The Nagorik Oikko, a civil society initiative, has written to the President, the Prime Minister and the chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to initiate talks between the ruling party and the BNP for ending the current spate of dangerous violence in which the country is embroiled with no visible signs of respite. If ever a letter was written by any civil society body for furthering a national cause then this undoubtedly is a special one for those to whom this letter has been addressed have the power to do the needful to bring a nation of 170 million out of a living nightmare.
The Nagorik Oikko's call for talks to end what a leading newspaper in the country has described as "mindless violence", would undoubtedly find favour with the overwhelming majority of the people of the country if put to vote. Their lives and livelihood have literally been put on hold since the BNP's movement started on the day of the first anniversary of the controversial January 05, 2014 elections. The grotesque nature of the movement where bus, trucks and other vehicles are being torched with petrol bombs has so far claimed
60 lives.
The ruling party has dismissed with contempt the call for talks that was earlier made by the BNP and from the civil society in an uncoordinated manner. While dismissing the proposals, the ruling party has reasoned in many different ways, some mutually contradictory. The Prime Minister has dismissed the calls stating unequivocally that there can be no talks with what she described variously as "killers," terrorists" and "murderers." Senior Minister Tofael Ahmed has said that the country is peaceful and therefore there is no need for talks. Other ministers like the Information Minister, has spoken in some platforms more strongly than the Prime Minister in dismissing the call for talks. The Information Minister has also said that talks could be held subject to BNP fulfilling conditions one of which is to end the current movement unconditionally.
However, most ruling party leaders had earlier ridiculed the BNP for not having enough strength to launch movement. The BNP remained silent in the face of taunt and teasing even while the government also closed most democratic space for it to present peacefully its views on the January 05 elections.
Thus the AL and the BNP came to observe the first anniversary of the January 05 elections from opposite sides. The BNP expressed its intentions of marking the day as "anti-democracy day" in support of its claim that a year ago democracy was gagged. The AL wanted to celebrate the day as "victory of democracy day". In a country claiming to be democratic such contradictory claims, unfortunate as these may be, are not unusual. The unusual was the way the government clamped down on the programmes of the BNP and its allies. The facts surrounding the government's handling of the first anniversary of the January 05 elections are well-known. The slight window of democratic protest available to the BNP was closed which forced the party to call for continuous blockade and hartals that turned violent, pushing the country into great uncertainty.
That the observance of the programmes of blockade and hartals would not be peaceful was not something that needed great wisdom to predict despite Begum Zia's call for peaceful conduct. The AL-led government's response aggravated the situation. It expressed its intention to resolve by force what is essentially a political problem that arose from the way the January 05 elections were conducted. The government and ruling party leaders gave a timetable of one week within which they would silence the movement.
It is now the 6th week of the movement. The situation has worsened. The government has further hardened its intention of resolving the current political problem. That is only aggravating the situation. Recently, the law-enforcement agencies have announced decisions that go to underline that their resolve to end the movement by force is not working. The police have asked operators not to move their bus and trucks after 9-00 pm. The AL leaders have said that they did not expect the BNP/allies' movement to become so difficult to control. With these realities, the teasing and taunting of the BNP has come to a standstill.
The government is blaming the BNP/allies for all the violence and the arson cases. The BNP has put the blame on the ruling party. The responsibility of the parties is a matter of degree that can be apportioned only after an independent judicial inquiry is conducted that does not seem to be feasible at the moment.
What appears to be the sad reality at the moment is that the ruling party will not succeed to silence the opposition without giving it democratic space. That is obvious because in history no political demand has ever been silenced by force. The BNP/Jamaat that have waited for one year and expected that the government would keep its promise that the January 05 elections were dictated by constitutional necessity and they would hold another election. The BNP/Jamaat cannot be expected to accept the January 05 elections as legitimate enough to keep the ruling party in power until 2019. Above many arguments that make the January 05 elections too undemocratic, one that needs to be kept in view is the fact that in 1996, the AL had forced the BNP to hold new elections in place of the one that it had held and won without the AL's participation. Those elections, one-sided though they were, were better than the January 05 elections.
The stakes are much higher now. The AL has almost zero incentive for another election that it is likely to lose. The BNP can give up the movement only to commit hara-kiri as the AL-led government has made its intentions clear which is to ensure that the party ceased to exist. Therefore, it is extremely unlikely that either will seek a political settlement. A country of 170 million people that has sacrificed so much for democracy through their glorious war of liberation of 1971 thus must find the way to end the "violence of madness". Since the parties have failed them, the civil society now has that responsibility. When it comes to the country, they have as much right to state their mind and act accordingly as have the politicians and political parties.
The well-respected Dr. Shamsul Huda, the former CEC, leads the Nagorik Group. There is no one in the Group close to the BNP. In fact a few have been or are still members of the Awami League, though estranged from the party. This should be encouragement enough for the ruling party upon whom rests primarily whether a dialogue would be possible. All are nevertheless very acceptable to the general public for honesty of their views. Unfortunately, except the moral strength, they have little to encourage the two parties, particularly the Awami League.
The nation must therefore stand behind this Nagorik Group. They can work through the various professional and other groups in the country that are not organised on party lines. A good starter could be the FBCCI that should support the Nagorik Group to give it strength. Appealing to the BNP as the FBCCI has been doing would be barking up the wrong tree. The ball is with the ruling party.
The writer, a career diplomat, is a former Ambassador.
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