Untold Facts

Khaleda too little too late: Better late than never

Soon after the December 2008 election result was out and the Awami League (AL) won a landslide and BNP sized up, both beyond everybody’s expectations, a London resident friend then in Dhaka asked me what should Khaleda do right then. I replied without almost any hesitation, she must now make a rally at the Paltan Maidan and must explain to her followers and Islamic/Muslim elements that the election did not reflect the true wishes and aspirations of the people and provide political pro-active programs in the field. None of us are practicing and professional politician but all life teachers, he is still in job there to retire soon but I have already retired long 15 years ago due to old age and official superannuation. I tried to explain my hunch and give my intuition that the result had been somehow manipulated; I was not sure of what mechanics had been applied. Another friend from Karachi who preferred to be there after 1971 break up being a native of greater Barisal and direct school teacher of former CG Chief Fakhrudin phoned me from Karachi and gave me a clue of rigging by special squad of General Moinuddin, the army chief, in connivance with the Awami League and other powerful outside elements, not necessarily the whole army’s doing. I neither fully believed nor turned the idea fully as false.

Since then things have opened first by former AL Secretary General Jalil and made many issues clear by now that it was not only the election but the orchestration from the January 2007 Emergency etc until the election, ministry formation and all activities gone on onto May 2010 went on in some engineering pattern. The central point of the pattern was that there had been serious contracts between Hasina and her immediate lord Delhi for keeping her in power for life and through to the dynastic continuity in exchange Hasina promised to offer every bit India needs from Bangladesh for integrating her regional hold as the emerging superpower. That deal was struck in underhand position by Moinuddin that in return he was promised to have the position of the Bangladesh’s President with more power. It is still there but for the old Zillur Rahamn the difference occurred, but no one can be sure that the same Moin would not at all re-emerge in the position.

Khaleda had her shocks to withstand and possibly deep motherly weaknesses due to her two sons both partially turned disabled by Moin’s own men, long under treatment in foreign countries, not likely to recover again to full blown youth once again to work and life despite their chronological age still at late forties. The episode was unbelievable in any society with minimum humanitarian norms and considerations. In this sense Hasina was double lucky than Khaleda as her two issues in late thirties had been then fully settled in advanced foreign countries outside and also that they stayed away outside from long before.

Hasina’s advantageous position was fully and cleverly utilized particularly by India in addition to the legacy of her father as the champion of Pakistan breaker, the number one enemy of Pakistan since the days of late 1940s. On the other hand Khaleda’ had some friends outside in the Muslim world but they were not that assertive as India had been for Hasina.

As soon as Hasina got the Bangladesh State executive power for the second term in January 2009 she aggressively pursued her politics of reprisal. Her first target was the otherwise organized and confident Bangladesh army and its command developed confidently after mid August 1975. In her first term (1996-2001) she did initiate reprisal of Mujib Murder case that she could not have finished right then in five years. That was her first target but would take some time more to meet formalities to hang to death in the due process. That is why her back up planners went for the BDR massacre orchestrated on the 25-26 February 2009 to dampen the morale of the army who had sympathy for the 15th August heroes for their successful mutiny on the 15th August 1975 which placed and raised the army in due and respectable position.

By now in over 14 months some small fries alleged to have been involved in the BDR massacre had been tried and punished but there is no progress in regard to the trial of the real planners and killers directly or clandestinely involved in the brutal killings of 57 army officers in a single go in full knowledge and information of the PM Hasina. Are the facts that had opened so far, despite hush ups, at all anything but fishy?

In mid January she visited Delhi her real master in inheritance, signed treaties not yet placed in the parliament as the Constitution requires her to do, no matter though the HUQQA HUAS (two words used by BBC’s former Serajur Rahman) are mainly there, not to speak of making known to the people. The secrecy itself clearly implies that they had been bonded ones just as her father bonded Bangladesh for instance by the 25 year treaty euphemistically termed though as ‘FRIENDSHIP’ between unequal!

Soon after she returned to Dhaka from Delhi she orchestrated to appoint a junior judge as the Chief Justice through clandestine understanding that the 15th August mutineers would be confirmed hanging to death in a hara-kiri trial that he did in three days on the 27th January before he went on to retirement on the 6th February or just about one week after the verdict passed and executed in lightening speed. She cared nothing for world wide appeals and protests against the execution of the five decorated commissioned army officers for the trial was rightly labeled as the POLITICAL TRIAL (The Economist, 27 November 2009) and not fair judicial trial on any account from the start in late 1996 to the finish.

The morale of the army is now shattered that was rebuilt on the ashes of the 1971 war and the neglect they received during 1972-mid August 1975 and by Hasina’s father’s rule.
All these should have been foreseen just at the conclusion of the 2008 December election by all patriotic and sensible politicians rising above self, and then and then gone on to pro-active street political programs by all nationalist and Islamic/ Muslim parties of Bangladesh. Now that they have missed the bus at the right time, BNP’s action program announced on the 19th May by Khaleda Zia in the Dhaka Paltan Maidan is at best too little too late for the country to get out from the octopus of the Indian hegemony at this stage of Hasina’s total subservience for her ulterior motive clearly seen ahead not only for absolute one party rule but for her dynastic continuity.

It is not at all sustainable in simple logic that by making the 15th August 1975 a matter of simple ‘murder’ of the President and nothing beyond, much less successful mutiny, that the BNP callously yielded to in their quiet acceptance of the trial from the start in not resisting the indemnity repeal in the Parliament in late 1996 to the finish and in execution to death of the five (by now and six still at large as fugitive in freer countries) already befell them to non-existence facing now first defacing Zia by the AL that might lead the BNP’s existence even as a legal political party that lawfully owed everything on to the victorious 15th August coup and its lawful continuity via the 5th Amendment of the Constitution. In the back drop they have first to make penance for the five hanged to death by Political Trial by Hasina, protest them even now as the vicious judicial murder, seek redress and then and then only BNP can have its legitimacy. Unless the legitimization done first in the process pointed out here, calls for actions in the streets as Khaleda has gone on to announce as too little too late after missing the bus in due time.

Let’s try to recall to be honest and truthful the whole truth of history that minus the 15th August decisive victory led and involved by Farooq, Dalim, Shahreer, Rashid, etc. Zia, much less Khaleda, would have any place in the history of this country.

Even so, one might argue, better late than never.

Author: HB Khair