitute the CTG . He has blinded himself with such a degree of inclination toward his mentor that his actions only prove that he is more catholic than the Pope.

He has humiliated and betrayed some of the finest persons of this nation, who in every way are incomparably more gifted than him, to the point that they, by the urge of their conscience, had to resign from their responsibilities. He has replaced them with a group of �nationalists� who have allegedly agreed not to differ with him in any of his future actions, completing the full circle of conspiracy. Their initial statements to media reporters reflected that their level of �competence� is no different from that of their new boss.

Iajuddin Ahmed has positioned himself in the course of a despot, absolutely guided by his mentor, not by any inkling of conscience, and is bent on carrying out acts that defy the constitution, rule of law and ethics, thereby completely destroying the core objective of the caretaker system.

Even Hitler or Mussolini could have been taken aback by the statement such as, �criticism of my personal staff is tantamount to interference of the activities of the State�. Here again, what Mr. Iajuddin is carrying out, sitting in Bangabhaban, including reading his speech crafted by his mentor, (which even he does not have the physical ability to read properly) when the whole nation sleeps, is the best case that fits the definition of conspiracy. Do any of the detractors of Khaleda Zia have any hand in those conspiracies?

When I was listening to his live speech at 12:00 noon at Toronto local time, it reminded me of another speech, full of distortion and deception, delivered on March 27, 1971 by another self-declared chief executive by the name of General Aga Mohammed Yahia Khan squarely blaming Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the Bengali people for all what happened in East Pakistan to justify the crack down.

The nation had to pay the lives of 3 millions of her worthy sons to prove him wrong by throwing him in the dustbin of history. Iajuddin Ahmed has himself set his destiny in the history and there would not be many around to mourn his eventuality. The cruelty comes from the fact that the nation is set on a horrible course to pay a heavy price for the dreadful acts of a person who neither possesses the prudence, conscience and wisdom warranted from its first citizen nor did have an iota of sacrifice for its painful creation

Dr. Mozammel H. Khan is the Convenor of the Canadian Committee for Human Rights and Democracy in Bangladesh. He writes from Toronto, Canada.