[Reader-list] Bush's Democracy Project in Bangladesh+Nepal

[Shambhu Rahmat]

Well worth a thorough read. Watch these chess moves.

http://www.southasiamonitor.org/2007/mar/news/15view1.shtml

Bush's Democracy Project in Bangladesh and Nepal

By J. Sri Raman

Who says that President George Bush and his men and women promote
democracy only by destructive wars? They do so also through creative,
unconventional diplomacy. Look at their latest achievements in
Bangladesh and Nepal.

In both these countries bordering India, whose ruling establishment
has enlisted in the Bush crusade to save democracy (especially
"emerging" democracies), the cause has hit a major roadblock. And it
is representatives of Washington who have placed a mega-sized boulder
on the path to much-awaited elections in both cases.

In the case of Nepal, Bush's mouthpieces have not really bothered to
conceal this. In the case of Bangladesh, Washington and its Western
allies have only declared a more devious war on democracy.

In talking of Nepal, these columns have repeatedly noted striking
instances of the distinguished style of US Ambassador James Francis
Moriarty's diplomacy, through the entire period since the people of
the Himalayan state overthrew a hated monarchy and opened the door to
democracy. A higher official of the US administration has now outdone
him.

Moriarty has tried many tricks barred by the book of diplomacy in a
bid to prevent the return of Maoists to the political mainstream, and
to break the historic accord between them and the Seven-Party Alliance
(SPA) that ended King Gyanendra's despotic rule last April. Moriarty
has played a role in keeping Washington's "terror tag" on the Maoists.
While insisting on their electoral insignificance, he has tried to
stall their inclusion in the interim government by warning of US
assistance only to departments under non-Maoist ministers.

He has also made a very un-diplomat-like visit to a center of ethnic
unrest and voiced support for the demands of the Madhesi minority,
which the Maoists and the SPA do not oppose anyway.

Notwithstanding Moriarty, Nepal was to move ahead to the next stage of
its democratic transition on March 14th, when the Maoists were to join
the interim government under Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala. US
Under Secretary of State for Management Henrietta H. Fore, on a visit
to Kathmandu last week, ensured that progress in the process was put
off.

On March 10th, she proclaimed Washington's displeasure with "two
trends that, if unresolved, threaten Nepal's democratic progress." The
first - surprise, surprise - was "the continuing failure of the
Maoists to renounce violence". The second, equally predictably, was
ethnic unrest. This, she said showed the need for "inclusiveness" in
Nepal, though the Maoists were to be excluded.

She followed up that critique with a call on the aging and ailing
prime minister. The outcome was, again, predictable. Koirala announced
that the Maoists could not enter the interim government until they
"return all the people's property they had seized and account for all
their weapons." The moment Fore left Nepal, Koirala hastened to assure
the offended Maoists that they would be inducted into the government
"shortly."

The damage, however, was not totally undone. Maoist leader Prachanda
has now threatened street protests if the interim government is not
expanded by the end of March. More scarily, he has alleged a
"conspiracy" by the "pro-palace" camp to assassinate Americans in
Nepal, blame it on the Maoists, and seek a ban on them.

It is significant that some knowledgeable observers in Kathmandu think
that the Nepal situation may lead to a "Bangladesh-type" solution.
What they mean is not a declared military rule, but a military-backed
dispensation that will keep out the Maoists and parties ready to make
up with them. This will be a "democracy" that Moriarty and Fore will
not disapprove of.

This is also the kind of "democracy" in Bangladesh of which Washington
and its Western allies do not disapprove. This has become evident in
the two months of rapid events since the general election originally
scheduled for January 22 was scrapped.

The opposition led by the Awami League of former Prime Minister Sheikh
Hasina Wajed, of course, wanted the elections scrapped; it feared
massive poll-rigging under the caretaker regime of President Iajuddin
Ahmad, who is known to be close to the right-wing Bangladesh
Nationalist Party (BNP) of Hasina's rival and former Prime Minister
Begum Khaleda Zia. Both parties extended support to the caretaker
government of Fakhruddin Ahmed, sworn in on January 13th.

Not many, however, foresaw two developments that followed. Fakhruddin
Ahmed's regime soon turned out to be only the front of the Bangladesh
army with a history of frequent political interventions. The public
can only speculate about the identity of the faceless, string-pulling
military rulers. But, like several other "benevolent" military regimes
in the past, this one too has started off with a series of measures
aimed at the heart of the middle class. An alleged crusade against
corruption and for a new "political culture" has followed, with the
prospect of polls receding rapidly in the process.

The process gathered momentum with the arrest of Begum Zia's unpopular
son Tarique Rahman and raids on Hasina's residence on March 8th. The
very next day, all political activity (including indoor meetings) was
banned.

The second development is the entry into politics of eminent economist
Mohammad Yunus. He has turned out to be a typical candidate of the
same political camp and constituency that the behind-the-scene
military rulers represent and back. Even more significant is the
extra-Bangladesh dimension of his electoral appeal and that of his
hastily assembled party called Nagorik Shakti (Citizen Power).

Moriarty and Fore have played politics in Nepal, but their
counterparts in Bangladesh would seem to have gone a step further by
fielding their own candidate and a party in the forthcoming election,
if and when it is held.

The US ambassador in Bangladesh, Patricia Butien, has been more
circumspect than Moriarty. But a former US ambassador in Bangladesh
(and Pakistan ) and currently an academic at the Woodrow Wilson Center
in Washington, DC, William B. Milam, has nearly given the game away.

Milam's proximity to the power centre in Washington is seen in the
fact that he was to be a US observer of the scrapped election of
January 22nd. On January 9th, almost two weeks before that, he wrote
in a newspaper column, "My trip to Bangladesh ... is off." He said
"the US and EU have ruled out sending teams (of observers)" because,
among other reasons, it "would convey an unofficial sanction to an
election that will be clearly wanting in legitimacy."

The US and the Western governments, however, have not only supported
the "clean-up" drive of the Fakhruddin Ahmed regime. They have also
kept mum, not mysteriously so perhaps, about the eloquent silence of
the caretaker regime about the election plans.

Milam goes further. In a subsequent column, he derides the united
demand of Hasina and Zia for an announcement of the election date and
asks why they call for early polls. "Could it be that they suspect
that the longer an election is delayed, and the more time given to a
new third party to develop a platform and make itself known, the
weaker are their prospects in that election? Do their interests
converge again on a single point: the need to forestall the growth and
development of a new party that might take the centre of politics away
from them?"

He also notes, approvingly, that "the announcement the other day by
the chief of the caretaker government that it could not yet set an
election date gives Yunus and his organizers more time to pull it all
together." Of what his candidate can do, if elected, he says: "(That)
depends on how well the caretaker government does its job in cleaning
up the political culture so that reformers like Yunus will have a
chance to make a difference."

All this, however, can only produce a system that is very different
from democracy as the people in Bangladesh or elsewhere understand it.

(A freelance journalist and a peace activist of India, J. Sri Raman is
the author of Flashpoint (Common Courage Press, USA). He is a regular
contributor to t r u t h o u t.