Bangladesh Election 2007: A contest between jehadis and democratic forces ?

New Delhi, January 12, 2007 : Bangladesh is populated by 141 million people. 88% of them are Muslims. It is one of the poorest countries in the world. It was ranked the most “corrupt state” in the world for five consecutive years (2001-05) by Transparency International, a German-based independent international organization that studies corruption in various countries.

The 2001 general elections in Bangladesh voted a four-party coalition led by Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to power. Jamaat-e-Islam and Islamic Okyo Jote are the two major partners of the coalition widely known for their extreme Islamic radicalism.

Many Islamic extremist groups and organizations mushroomed under the Khaleda Zia government and gained strong ground in the Islamic state (in the sense of recognition of Islam as “state religion”: Part I, Article 2 A, Bangladesh Constitution). A study conducted by the Daily Star, an English daily in Dhaka, “over several months”, as it claims, has come up with some startling information. It identified the presence of over 30 extremist Islamic radical networks in the country.

The study, entitled “Inside the Militant Groups-1: Trained in foreign lands, they spread inland”, says “…Over 30 religious militant organizations have set up their network across the country since 1989 with the central objective of establishing an Islamic state. Many of them have given armed training to their members to conduct jihad” (The Daily Star, Internet edition, 21 August 2005, Dhaka).

Some of these groups and organizations are Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), Qwami Madrassa, Sama Adhikar Andolan (mainly active in the Chittagong Hill Tracts), Harkatul Jihad, Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), Islami Biplobi Parishad, Shahadat Al Hiqma, Hizbut Towhid, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Ahle Hadith Andolon, Towhidi Janata, Bishwa Islami Front, Juma'atul Sadat, Al Jomiatul Islamia, Iqra Islami Jote, Allahr Dal, Al Khidmat Bahini, Al Mujhid, Jama'ati Yahia Al Turag, Jihadi Party, Al Harkat al Islamia, Al Mahfuz Al Islami, Jama'atul Faladia, Shahadat-e-Nabuwat, Joish-e-Mostafa, Tahfize Haramaine Parishad, Hizbul Mojahedeen, Duranta Kafela, Muslim Guerrilla, Al-Haramain Foundation (AHF) and Al Rabeta Foundation.

The study reveals that these groups have a “nexus with mainstream political parties’ and “unrelenting access to arms”, and the government’s “blind eye” made it possible for them to thrive in Bangladesh.

Many activists of these groups, says the study, are Afghanistan and Palestinian war veterans who fought there after receiving training in Pakistan, Libya and Palestine. After returning to Bangladesh, they scattered over the country and started militant activities. Initially, a number of them set up madrasas as cover, mainly toeing the Qwami line, which is the more orthodox system of Islamic education and needs no government registration. They chose the forests of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), mosques and the Qwami madrasas mainly in the north to train their activists.

Camps of these Jehadis with arms are specifically visible in Muslim dominated areas in Bandarban Hill District of the CHT like Ruma, Lama, Alikadam and Nakhyangchari and Teknaf, Ramu and Cox’s Bazaar areas in Southern Chittagong. Many of these Jehadis reportedly live in Rohingha refugee camps and settlements in Bandarban and Southern Chittagong and provide training, arms and funds to them to fight against the authorities in Myanmar.

The Jehadi groups and organisations are funded by Saudi and Kuwait-based Islamic organizations, like Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS), and have connections with international Islamist terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, Taleban and Jamia-Islamia (Indonesia) [The Daily Star, 21 August 2005, Dhaka]. Many remnants of al-Qaeda and Taleban fled to Bangladesh after the US-led coalition strikes on Afghanistan and Pakistan’s drive under US pressure to crack down on “Islamic terrorist groups” in its territory. They have regrouped in Bangladesh with support from the BNP-led coalition government, military establishments and home-grown Jehadi forces. A reporter rightly grasped this fact in his despatch captioned "Bangladesh is Now New Rest Stop for Fugitives" (The Herald, 23 October 2002).

Poverty and corruption in the poor Islamic state and the sympathy and support of the coalition government were used by these "fugitives" highly trained in sophisticated arms and terrors and rich in resources. It led to the creation of a suitable environment for resurrection of national and international Jehadi forces in the country. This is obviously the reason why Eliza Griswold predicts Bangladesh to be "The Next Islamist Revolution" (The New York Times Magazine, 23 January 2005). In fact, Bangladesh is now a new meeting point of national and international Islamic Jehadi forces. This fact has also been well-documented in the Alex Perry’s "Deadly Cargo" (The New York Times Magazine, 21 October 2002) and Bertil Lintner’s "Bangladesh: A Cocoon of Terror" (The Far Eastern Economic Review, 4 April 2002).

The Jehadi forces have already shown the colon of their activities in the following incidents:

1. Assassination of opposition leaders (bomb blasts on the Awami League rally on 21 August 2004 in Dhaka in which former Prime Minister Ms. Sheikh Hasina was narrowly survived and dozen of her party colleagues were killed, bomb blasts killing former Finance Minister Shah S. A. M. S. Kibria along with four other opposition leaders on 27 January 2005 in Dhaka)

2. Violent attacks on Western interests (grenade hurling on the British High Commissioner on 21 May 2004 in Sylhet apparently for UK’s role in the US-led "coalition campaign" in Afghanistan and Iraq)

3. Control over and suppression of independent media persons, human rights activists, intellectuals and indigenous political leaders [bomb blasts at Khulna Press Club hurting four journalists on 4 February 2005, threat to the office of the Bengali daily Prothom Alo in Dhaka on 19 August 2004, killing of a Dhaka University professor Humayun Azad on 11 August 2004, threat to “controversial” writer and feminist Taslima Nasreen and writer and minority rights activist Salam Azad which forced them to flee the country for personal security recently, barring the PCJSS (Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti, the only political organization representing the Jumma indigenous people) President and CHT Regional Council Chairman Jyotirindra Bodhipriyo Larma from attending the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues held in May 2004 in New York and blocking the passport of Rupayan Dewan, Vice-President, External Relations, PCJSS];

4. Coordinated explosions of over 500 bombs across the country at the same hour on 17 August 2005 by the Jehadi forces as part of their showdown;

5. Systematic atrocities, ethnic-cleansing and racial discrimination against the indigenous peoples and religious minorities (blatant violation of the CHT Accord signed between the PCJSS and the previous Awami League government in 1997, violent communal attack on the 14 indigenous villages on 26 August 2003 in Mahalchari, military crackdown on indigenous political and student activists on 25 May 2004 in Guimara and growing religious intolerance and atrocities against Hindus, Buddhists and Christians in plain districts); and

6. The largest arms haul with over 1 million ammunitions on 1 April 2004 in Chittagong is linked with Bangladeshi and international Jehadi groups. Interestingly, the authorities often implicate innocent Jumma indigenous people with "illegal arms" and highlight their photos in government-controlled media to cover up the existence of these groups and to divert the attention of the international community from the growing menace of Jehadi forces in the country and to justify the Bangladeshi military regime in the CHT.

But the Prime Minister Khaleda Zia on 1 July 2003 told parliament that no al-Qaeda men exist in Bangladesh. "There are no fundamentalists or zealots in the country," she told Ulemas (Islamic scholars) on 6 September 2003. However, as early as March 8, 1999, Islami Oikya Jote Chairman Fazlul Haq Amini told a public meeting, “We are for Osama [bin Laden], we are for the Taliban and we will be in government in 2000 through an Islamic revolution”

"An Islamic revolution will take place by Qwami madrasas," Amini said at an Islamic conference in Comilla on March 1 this year. "By terming us gun runners and terrorists, Qwami madrasa movement cannot be stopped," he added.

The Jehadi forces are reportedly using the Southern CHT, Cox’s Bazaar, Ukhiya and Teknaf as routes to smuggle illegal arms from South-east Asian countries. Recently, news was flashed in Bangladesh media regarding procurement of illegal arms by Jehadi groups and their allied political gangs. Experts have voiced concern over possible use of these illegal arms by them against their political oppositions before and during the elections.

The BNP-led four-party coalition government demitted office on 28 October at the end of its five-year term. However, it left a Caretaker Government -- consisting of eleven Advisors headed by the President Iajuddin Ahmed and assisted by the Secretaries of various government departments and a so-called "neutral" Election Commission -- fully manned with BNP–Zamat party cadres and supporters and Jehadi forces and strongly backed by military officers.

BNP’s four-party coalition has made a “fraudulent” voter list in which 10.7 million voters, who are believed to be supporters of the Awami League led 14-party alliance, have not been included. Nonetheless, over 100,000 Rohingha refugees from Myanmar, who are believed to be supporters of the BNP and its allies, have been included.

If the caretaker government manages to have its way, it will bring back to power BNP coalition and Jehadi forces to power. The 14-party alliance has hit the streets to expose these designs. They have set conditions for their participation in the election. These conditions include constitution of a non-biased and neutral Election Commission, preparation of a new voter list that includes all eligible voters.

Out of the ten, four members of the Advisors to the Caretaker Government have resigned in protest of the "dictatorial" and "pro-BNP-Jamaat" role of the President Iajuddin Ahmed in the election process. And his response was deployment of the military country-wide to look after the "law and order" situation. With this order the Caretaker Government has granted a license to the military to kill the leaders of the opposition alliance. It has legalized repression of indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts by the military and electoral frauds by BNP-led coalition in the region.

I conclude my write-up with the words of an eminent minority rights activist of Bangladesh (name is being withheld for security reasons): "Bangladesh election 2007 is a contest between Jehadis and democratic forces. No democratic and progressive force will survive in Bangladesh if the Jehadis come to power in this election."