Taken from The New York Times, March 14, 2007
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
DHAKA, Bangladesh, March 10 — Peering into the heart of its democracy, Bangladesh has found a latemodel Hummer, three golden pheasants, several pet peacocks and piles of money.
Those are among the assets seized in recent days as part of a widening corruption investigation opened by a new military-backed government that declared emergency rule in January.
So far, at least 40 prominent public officials and business figures from the ranks of the two principal political parties, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Awami League, have been jailed on charges of corruption and related offenses. Dozens more politicians are on a list of suspects leaked to the news media. More arrests are expected.
Many Bangladeshis, even some politicians, describe the sweeps as a potential turning point in the history of a country that has seen graft fester in 16 years of democracy, threatening the health of the political system and making Bangladesh, a majority-Muslim country of 140 million people, among the most corrupt places in the world according to Transparency International’s index.
The question today is how long the military government can enjoy good will at home and abroad before it is buffeted by the many challenges of governance — or a clamor for a return to democratic rule.
“In all candor, if we look back on the 16 years of democratic government, we have to say we were let down,” said Farooq Sobhan, a former foreign secretary who now leads the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute.
“This can only be a temporary arrangement,” he said. “This is like taking the car back to the workshop, doing some urgent repair work, but then we’ve got to put it back on the road again.”
The anticorruption drive is the single most prominent item on the agenda of the new administration that took over after President Iajuddin Ahmed declared an emergency on Jan. 11 and postponed elections that were scheduled for later that month.
The president’s move came after months of crippling political violence. The opposition Awami League had vowed to disrupt the elections, accusing the governing Bangladesh Nationalist Party of rigging key electoral institutions.
Even beyond corruption, the problems facing the current government are formidable, from an electricity crisis that will probably grow more severe in summer, to rising prices for essential items, to carrying out its pledge of free and fair elections.
Beyond all that, it has now set for itself the challenge of winning in court, with a degree of credibility, corruption cases that are likely to test the capacity of the judiciary.
“This process could be undermined if the remnants of the ancien régime are not replaced from within the police, prosecution and judiciary, and if clean and competent investigations and prosecutions are not undertaken,” said Sara Hossain, a human rights lawyer representing three officials from independent organizations who are being held under preventive detention laws.
The previous anticorruption commission, appointed by the Bangladesh Nationalist government, spent two years squabbling over procedures and failed to file a single case. It resigned when the current administration took over.
The challenges facing the current administration were not lost on Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, foreign affairs adviser and effectively the new foreign minister. In an interview on Thursday, he said he was confident that public support would last as long as the current government “demonstrates achievements almost on a weekly basis.”
Apparently in a bid to ensure good will abroad, the current government has signed the United Nations convention against corruption. It aspires to set up a national human rights commission, Mr. Chowdhury said.
“We are interested in holding elections and going back to where we came from, so we come out smelling like roses,” he said. “The ultimate challenge will be to keep the people with you all the time.”
For now, at least, it appears to be working. In the last few weeks, Bangladeshis have watched, sometimes with unabashed glee, how sensationally the mighty have been humbled. Bank accounts have been frozen. Luxury cars, impounded by the government, fill the parking lot of a Dhaka police station.
This week, the front pages of several daily newspapers were splashed with photographs of deer, peacocks and other birds discovered in the garden of a former minister. The animals were reported to have been kept without the required government permits.
The biggest catch of all came in a dead-of-night raid this week, when the police arrested Tarique Rahman, the son of the last prime minister, Khaleda Zia. He was produced in court on Thursday wearing a bulletproof vest and looking ashen as he was booked on extortion charges, which until recently would have been unimaginable.
During his mother’s tenure, which ended last October, Mr. Rahman was considered invincible.
His arrest now, if nothing else, seemed intended to showcase the government’s commitment.
Emergency rule was largely seen as the military’s handiwork, opening the way for the new caretaker government led by a retired central bank governor and 10 nonpartisan bureaucrats. The government has not yet laid out when elections are to be held, except to say that before any credible voting can take place, politics must be cleansed of “black money” and criminality, and key electoral institutions reformed.
It has appointed a new three-member election commission; promised voter identification cards, which would take an estimated 10 to 12 months to distribute; and said those convicted of graft will not be allowed to run for office.
At the moment, political activity has been shut down. Political meetings are barred. It is against the law to criticize the government. The police and army have arrested an astonishing number of people — more than 40,000, according to estimates — though the government says most are suspected criminals. There is no way to know how many have been charged, or where they are held.
The politicians, none of whom wanted to be quoted by name for fear of reprisal by the army-backed government, are quietly taking a wait-and-see approach.
One Bangladesh Nationalist Party official said it would not be easy to uproot the base of the two parties, nor easy to manage the very issues that plagued the previous government, which the party led before the military stepped in.
“We wish good luck to the government,” he said, and smiled. “They don’t have the people’s mandate, and they themselves don’t know how long they will be there. How can they meet everyone’s expectations?”
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Latest News: The interim Government of Bangladesh has found millions of pounds in frozen bank accounts during an investigation into corruption among politicians. “These accounts have an estimated undisclosed sum of 26 billion taka (£190 million),” an official said. More than 160 senior politicians, including former ministers, have been arrested by security forces and some have been detained since a state of emergency was declared in January. (Reuters)
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