Wednesday, June 25, 2014

The truth behind Nizami's high blood pressure

There seems to be something in the nature of this tribunal process, such that the sudden postponement of the judgement against Motiur Rahman Nizami, the erstwhile leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, on the grounds of his poor ill-health, is viewed by almost everyone as something other than simply a matter of his high blood pressure!

There are three theories set out in today's newspapers.

First, it is argued that the postponement is due to the arrival tonight of Sushma Swaraj, India's external affairs minister.

The argument here seems to be that the government did not want any distractions to this visit - whether  in the form of newspaper headlines, or possible violence resulting from the tribunal decision itself.

The problem with this argument is of course that (a) on Monday, when it was announced that Nizmai's judgement was to be given, her visit was very well known - so what changed in the subsequent 24 hours? (b) the Jamaat had not called a Hartal as it usually had done before verdicts, perhaps suggesting that it was not going to protest as it had in the past - so was there any real prospect of violence?; (c) before the postponement was made, some people were arguing that it was because of her visit that it was decided that the judgement should be given. 'A present to the Indians', as it was stated by someone. Can the visit be an argument both for the judgement and also for its postponement?

Of course, it is certainly possible that someone, at a late stage, suddenly thought better of it, and judged that the optics of the Indian foreign minister arriving just after a verdict, might backfire. Or perhaps, conceivably, the Indian government themselves suggested to the Bangladesh government that their minister's visit should not take place right after the judgement.

The second theory relates to the Narayanganj by-election, which is taking place on Thursday.

This does not really make that much sense. One can understand, perhaps, that the government might want the judgement to take place before the election - in order to fire up its political base  helping the Awami League to a victory. But how does it help the government's election prospect's to postpone it?

Of course, it is possible, with violence already predicted in the Narayanganj by-election, that the authorities feared that the judgement needed to be postponed so that any post-judgement protests did not mix in with the existing risk of the by-election violence. However, again this was a known factor at the time of announcing the judgement on Monday

The third theory is that the delay is linked in some way to on-going discussions between the government and the Jamaat-e-Islami. This is of course the big suspicion of war crimes tribunal campaigners who have always thought that the government was capable of coming to some back-room deal with the Jamaat for tactical political advantage. The big Awami League 'Play' is to get the Jamaat to split from its alliance with the BNP - and there is no greater lever in its hands than the trials to get that to happen.

I have no idea whether any talks are going on between these two parties - though I would suggest that if they are, they are not at a high level. But, whether discussions are going on or not, it seems unlikely that the judgment postponement has anything to do with this.

So, where does that leave us?

Is everyone just too willing to see some conspiracy, or political machinations, when none exists? Can high blood pressure in Bangladesh, ever just be high blood pressure? I would like to think so, though I am slightly inclined to think that the Indian minister's visit did have something to do with the need to postpone the judgement.












Friday, June 6, 2014

Bangla Tribune - Re-defining the meaning of 'Exclusive Investigation'

The Bangla Tribune - the Bangla language website of the English language newspaper, The Dhaka Tribune - must be running very short of stories to write about.

Yesterday, on the front page of its website, it published a long article, under the tag ‘Exclusive’ about how its ‘investigation’ uncovered the fact that the documentary, The War Crimes File, broadcast in 1995 on Channel Four TV in the UK, was directed by a person called Howard Bradburn. The English translation of this article is set out at the end of this post

The article of course redefines the word ‘exclusive’ to mean ‘the completely obvious’ and the word ‘investigation’ to mean, ‘reading the credits of a publicly accessible film’. One does have to wonder quite what this is all about, since anyone who cared to read the credits of the documentary would have known who was the director of the documentary,

I think the government can certainly feel rest assured that, with this kind of ‘exclusive investigation’, at least the Bangla Tribune will not be the source of any ground breaking journalism anytime soon!

The article was such an ‘exclusive investigation’ that the publishers did not consider it appropriate to give the name of the writer in the byline! Perhaps Faisal Abdullah - stand up, take a bow - decided at the last minute, out of sheer embarrassment and shame, not to give his byline. One can only imagine.