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Bangladesh Assessment 2000

Marring an assasination attempt on the life of the Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina on July 21, 2000, the year remained largely peaceful and free of terrorist violence for Bangladesh. The country has witnessed a period of relative stability and peace as regards insurgent and terrorist activities since the signing of the historic Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord (CHT Accord) in December 1997. The resurgence of religious extremism, however, has emerged as the major threat to political stability and internal security in the country.

Quoting army and police sources, a news report said, on July 22, that a bomb, planted close to the venue of a public meeting she was due to address, was detected and defused. Four activists of the Islamic Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of the Jammat-e-Islami, were taken into custody. Home Minister Mohammad Nasim accused a local Islamic terrorist group, but did not name it, of having plotted to kill Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed. The local press reported that the little known Islamic terrorist group, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, believed to have links with the Afghan Talibaan regime, is the suspect.

A number of Islamic extremist groups are now operating in Bangladesh, and the Islamic militant, Osama Bin Laden, has several followers in this country. The Harkat, aided by him, was established in 1992 and led by Shawkat Osman alias Sheikh Farid with an estimated strength of about 15,000. The Harkat maintains six camps in the hilly areas of Chittagong, where the cadres are imparted arms training. Several hundred recruits have also been trained in Afghanistan. The cadres are recruited mainly from among students of various madarsas (religious schools and seminaries) and style themselves as the ‘Bangladeshi Taliban.’ Harkat activists regularly cross over into several Indian States and maintain contact with ‘sources’ there. Reports also indicate that Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) has a hand in the activities of the HuJ. The ISI has intensified subversive activities in Bangladesh since the Awami League came to power in June 1996.

Intelligence received suggests that foreign-aided religious fanatics also plan to establish Islamic Hukumat (Islamic Rule) in Bangladesh by waging war and killing progressive intellectuals. There have been a series of incidents, including the attempt on the life of the renowned Bangladeshi poet, Shamsur Rahman, on January 18, 1999. After the Police arrested 10 activists of the Harkat and sealed its office in Dhaka's suburb of Khilgaon, interrogations revealed that they planned to kill 28 prominent intellectuals including National Professor Kabir Choudhury, writer Taslima Nasreen and the Director General of the Islamic Foundation, Maulana Abdul Awal.

On March 7, 1999, six persons were killed and more than 100 injured when two bombs planted by suspected religious extremists exploded at a cultural function in Bangladesh's western Jessore district. The function was organised by Udichi Shilpi Gosthi -- a Dhaka-based pro-liberation and left-oriented organisation of cultural activists.

Intellectuals and cultural organisations, however, are not the only targets of fundamentalist violence in Bangladesh. On October 8, seven people were killed and about 40 injured when a bomb exploded during Friday prayers at the Kadiani Mosque of the Ahamadiya sect of Muslims in Khulna. Police suspicions for this bombing focused on religious extremists who had earlier demanded a ban on the activities of the Ahamadiyas, who are regarded by orthodox Muslims as a blasphemous non-Muslim sect. The same day, powerful explosive devices were recovered from a mosque of the Ahamadiya sect and the office of a Bengali language daily - Janakantha, in Dhaka.

Fundamentalist violence in Bangladesh has to be seen against the backdrop of a rapidly deteriorating law and order situation. The year 1999 was marked by daily reports of killings and enormous political and criminal violence. On March 11, the government sacked the Home Affairs Minister Major (Retd.) Rafiqul Islam for his failure to check the spiral of violence, replacing him with the Minister for Posts and Telecommunications, Mohammad Nasim. According to police sources, at least 1,571 people were murdered in January-May 1999, compared with 1,304 murders in January-May the previous year. National statistics indicate that the number of all crimes reported rose to 50,242 from 44,928 in 1998.

The rise in crime has substantially been influenced by the proliferation of small arms in Bangladesh. It has been estimated that between 100,000-133,000 arms are in illegal possession, and some two million criminals have access to those arms. Most of these arms are brought in from neighbouring countries, though arms and explosives are also manufactured locally. There are an estimated 1,000 illegal arms factories in Bangladesh. The major users of small arms include professional criminals, gangsters, student political activists, and drug dealers and addicts.

All leading political parties in Bangladesh are alleged to have connections with the underworld network of arms. According to one list compiled by the police, the names of influential political leaders and activists figure prominently among those who they suspect of the possession of illegal arms. All the major political parties also have student wings that have armed cadres. It has become a common practice for the political parties to settle differences by calling for demonstrations and nation-wide general strikes, and most political parties rely heavily on their armed cadres to make these demonstrations successful.

An anti-government agitation continuing for over a year now has entered a new phase with the constitution of a four party alliance under the leadership of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). The Opposition alliance has organised a continuous series of strikes, processions, road marches and mass meetings in an attempt to bring down the government, though elections are due only in 2001. Politically motivated violence cost more than 30 lives in 1999.

The government has taken a number of steps to deal with the worsening law and order situation in the country. About 69,000 people are reported to have been arrested since the government launched a nation-wide crackdown on crime and terrorism in April 1999. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina informed Parliament in the first week of July, 1999 that more than 1,000 ‘hardened criminals’ had been imprisoned. These extreme initiatives were prompted by the assassination of a prominent pro-government left-wing leader, Kazi Aref Ahmed and five others, by political rivals.

Violence continues to persist in the southwestern districts of Bangladesh. A government report in June 1999 indicated that some 100 persons had been killed, over 300 wounded and many kidnapped as a result of terrorist activities in the 10 affected districts in the Greater Khulna region. In combing operations in this region that commenced on April 21, 1999, a total of 8,344 persons, including 366 listed terrorists, were arrested and 457 arms recovered.

In its efforts to contain the rising tide of violence, the government also announced an amnesty under which extremists and criminals could surrender without prosecution until July 30, 1999. Responding to this, 386 extremists belonging to various banned left-wing groups surrendered to the government. A number of well-known leaders, including Shailendra Nath Biswas and Biswajit Kumar of the Biplobi Communist Party, and Haider Ali and Hassan Ali of the Purba Banglar Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), were among those who surrendered.

On February 15, 2000, the Bangladesh Government enacted a tough law, the Public Safety Act (PSA), to tackle terrorism and acts of violence, limiting to 60 days the time from arrest to conviction or release. The Act is intended to ensure speedy trial of alleged offenders. Home Affairs Minister Mohammad Nasim said that bail provisions for defendants would also be tightened. He accused Bangladesh's higher courts of "patronising terrorists" by granting bail indiscriminately.

The year witnessed a number of untoward incidents along parts of the Indo-Bangladesh border. According to official sources in Dhaka, 26 Bangladeshis, including three Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) personnel, had been killed in (Indian) Border Security Force (BSF) firing and skirmishes between the two sides during the year. India complained about large-scale illegal immigration of Bangladeshi nationals into the Eastern and Northeastern States of India and into metropolitan cities such as New Delhi and Mumbai. An estimated 350 Bangladeshis are reported to illegally cross over into India every day. Barely 1,000 of these had been pushed back into Bangladesh in 1998-99. Cross-border migration, a major source of demographic destabilisation in the region, has been the cause of substantial ethnic and terrorist violence in India’s border States.

In order to curb illegal cross-border activities and resolve various other bilateral disputes, Bangladesh and India signed a Joint Record of Discussion at the director general level on October 28. At a four-day conference, the Directors General of the border forces of the two countries discussed several issues involving the non-implementation of the 1974 border treaty which stipulated: an exchange of enclaves; a clampdown on cross-border smuggling and other criminal acts; the enforced displacement of Indian nationals into Bangladesh and the illegal immigration of Bangladeshis to India; arms-trafficking; trafficking in women and children, and unprovoked exchange of fire at borders.

Trouble also continues in the CHT despite the CHT Accord of 1997. Disputes have arisen over proposed land settlement deals between the native Chakma tribes and the Bengali settlers in the region. The chairman of the CHT Regional Council, Shantu Larma accused "a section of the government" of obstructing the implementation of the Accord and complained that rehabilitation efforts for 50% of the tribal people who had returned from camps in India since the agreement, and for 80% of those who had been internally displaced, had stalled. There had also been complaints over the pace of withdrawal of the Bangladesh Army from the region.

Moreover, activists of the Prashir Sanchay – a tribal group which vows to liberate the CHT area and has condemned the Parbattya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti (PCJSS) for settling for less – continued to create law and order problems in the CHT. On November 17, they killed two PCJSS leaders in Khagrachari district. On September 7, Bengali settlers in the Rangamati district and some political leaders belonging to BNP and Jamaat-i-Islami demanded that the Shanti Bahini leaders, including Shantu Larma, be punished and the CHT Accord be scrapped. Long-term prospects for peace in the area, consequently, remain uncertain.

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