Aljazeera
Wed, 2012-01-11 03:55.

In the northwest Brazilian Amazon town of Brasileia, population 20,238, there are almost 1,200 Haitians.

They often mill around during the day, clustered in groups in the shade trying to keep cool from the steamy heat, waiting for weeks for their work documents to be processed so they can get a job in another part of Brazil.

But on Tuesday it was the two other guys sitting alone who caught my attention. They could have been Bolivian perhaps, or even Brazilian. But I knew they weren’t.

“We are from Bangladesh,” AHM Sultan Ahmed, 36, tells me with a smile when I approach and ask to talk with them.

His friend, Abdul Awal, and my photojournalist, Maria Elena Romero, and I, all sit together on the grass and begin to chat.

They are from Dhaka, and arrived in Brasileia the night before. They slept on the ground in the main plaza, having nowhere else to go. For obvious reasons, they look tired, but still muster the energy to smile wide and often.

Why did you come to Brazil?

“I heard Brazil’s economy is growing, and that here is good for us and good jobs,” Ahmed says. “Soon we can hopefully get our papers and find a job. I am happy”

“I think there is a lot of work in South America now, and a lot of people from my country are wanting to come here now,” he continues.

Neither has been to Brazil before, nor speak a word of Portuguese.

Ahmed tells me he is a trained painter and once worked in Greece. Awal, who worked in Malaysia, is an electrician.

Both men say they need work to support their families back home. Ahmed left behind a wife and seven-year-old daughter; Awal a wife and one daughter and two sons.

Long, Dangerous Journey

I just had to ask: So how do two men from Bangladesh get to one of the most remote corners of the Amazon in Brazil?

First, they tell me, they paid about $9,000 to a broker to arrange the journey. The trickster also promised easy and high-paying jobs in Ecuador.

So Ahmed and Awal paid up and flew from Dhaka to Dubai (4 hours, 30 minutes).

“Why not just work in Dubai,” I ask.

“Not much work, Brazil is better I think,” Ahmed says.

In the UAE, they boarded a flight that brought them non-stop from Dubai to Sao Paulo. It’s about a 15-hour flight.

Because they didn’t have a visa for Brazil, when they landed in Sao Paulo they could not leave the airport, and had to transfer to another flight to Santiago, Chile (3 hours, 15 minutes).

After a long layover in Santiago, another flight to Quito, Ecuador, (5 hours) where they stayed a few days.

“No work for us in Ecuador,” Ahmed says.

So they sharpened their focus on Brazil, a country recently named the world’s sixth largest economy by a consulting firm.

But because they didn’t know the logistics how to get to Brazil without a visa, they were forced to pay $5,400 to another “middle man” who basically said: ‘It’s complicated, but don’t worry, I’ll arrange it all.’

Border crossing

Soon they found themselves on a public bus for a 26 hours journey from Quito to Lima, Peru. From there they transferred to another bus, and another 12-hour journey over mountain passes to Inapari, Peru, a dusty border town with Brazil.

Still with no visa for Brazil, and in a far away land and culture they didn’t know, another local shady character demanded $600, they say, to secretly drive them to the Bolivian side of the border and then guide them the few kilometres through the jungle into Brazil.

But the two men only had $300 in cash left. So the man asked for Ahmed’s cellphone to cover the rest. Having no other choice, he handed it over.

Yesterday, 21 days after leaving Dhaka, the two men straggled into Brasileia.

Ahmed had $20 in cash, and a few loose coins in Brazilian money. And no cellphone to call home.

They bought a snack and some water to celebrate their arrival.

“We have $10 now,” he said.

They delivered their passports to the local federal police offices for processing for a work permit.

But the two men had better get used to Brasileia.

The wait time is averaging four weeks.

Cultural Shock

As I am sitting on the grass talking to my two new friends from Bangladesh, a good-natured, middle-aged Brazilian man comes by and asks us where we were from. “They are from Bangladesh,” I say.

Probably not knowing where to take the conversation from there, he resorts to a well-tested, male fall-back: “You have beautiful girls over there?” he says, laughing.

When that doesn’t solicit much of a response from Ahmed or Awal, the Brazilian concedes: “Bangladesh is the capital of India, right?”

Mr. Ahmed smiles gently.  “India, Pakistan, Bangladesh …,” trying to help the man place it on his mental map of the world.

“Nossa senhora,” the Brazilian says, before taking off to continue his jog.

It is a quick and dirty geography and cultural lesson between two unlikely people in the most improbable place imaginable.

But this isn’t the first time.

When I was in the neighbouring town of Epitaciolandia in May, working on stories about Haitians coming to Brazil, I also met a group of four men from Bangladesh who migrated to Brazil looking for work.

New trend

It appears to be a new and growing trend of east to west, south to south migration. At least from Bangladesh to Brazil.

“When you get your work papers, where will you go?” I ask Ahmed.

“Maybe Sao Paulo, but I would like Brasilia,” he says.

While the Haitian migrants in Brasileia have each other to support, Ahmed and Awal do not. They are on their own, in a very different universe now.

I ask Ahmed if he misses his family.

He looks down towards the grass, and then back up again to my eyes, and says: “Sure, of course, I must go back at some time.”

His eyes are red, but I am not sure if it is because he is about to cry, or just from 21 days of travel around the world.

I decided not to push the issue.

“Good luck, my friends,” I say, as we all exchange handshakes. “Hope to see you tomorrow. And welcome to Brazil.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you so much” they reply back, smiling.

Undocumented migrants from Bangladesh in a far corner of the Brazilian Amazon looking for work to support families on the other side of Earth.

Yes, the world is changing. Fast. Stay safe, gentlemen. Good luck. And may you both achieve your Brazilian dream.

Photo story on Bangladeshi migrant workers

Writer and translator Tarek Omar Chowdhury, a committed Maobadi and a dear friend, was deeply worried. `Of course I do not support what happened, although I must admit I look at it  differently.’ He was referring to the government’s pressure to close down ‘Into Exile – Tibet 1949 – 2009,′ an exhibition organised by the Bangladeshi chapter of Students for a Free Tibet (SFT), in partnership with Drik, November 1 – 7. `I express my solidarity,’ said his e-mail.

At first it had been the cultural counsellor from the Chinese embassy in Dhaka. Turning up at Drik he told Shahidul Alam, its managing director, “We would like you to cancel the Tibet exhibition.” Tibet was a part of China. If the exhibition was held, the relationship between Bangladesh and China would be affected. Drik, he was politely told, was an independent gallery. They did not have the right to tell Drik what it could, or could not show. But other visits and phone calls soon began: Bangladeshi government officials, police, special branch, members of parliament. Using either intimidation or persuasion, they basically conveyed the same message. The show must be cancelled. Later, the police insisted that Drik needed official permission but were unable to produce any written document. On the 1st afternoon, police in riot gear entered Drik’s premises and locked it up. A symbolic opening, inaugurated by professor Muzaffer Ahmed, was held on the street outside. Having registered its indignation, Drik decided to close down the exhibition the next day as a mark of protest.

Policemen encircle Professor Muzaffer Ahmad, chairman of the Bangladesh chapter of Transparency International, as he went to Drik Gallery in the capital Dhaka to open an exhibition titled ‘Into Exile – Tibet 1949–2009’ on November 1. — New Age photo

I am thinking of writing about it, said Tarek. But of course, you must, I said. His piece, `Tibboter odekha chobigulo onek kotha boley’ appeared in Samakal, 13 November. While highly critical of government interference and heavy-handedness, Tarek voiced suspicion about the SFT and its funding sources, whether the opening was timed to coincide with Dalai Lama’s Arunachal visit, to draw media attention, to villify China by portraying it as an occupying force in Tibet. The US government, more particularly the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), wrote Tarek, has directly funded the Tibet movement from 1956 to 1972, and later, indirectly, through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an organisation best described in the words of its first acting president, Allen Weinstein, “A lot of what we [the NED] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

What Tarek has written is amply supported in research conducted by many academicians and scholars. The NED was established in 1984 with both Republican and Democratic party’s support during president Reagan’s administration to “foster the infrastructure of democracy – the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities” around the world. Created by an act of Congress, it is funded primarily through annual allocations from the Congress. It operates through four core institutes: the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDIIA), the International Republican Institute (IRI), the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS), and the Center for International Private Enterprise. The latter, CIPE, has in recent years awarded a grant to the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and more recently, it has supported an initiative undertaken by the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI). But I will write about that some other day. To return to Tibet and CIA connections: NED-funded organisations include SFT, which was founded in 1994 in New York. Together with five other organisations, the SFT in January 2008 proclaimed “the start of a ‘Tibetan people’s uprising” and co-founded a  temporary office in charge of coordination and financing. Other published sources document how, in the USA, “the American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA front, energetically publicized the cause of Tibetan resistance, with the Dalai Lama’s eldest brother, Thubtan Norbu, playing an active role in that group. The Dalai Lama’s second-eldest brother, Gyalo Thondup, established an intelligence operation with the CIA in 1951 [although CIA aid was only formally established in 1956]. He later upgraded it into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits parachuted back into Tibet.” (Michael Barker, “Democratic Imperialism” ).

So, I asked Shahidul, what made you agree to co-hosting this exhibition? I thought it would be an interesting one, he replied. The public would have the opportunity to see rare photos. And I did tell the embassy officials that we would be happy to show a Chinese exhibition, if the quality was right. Our point is to open up the debate. And it’s nothing new, we have faced pressure before. From the British Council in Dhaka over the European Currency Unfolds show. From Bangladesh government officials over some images of 1971. And then, Dhaka’s Alliance Francaise had backed out from sponsoring my exhibition which was critical of Ershad’s military rule. So did the Art College. Intimidation, fear, exhortations to self-censorship—that too, by progressive institutions—these are not new. But of course, he added, this does not mean that we should not critically appraise ourselves. We are not above criticism. I invite it.

My attention turned to something Barker had written. NED’s funding issue, he says, is clearly problematic for Tibetan (or foreign) activists campaigning for Tibetan freedom. Progressive activists should first and foremost cast a critical eye over the antidemocratic funders of Tibetan groups. Only then can progressive solutions for restoring democratic governance to Tibet be generated by concerned activists. Or else, he says, we get what William I Robinson terms polyarchy, or “low-intensity democracy” which mitigates the “social and political tensions produced by elite-based and undemocratic status quos” and suppresses “popular and mass aspirations for more thoroughgoing democratisation of social life in the twenty-first century international order.” As I read, I was reminded of Mairead Corrigan Maguire, who received the Nobel Peace prize (1976) in recognition of her determined attempts to peacefully resolve the troubles in Northern Ireland. Maguire had gone to Israel in 2004 to welcome  Mordechai Vanunu, on his release from prison after serving an 18-year prison sentence for disclosing Israel’s nuclear secrets.  She was hit by a rubber-coated bullet in 2007, while participating in a protest against the construction of Israel’s security fence outside the Arab settlement of Bil’in. She was taken into custody by the Israeli military this year for being on board a small ferry carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Recently (October 2009), Mairead was one of three Nobel Peace laureates to launch a major `Thank You Tibet!’ Campaign to commemorate Tibetan peoples 50 years in exile. The Campaign statement extends support to “His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the people of Tibet.” It says, “They are a model for all of us: despite the attack on their people and the displacement of their culture they preach and practice compassion and respect for the dignity of every person.”. Compassion and respect for all? Some may not agree. Recently (October 2009), when asked about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, His Holiness had replied, “I think too early to say.”

To return to Tarek. I did tell him, I don’t agree with everything that you say. One area of contention is an old one, centering on whether Tibet is better or worse off, under Chinese communism. As Michael Parenti, severely critical of the Hollywood `Shangri-La’ myth puts it, old Tibet, in reality, was not a Paradise Lost. But if Tibet’s future is to be positioned somewhere within China’s emerging free market paradise—with its deepening gulf between rich and poor, the risk of losing jobs, being beaten and imprisoned if workers try to form unions in corporate dominated “business zones,” the pollution resulting from billions of tons of industrial emissions and untreated human waste dumped into its rivers and lakes—the old Tibet, he says, may start looking better than it actually was.

The other point has to do with recent news reports of the presence of Chinese interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who had gone to grill Uighurs (a Muslim minority from the autonomous region Xinjiang, in western China). Chinese officials were actively assisted by US military personnel to soften up the Uighurs for interrogation: sleep deprivation, freezing temperatures, isolation, holding up their head by the hair and beard so that Chinese officials could take facial photographs. According to them, it was “their lowest point” at Guantanamo. This active assistance was extended, while Washington reportedly continues to support secessionist movements in Xinjiang by supporting several Islamist organizations through CIA-ISI (Pakistani military intelligence) liaison.

Another friend, a keen political analyst, predicted that the US officialdom stationed in Dhaka would soon enough overcome its prolonged misgivings about Drik, as expressed in an e-mail from the USIA director John Kincannon, `Given what I’m reading in Meghbarta and your apparent active opposition to President Clinton’s visit to Bangladesh, it seems odd that you would expect USIS would have much interest in cooperating with Drik on anything’ (March 16, 2000). My friend was right. An invitation extended by the US ambassador himself arrived, sooner than predicted, for Shahidul.

Published in New Age 23rd November 2009.

Further analysis by Omar Tarek Chowdhury