SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 12, No. 22, December 2, 2013

BANGLADESH

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Battle of the Begums
S. Binodkumar Singh
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

Paving the way for the constitution of an “all-party” Interim Government to oversee the next Parliamentary Elections, all 52 ministers in the Awami League (AL)-led Begum Sheikh Hasina Wajed Government submitted their resignations on November 11, 2013. Subsequently, on November 21, 2013, a 29-member Interim Government was formed under Prime Minister Hasina. 28 other Ministers (including 21 Cabinet Ministers and seven State Ministers) were also inducted. All the 28 ministers are members of the Grand Alliance which was formed under AL leadership in December 2008, after the last Parliamentary Elections. While 20 Ministers have been re-inducted, eight new faces,  including Anisul Islam Mahmud, Rahul Amin Hawlader, Rawshan Ershad, Mujibul Hague Chunnu, Salma Islam of the Jatiya Party (JP); Amir Hossain Amu and Tofail Ahmed of the AL; and Rashed Khan Menon of the Workers Party (WP).

Hasina later gave an assurance that the Ministers of the Interim Government would not make any policy decisions, and would only engage in 'routine work' during the election period, adding, “I want to assure you [people and the opposition] that the elections will be held in a free and fair manner. I urge the opposition leader to join the elections and the people will decide who assumes power.” Prime Minister Hasina also stated that President Abdul Hamid had advised her to lead the Interim Government.

This move, however, has been vehemently opposed by the Begum Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the 18-party opposition alliance she heads, which includes the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) and other Islamist radicals. The alliance has been demanding a non-party Caretaker Government (CG) on the pattern of arrangements under which earlier elections were held. In June 2011, Parliament had abolished the non-party CG system, declaring the 15-year-old constitutional provision illegal.

While the BNP-led alliance has opposed the formation of the Interim Government and is planning its strategy of response, the Election Commission (EC), on November 25, 2013, announced that the 10^th General Election would be held on January 5, 2014. Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmed made the announcement in an address to the nation on state radio and television and appealed to all political parties to contest the election, assuring them of taking all necessary measures, including deployment of the armed forces, to ensure a free and fair election. According to the schedule, the deadline for submission of nomination papers is December 2, 2013.

Since the AL led-Government had completed its tenure on October 24, 2013, Article 123 of the Constitution of Bangladesh required general elections to be held within 90 days, that is, before January 24, 2014.

On November 25, 2013, the Opposition announced a 48-hour countrywide blockade from November 26, 2013. In a press briefing arranged minutes after the announcement of the Election schedule, BNP acting Secretary General, Mirza Fakhrul Islam, called on the EC to postpone the polls schedule until a consensus on the arrangements for a non-party CG was reached among the political parties. BNP spokesman Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir declared, "We reject the election schedule."

Stunned by the announcement and realizing that their attempts to obstruct the announcement of the polls had failed, the Opposition alliance intensified its 'street protests' unleashing wave of disruptive demonstrations and violence in the hope that this would force the Government to rethink its position. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), as many as 25 people, including 20 civilians, four JeI and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS) cadres and one trooper of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) have been killed in street violence since the announcement of the poll schedule (all data till December 1, 2013).

The present disturbances, however, are only an intensification of near-continuous disruptions since January 21, 2013, when the first verdict in the trials for the War Crimes of 1971 was announced. Since then, the country has recorded at least 267 fatalities, including 157 civilians, 96 JeI-ICS cadres and 14 Security Force (SF) personnel, in violence unleashed by the Islamist formations backed by the BNP-JeI combine.

Meanwhile, on November 26, 2013, the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), at a Press Conference at its central office in Dhaka, and the Democratic Left Alliance (DLA), a combine of eight left-leaning political parties, at another press conference at the Nirmal Sen Auditorium in Dhaka city, rejected the announced election schedule. The CPB President Mujahidul Islam Selim declared, "CPB is rejecting the election schedule and will not take part in any one-sided election." Saiful Huq, the DLA coordinator, also rejected the election schedule on the grounds that the process would encourage a 'unilateral election'. Similarly, at a Press Conference in Dhaka city’s Mukti Bhaban on November 28, 2013, Socialist Party of Bangladesh (SPB) General Secretary Khalequzzaman asserted, “Since we believe that a one-sided election under this EC will escalate the present crises rather than resolve it, the CPB-SPB will not take part in the election.”

On November 28, 2013, amid fresh political violence and uncertainty about the upcoming General Election, the EC conceded that the January 5 polls could be postponed if consensus is forged by the country's feuding political parties. CEC Kazi Rakibuddin Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmed, when asked if the panel could revise the poll schedule, observed, "Everything is possible if they (political parties) reach a settlement in the people's interest."

Any consensus between Bangladesh's polarized political parties is, however, highly unlikely. Shahriar Kabir, a war crimes researcher, thus noted, “The body language of Khaleda made it clear that she is not interested in a resolution and the reason is she is dictated to by Jamaat-e-Islami, which wants to push the country towards a civil war.” On the other hand, the Sheikh Hasina-led Government is determined to hold elections on time. While giving an introductory speech at the meeting of the Awami League Parliamentary Board (ALPB) at her Dhanmondi office in Dhaka city on November 28, 2013, Sheikh Hasina urged the people to be prepared to vote, saying that the next parliamentary elections would be held at the "right time" and the people would elect their representatives according to their wishes. Referring to Khaleda Zia, she declared that the Opposition leader was "killing innocent people in the streets" and pushing the country into complete anarchy, even while she kept herself aloof from the street-agitation and lived a "lavish life".

Bangladesh had witnessed a remarkably violence-free poll on December 29, 2008, when the AL secured a landslide victory, with 230 of a total of 300 seats in the Jatiya Sangsad (National Parliament). The AL subsequently formed the Grand Alliance along with the JP, which accounted for 27 seats in the Jatiya Sangsad, and with ‘others’ who accounted for five seats. The BNP, which had won 193 seats in the 2001 Elections, collapsed to a strength of just 29 seats, while its principal ally, JeI, was reduced from a strength of 17 seats to two.

With the AL Government hitting the Islamist formations decisively during its tenure, the Islamists and their BNP backers are determined to make one last attempt to derail the polls. Inevitably, in what is being viewed as a virtual battle for survival on both sides of the political spectrum, Bangladesh is heading towards a violent election. The BNP-JeI combine has already made its intention clear, taking the fight into the streets, and rejecting the very possibility of any political discourse for consensus formation. Unsurprisingly, the Sheikh Hasina Government has also hunkered down, to take all necessary measures to enforce a peaceful polling process.

PAKISTAN

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Extremist Epidemic
Ambreen Agha
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

On November 30, 2013, unidentified militants shot dead a Police Officer and injured another while they were returning to the Police Station after their duty of protecting a team of polio workers in Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). Though no outfit has claimed responsibility for the attack so far, the 'masked brigade' of Islamist extremists, including elements from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), is believed to be behind the attack. Significantly, the 'masked brigade' has issued a ban on and violently sabotaged the activities of health workers, primarily anti-polio vaccinators across Pakistan. The anti-polio drive is believed by Islamist extremists to be a 'Western conspiracy' intended to sterilize Muslims across the world.

Earlier, on November 21, 2013, terrorists belonging to the TTP affiliated and Mangal Bagh-led Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) abducted at least 11 teachers of the Hira Public School in the Sipah area of Bara tehsil (revenue unit) in the Khyber Agency of the Federally Administered tribal Areas (FATA), suspecting them of working in a polio vaccination campaign for school children. The news of their kidnapping hit the headlines on November 23, 2013. However, terrorists released all 11 abducted teachers on November 25, 2013, after ‘questioning’ them for four days regarding their involvement in the polio vaccination camp. According to a security official Safeerullah Khan Wazir, they were freed following a meeting of a tribal jirga (council). “The militants on the appeal of the jirga members released all the kidnapped teachers and handed them over to the jirga,” Wazir disclosed further.

One of the 11 released abductees, Muhammad Qasim, who is also the Principal of the School, later clarified that he, along with the residents of Speen Qabar and adjoining localities in Bara, were opposed to polio vaccination and had not allowed polio vaccination in the past. “Parents send their children to my school for learning, as it is a school and not a health centre or an army base,” he said, and warned that he would permanently close down his school if Security Forces (SFs) ever tried to force him to help them in the polio vaccination campaign.

These are only the latest incidents in the continuous and violent resistance faced by polio vaccinators and other aid workers accused of representing ‘western intervention’ in Pakistan. Among others, on October 7, 2013, a bomb hit a Police van protecting a polio vaccination team in Peshawar, killing two persons, including a Policeman and injuring 20 others. The attack took place on the third and last day of United Nations (UN)-backed polio vaccination campaign. Earlier on June 16, 2013, two volunteers in a polio immunization campaign were shot dead at Pebani village in the Swabi District of KP. On December 18, 2012, at least four female polio workers were killed in Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh and two others were killed in Peshawar. Indeed, the incident in Karachi forced the authorities to withdraw the anti-polio programme.

According to a report by the Prime Minister’s Cell for Polio Eradication, published in connection with the World Polio Day on October 24, 2013, as many as 27 vaccinators and Policemen have been killed in attacks on polio teams in the country over the preceding year and a half, with KP as the prime location of the attacks, where 16 polio workers and policemen protecting polio teams were killed. With the increase in the attacks on vaccinators, the polio campaign has suffered and there has been a significant rise in the number of polio cases. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) has recorded a total of 64 cases of polio in 2013 (data till November 4, 2013) across Pakistan, as compared to 58 cases reported in the whole of 2012.

The crippling disease remains more endemic to Pakistan since the formation of TTP on December 13, 2007, and the consequent escalation of Islamist terrorism within Pakistan. According to Pakistan’s Expanded Programme on Immunisation, a total of 465 polio cases were reported in the seven years prior to the formation of TTP [119 cases were recorded in 2001; 90 in 2002; 103 in 2003; 53 in 2004; 28 in 2005; 40 in 2006; and 32 in 2007 respectively.] However, in the following six years since TTP’s formation, a total of 670 polio cases have been registered, an increase of 44 percent [117 cases in 2008; 89 in 2009; 144 in 2010; 198 in 2011; 58 in 2012; and 64 in 2013.] Polio has never approached complete elimination in Pakistan owing to opposition from the hardline religious orthodoxy that has now penetrated deeper in the society.

Impeding the vaccination efforts prior to TTP’s formation, a group of religious clerics, including Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) leader Maulana Fazlullah and his supporters in the erstwhile Malakand Agency, in February 2007, 'warned' people during sermons in mosques and through illegal FM radio stations not to administer polio drops to their children since it was against religious norms and resulted in infertility.

Again on March 22, 2009, the then TTP ‘spokesman’ Muslim Khan, referring to polio vaccination declared, "That is totally unIslamic and unacceptable. The TTP is against polio vaccination because it causes infertility. I’m 45 and have never had one drop of the vaccine and I am still alive."

Significantly, in 2013, only three countries in the world are classified as 'polio endemic' by the World Health Organisation (WHO) - Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan - down from 125 in 1988.

At least 45 health workers, including polio vaccinators, have been killed across Pakistan since 2001 (data till December 1, 2013), according to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP). Of these, the current year alone recorded 26 fatalities. The number of such fatalities stood at 13 in 2012 and three in 2011. The period from 2008 to 2010 recorded one fatality each year. There were no such killings recorded before 2008.

The resistance to the anti-polio vaccination programme has also been aggravated by the controversy surrounding the Pakistani physician, Dr. Shakeel Afridi, who had allegedly been recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to help find slain al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden under the cover of a hepatitis vaccination programme. Since then, the 'masked brigade' has escalated attacks against aid workers. Significantly, the Pakistani establishment has charged Dr. Afridi with "conspiracy against the state of Pakistan and high treason" and has held him incommunicado since May 23, 2011. A year later on May 23, 2012, the Court of the Assistant Political Agent, Khyber Agency in FATA, sentenced Dr. Afridi to 33 years in prison and imposed a fine of PKR 320,000 for “waging war against the state” . However, under US pressure and fearing aid cuts, the tribal court, on May 30, 2012, changed the previous charges and accused Afridi of allegedly aiding and colluding with the banned militant outfit LI, and not for his links to the CIA. The LI refuted this claim, and subsequently threatened to “chew him alive” if they found Afridi. On November 22, 2013, the charges against Afridi were altered again, and he was charged with murder in a case relating to a teenage boy who died after the doctor, who is a physician, allegedly performed surgery on him for appendicitis in 2006. The murder charges were levelled against Afridi after the US Congressman and Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ed Royce, called on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on October 22, 2013, and pressed him to release Dr. Afridi as a measure of Pakistan’s counter-terrorism commitments. However, before any review could be initiated, Afridi this bizarre murder charge was framed against him.

The Afridi episode has only added fuel to the fire, raising the spectre of violence against polio and other aid workers. On April 12, 2013, the then TTP ‘spokesman’ Ehsanullah Ehsan declared that vaccination drives were being used by the CIA to hunt down its ‘mujahideen’ (holy warriors). “Our opposition and suspicion to the vaccination drives has been increased manifold after the Abbottabad incident,” he said. These allegation have only intensified the wider propaganda of polio vaccinators being part of a western conspiracy to sterilise the Muslim community in their larger goal of rendering the ummah (Muslim community) impotent.

Fundamentalist clerics have backed the resistance to the anti-polio drive. Thus, a religious cleric in Punjab Province issued a fatwa (religious edict) on June 12, 2012, banning polio vaccination. In Muzaffargarh District of Punjab Province, Maulvi Ibrahim Chisti declared the anti-polio campaign as “un-Islamic” and announced at the local mosque that jihad should be carried out against the polio vaccination team. Importing his version of the edict, the LI in the Khyber Agency in FATA warned people against the 'un-Islamic' practice of vaccination.

Tremendous efforts to control polio had pushed the incidence in Pakistan down from an estimated 20,000 cases a year in the early 1990s, to just 28 in 2005. Instead of moving towards complete eradication, the country appears to be registering an increase in a preventable disease that has virtually been eradicated across the world, and it is the same dysfunctional ideology of extremist Islamism, which has spawned networks of domestic and global terrorism in Pakistan, that underlies the resurgence of this crippling disease.

Civilians

Security Force Personnel

Terrorists/Insurgents

Total

BANGLADESH

Islamist Terrorism

INDIA

Assam

Manipur

Meghalaya

Left-wing Extremism

Bihar

Chhattisgarh

Odisha

Total (INDIA)

PAKISTAN

Balochistan

FATA

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Punjab

Sindh

Total (PAKISTAN)