The Hindu Business Line : US hand in the battle of Begums

Recently in Bangladesh, RASHEEDA BHAGAT presents a glimpse of that country's political scene, especially the US' role in trying to ensure that the January elections are conducted smoothly and a democratically elected government is installed in Dhaka.

Sharing the Page 1 headlines of Bangladeshi newspapers with the country's two Begums — Begum Khaleda Zia and the Awami League chief, Sheik Hasina — and the President and caretaker administration chief, Mr Iajuddin Ahmed, is a very unlikely person — the US ambassador in Bangladesh, Ms Patricia Butenis.

To an Indian observer of the country's political atmosphere, which is hotting up as the January 2007 elections come closer, it is surprising to find the American Ambassador calling on Sheik Hasina one day, meeting the chief election commissioner, Justice M.A. Aziz, who is under fire by the 14-party alliance led by Hasina's Awami League, the next, and issuing a series of statements to the media on how the coming election should be held in a "neutral" manner.

At the moment there is a political stalemate in the country and the Awami League alliance has given the caretaker administration a breather by extending its deadline for an indefinite bandh and protests after November 12 if it fails to ensure that the Election Commission functions in a "neutral manner".

The opposition parties say the CEC is an appointee of the Khaleda regime, they don't expect him to be neutral.

Political stalemate

But while accusations and counter-accusations fly back and forth between the Begums — the President had to take over the caretaker administration last fortnight as violence raged and there was no political consensus on who would head the caretaker government — Ms Butenis' sudden proactive role is a big surprise. Under the Bangladesh Constitution, after completing its five-year term, the ruling party/alliance steps down and a caretaker government assumes charge to ensure that the elections are held in a free and fair manner.

Eyebrows were raised in Dhaka when on November 6 Ms Butenis called on the CEC at his office and asked him categorically what his response would be to the Opposition demand that he step down. Justice Aziz categorically informed her that he had no intention of quitting!

As the November 12 deadline nears and more violence is expected in the country, which saw fighting and bloodshed in the last week of October, on Wednesday, Ms Butenis called on Sheik Hasina at her home and urged her to give the CA "more time" to prove its neutrality and act on the 14-parties' 11-point charter, where the main demand is for a free and fair election.

She had earlier — Nov 3 — welcomed the oppositions' decision to extend the deadline from November 5 to 12. So central has the American envoy in Dhaka become to the political developments here that she is mobbed by the media wherever she goes.

A couple of days ago, on one such occasion, she was so annoyed by the pushing and jostling reporters and photographers that she warned them that if they did not behave in a "civilised manner" it will be "the last time I'll talk to the press in Bangladesh"!

American interest

While political observers in Dhaka are surprised, even annoyed, at Ms Butenis taking on a central role in the conduct of the coming elections, there is hardly any public airing of this displeasure. That is because the US is seen in Bangladesh as a big friend and major ally.

Also, it is pretty obvious that after North Korea's recent nuclear adventure, which caught the Americans napping, the Bush administration has decided to play a much more proactive and "preventive" role in countries that could be trouble-spots for violence and slip away from the democracy brotherhood.

And, let's not forget, Bangladesh is an Islamic country where, of late, the fundamentalist fringes have been gathering force.

If the two major alliances led by Khaleda's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Hasina's Awami League, continue to have an impasse over the "neutrality" of the CEC, on the one hand, and the advisers to the CA, on the other — the BNP has been charging that the advisers are not acting in a neutral manner — the weeks before the elections could be some of the bloodiest and most violent in the country's history.

If such a situation arises, the fear is that the army, which has been confined to the barracks for long years, might draw inspirations from its erstwhile parent in Pakistan, and take over the administration.

Guardian of democracy

For the US, the self-appointed guardian of world democracy, this would be disaster indeed. This then is the main reason why the US Embassy in Dhaka is buzzing with activity and trying its best to ensure that the January elections are conducted smoothly and a democratically elected government installed in Dhaka, so that the armed forces remain in the barracks.

President Iajuddin hinted as much when he declared on Wednesday that he was confident that the army would help in the conduct of the elections, using its "devotion, professional skills and neutrality" so that the "democratic process" could be maintained.

With the EU and other foreign missions too expressing the hope that elections would be conducted successfully and peacefully, the President added that the army's "professional conduct" during the holding of the elections would assure "the people as well as different foreign agencies."

This is certainly drastically different from the Indian elections, where neither the US envoy nor "other foreign agencies" could give us homilies on how to conduct the polls.

Of course, they did try to do so during the last Jammu and Kashmir assembly polls, but the Vajpayee government's conduct of a free poll, which saw the ouster of the Farooq Abdullah regime, silenced wagging tongues.

Bangladesh-US bandhu

So what is the average Bangladeshi's perception of the US? When you hear effusive replies to this question, explaining how Bangladesh looks at the US as a great friend who not only gives it aid but is its biggest well-wisher, you wonder at such warmth coming from an Islamic country.

"You have to understand that Bangladeshis hate the Bush government, but they love the US," says Ms Hassan Banu Daisy, Project Coordinator at the CMES (Centre for Mass Education in Science)". Two of her sons were educated in the US and work there, as do her brothers, and she is a frequent visitor to the US.

Prof Muhammad Ibrahim, Executive Director of CMES and Professor of Physics at the Dhaka University, puts the relationship in perspective when he says: "There are many Bangladeshis who consider the US to be just an extension of Bangladesh!" This doesn't seem as fantastic a statement when he explains that a huge number of Bangladeshis have settled in the US, "both the elite and those at the bottom stage.

The latter are just there ... legally, illegally, and have found some work. In some pockets you will not even realise that you are in America; you wont even see another American."

To your surprised look he adds: "If you go to some districts of New York, there are Bangladeshis who will hardly speak English with anybody else; they will not even speak Bengali, they will be speaking their local dialect. Painters, carpenters, etc., who are just working for each other. The grocer is a Bangladeshi, his client is a Bangladeshi, the one painting the shop is a Bangladeshi too."

America, thus, continues to be the land of opportunity; the dreamland for many Bangladeshis. Even though education standards have improved over the years and private investment in education has come in, "the elite, anybody who is somebody in Bangladesh, send their children to the US for education."

He adds: "You brought in the Islamic country angle; Bangladeshis don't hate America, they just hate Bush, and in this they are just like other Americans. They loved Clinton; they think of Clinton as another Bangladeshi because he was a champion of (Grameen MD) Yunus (Ibrahim's brother), and Hillary Clinton visited Grameen villages. They keep these images in their mind; Hillary might have forgotten, but they will never forget. So there are no America-haters here."

Diversity visa

And the US offers Bangladesh what is called diversity visa, adds Prof Ibrahim. "Even a beggar here will tell you I'm trying for it, though now they have stipulated a matriculation; earlier, even an illiterate could get US visa. It's a lottery, the date is announced every year, you fill the form, attach your picture and put it on the Net.

There is a draw and a few thousand get visa every year; from our little office we've already sent four people to the US on this visa."

This visa gets them immediate US citizenship and "you can go there and find work. The first thing you do is go to a relative; everybody has a relative there, stay with him as long as you have to. Everybody's dream is to have a diversity visa. On that day, everybody from the CMES family will apply."

Would he want to go? "No, I'm an exception because I have things to do here; but most retired people would apply and their children love it because they can be useful. All our big secretaries and big professors have become baby-sitters there", says Ibrahim.

He adds: "The latest news is that New York's Bangladeshis are divided across two rival camps/committees over giving a reception to Yunus. And he has said that unless you can unite, I won't come. So he's going as a unifier!"

(Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in)

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