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Leading News
ACC submits
charge sheet against Sheikh Hasina and 8 others
Staff Correspondent
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has submitted charge
sheet against former prime minister and Awami League
President Sheikh Hasina and 8 others in Niko corruption
case.
Yesterday, ACC deputy director Shabbir Hasan who filed the
case with Tejgaon thana on December 9 last year submitted
the charge sheet to the CMM court for incurring a loss of
Tk 13,650 crore to the national exchequer.
The co-accused who have been charge-sheeted are Prof
Rafiqul Islam, Dr Towfique-e-Elahi Chowdhury, Dr SA Samad,
Akmal Hossain, Mosharraf Hossain, Dr AKM Mashiur Rahman,
Syed Anwarul Haq and Kashem Sharif of Niko. It may be
mentioned that Sheikh Hasina, also president of Awami
League, Prof Rafique and Towfique are in custody while six
others remain absconding.
They were prosecuted under the penal code 409/109/511 and
section 5(2) of the Corruption Prevention Act, 1947. The
provision of Emergency Power Rules has not been invoked in
the case. After receiving charge sheet, the court ordered
for issuance of arrest warrant against the five absconding
accused: Dr Kamal Siddiqui, CM Yusuf Hossain, Mir Moinul
Haque, Shafiur Rahman and Kashem Sharif. The court asked
the prosecutor to produce them on May 13.
Meanwhile, on May 5, the ACC submitted charge sheet
against Khaldea Zia and 10 others in Niko scam case for
incurring a loss of Tk 13,777 crore to the state. ACC
deputy director SM Shahidur Rahman submitted the charge
sheet in the Court of CMM AKM Enamul Haq.
Other charge-sheeted co-accuseds are former Law Minister
Barrister Moudud Ahmed, former State Minister for Energy
and Mineral Resources AKM Mosharraf Hossain, former
secretary Khandaker Shahidul Islam, businessmen Giasuddin
Al Mamun, Selim Bhuiyan, Kashem Sharif of Niko Resources
Bangladesh Limited, former Principal Secretary to PM Dr
Kamal Siddiqui, Petro Bangla director CM Yusuf Hussain,
former BAPEX senior general manager Meer Moinul Haque and
former BAPEX Secretary Shafiur Rahman.
Among the accuseds Khaleda Zia, Moudud Ahmed, AKM
Mosharraf Hossain, Khandaker Shahidul Islam, Giasuddin Al
Mamun and Selim Bhuiyan are in custody while Kashem Sharif
of Niko Resources Bangladesh Limited, former Principal
Secretary to PM Dr Kamal Siddiqui, Petro Bangla director
CM Yusuf Hussain, former BAPEX senior general manager Meer
Moinul Haque and former BAPEX Secretary Shafiur Rahman are
absconding. The prosecutor submitted a list of 68
witnesses.
Programmes to free Khaleda in a day or two: Delwar
We have to participate in polls for
democracy
even without Khaleda: Saifur
Staff Correspondent
BNP Secretary General
Khandoker Delwar Hossain on Wednesday said the party
senior leaders have decided to announce programme in a day
or two demanding release of Begum Khaleda Zia as well as
ensuring early restoration of democracy in the country.
Delwar made the disclosure after holding a one-hour long
meeting of executive committee of the party yesterday at
his Nam home.
"For securing release of our detained chief Begum Khaleda
Zia as well as for the betterment of the country, the
party has chalked out programmes which I hope will be
announced in a day or two," Delwar told newsmen.
Meanwhile, acting Chairperson of the pro-government
reformist faction of BNP M Saifur Rahman on Wednesday
reiterated that his party might contest in the next
general election even if Begum Khaleda Zia and Sheikh
Hasina are not allowed to participate in the polls due to
legal causes.
Saifur Rahman, however, observed that the election would
not be credible and acceptable keeping the two chiefs out
of the election process, saying, "It is a fact that
election without Khaleda and Hasina will not be
acceptable, but the election is a must for returning to
democratic process as we have to remember that General
Ershad kept the democratic captive for nine years." Saifur
Rahman was briefing newsmen as a group of party workers of
Sylhet met him at his Gulshan residence yesterday.
Talking about party reforms, Saifur Rahman says, "Reform
is a must in the present contest of politics and our
leader Begum Khaleda Zia is the greatest reformer in South
Asia. As per her reforms, she shut down the Adamjee Jute
Mills, for which the country was incurring huge losses,
even despite the request of some of ministers of that
period, who are lenient to left politics." About party's
stand on the state of emergency, he said, "Our position is
very clear. We want the state emergency to be lifted much
ahead of the election for ensuring an atmosphere conducive
for election campaigning. At least the state of emergency
could be relaxed lifting the ban on indoor political
activities across the country. You (the journalist) know
well how difficult it is to work under the emergency. Many
times headlines of your news are being changed as there is
a state of emergency."
It is to be noted that Saifur Rahman was leaving the
country on Wednesday night for Singapore for his medical
check up. Asked whether he nominated anybody to run the
party in his absence, Saifur said, "Begum Khaleda Zia is
our leader and I have no power to nominate anyone to run
the party. I am just discharging my duties on a decision
of some of the standing committee members. Most of them,
however, have already withdrawn their decision submitting
affidavit with the High Court."
Caretaker govt losing popularity it enjoyed during
takeover: British HC
Anwar Chy says two years a long time for an interim
administration
UNB, Dhaka
British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury observed that
the popularity with which the caretaker government came to
power seems to be on the wane as he said two years are a
long time for an interim regime.
"Yes, it is a longer period of time. Our view was that it
should be as shorter as possible and actions should be as
faster as possible so you get to the elections," he said
in an exclusive interview with the United News of
Bangladesh (UNB).
Choudhury said, "The longer you take to do anything, the
more risky you are from unseen events. Even if you are
brilliant, you are prone to risk from unseen events."
Asked if he felt that the government lost the popularity
it took over with 16 months back, he said, "Yes, that
looks to be true. You see popularity goes up and down."
During 90-minute interview with UNB Chief of
Correspondents Shamim Ahmad at the envoy's residence,
Choudhury spoke on a wide range of subjects, encompassing
the fate of general election, notion about militarization,
anti-graft trial, terrorism, climate change and bilateral
trade and investment.
Asked whether he foresees silky road ahead of the
elections, Choudhury, who closely watched twists and turns
of political events in his four-year tenure, said road
ahead of the elections seems less bumpy than six months
ago and he is extremely hopeful about the election by next
December.
"Road is definitely there-it is clear and the signpost is
there. Hopefully, there is no major hole in the road ahead
and people are now looking at the elections," said
Choudhury, a most media-focused British diplomat the
country ever has.
About a greater role of the army in governance, Choudhury
said, "One should always guard against approaching
militarization."
He, however, said the army is playing a strong supportive
role in doing some good projects like voter registration
and helping people in floods and cyclones, for examples.
"So, something is welcome while other things people need
to discuss-what is good and what is worrying."
Choudhury said, "Our position is very clear. Our national
policy is to support the best election that Bangladesh can
achieve for democratic government. Bangladesh should have
a strong democracy and democracy would be the mode of our
relations."
Asked whether the polls would get international credence
without former ruling parties-BNP and Awami League-in the
fray, he said:
"Our main effort is to help Bangladesh get to a level
playing field for free and fair elections having a
credible voter list and having credible scene so there is
no serious doubt about rigging and no sign of money and
muscleman factors that was part of the problem that led to
a situation in 2006 and 2007."
Now, in December 2008, if the field is totally level,
people will hopefully participate in the elections. Party
position is entirely party decision. "But it would be a
shame if everybody does not participate in the election,
something for which the country is waiting for so long."
Asked about the polls under the state of emergency, he
said, "We hope that it can be lifted totally allowing
people to organize and enjoy the elections. If total lift
is not possible, it must be lifted maximum in all
practical sense."
When pointed out that past three elections were held
without state of emergency and the elections results were
by and large acceptable, Chowdhury said law and order and
voters' safety must be ensured as elections must be
physically safe and away from any intimidation.
"Our position is clear: the state of emergency should be
lifted absolutely in all practical steps."
About Britain's position if the election results were
manipulated, Choudhuruy said the "rigged or manipulated
elections will not be acceptable to us. Election has to be
free and fair". He said Britain had opposed the elections
in 2007 on the allegation of rigging and "our position has
not changed".
Choudhury went on saying, "We felt if this country became
a failed state, it is a problem for everybody. We wanted
to avert that situation. There was an Islamic extremist
threat and then the collapse in the governance in 2006
right up to 1/11 and we did our very best."
EC
delegation apprises President of progress in preparation
for holding election by Dec
UNB, Dhaka
The Election Commission on Wednesday apprised President
Prof Dr Iajuddin Ahmed of their work in preparation for
holding the general election by December as per the set
roadmap. A delegation comprising entire hierarchy of the
Election Commission, led by Chief Election Commissioner Dr
ATM Shamsul Huda, called on the President at Bangabhaban
and informed him about the progress in preparatory work.
Talking to reporters after the meeting, CEC Huda said they
informed the President about the EC's different
activities, including preparation for holding the general
election by next December according to the roadmap.
"We apprised the President that the EC is hopeful of
finalizing the electoral roll with photographs by October
this year, as 83 percent of the voters in the country have
already been enrolled," he said. The CEC said the
delegation also informed the President about the
delimitation of constituencies and demonstrated a
power-point presentation on the delimitation before him.
The Election Commission is following the specific policy,
rules and regulations under provisions of the constitution
and the exiting electoral laws on delimitation of
constituencies, he said. "There is no scope for losing
neutrality in this connection," he told the journalists,
in an oblique reference to criticisms from political
circles against the redesigning of 133 of the 300
parliamentary constituencies.
The EC said the President gave a patient hearing to them
and witnessed the power-point demonstration on the
delimitation. The President expressed satisfaction at the
activities of the EC towards holding the general election,
Dr Huda added. Incidentally, the EC explained to the
President their election-preparatory work a day after
Chief Adviser of the caretaker government Dr Fakhruddin
Ahmed met the President when election preparation figured
high during discussions on several important matters.
Other members of the delegation were Election
Commissioners Mohammad Sohul Hussain and Brigadier General
(retd) M Sakhawat Hossain and secretary to the Election
Commission Muhammad Humayan Kabir. Military Secretary to
the President Major General Mohd Aminul Karim, Secretary
to the President's Office Md Sirajul Islam and President's
Press Secretary Abdul Awal Howlader were
present.
BNP
will resist farcical election: Delwar vows
Staff
Correspondent
The beleaguered BNP on Tuesday gave an announcement of
resisting the next election if it is held in a farcical
manner keeping its detained Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia
out of the election process.
Meanwhile, in the latest turn of events in BNP, the family
members of the party Secretary General Khandoker Delwar
Hossain was allegedly threatened once again with death.
Both the announcement and the allegation came from a press
conference, arranged to lodge party's protest against
framing the charge sheet against Begum Khaleda Zia, held
at the Nam flat of Khandoker Delwar Hossain yesterday.
"Khandoker Delwar's daughter 'Panna' received a phone call
from an unknown source and she was told to request her
father not to brief the media today (Tuesday), and the
caller issued a threat -otherwise her brother, who is now
in jail, will be killed," BNP acting Office Secretary
Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed made the allegation in front of
Khandoker Delwar Hossain as he was ready to brief newsmen.
Khandoker Delwar Hossain also started his briefing saying,
"Today I am briefing you (the newsmen) in a scary
situation and in panic." "We have long been claiming that
this government and the EC are hatching conspiracies under
the instructions of external forces to hold a staged
election keeping the two chiefs of the two big political
parties out of the election process," Delwar alleged
saying, "The people of the country as well as the BNP
would not allow the government to hold such farcical
election. We will do whatever is needed to stop such
election."
He called upon the government to shun the "path of
malpractice" and follow the constitutional provision in
the greater interest of the country and its people.
Talking about framing charge sheet against Begum Khaleda
Zia, Delwar claimed, "It as a false and fabricated case."
He demanded its immediate withdrawal as he said people
will not accept such a charge. The BNP Secretary General
accused the government of making laws and using those
according to its "whims". About the imposition of state of
emergency on January 11, 2007, he said, "The so-called
one-eleven episode was created under a long plan and the
President was forced to promulgate the emergency".
Meanwhile, the outgoing British High Commissioner Anwar
Chowdhury met Maj (retd) Hafiz Uddin Ahmed, acting
Secretary General of the pro-government reformist faction
of BNP, at his Banani residence yesterday.
After the meeting both Hafiz and Chowdhury hoped that a
free, fair and credible election with maximum
participation will be held in announced timeline.
Two
ex-premiers sued to depoliticize tested politicians,
introduce ‘sustainable politico-military democracy’:
Barrister Shafique
UNB, Dhaka
Barrister Shafique Ahmed, a top counsel for Sheikh Hasina,
Tuesday alleged that the two former Prime Ministers have
been sued by the incumbent government with a scheme to
depoliticize tested politicians and introduce 'sustainable
politico-military democracy' putting its loyalists in
power.
While making his submission in a special court to relieve
ex-PM Hasina of the charge proposed by the prosecution in
the barge- mounted power-plant case, he said this case is
the product of a well-thought-out plan to debar Hasina
from becoming Prime Minister for a second time.
"The charge is politically motivated with mala fide
intention," her attorney told the court.
Shafique said it is former Prime Minister Hasina who
allowed the private sector to invest in power generation
as the country faced serious power shortages and the
previous government had not taken any step to increase the
power production to meet a growing demand.
He said the government saved Tk 316 crore by awarding the
deal to Wartsila Power Company to install the
barge-mounted power plant in Khulna. "The work was given
to the company by maintaining government rules without
giving favour to anyone."
Shafique submitted that the case story dates back a
decade, but there is no reasonable explanation from the
government for filing the case after an "inordinate delay
that causes doubts about intention of the government".
Syed Rezaur Rahman and Barrister Fazle Noor Tapash also
made their arguments for exoneration of Hasina.
Adv Kazi Sajwar Hossain for the first time placed argument
for relieving his client Dr Toufique-E-Elahi Chowdhury
from the charge. He said there were no allegations against
Chowdhury to link him in the case in receiving any
"gratification or any pecuniary advantage or misuse of
power of his office".
Sajwar said the present case was created against his
client on "false and baseless allegation". He questioned
why the Minister for Power and Energy at that time was not
made either prosecution witness or an accused when the
Prime Minister and others were accused in the case. "Is it
because he was a General?' The hearing remains
inconclusive as it was adjourned until May 12.
Unity
of pro-liberation forces needed for trail of war
criminals, speakers say
BSS, Chittagong
Speakers at a huge civic condolence meeting on veteran
freedom fighter Jalal Uddin Ahmed called upon all
pro-liberation forces and patriotic people to forge a
rock- solid unity for ensuring trail of the war criminals
and establish a secular, democratic and progressive
Bangladesh.
They said the anti-liberation forces have been gaining
strength in the country and even able to reinstate in
state power cashing in the disunity and self-centered
mentality of a section progressive political leadership,
but finally right voices are being raised by the nation.
A citizen committee consisting of freedom fighters (FFs),
leaders of different professional and political
organizations arranged the condolence meeting on Jalal
Uddin Ahmed, also a former chairman of Bangladesh
Muktijoddah Sangsad( BMS) Central Command Council, who met
tragic death in a road accident near Dhaka on March 22
last.
A large numbers of FFs, central and local leaders of
different political and professional organizations joined
the reminiscence and paid their tribute to Jalal for his
outstanding contribution to the pre-liberation movements,
during the war of Independence and all democratic and
progressive movement since 1971.
The discussants said unity among all the pro-liberation
forces to be upheld sinking petty political differences
and other parochial interests until a fair trail of the
war criminals is completed.
Otherwise, the dream of brave martyrs and FFs for making
their motherland a democratic, secular and economically
self- reliant independent Bangladesh will not be
materialized under the grip of anti- liberation and
autocratic forces, the speakers observed.
Referring to major policy changes and implementation of
many vital decisions by the incumbent caretaker
government, they called upon the administration to at
least start the trial process of war criminals to free the
country from a long lasting stigma.
Back Page
BB mulls
to set compulsory agri-credit next fiscal
UNB, Dhaka
Bangladesh Bank is
considering setting compulsory agriculture credit
disbursement target for the commercial banks at the
beginning of the next fiscal year.
"This is to facilitate timely disbursement so the farmers
can effectively utilize the loan," Bangladesh Bank deputy
governor Nazrul Huda told UNB on Wednesday.
In view of the two recurrent floods and devastating
cyclone Sidr last year, Bangladesh Bank set a high target
of agriculture loan disbursement of about Tk 8,400 crore
for the current fiscal year, 32 percent more than the
previous fiscal year, to help farmers recover crop losses.
It also instructed the commercial banks to disburse most
part (80 percent) of the yearly loan target before the
outgoing boro season. The banks, however, disbursed 76
percent of the target. Different quarters, including
government and Bangladesh Bank, projected bumper boro
output this season, giving farmers the credit for their
hard labour while the enhanced loans contributed to the
farmers' efforts. Nazrul Huda expected that almost 100
percent of the disbursement target would be achieved by
the end of the fiscal year as the trend shows, while the
private commercial banks have already exceeded their
agriculture loan disbursement target of Tk 1,300 crore.
Inspired by the boro success, the central bank is
considering to administer agriculture credit in more
organised manner from the next fiscal year. In the
previous years, it took almost half of a fiscal year only
to set the loan targets.
The BB deputy governor said the agriculture loan is viable
as well as profitable for the banks as the private
commercial banks have shown recently. The recovery rate of
agriculture loans provided by the private banks was also
very good, he added.
He expected that the private commercial banks would come
forward in a bigger way to contribute to agriculture
production as well as to earn profit.
The central bank was also encouraging private banks to
open more branches in the rural areas, he said. According
to latest figures from Bangladesh Bank, the growth in
agricultural credit disbursement increased substantially
from 5.5 percent in Q3 of FY07 to 73.1 percent in Q3 of
FY08, while total recovery recorded a growth of 44.2
percent in Q3 of FY08 from 30.3 percent over the same
period in the previous fiscal. Total overdue as percentage
of outstanding agricultural credit declined from 42.7
percent in Q3 of FY07 to 36.0 percent in Q3 of FY08 due to
recent changes and movements in the credit market.
Seismic
work to begin in October
7 IOCs submit tenders against 15 blocks
Staff Correspondent
Seven International Oil Companies (IOC) submitted tenders
against 15 blocks of deep sea and offshore areas for
exploration of fresh gas and oil sources.
On Wednesday, Petrobangla opened the tender at Petro
centre in the city. "We have sold 25 packages for 28
blocks. But we have received 15 blocks against it. We
think it is sufficient to get 15 against 25 packages,"
replying to a query a Director of Petrobangla told
reporters.
After examining the tenders and documents, these will be
sent to the energy ministry. After approval by the energy
ministry, initial contract will be signed. Later, it will
be sent to the law ministry for looking at the legal
aspect.
"When the law ministry approve its, we are expecting the
final contract will be taking place in the month of
October. We have sold each package at $ 7000. Besides, 37
foreign and local companies have bought the information
packages," he added.
The companies are US based ConocoPhillps, Australia based
Santos International, US and China based Longwoods
Resources Ltd, South Korea based Korera National Oil
Corporation, UK based Comtrack Services Ltd, Ireland based
Tullow Bangladesh Limited and China based CNOOC.
Earlier on February 15 tender of third round offshore
bidding 2008 has been offered to the international gas and
oil companies for exploration of gas and oil in 20 blocks
in the deep sea and eight in offshore areas of about
1,0,5000 square kilometers in the bay of Bengal for 25
years. The sale of tender and documents began on February
and a two day long road show was organized to attract the
International Oil Companies (IOC). A large number of
reputed foreign oil companies took part in the road show.
"After completion of the procedure of contract, joint
management comprising Petrobangla and the representatives
from the foreign companies will start seismic work,"
Petrobangla Director said further.
On the basis of contract, the foreign companies will be
compelled to explore wells within two years. A total of 35
articles, which cover exploration areas, working scopes,
conditions, tax and VAT, guarantee, amendments and share
with the Government, are included in the contract.
The present gas reserves, estimated at 8.3 trillion cubic
feet (TCF), may be exhausted before 2011, sources in the
Ministry of Energy and Mineral resources said. In place
reserve is estimated 21.265 TCF, proven 15.40 TCF,
probable 8.322 TCF and possible 7.90 TCF.
Gas demand has increased by 250-300 million cubic feet per
day (MMCFD) in the last few years. The present average gas
demand is over 1700 million cubic feet per day
occasionally picking up to about 1750. On the other hand,
the present production capacity from 60 to 65 wells of 12
producing gas field is 1700 million cubic feet per day.
Around ninety per cent of the power plants of the country
are fired by gas and many industries and factories are
also based on this resource. Power plants consume 42 per
cent, fertliser factories 14 per cent and the rest 44 per
cent are being used by the industries, factories and
domestic purposes.
According to the Gas Sector Master Plan (GSMP) financed by
the World Bank, the gas reserves discovered and proved
till 2006, would be able to fulfil medium scale demand
upto 2011-12. But the government will have to take various
initiatives including investigation for exploring new gas
fields to ensure smooth supply of gas upto 2015. Some 24
TCF gas will have to be discovered for meeting the growing
demand by the year 2015. Some 7.7 billion US dollars will
need be invested to explore gas field, the sources added.
Meanwhile, Commerce Adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman on
Wednesday said the government will form a committee to
figure out the reserve of country's natural gas.
The adviser was talking to a delegation of newly elected
leaders of FBCCI led by its President Anisul Huq, met him
at the Commerce Ministry yesterday.
Referring to the recent announcement made by Chief
Adviser's Special Assistant in charge of Power and Energy
Dr M Tamim that no new gas connection to Chittagong in
view of shortage of the fuel, the FBCCI president Anisul
Huq said, "We know that there is huge gas in our country,
but in recent times the country is experiencing huge gas
deficit."
The Commerce Adviser assured the delegation saying, "The
government will form a committee soon in this regard and
there is no cause to think that everything would be
halted."
Hossain Zillur said, "We will have to find out the
alternatives. LP gas will be imported from abroad to give
new connections of gas in Chittagong, if necessary."
Some ISPs doing illegal business
Cheating consumers, depriving govt of taxes
Sahidul Islam Rana
A section of corrupt individuals, in the name of Internet
Providers, are doing illegal business under the very nose
of the government.
There is a widespread allegation that they are doing their
business - without any legal papers or documents or
approval of BTRC - cheating internet subscribers. Due to
this, the Government is being deprived of taxes from them.
Besides, most of the subscribers are facing frequent
disruption of internet service but they have to pay
monthly bill, earlier fixed by the ISP owners, many
claimed to The Bangladesh Today.
Many subscribers claimed that in an average, they usually
get the services no more than seven to eight days each
month, and the consumers don't get any satisfactory
response even after lodging frequent complainants.
Talking to this correspondent, one Rahman Jahangir of
Mahammadpur Salimullah Road alleged, "Five days have
passed; no internet connection in my house."
"I informed the IT house Ltd. 25/11, Block-C Tajmahal
Road, about the disruption, I phoned him several times,
they did not visit my house even after four days. This is
happening on a regular basis. But they are regular and
punctual in collecting monthly bills," he said adding, "In
my house. I use two PCs with Internet connection paying
bill Tk 1000 for each computer per month."
"Finding no other alternative, I have to use their server.
Besides, very often their net-services remain very slow
and not fit enough for work," he said urging the BTRC to
take necessary steps in this regard.
The owner of the IT House Ltd, A J Nobel, said, "Due to
power-crisis, users have to face such problems. On the
other hand, sometimes the optical fibre is found detached
or damaged."
About the criteria of this business, he said, "We have no
legal paper except Trade Licence. We are retailers only
for providing net connection in my surrounding areas."
Nobel failed to show any legal papers of his agreement
with Insoft System Ltd, registered with BTRC. As a small
enterprise or retailer company we are dong this business."
Asked, "Do you know it's a punishable offense?", he kept
quite adding "We are giving services within my surrounding
areas. I usually pay Tk. 90,000 for 2MB each month to
Insoft System Ltd, BD.COM.Online Limited and Advanced Data
Networks System Ltd."
Meanwhile, the owner of Insoft Ltd. Shoiab Chowdhury was
not available for his comment. An official of Insoft
Enamul Haque said, "There is no agreement with the IT
House Ltd. We have BTRC approval, but I am not authorised
to tell anything about it."
Another organization identified as 'hi-link Computer
Network', House-8, Road-3, Pisciculture housing, Adabar,
Dhaka-1207, are continuing their business without any
legal documents.
"There is a written agreement with BD.Com.Net Limited for
doing the business," said the owner of hi-link, ANM Hasan
Noman adding, "Earlier I did business with Insoft System
Ltd of Dhanmondi without any legal papers.
This organisation doesn't have any agreement with any
retailers. We have no corporate users. I have a trade
licence and an agreement with the BD.COM.Online Limited."
But he failed to show it.
Meanwhile, ANM Badruzzaman, an official of the BD.COM,.
said, "There is no agreement with both 'IT House' and
'hi-link'. We are one of the 156 ISPs, enlisted with the
BTRC. We are doing our business as per the BTRC Rules. But
no large scale business is allowed without the approval of
BTRC."
"BTRC are well-aware of our works as we submit a copy of
all the papers or agreements, to their office," he
mentioned highlighting some conditions that are also the
requirements of the BTRC for providing working permit."
About the monthly fee of the PC users, an official of the
company Md Syedul Momtajin said, "The bandwidth charge has
been fixed by the BTTB while we fix the fee for our
subscribers.
Talking to this reporter, a director of the BTRC,
requesting not to be named, said, "We have a legal unit to
monitor the ISP function and if any irregularity is found
in this connection, stern action will be taken as per the
existing rules."
RMG workers clash with police over reduction in wage
30 injured, 25 vehicles
vandalised
UNB, Chittagong
At least 30 people, including journalists, were injured as
workers of three garment factories clashed with police in
Kalurghat industrial estate in Chittagong on Tuesday
morning over reduction in wage.
Over 5,000 workers of Orchid Sweater, Sabar Sweater and
Tower Complex - all three factories of Azim group - also
put up road barricade near Kalurghat Bridge damaged a
number of vehicles and roadside shops.
Local sources said the trouble first began on Monday
morning when workers of Orchid Sweater came to know that
the factory management has decided to reduce the
sweater-knitting rate to Tk 15 from Tk 25 per piece.
The angry workers then kept the factory officials confined
inside the factory, demanding withdrawal of the decision.
They later set the officials free in the afternoon
following an assurance by the BGMEA authority to settle
the matter.
The agitated workers of Orchid Sweater again took to the
street at 8am on Tuesday when the factory management did
not allow them to enter the factory whey they reported for
work in the morning.
Other workers from Sabar Sweater and Tower Complex also
joined in and barricaded the road near Kalurghat Bridge.
As a result, over 50 vehicles got stranded on the Cox's
Bazar-Bandarban road.
On information, police rushed to the scene and chased the
protesters and charged batons on them at about 10:30 am,
when the aggrieved workers damaged 20-20 vehicles and
ransacked shops. The workers pelted brickbats towards the
law enforcers that triggered the clash, leaving at least
30 people, including four journalists, injured. Of the
injured, 14 were admitted to hospitals in the city. The
condition of Saiful Islam Shilpi, a journalist of
Boishakhi Television, was stated to be critical, hospital
sources said. The clash spread to a six-kilometer area and
was continuing at places when this report was filed at
noon.
Ministry urges workers to regularise status
BSS, Dhaka
The Ministry of Expatriates'
Welfare and Overseas Employment has once again urged the
Bangladeshi workers to regularize their status in their
respective host countries.
A spokesman of the ministry Monday said the workers must
avail the opportunities such as amnesties that are
announced from time to time by the concerned authorities
abroad, a press release said.
It has come to the notice of the ministry that workers are
not doing so at times pushing themselves at the risk of
facing deportation when all the Gulf countries are
tightening their regulations regarding the expatriate
labour, it said.
The spokesman said the outflow of workers is continuing
unabated. During the first four months of the year, a
record number of nearly 300,000 workers have been cleared
for foreign employment, the release said.
Crime
Businessman gunned down in city
Staff Correspondent
One businessman was killed in a gun attack by a gang of
armed hoodlums at Nikunjo residential area in the
capital on Wednesday morning.
The deceased was identified as Mominul Alam Shimul, 34,
owner of AR Metco International a manpower recruiting
agency, at Banani.
According to police sources, a gang of around four to
five miscreants equipped with firearms attacked Shimul
in front of a house no-25 under Khilkhet police station
at about 9:30 am when he was going to his office at
Banani riding on a rickshaw. The gang managed to flee
the spot leaving him dead.
On receipt of information, police rushed to the spot and
sent the body to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital
morgue for autopsy.
Motive of the killing is yet to be known but it can be
sequel to old rivalry between two manpower recruiting
agencies locked in a business related dispute, police
sources said. A case was lodged with Khilkhet police
station and police arrested Mizanur Rahman a business
partner in this connection.
Lalbagh 7-murder case
2 sentenced to death, 9 get life
Staff Correspondent
A lower court of Dhaka has sentenced two people to death
and nine others to life term imprisonment in the
sensational seven-murder case in Lalbagh in the city.
The condemned convicts Abdus Salam and Zahid Hossain
were tried in absentia.
Judge of the Crime Prevention Tribunal ATM Musa has
sentenced absconding accused Abdus Salam and Zahid
Hossain to death after scanning the records and
testimony of 30 witnesses.
Those who have been awarded transportation for life are
Abdul Alim, Munna, Kalu, Delwar Hossain, Amir Hossain,
Monir Patwari, Dil Mohammad, Mahtab Hossain and Mozammel.
Among the life term convicts Monir Patwari, Dil
Mohammad, Mahtab Hossain and Mozammel have been tried in
absentia.
The fact of the case is that the supporters of the
defeated ward commissioner candidate Abdul Aziz swooped
on a victory procession of winning candidate M Humayun
Kabir with arms and assassinated seven people on January
30, 1994 just after Dhaka City Corporation election.
Elected commissioner lodged a murder case against Abdul
Aziz and 18 others.
Meanwhile, the defeated commissioner candidate Abdul
Aziz at whose behest the murders were committed has been
sentenced to 12 years' RI while eight others have been
acquitted of the charges of murder.
One gets death sentence
Our correspondent, Chapainawabganj
The special tribunal court-2 in Chapainawabganj awarded
death-sentence to a man in a triple murder case on
Wednesday.
The convict was Liton, 45, son of Zillar Rahman (widely
known as Jhallu) of Dadonchock village in Monakosha
union under Shibganj upazila of the district. Hrishikesh
Shaha, the district and session judge, pronounced the
verdict.
According to the prosecution, her husband Liton for
dowry used to beat Runi Khatun, mother of three
children.
On August 16, 2001, Runi Khatun protested her husband as
he intended to repress her and also clearly stated that
she would not provide him any dowry.
Liton got angry and later, at night, Liton sprayed
kerosene on her wife and three daughters and burnt them
alive.
Critically injured Runi Khatun and her daughters were
admitted to the Sadar Hospital after referred by
Shibganj Health Complex. But they died at the hospital
on August 17 morning.
In this connection Runi's mother Serina Begum filed a
murder case with the Shibganj thana and police placed
the charge sheet to the court on November 26, 2001.
3 of a family injured in acid attack
UNB, Magura
Three of a family sustained severe burn injuries in an
acid attack on them at Majhgram in Sadar upazila on
Wednesday.
Police said terrorists hurled acid on Rahela Begum, 35,
wife of Omar Ali, her son Abdus Samad, 18, and daughter
Sathi, 10, when they were sleeping in their house in the
morning.
Rahela Begum and her children were admitted to Sadar
Hospital with serious burn injuries. Omar Ali has a
longstanding conflict with one Razzak Ali and that might
be reason behind the attack, police said.
Robbery in Comilla
A Correspondent, Comilla
A gang of robbers looted money and valuables worth about
Tk 12 lakh from a house at Elahabad village in Debidwer
upazila on Wednesday.
Sources said, About 10 to 12 armed robbers stormed into
the house of one Dr. Samad at about 3:30 am, the gang
first identified themselves as police and asked the
family members to open the door.
As the family members did not comply, the robbers broke
open the door at the back of the house. The masked
robbers beat up the family members including Kabir
Hossain, 38, Asiya Begum,23, and Morium Begum,18, before
looting Tk 60,000 in cash and 38 tolas of gold
ornaments, a TV set, a tape recorder, camera, mobile
phone sets and other valuables.
A case was filed with the Debidwer thana.
Fake RAB officer busted
A Correspondent, Meherpur
A fake RAB officer was arrested by the members of RAB-6
stationed at Gangni on Tuesday from the town on charge
of cheating people.
The arrested fake RAB officer has been identified as
Rafiqul Islam son of Abdul Majid of village Monakhali
under Mujibnagar Upazila of Meherpur district.
According to report, Rafiqul Islam had been cheating the
people since long posing himself as a RAB Officer and in
sometimes as BDR officer or doctor saying to solve the
problem with RAB and giving service in BDR etc.
Being informed on the matter RAB-6 members caught him.
RAB Camp Commander Ft. Lt. Galib told The Bangladesh
Today that soon after his (fake RAB) arrest he was
informed by others that they were cheated by him
earlier.
On Tuesday night the fake officer confessed his guilt in
front of hundreds of people including journalists
standing at city's hotel bazar crossing.
Outlaw arrested with arms
UNB, Rajbari
A regional leader of an outlawed party was arrested
along with arms and ammunition from Kalimahar village in
Pangsha upazila on Monday night.
The arrested was identified as Tofazzal Hossain, 40,
regional leader of outlawed Biblobi Communist Party. He
hailed from Nadli village in Jhenidah district.
Acting on a tip-off, police arrested Tofazzal, also a
fugitive convict in an arms case, at dead of night and
later recovered a shutter-gun and four rounds of bullet
from his possession.
Tofazzal went into hiding after a court recently
sentenced him to 17 years in jail in an arms case.
He was also wanted in a number of criminal cases, police
said.
Editorial
“No More Gas
Connections”
Special Assistant to
the CA, Dr. M.Tamim has got us all worried by saying that the
Emergency Government has taken a decision not to allow any new
gas connections for either domestic or industrial uses
prompting an immediate reaction from the President FBCCI to
the effect that such a decision would have an adverse impact
on industries and would not be helpful to national interests.
The reaction from the people in general, is not as muted as
that of the President FBCCI to this latest "initiative" by
this government to tackle the country's fast deteriorating
power and energy situation; people are yet to absorb the
recent doubling of gas prices and the daily intolerable load
shedding.
Meanwhile the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources
has issued a clarification to the effect that gas supply
disruptions in the greater Chittagong region is only temporary
and the result of some technical glitch but the Ministry has
made no comments about Dr. Tamim's statement about "No More
Gas Connections". All of this once again shows, if it needs
any showing, that the activities and functions of this
government lack coordination, planning, and a sense of
priorities but above all a sense of reality.
Power and energy were major issues when the Emergency was
declared and the present government was formed, but instead of
doing anything practical or concrete about it the Emergency
Government has been dithering on the issue and floating such
peculiar ideas as installation of nuclear power plants and
importing gas from Myanmar - pet projects of Tapan Chowdhury,
an adviser to this government, who fled the Country within
hours of his being thrown out of government. Now, almost
towards the end of its tenure, this government has got itself
busy with leasing out vast tracts of land and sea to foreign
gas and oil exploration companies in an effort to locate more
gas reserves which will not be on line for the next one decade
even if reserves are located. Also, this government has
somehow thought it fit to focus on our very limited coal
reserves, in one corner of our Country, as a panacea to all
our energy and power requirements, forgetting the fact that we
cannot run our industries, our transports, our millions of
homes and offices, our tele-communications and our irrigation
on coal or on the limited amount of electricity that
inefficient coal-fired power plants can produce.
We are informed by our experts that our gas reserves are going
to be largely depleted by 2011. We need to take note of the
fact that gas is supplying our entire domestic energy
requirements in all major cities; it’s powering major
industries and considerable portion of our electricity
generation and increasingly it's providing energy to our
transportation sector. Therefore, the first thing we need to
do is to streamline and rationalize our production,
distribution and utilization of gas making an all out effort
to reduce wastages in all these areas. We also need to have
zero-tolerance of such incidents as uncontrolled fire and
leakages in gas fields which have in the recent past wasted
considerable portions of our gas resource. Secondly, we need
to stop thinking about exporting gas to anyone or giving it
away to foreign industrial investors without first looking at
our own national requirements. If we can do all these, we
might well be able to sustain the use of gas by a number of
years beyond 2011.
Our concerns for the next 5 years are : How are we going to
meet our ever increasing needs for power in domestic,
commercial and industrial sectors? and How are we going to
preserve and sustain our limited energy resources till other
economically viable alternatives are available?
Finally, its needs no emphasis that power crunch would be a
major problem not only for us but for everyone else too, in
the coming decades. Nations such as the USA, supported by the
EU & Japan are fighting wars of occupation in Iraq and
Afghanistan not out of any ideological convictions but because
of the need to control energy resources. Other countries such
as Russia and China are preserving their own energy resources
while increasing the use of these resources from other regions
and nations. We in Bangladesh are in no position to go to war
to obtain energy and power but what we can do is to use our
diplomatic and commercial acumen to get our requirements of
energy.
Ban rice export totally
Government has banned
export of all non-aromatic rice for the period of next six
months. The ban was imposed by the commerce ministry through a
SRO on Monday and it came into force from Wednesday, May 7.
The ban on rice export has come in the wake of reports that
while the country was passing through a grave food crisis a
section of exporters have exported a large quantity of rice
exploiting the governments lenient export policy over the last
eight months.
Meanwhile, the government's boro procurement drive has started
recently with a target to procure 15 lakh tons of rice and
paddy. The procurement price of paddy has been fixed at Taka
18 per kg and that of rice at Taka 28 per kg. The experts
apprehend that the boro procurement target may not be achieved
as due to low procurement prices of paddy and rice fixed by
the government, the farmers are reportedly selling their
produce to mill owners and traders who are offerering more.
Moreover, massive smuggling of paddy and rice may take place
as their prices in the neighbouring country are higher than
the procurement rate here. Besides, rice now being purchased
by the private traders may ultimately be exported in the name
of aromatic rice. So the government should keep close watch on
the situation and take necessary steps to stop possible
smuggling of food grains on the one hand and, on the other,
impose total ban on rice export irrespective of aromatic or
non-aromatic. In addition, to encourage the farmers to sell
rice and paddy to the government the procurement price may be
enhanced.
Analysis
The End of the End of History
Why the twenty-first century
will look like the nineteenth
The world's democracies need to begin thinking
about how they can protect their interests and advance their
principles in a world in which these are, once again,
powerfully contested.
Robert Kagan
I.
In the early 1990s, optimism was understandable. The collapse
of the communist empire and the apparent embrace of democracy
by Russia seemed to augur a new era of global convergence. The
great adversaries of the Cold War suddenly shared many common
goals, including a desire for economic and political
integration. Even after the political crackdown that began in
Tiananmen Square in 1989 and the disturbing signs of
instability that appeared in Russia after 1993, most Americans
and Europeans believed that China and Russia were on a path
toward liberalism. Boris Yeltsin's Russia seemed committed to
the liberal model of political economy and closer integration
with the West. The Chinese government's commitment to economic
opening, it was hoped, would inevitably produce a political
opening, whether Chinese leaders wanted it or not.
Such determinism was characteristic of post-Cold War thinking.
In a globalized economy, it was widely believed, nations had
no choice but to liberalize--first economically, then
politically--if they wanted to compete and to survive. As
national economies approached a certain level of per capita
income, growing middle classes would demand legal and
political power, which rulers would have to grant if they
wanted their nations to prosper. Since democratic capitalism
was the only model of success for developing societies, all
societies would eventually choose such a path. In the battle
of ideas, liberalism had triumphed. "At the end of history,"
as Francis Fukuyama famously put it, "there are no serious
ideological competitors left to liberal democracy."
The economic and ideological determinism of the early
post-Cold War years produced two broad assumptions that shaped
both policies and expectations. One was an abiding belief in
the inevitability of human progress, the belief that history
moves in only one direction--a faith born in the
Enlightenment, dashed by the brutality of the twentieth
century, and given new life by the fall of communism. The
other was a prescription for patience and restraint. Rather
than confront and challenge autocracies, it was better to
enmesh them in the global economy, support the rule of law and
the creation of stronger state institutions, and let the
ineluctable forces of human progress work their magic.
But the grand expectation that the world had entered an era of
convergence has proved wrong. We have entered an age of
divergence. Since the mid-1990s, the nascent democratic
transformation in Russia has given way to what may best be
described as a "czarist" political system, in which all
important decisions are taken by one man and his powerful
coterie. Vladimir Putin and his spokesmen speak of
"democracy," but they define the term much as the Chinese do.
For Putin, democracy is not about competitive elections so
much as the implementation of popular will. The regime is
democratic because the government consults with and listens to
the Russian people, discerns what they need and want, and then
attempts to give it to them. As Ivan Krastev notes, "The
Kremlin thinks not in terms of citizens' rights but in terms
of the population's needs." Elections do not offer a choice,
but only a chance to ratify choices made by Putin, as in the
recent "selection" of Dmitry Medvedev to succeed Putin as
president. The legal system is a tool to be used against
political opponents. The party system has been purged of
political groups not approved by Putin. The power apparatus
around Putin controls most of the national media, especially
television.
A majority of Russians seem content with autocratic rule, at
least for now. Unlike communism, Putin's rule does not impinge
much on their personal lives, as long as they stay out of
politics. Unlike the tumultuous Russian democracy of the
1990s, the present government, thanks to the high prices of
oil and gas, has at least produced a rising standard of
living. Putin's efforts to undo the humiliating post-Cold War
settlement and restore the greatness of Russia is popular. His
political advisers believe that "avenging the demise of the
Soviet Union will keep us in power."
For Putin, there is a symbiosis between the nature of his rule
and his success in returning Russia to "great power" status.
Strength and control at home allow Russia to be strong abroad.
Strength abroad justifies strong rule at home. Russia's
growing international clout also shields Putin's autocracy
from foreign pressures. European and American statesmen find
they have a full plate of international issues on which a
strong Russia can make life easier or harder, from energy
supplies to Iran. Under the circumstances, they are far less
eager to confront the Russian government over the fairness of
its elections or the openness of its political system.
Putin has created a guiding national philosophy out of the
correlation between power abroad and autocracy at home. He
calls Russia a "sovereign democracy," a term that neatly
encapsulates the nation's return to greatness, its escape from
the impositions of the West, and its adoption of an "eastern"
model of democracy. In Putin's view, only a great and powerful
Russia is strong enough to defend and advance its interests,
and also strong enough to resist foreign demands for western
political reforms that Russia neither needs nor wants. In the
1990s, Russia wielded little influence on the world stage but
opened itself wide to the intrusions of foreign businessmen
and foreign governments. Putin wants Russia to have great
influence over others around the world while shielding itself
from the influence of unwelcome global forces.
Putin looks to China as a model, and for good reason. While
the Soviet Union collapsed and lost everything after 1989, as
first Mikhail Gorbachev and then Boris Yeltsin sued for peace
with the West and invited it's meddling, Chinese leaders
weathered their own crisis by defying the West. They cracked
down at home and then battened down the hatches until the
storm of Western disapproval blew over. The results in the two
great powers were instructive. Russia by the end of the 1990s
was flat on its back. China was on its way to unprecedented
economic growth, military power, and international influence.
The Chinese learned from the Soviet experience, too. While the
democratic world waited after Tiananmen Square for China to
resume its inevitable course upward to liberal democratic
modernity, the Chinese Communist Party leadership set about
shoring up its dominance in the nation. In recent years,
despite repeated predictions in the West of an imminent
political opening, the trend has been toward consolidation of
the Chinese autocracy rather than reform. As it became clear
that the Chinese leadership had no intention of reforming
itself out of power, Western observers hoped that they might
be forced to reform despite themselves, if only to keep China
on a path of economic growth and to manage the myriad internal
problems that growth brings. But that now seems unlikely as
well.
Today most economists believe that China's remarkable growth
should be sustainable for some time to come. Keen observers of
the Chinese political system see a sufficient combination of
competence and ruthlessness on the part of the Chinese
leadership to handle problems as they arise, and a population
prepared to accept autocratic government so long as economic
growth continues. As Andrew J. Nathan and Bruce Gilley have
written, the present leadership is unlikely to "succumb to a
rising tide of problems or surrender graciously to liberal
values infiltrated by means of economic globalization." Until
events "justify taking a different attitude, the outside world
would be well advised to treat the new Chinese leaders as if
they are here to stay."
Growing national wealth and autocracy have proven compatible
after all. Autocrats learn and adjust. The autocracies of
Russia and China have figured out how to permit open economic
activity while suppressing political activity. They have seen
that people making money will keep their noses out of
politics, especially if they know their noses will be cut off.
New wealth gives autocracies a greater ability to control
information--to monopolize television stations and to keep a
grip on Internet traffic--often with the assistance of foreign
corporations eager to do business with them.
In the long run, rising prosperity may well produce political
liberalism, but how long is the long run? It may be too long
to have any strategic or geopolitical relevance. As the old
joke goes, Germany launched itself on a trajectory of economic
modernization in the late nineteenth century and within six
decades it became a fully fledged democracy: the only problem
was what happened in the intervening years. So the world waits
for change, but in the meantime two of the world's largest
nations, with more than a billion and a half people and the
second-and third-largest militaries between them, now have
governments committed to autocratic rule and may be able to
sustain themselves in power for the foreseeable future.
The power and the durability of these autocracies will shape
the international system in profound ways. The world is not
about to embark on a new ideological struggle of the kind that
dominated the Cold War. But the new era, rather than being a
time of "universal values," will be one of growing tensions
and sometimes confrontation between the forces of democracy
and the forces of autocracy.
During the Cold War, it was easy to forget that the struggle
between liberalism and autocracy has endured since the
Enlightenment. It was the issue that divided the United States
from much of Europe in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries. It divided Europe itself through much of
the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. Now it is
returning to dominate the geopolitics of the twenty-first
century.
II.
The presumption over the past decade has been that when
Chinese and Russian leaders stopped believing in communism,
they stopped believing in anything. They had become
pragmatists, without ideology or belief, simply pursuing their
own and their nation's interests. But the rulers of China and
Russia, like the rulers of autocracies in the past, do possess
a set of beliefs that guides them in both domestic and foreign
policy. It is not an all-encompassing, systematic worldview
like Marxism or liberalism. But it is a comprehensive set of
beliefs about government and society and the proper
relationship between rulers and their people.
The rulers of Russia and China believe in the virtues of a
strong central government and disdain the weaknesses of the
democratic system. They believe their large and fractious
nations need order and stability to prosper. They believe that
the vacillation and chaos of democracy would impoverish and
shatter their nations, and in the case of Russia that it
already did so. They believe that strong rule at home is
necessary if their nations are to be powerful and respected in
the world, capable of safeguarding and advancing their
interests. Chinese rulers know from their nation's long and
often turbulent history that political disruptions and
divisions at home invite foreign interference and depredation.
What the world applauded as a political opening in 1989,
Chinese leaders regard as a near-fatal display of
disagreement.
So the Chinese and Russian leaders are not simply autocrats.
They believe in autocracy. The modern liberal mind at "the end
of history" may not appreciate the attractions of this idea,
or the enduring appeal of autocracy in this globalized world;
but historically speaking, Russian and Chinese rulers are in
illustrious company. The European monarchs of the seventeenth,
eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries were thoroughly
convinced, as a matter of political philosophy, of the
superiority of their form of government. Along with Plato,
Aristotle, and every other great thinker prior to the
eighteenth century, they regarded democracy as the rule of the
licentious, greedy, and ignorant mob. And in the first half of
the twentieth century, for every democratic power like the
United States, Great Britain, and France, there was an equally
strong autocratic power, in Germany, Russia, and Japan. The
many smaller nations around the world were at least as likely
to model themselves on the autocracies as on the democracies.
Only in the past half-century has democracy gained widespread
popularity around the world, and only since the 1980s, really,
has it become the most common form of government.
The rulers of Russia and China are not the first to suggest
that it may not be the best. It is often claimed that the
autocrats in Moscow and Beijing are interested only in lining
their pockets--that the Chinese leaders are just kleptocrats
and that the Kremlin is "Russia, Inc." Of course the rulers of
China and Russia look out for themselves, enjoying power for
its own sake and also for the wealth and luxuries it brings.
But so did many great kings, emperors, and popes in the past.
People who wield power like to wield power, and it usually
makes them rich. But they usually believe also that they are
wielding it in the service of a higher cause. By providing
order, by producing economic success, by holding their nations
together and leading them to a position of international
influence, respectability, and power, they believe that they
are serving their people. Nor is it at all clear, for the
moment that the majority of people they rule in either China
or Russia disagree.
If autocracies have their own set of beliefs, they also have
their own set of interests. The rulers of China and Russia may
indeed be pragmatic, but they are pragmatic in pursuing
policies that will keep themselves in power. Putin sees no
distinction between his own interests and Russia's interests.
When Louis XIV remarked, "L'Etat, c'est moi," he was declaring
himself the living embodiment of the French nation, asserting
that his interests and France's interests were the same. When
Putin declares that he has a "moral right" to continue to rule
Russia, he is saying that it is in Russia's interest for him
to remain in power; and just as Louis XIV could not imagine it
being in the interests of France for the monarchy to perish,
neither can Putin imagine it could be in Russia's interest for
him to give up power. As Minxin Pei has pointed out, when
Chinese leaders face the choice between economic efficiency
and the preservation of power, they choose power. That is
their pragmatism.
The autocrats' interest in self-preservation affects their
approach to foreign policy as well. In the age of monarchy,
foreign policy served the interests of the monarch. In the age
of religious conflict, it served the interests of the church.
In the modern era, democracies have pursued foreign policies
to make the world safer for democracy. Today the autocrats
pursue foreign policies aimed at making the world safe, if not
for all autocracies, then at least for their own.
Russia is a prime example of how a nation's governance at home
shapes its relations with the rest of the world. A
democratizing Russia, and even Gorbachev's democratizing
Soviet Union, took a fairly benign view of NATO and tended to
have good relations with neighbors that were treading the same
path toward democracy. But today Putin regards NATO as a
hostile entity, calls its enlargement "a serious provocation,"
and asks, "Against whom is this expansion intended?" In fact,
NATO is no more aggressive or provocative toward Moscow today
than it was in Gorbachev's time. If anything, it is less so.
NATO has become more benign, just as Russia has become more
aggressive. When Russia was more democratic, Russian leaders
saw their interests as intimately bound up with the liberal
democratic world. Today the Russian government is suspicious
of the democracies, especially those near its borders.
This is understandable. For all their growing wealth and
influence, the twenty-first-century autocracies remain a
minority in the world. As some Chinese scholars put it,
democratic liberalism became dominant after the fall of Soviet
communism and is sustained by an "international hierarchy
dominated by the United States and its democratic allies," a
"U.S.-centered great power group." The Chinese and Russians
feel like outliers from this exclusive and powerful clique.
"You western countries, you decide the rules, you give the
grades, you say, 'you have been a bad boy,'" complained one
Chinese official at Davos this year. Putin also complains that
"we are constantly being taught about democracy."
The post-Cold War world looks very different when seen from
autocratic Beijing and Moscow than it does from democratic
Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, or Brussels. For the
leaders in Beijing, it was not so long ago that the
international democratic community, led by the United States,
turned on China with a rare unity, imposing economic sanctions
and even more painful diplomatic isolation after the crackdown
at Tiananmen Square. The Chinese Communist Party, according to
Fei-Ling Wang, has had a "persisting sense of political
insecurity ever since," a "constant fear of being singled out
and targeted by the leading powers, especially the United
States," and a "profound concern for the regime's survival,
bordering on a sense of being under siege."
In the 1990s, the democratic world, led by the United States,
toppled autocratic governments in Panama and Haiti and twice
made war against Milosevic's Serbia. International
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), well-funded by western
governments, trained opposition parties and supported
electoral reforms in Central and Eastern Europe and in Central
Asia. In 2000, internationally financed opposition forces and
international election monitors finally brought down
Milosevic. Within a year he was shipped off to The Hague, and
five years later he was dead in prison.
From 2003 to 2005, western democratic countries and NGOs
provided pro-western and pro-democratic parties and
politicians with the financing and organizational help that
allowed them to topple other autocrats in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan,
and Ukraine. Europeans and Americans celebrated these
revolutions and saw in them the natural unfolding of
humanity's destined political evolution toward liberal
democracy. But leaders in Beijing and Moscow saw these events
in geopolitical terms, as western-funded, CIA-inspired coups
that furthered the hegemony of America and its European
allies. The upheavals in Ukraine and Georgia, Dmitri Trenin
notes, "further poisoned the Russian-Western relationship" and
helped to persuade the Kremlin to "complete its turnaround in
foreign policy."
The color revolutions worried Putin not only because they
checked his regional ambitions, but also because he feared
that the examples of Ukraine and Georgia could be repeated in
Russia. They convinced him by 2006 to control, restrict, and
in some cases close down the activities of international NGOs.
Even today he warns against the "jackals" in Russia who "got a
crash course from foreign experts, got trained in neighboring
republics and will try here now." His worries may seem absurd
or disingenuous, but they are not misplaced. In the post-Cold
War era, a triumphant liberalism has sought to expand its
triumph by establishing as an international principle the
right of the "international community" to intervene against
sovereign states that abuse the rights of their people.
International NGOs interfere in domestic politics;
international organizations like the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe monitor and pass judgment on
elections; international legal experts talk about modifying
international law to include such novel concepts as "the
responsibility to protect" or a "voluntary sovereignty
waiver."
In theory, these innovations apply to everyone. In practice,
they chiefly provide democratic nations the right to intervene
in the affairs of non-democratic nations. Unfortunately for
China, Russia, and other autocracies, this is one area where
there is no great transatlantic divide. The United States,
though traditionally jealous of its own sovereignty, has
always been ready to interfere in the internal affairs of
other nations. The nations of Europe, once the great
proponents (in theory) of the Westphalian order of inviolable
state sovereignty, have now reversed course and produced a
system, as Robert Cooper has observed, of constant "mutual
interference in each other's domestic affairs, right down to
beer and sausages." This has become one of the great schisms
in the international system dividing the democratic world and
the autocracies. For three centuries, international law, with
its strictures against interference in the internal affairs of
nations, has tended to protect autocracies. Now the democratic
world is in the process of removing that protection, while the
autocrats rush to defend the principle of sovereign
inviolability.
Continued on page-5
Viewpoints
The End of the End of History
Why the twenty-first century
will look like the nineteenth
Continued
from page-4
For this reason, the war in Kosovo in 1999 was a more dramatic
and disturbing turning point for Russia and China than was the
Iraq war of 2003. Both nations opposed NATO's intervention,
and not only because China's embassy was bombed by an American
warplane and Russia's distant Slavic cousins in Serbia were on
the receiving end of the NATO air campaign. When Russia
threatened to block military action at the U.N. Security
Council, NATO simply sidestepped the United Nations and took
it upon itself to authorize action, thus negating one of
Russia's few tools of international influence. From Moscow's
perspective, it was a clear violation of international law,
not only because the war lacked a U.N. imprimatur but because
it was an intervention into a sovereign nation that had
committed no external aggression. To the Chinese, it was just
"liberal hegemonism." Years later Putin was still insisting
that the western nations "leave behind this disdain for
international law" and not attempt to "substitute NATO or the
EU for the U.N."
The Russians and the Chinese were in good company. At the
time, no less an authority than Henry Kissinger warned that
"the abrupt abandonment of the concept of national
sovereignty" risked a world unmoored from any notion of
international legal order. The United States, of course, paid
this little heed: it had intervened and overthrown sovereign
governments dozens of times throughout its history. But even
postmodern Europe set aside legal niceties in the interest of
what it regarded as a higher Enlightenment morality. As Robert
Cooper puts it, Europe was driven to act by "the collective
memory of the Holocaust and the streams of displaced people
created by extreme nationalism in the Second World War." This
"common historical experience" provided all the justification
necessary. Kissinger warned that in a world of "competing
truths, " such a doctrine risked chaos. Cooper responded that
postmodern Europe was "no longer a zone of competing truths."
But the conflict between international law and liberal
morality is one that the democracies have not been able to
finesse. As Chinese officials asked at the time of Tiananmen
Square and have continued to ask, "What right does the U. S.
government have to ... flagrantly interfere in China's
internal affairs?" What right, indeed? Only the liberal creed
grants the right--the belief that all men are created equal
and have certain inalienable rights that must not be abridged
by governments; that governments derive their power and
legitimacy only from the consent of the governed and have a
duty to protect their citizens' right to life, liberty, and
property. To those who share this liberal faith, foreign
policies and even wars that defend these principles, as in
Kosovo, can be right even if established international law
says they are wrong. But to the Chinese, the Russians, and
others who do not share this worldview, the United States and
its democratic allies succeed in imposing their views on
others not because they are right but only because they are
powerful enough to do so. To non-liberals, the international
liberal order is not progress. It is oppression.
This is more than a dispute over theory and the niceties of
international jurisprudence. It concerns the fundamental
legitimacy of governments, which for autocrats can be a matter
of life and death. China's rulers have not forgotten that if
the democratic world had had its way in 1989, they would now
be out of office, possibly imprisoned or worse. Putin
complains that "we are seeing a greater and greater disdain
for the basic principles of international law," and he does
not mean just the illegal use of force but also the imposition
of "economic, political, cultural and educational policies."
He decries the way "independent legal norms" are being
re-shaped to conform to "one state's legal system," that of
the western democracies, and the way international
institutions such as the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe have become "vulgar instruments" in the
hands of the democracies. As a result, Putin exclaims, "no one
feels safe! Because no one can feel that international law is
like a stone wall that will protect them."
The western democracies would deny any such intention, but
Putin, like the leaders of China, is right to worry. American
and European policymakers constantly say they want Russia and
China to integrate themselves into the international liberal
democratic order, but it is not surprising if Russian and
Chinese leaders are wary. How can autocrats enter the liberal
international order without succumbing to the forces of
liberalism?
III.
Afraid of the answer, the autocracies are understandably
pushing back, and with some effect. Rather than accepting the
new principles of diminished sovereignty and weakened
international protection for autocrats, Russia and China are
promoting an international order that places a high value on
national sovereignty and can protect autocratic governments
from foreign interference.
And they are succeeding. Autocracy is making a comeback.
Changes in the ideological complexion of the most influential
world powers have always had some effect on the choices made
by leaders in smaller nations. Fascism was in vogue in Latin
America in the 1930s and 1940s partly because it seemed
successful in Italy, Germany, and Spain. Communism spread in
the Third World in the 1960s and the 1970s not so much because
the Soviet Union worked hard to spread it, but because
government opponents fought their rebellions under the banner
of Marxism-Leninism and then enlisted the aid of Moscow. When
communism died in Moscow, communist rebellions around the
world became few and far between. And if the rising power of
the world's democracies in the late years of the Cold War,
culminating in their almost total victory after 1989,
contributed to the wave of democratization in the 1980s and
1990s, it is logical to expect that the rise of two powerful
autocracies should shift the balance back again.
It is a mistake to believe that autocracy has no international
appeal. Thanks to decades of remarkable growth, the Chinese
today can argue that their model of economic development,
which combines an increasingly open economy with a closed
political system, can be a successful option for development
in many nations. It certainly offers a model for successful
autocracy, a template for creating wealth and stability
without having to give way to political liberalization.
Russia's model of "sovereign democracy" is attractive among
the autocrats of Central Asia. Some Europeans worry that
Russia is "emerging as an ideological alternative to the EU
that offers a different approach to sovereignty, power and
world order." In the 1980s and 1990s, the autocratic model
seemed like a losing proposition as dictatorships of both
right and left fell before the liberal tide. Today, thanks to
the success of China and Russia, it looks like a better bet.
China and Russia may no longer actively export an ideology,
but they do offer autocrats somewhere to run when the
democracies turn hostile. When Iran's relations with Europe
plummeted in the 1990s after its clerics issued a fatwa
calling for the death of Salman Rushdie, the influential
Iranian leader Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani made a point of noting
how much easier it is to maintain good relations with a nation
like China. When the dictator of Uzbekistan came under
criticism in 2005 from the administration of George W. Bush
for violently suppressing an opposition rally, he responded by
joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and moving
closer to Moscow. The Chinese provide unfettered aid to
dictatorships in Asia and Africa, undermining the efforts of
the "international community" to press for reforms--which in
practical terms often means regime change--in countries such
as Burma and Zimbabwe. Americans and Europeans may grumble,
but autocracies are not in the business of overthrowing other
autocrats at the democratic world's insistence. The Chinese,
who used deadly force to crack down on student demonstrators
not so long ago, will hardly help the West remove a government
in Burma for doing the same thing. Nor will they impose
conditions on aid to African nations to demand political and
institutional reforms they have no intention of carrying out
in China.
Chinese officials may chide Burma's rulers, and they may urge
the Sudanese government to find some solution to the Sudan
conflict. Moscow may at times distance itself from Iran. But
the rulers in Rangoon, Khartoum, Pyongyang, and Tehran know
that their best protectors--and in the last resort, their only
protectors--in a generally hostile world are to be found in
Beijing a |