What is the mystery of the letter to Dr. Rice?

Mozammel H. Khan

Published on February 13, 2007

The alliance government of Bangladesh and Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed who writes from the town of Princeton have a number of things in common: both are in a state of denial, both are in ostrich like attitude, both are in constant pursuit to invent conspiracy whenever something is published outside our borders depicting the reprehensible state of affairs of Bangladesh and both are in complete tune in accusing our citizens of conducting smear campaign if one raises the despicable human rights situation in the country in any international forum. In an earlier write-up in the Daily Star (DS), he dismissed the NY Times story of Eliza Griswold entitled, �Bangladesh: The next Islamic Revolution?� and inferred the whole story a conspiracy against Bangladesh. After what happened on August 17, and the subsequent and ongoing startling revelations in the news media including the DS, I was expecting that Dr. Fakhruddin would make an apology to his readers for his incomplete perceptions about the existence of the extremist elements and their evil designs. Quite to the contrary, he has even gone one-step ahead of the government of Bangladesh in cutting aspersion on the authenticity of the letter written to Dr. Condoleezza Rice by sixteen distinguished lawmakers of the US congress. A government spokesperson of Bangladesh has responded to the letter that affirmed that the government did not have any doubt about its authenticity. Even the PM in her recent speech, in commensurate with her usual vocabularies, in Bangladesh Embassy in NY made an oblique reference through her accusations that �the ill-campaigners are organising seminars and meetings abroad to establish the one-sided and false allegations with the help of politicians of foreign countries who are sympathetic to them�. The letter visibly outraged Dr. Fakhruddin, which was obvious through his, rather incoherent reactions. On the one hand, he blamed the Bangladeshi who, in his view, orchestrated this anti-Bangladesh campaign, and took an extremely critical views of the observations made in the letter, while, on the other, raising the apprehension if the legislators �did actually sign the letter�, an incredulity that overtly undermines the integrity and accountability of some of the US politicians from both side of the political divides, any of whom has the potential and prospect of becoming the next President of the United States.

In his research to find the geographical identity of lawmakers, his conclusion was �bizarre�: �most of the lawmakers come from the New England area and some one or some groups are orchestrating anti-Bangladeshi smear campaign�. As a former Rhodes Scholar Dr. Fakhruddin miserably failed to distinguish between the State and the government. If the criticisms against the policies and the wrong doings of the Bush Administration are considered smear campaign against America, then Dr. Fakhruddin�s name should feature in the forefront of that list of the �anti-Americans� and Fahrenheit 911 famed Michael Moore, who portrayed the ugly face of the US government to the billions of audience around the globe should be tried for treason.

Because of the Bush administration�s ill-intended policies and attitude towards the rest of the world, albeit George Bush is the elected President of the United States, respect for Jefferson�s America is never been at such low ebb in the international arena. Being disenchanted by the faltering image of their beloved country and finding no other internal avenues to redress the situations, if a group of Americans urge the UN to censure Bush Administration�s policy, will Dr. Fakhruddin, presumably an American citizen, add his chore to those voices or term their effort as an act of �smear campaign� against US? The maverick independent MP of the British House of Commons George Galloway in his crusade against the labour party goverenment brought his case to the western side of the Atlantic. Only the other day, he was cheered by thousand of students of Canada�s biggest univerysity when he delivered a fiery speech castigating the catastrophic policy of the Bush-Blair administrations. Neither the British government nor any of its citizens ever accused Mr. Galloway of mounting smear campaign aginst his motherland.

In his own admission it is clear to Dr. Fakhruddin that �those who stand to gain by Bangladesh becoming a failed state promote and pereptuate the myth that Bangladesh is well on its towards national suicide�. It would be natural to enquire the indentity of the elements who stand to gain from Bangladesh becoming a failed state. Is he pointing his finger to Senetor Kennedy, who travelled all the way to our devastated land in 1971 to express his support and solidarity with our life and death struggle for freedom, or to the freedom fighter who moved from village to village in the occupied land with curbides in his shoulder to free his mother land from the foreign occupation or to the school girl, who happens to teach in Boston Univeristy now, donated his tiffin allowance to the cause of Bangladesh�s creation? In fact, one does not have to be a Rhodes scholar to concieve the hypothesis that those who opposed the creation of Bangladesh stand to gain from its failure of becoming a viable state in order to prove that the they did nothing wrong by opposing its creation in the first place. It is worth noting that the debate of �failed state� started during the tenure of the current alliance government; it was never featured even during the regime of martial or quasi-martial law, which the people of Bangladesh, unfortunately, had to endure during half of its life since its inception. Moreover, Dr. Fakhruddin should not be on the receiving end of the lecture in identifying the perpetrators when a State is considered failed. Are these the people who are in the helm of the State or those who are out of it?

Dr. Fakhruddin commented that as in neighbouring countries, political and religious violence are facts of life in Bangladesh. In which other democracy in our neighbourhood when grenades after grenades are thorown in the public rally, at broad daylight, pointing to the leader of the opposition and former PM, killing and wounding hundreds, law enforcing agencies, instead of rescuing the victims, would fire tear gas? Whose interest was served by this nefarous acts of the police force? How one could dismiss the natural inference about the collusion of the authority with the perpetrators? Dr.Fakhruddin is irked by the prominence that Slain Mr. Kibria received in the letter, overlooking the full contents that Sheikh Hasina and British HC received due importance as well. He also found fault with the lawmakers� inaction as regard to the case of Narinder Modi of Gujrat. In fact, Narinder Modi is already in the criminal list of the state department who has been denied US visa.

What is wrong with the US lawmakers� comments that �the lower courts are under the authority of the executive and they lack independence�? Does Dr. Fakhruddin want to deny this well-known fact? In fact, the US lawmakers did not touch on the Bangladesh�s higher judiciary, which has been blatantly politicised by the current administration. It was ridiculous that Dr. Fakhruddin drew a parallel between the appointments of judges in US Supreme Court with those under the current administration in Bangladesh. Most of the judges in the US Supreme Court possess illustrious legal career with their formal education received in Harvard, Yale or similar reputed education institutions. Their differences come not from their affiliation to the Republican or the Democratic parties; they differ on social and constitutional issues. In addition, they are so much grilled during the Senate confirmation hearing that the whole nation comes to know about their past records and their standing on unsettled social and constitutional issues. They never felt embarrassed to hear the appeal of the self-confessed killers of a victim as because the victim incidentally believed in a political faith different from their own.

In conclusion Dr. Fakhruddin asked the Bangladesh government to verify the authenticity of the letter, which I believe, the government with its multiple mission offices in US soil has done so. The Daily Star possesses an extended periphery of readerships that extends beyond the national boundary of Bangladesh. Only on the other day, David Boster Jr., a US citizen, issued a rejoinder in response to a story by Lawrence Lifschultz. On a similar token, my article questioning the statistical validity of CPI data to declare Bangladesh as the most corrupt country of the world in 2001 prompted a response from the Transparency International head quarter in Berlin. We even did not have the perception that fraudulency can occur in the communiqu� that is customarily being issued about the outcomes of a talk between two foreign leaders until we read a protest statement issued by Senator Kennedy regarding his talk with Bangladesh government�s minister of Home affairs. Being a US citizen and residing at a vantage point in New Jersey, transparency of American democracy should give him little trouble to verify the authenticity of the letter. If his apprehension is not true, and if the statement was made �to oblige the constituent', Dr Fakhruddin who seemingly possesses an unflinching trust on the Bangladesh government�s records on Human Rights, Liberal Democracy, Rule of Law, the RAB actions of extra-judicial denial of right to life, dysfunctional parliament, total politicization of every organ of the state, including the election commission and the higher judiciary, surely he could obtain a few testimonials, �a routine service to their constituents�, from his Senators such as Frank Lautenberg and Robert Torricelli of New Jersey endorsing his own views on those burning issues. It would be, indeed, a befitting reciprocation to counter the �anti-Bangladeshi campaign� allegedly waged by his compatriots residing in US soil!

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