Gas export: the political fallout of the hartal
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
N.M. Harun
The half-day hartal or shutdown called by the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Port (NCPOGMPP) in the city on Monday passed off peacefully with the spontaneous support of the people, burdened with price hike and unhappy with increasing lawlessness.
The hartal, the first one since the present government came into power, helped raise the level of public awareness about the controversial issue of gas export. The hartal also served a notice to the government that it is vulnerable to challenges put by political parties and forces of any size or hue when it reneges on its public commitments.
The hartal sent a loud message to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina that she will consistently be reminded about her sensational encounter with President Bill Clinton in 2000 on the issue of gas export. "On the question of export of gas," Hasina said, "our position remains that after fully meeting our domestic requirements, and ensuring gas for 50 years for use of future generations, the remaining surplus gas will be available for export."
Government's cynicism: The government and the NCPOGMPP are locked in a blame game as regards the hartal. The fact is the hartal was precipitated by the government's cynical approach towards the NCPOGMPP's programme and the NCPOGMPP's angry response to government provocation.
The police swooped on the NCPOGMPP marchers on September 02 and injured several dozen persons including the citizen group's member-secretary, Prof. Anu Muhammad whose two legs were smashed. Then the government took damage-control measures to whitewash police brutality but sidetracked the movement of the NCPOGMPP. The government did not address the substantive issues concerning the model PSC (production sharing contract) of 2008, which incorporates provisions of gas export, and the decision to award three offshore gas blocks to two foreign companies on the basis of that PSC.
During that period, the prime minister was abroad in Geneva to attend a UN conference on climate change. The NCPOGMPP leadership thought, encouraged by the government's damage-control efforts, that when the prime minister would return home on September 06, the government might initiate discussion with them.
Meanwhile, the third session of the Ninth Parliament sat on September 07 and Rashed Khan Menon, MP, the president of the Workers Party, spoke on a point of order. He drew the attention of the House to the movement of the NCPOGMPP and the police excesses of September 02, called upon the government to scrap the model PSC of 2000 and review the decision of awarding three off-shore gas blocks to the two foreign companies and demanded a debate in the parliament on the gas, oil and coal policies of the government.
The government bothered neither to invite the NCPOGMPP to discuss their demands nor did it make any statement or hold any debate in the parliament as demanded by Menon.
Instead, the government speeded up the process of leasing out the three offshore gas blocks to the two foreign companies on the basis of the model PSC of 2008. It later transpired that on the very day the prime minister returned home from Geneva, on September 06, one day before the parliament session began on September 07, the prime minister had signed the necessary papers, giving a go-ahead to the Petrobangla to finalise the agreements on leasing the gas blocks.
NCPOGMPP's angry reaction: The NCPOGMPP leadership rightly accused the government of non-transparency in its handling of the model PSC of 2008 and the issue of gas export. It felt insulted and provoked by the government's double standards -- the government emissaries talking sweetly with Anu Muhammad in an attempt to assuage his hurt feelings while the prime minister stealthily completing the process of awarding the three gas blocks to the two foreign companies. The NCPOGMPP leadership decided to use the ultimate weapon of constitutional opposition -- hartal -- to administer a shock therapy to the government, risking split in the organisation and unpopularity of a hartal programme in the midst of Ramadan and Eid shopping.
The hartal was but an event, albeit a significant one, in the chain of movement upholding the principled stand of opposing the very idea of gas export which will surely endanger energy security of the country. The NCPOGMPP announced on the conclusion of the hartal, on Monday, a fresh month-long programme culminating with the holding of a national convention in Dhaka on October 16.
Moral crisis: Whatever result the NCPOGMPP's movement may bear, the government, and Prime Minister Hasina in particular, will always be haunted by a moral crisis -- that they have deviated from their own gas policy as enunciated by Hasina herself, clearly and eloquently, during her encounter with Clinton back in 2000. Does the government have the required political courage and sensibility to overcome its moral crisis by re-embracing the principle of not exporting gas without ensuring energy security of the country?
Alternately, will the parties, which support NCPOGMPP's movement, be able to employ political ingenuity and muster sufficient organisational strength to turn this moral crisis of the government into a political issue in advancing their strategic goal of emerging as a left-democratic alternative to the three-decade-long bipolar political polarisation, centring the Awami League and the BNP?
Political side effect: As a citizen group, the NCPOGMPP is not a substitute for a political party or an alliance of political parties. But it has been drawing support from the left-democratic parties since its inception in 1997. The parties within the umbrella of the NCPOGMPP publicly differed on the issue of hartal. This apparently has serious implications and ramifications for the left-democratic movement in the country at the present juncture.
The opposition to the hartal within the forum of NCPOGMPP was led by the Workers Party. It termed the hartal before exhausting all other avenues of negotiations, including the forum of the parliament, a manifestation of left-wing adventurism. The JSD (Inu), NAP (Muzaffar), Samayabadi Dal and the Ganotantric Party, which are allied with the Awami League-led Grand Alliance and have representation either in the parliament with the Awami League's election symbol, Boat, or in the government as technocrat minister, joined the Workers Party in opposing the hartal. The JSD (Inu) is not associated with the NCPOGMPP. It will apparently be very difficult, if not impossible, for the Workers Party, NAP (Muzaffar), Samayabadi Dal and the Ganotantric Party to smoothen their differences with the NCPOGMPP.
The idea of establishing a broad-based unity of the left-democratic parties and forces will possibly now become more difficult to realise with the difference between the two blocs of the left-democratic parties -- one in the parliament and government with the blessings of the Awami League and the other on the street -- widening further.
The left-democratic parties, which are on the street under the informal leadership of the CPB, will face a peculiar problem. They are close to the ruling Awami League-led Grand Alliance on political and ideological issues like the restoration of secular-socialist polity through the restoration of the 1972 Constitution and the trial of the war criminals. They are opposed -- and more than the Awami League in many respect -- to the BNP-Jamaat axis on political and ideological questions. They will have the delicate task of balancing their political and ideological struggle with the usual anti-government agitation and ensuring, at the same time, that the BNP-Jamaat axis does not get the scope to use their movement in its power struggle against the Awami League.
And the left-democratic parties, which are in the parliament and government, will face the daunting task of coordinating parliamentary practice with the agitation and movement on the street on genuine public causes.
The September 14 hartal at the call of the NCPOGMPP may eventually turn out to be a turning-point in the left-democratic politics of the country.
harun1943@gmail.com
The half-day hartal or shutdown called by the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Port (NCPOGMPP) in the city on Monday passed off peacefully with the spontaneous support of the people, burdened with price hike and unhappy with increasing lawlessness.
The hartal, the first one since the present government came into power, helped raise the level of public awareness about the controversial issue of gas export. The hartal also served a notice to the government that it is vulnerable to challenges put by political parties and forces of any size or hue when it reneges on its public commitments.
The hartal sent a loud message to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina that she will consistently be reminded about her sensational encounter with President Bill Clinton in 2000 on the issue of gas export. "On the question of export of gas," Hasina said, "our position remains that after fully meeting our domestic requirements, and ensuring gas for 50 years for use of future generations, the remaining surplus gas will be available for export."
Government's cynicism: The government and the NCPOGMPP are locked in a blame game as regards the hartal. The fact is the hartal was precipitated by the government's cynical approach towards the NCPOGMPP's programme and the NCPOGMPP's angry response to government provocation.
The police swooped on the NCPOGMPP marchers on September 02 and injured several dozen persons including the citizen group's member-secretary, Prof. Anu Muhammad whose two legs were smashed. Then the government took damage-control measures to whitewash police brutality but sidetracked the movement of the NCPOGMPP. The government did not address the substantive issues concerning the model PSC (production sharing contract) of 2008, which incorporates provisions of gas export, and the decision to award three offshore gas blocks to two foreign companies on the basis of that PSC.
During that period, the prime minister was abroad in Geneva to attend a UN conference on climate change. The NCPOGMPP leadership thought, encouraged by the government's damage-control efforts, that when the prime minister would return home on September 06, the government might initiate discussion with them.
Meanwhile, the third session of the Ninth Parliament sat on September 07 and Rashed Khan Menon, MP, the president of the Workers Party, spoke on a point of order. He drew the attention of the House to the movement of the NCPOGMPP and the police excesses of September 02, called upon the government to scrap the model PSC of 2000 and review the decision of awarding three off-shore gas blocks to the two foreign companies and demanded a debate in the parliament on the gas, oil and coal policies of the government.
The government bothered neither to invite the NCPOGMPP to discuss their demands nor did it make any statement or hold any debate in the parliament as demanded by Menon.
Instead, the government speeded up the process of leasing out the three offshore gas blocks to the two foreign companies on the basis of the model PSC of 2008. It later transpired that on the very day the prime minister returned home from Geneva, on September 06, one day before the parliament session began on September 07, the prime minister had signed the necessary papers, giving a go-ahead to the Petrobangla to finalise the agreements on leasing the gas blocks.
NCPOGMPP's angry reaction: The NCPOGMPP leadership rightly accused the government of non-transparency in its handling of the model PSC of 2008 and the issue of gas export. It felt insulted and provoked by the government's double standards -- the government emissaries talking sweetly with Anu Muhammad in an attempt to assuage his hurt feelings while the prime minister stealthily completing the process of awarding the three gas blocks to the two foreign companies. The NCPOGMPP leadership decided to use the ultimate weapon of constitutional opposition -- hartal -- to administer a shock therapy to the government, risking split in the organisation and unpopularity of a hartal programme in the midst of Ramadan and Eid shopping.
The hartal was but an event, albeit a significant one, in the chain of movement upholding the principled stand of opposing the very idea of gas export which will surely endanger energy security of the country. The NCPOGMPP announced on the conclusion of the hartal, on Monday, a fresh month-long programme culminating with the holding of a national convention in Dhaka on October 16.
Moral crisis: Whatever result the NCPOGMPP's movement may bear, the government, and Prime Minister Hasina in particular, will always be haunted by a moral crisis -- that they have deviated from their own gas policy as enunciated by Hasina herself, clearly and eloquently, during her encounter with Clinton back in 2000. Does the government have the required political courage and sensibility to overcome its moral crisis by re-embracing the principle of not exporting gas without ensuring energy security of the country?
Alternately, will the parties, which support NCPOGMPP's movement, be able to employ political ingenuity and muster sufficient organisational strength to turn this moral crisis of the government into a political issue in advancing their strategic goal of emerging as a left-democratic alternative to the three-decade-long bipolar political polarisation, centring the Awami League and the BNP?
Political side effect: As a citizen group, the NCPOGMPP is not a substitute for a political party or an alliance of political parties. But it has been drawing support from the left-democratic parties since its inception in 1997. The parties within the umbrella of the NCPOGMPP publicly differed on the issue of hartal. This apparently has serious implications and ramifications for the left-democratic movement in the country at the present juncture.
The opposition to the hartal within the forum of NCPOGMPP was led by the Workers Party. It termed the hartal before exhausting all other avenues of negotiations, including the forum of the parliament, a manifestation of left-wing adventurism. The JSD (Inu), NAP (Muzaffar), Samayabadi Dal and the Ganotantric Party, which are allied with the Awami League-led Grand Alliance and have representation either in the parliament with the Awami League's election symbol, Boat, or in the government as technocrat minister, joined the Workers Party in opposing the hartal. The JSD (Inu) is not associated with the NCPOGMPP. It will apparently be very difficult, if not impossible, for the Workers Party, NAP (Muzaffar), Samayabadi Dal and the Ganotantric Party to smoothen their differences with the NCPOGMPP.
The idea of establishing a broad-based unity of the left-democratic parties and forces will possibly now become more difficult to realise with the difference between the two blocs of the left-democratic parties -- one in the parliament and government with the blessings of the Awami League and the other on the street -- widening further.
The left-democratic parties, which are on the street under the informal leadership of the CPB, will face a peculiar problem. They are close to the ruling Awami League-led Grand Alliance on political and ideological issues like the restoration of secular-socialist polity through the restoration of the 1972 Constitution and the trial of the war criminals. They are opposed -- and more than the Awami League in many respect -- to the BNP-Jamaat axis on political and ideological questions. They will have the delicate task of balancing their political and ideological struggle with the usual anti-government agitation and ensuring, at the same time, that the BNP-Jamaat axis does not get the scope to use their movement in its power struggle against the Awami League.
And the left-democratic parties, which are in the parliament and government, will face the daunting task of coordinating parliamentary practice with the agitation and movement on the street on genuine public causes.
The September 14 hartal at the call of the NCPOGMPP may eventually turn out to be a turning-point in the left-democratic politics of the country.
harun1943@gmail.com