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RAB’s Photo Sessions and the Visual Construction of Criminality

By Rahnuma Ahmed

The title of my column is somewhat misleading, I think it’s best to state that right away. Intrigued by the press briefings that RAB (Rapid Action Battalion) offices hold every so often where `criminals’ are displayed alongwith crime artefacts laid out on long rows of tables—guns, machettes, grenade-making equipment, stolen cash—as evidence of their criminality, images which are served up on the news of all private TV channels, which are printed a day later in the newspapers, I had thought of conducting research on these photo op sessions. I had wanted to examine these as `sites’ that are organised and arranged by the organs of the state, by the functionaries of the state, ones that construct criminality through visual means, i.e., still photos and video recordings of criminals, their tools, the loot. RAB, for the few who may not know, falls under the jurisdiction of the ministry of home affairs, its members are seconded to the battalion from the army, navy, air force and police, a measure which, according to its critics, eases in the carry-over of its culture of gross abuses and impunity to other parts of the security forces.

RAB Photo Session

My interest in RAB and its activities, as many of my readers probably know, is not new. It re-surfaced recently, however, because of several incidents which gave rise to thoughts, ones that not only refused to go away but dug deep into the soil and grew shoots.

It surfaced as I poured water over a waterproof camera that Shahidul Alam, my partner, held underneath. He was working on re-creating images of water-boarding for his upcoming photo exhibition on torture. I concentrated on carrying out his instructions, on not thinking about how I would have felt if an actual head had been in the bucket. It surfaced languidly as I heard Nurul  Kabir ask third year students of photography—he is currently teaching a course on Media and Politics at Pathshala—to reflect on how the Bangladeshi media participates in non-violent means of ruling. On how it seeks and gains people’s consent to ideas which work against their interests. Drawing instances from how the media had significantly contributed to making Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, women with no political experience, into `national’ leaders, on how intellectuals, writers and journalists gratuitously offer the view that the nation’s problems would be solved if only the two women would meet and talk to each other, Kabir moved on to a discussion of ideological state apparatuses (the ISA’s, as those familiar with the French Marxist theorist Louis Althusser’s ideas, know). While listening to him, I thought of RAB’s crossfire deaths and how it had simultaneously constructed, and cashed in on an idea of meting out instant justice in a situation of deteriorating law-and-order and a failing criminal justice system, a situation for which the government, of course, was ultimately responsible. I then thought of how it was increasingly becoming difficult for crossfire deaths to garner public support, even of people who supported the government on all other counts. But what about RAB’s press briefings? What did they construct, and what did we consume by watching images of these on television, or through seeing printed pictures?

Mug shots, or photographic portraits of arrested people, taken by police photographers at the police station is not something that is practised in Bangladesh. The genre of photography and framing that has developed since RAB (inaugurated in March 2004) began its press briefings seems unique to Bangladesh, and to its visual history. Through my network of photographer friends I got hold of about sixty photographs, and sat looking through these, scribbling notes while I did: RAB officials conducting security searches on buses. Squad dogs snarling at each other. A pair of startled eyes of a young man, the alleged criminal, in front of whom lay a table full of machettes. He seemed to have been hauled up and planted in front of the table. Three young men, guarded on either side by two RAB officials, but although they seemed to be in the middle of a forest, strangely enough, they had A-4 sheets with their names, computer-composed and printed, hanging on their shirt fronts.

I then turned to dozens of photographs of press briefing sessions. These invariably, with one or two slight variations, had `criminals’ standing behind a long table, covered with a white table cloth, a banner behind announcing the number of the battalion (twelve in all), the alleged criminal or criminals guarded by armed RAB members on either side, criminal artefacts in front. The names of those caught, `Mohd Rafiqul Islam, illegal woman trafficker,’ a meticulous description of what was recovered, `125 bhori gold ornaments,’ `ten thousand US dollars,’ often neatly affixed. To the person. To the object. Reminiscent of colonial inventories.

I spoke to a photographer who has covered nearly a hundred RAB events in the last 4 years. He spoke to me on condition of anonymity. So what happens, I asked. Well, the press, from the channels, from the dailies, we all go at the appointed time. We go to a large room, a hall room. There are chairs for us. It takes about half an hour, the criminals are brought, we are briefed on the crime, what happened, who was caught, with what. We take photographs. I prodded and he said, well, what the RAB official says, and what the alleged criminal says seem to be based on the same script. Does anything ever untoward happen? Have you seen any such thing happen? Oh no, he replied. It’s all very neat, very well-organised. No ruffles, none whatsoever. So, why do they do it? Why do they go to the trouble? I think because they get free publicity. I wondered to myself whether it had made crime reporters and investigative journalists lazy. So, you mean, it’s a package? Yes, his eyes lit up. It’s all pre-packaged, you get everything all at once. Sometimes, he said, I think, it is arranged to divert attention. Whose? Well, the media’s, and thereby that of the public. For instance? If you remember the whole Yaba thing, when it blew up, most of those who were paraded before us were Yaba addicts, there was such a big circus over it but none of the really big fish were caught. So, what makes you think it’s stage-managed? Well, two things. If we see something happening on the street, and RAB is there, in action, and we go up to take photographs, they behave very badly. They’ll snarl and say, `Do you have any permission?’ They beat up a Jugantor photographer once. But then the next thing you know, they’ll organise this elaborate press briefing at their offices and parade these so-called criminals with ten-or-so Phensedyl bottles laid out on the table. And they also offer us tea, snacks. We don’t want their nasta, we want to work, I want to take photographs because I think I am accountable to the public. As he spoke I thought to myself, surely, these staged photo ops violate constitutional rights? What does one call them, a sort of media trial, held in what, RAB’s court? Aloud, I asked, what strikes you as most odd about these sessions? Well, when they put on their sunglasses, I mean we are inside the building, inside a room, there’s no sunlight but these guys put on their dark glasses just before we start taking photos.

I return to examining the photographs. There is one set missing, I think. A set that none of us will probably ever get to see. Those that RAB officials are said to have taken of New Age’s crime reporter F Masum after they beat him up outside his house for failing to open the gate with alacrity. According to him, they later dragged him into his bedroom, placed six Phensedyl bottles in his pillow case, stood him beside it. The camera clicked.

First published in New Age on Monday 16th November 2009.

High Court orders government to explain killings.

Tags: contempt of court, criminal, Death, Extra Judicial Killings, impunity, Law, media, media trial, Photography, RAB, Rahnuma Ahmed, torture

Doctoral Complicity in State Terror

By rahnuma ahmed

I take liberties with English language as I write “doctoral” to indicate the complicity of doctors and hospitals, both public and privately-owned ones, in short, the Bangladesh medical establishment’s actions which aid and abet state functionaries who have committed acts of terror—whether those in the police force, or RAB (Rapid Action Battalion), or in any of the military intelligence agencies, such as the DGFI (Directorate General of Forces Intelligence)—to cover it up.

Doctoral, as an adjective, refers to a doctorate, the highest degree awarded by a university. But as a transitive verb, as in doctoring, it means to change something in order to make it appear different from the facts. From the truth. In other words, to deceive.

Is that what doctors did in the case of Anu Muhammad? Did they doctor the facts to cover up marks of police brutality? Anu, a well-known and widely-respected public intellectual and activist, also a professor of economics, was brutally attacked by the police on September 2. Did they also doctor the facts in the case of F M Masum, crime reporter of this daily, who was tortured by RAB officials just because he had asked them why they were beating up a woman? Did doctors in either, or both cases, work against the good of their patients, in violation of their Hippocratic oath? Did they utter or write down words, undertake actions that  were not to the best of their ability, ones that were intended to make grievous injuries appear harmless? Ones that prolonged their patients injuries instead of helping them heal?

Is medical ethics taught in the medical colleges? Do students see their teachers practise it?

Pretty Packaging Outside

I was busily working on my manuscript—the reason for having been absent from the pages of New Age for the last three months—when my mobile beeped: `Anu and other tel-gas cmttee leaders beaten up by police.’

I called and was horrified to hear that the police had targeted him, had charged at his head with batons, an attempt foiled by brave young members of the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports. They had borne the brunt of the attacks as he fell down on the street. The thousand strong procession was heading toward Petrobangla headquarters—in Anu’s words, “a multinational company base that no longer represents the wishes of the people”—to protest against the government’s decision to award three offshore blocks to international companies.

Anu had been rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, the nation’s most reputed public hospital. His legs were X-rayed before being put into plaster casts. We need to carry out other tests, said the doctors, as he lay on a trolley. But since the hospital was overfull and there were no empty beds, said Anu, my family and friends took me to Square hospital instead. They knew it was expensive, but a recent health insurance policy was expected to cover the costs. He added, they were concerned about whether I had suffered any internal injuries.

So, I prodded him, how was the treatment at Square? It is a hospital that is owned by the Square Group; Tapan Chowdhury, the managing director of the group was the power and energy adviser to the military-installed caretaker government (2007-2008); the hospital, as its website advertises, is affiliated to hospitals abroad (USA, India, Singapore). You had no broken bones, so why is it taking this long to heal, I asked. And I saw all these hotshots flocking to the hospital to see you, Khaleda Zia, government ministers. Why, I believe, even the health minister, an orthopaedic surgeon, went to see you, no? Yes, that was the problem. What on earth do you mean?

Well, you see, at Square they carried out a lot of tests, blood, urine, ultrasound, CT scan, but no one did a physical examination of my feet, legs, no one looked at the bruises, pressed or poked to see where it hurt, whether I could move my toes, during the four days that I was there. Yes, they changed the DMCH plaster casts, I was upgraded to fiber optic casts, they look prettier, but no physical examination was done.

And then, the health minister Dr Ruhul Haque came to see me on the 5th. I was planning to leave the hospital the next day, which I did, but the impression I had gotten from my doctors was that my legs would need to be in casts for a month or more, that I would need to come for regular check-ups. But the very next morning, after the health minister’s visit, the same doctor who had said I would need them for a month, came and got rid of them. And then, all these doctors disappeared. Very mysteriously.

The hospital issued a discharge certificate, it says, I had “improved satisfactorily.” I don’t know which tests demonstrated that. It also said I should use a walking stick. But that was pretty absurd, since I couldn’t stand up for the briefest of seconds. Not for a good fortnight after I left Square.

And what happened after you went home? Well, I couldn’t move, the pain got worse. Luckily, a doctor friend of mine dropped in regularly, he showed me some physiotherapy exercises, he told me how to move my body, how to avoid putting weight on my feet. You mean to say he did what the doctors at Square should have done? Anu grinned, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. And I hear there was pus?  Oh yes, my feet were heavily bruised because the police had kicked at my feet with their boots, they had nearly jumped on my feet, so they were all swollen. And then, another doctor friend got hold of two orthopaedic surgeons. They were pretty shocked when they came and examined me. They prescribed antibiotics immediately, which gradually got rid of the swelling and the pus, and that intolerable pain. If it hadn’t been for them I definitely would not have recovered as I have, now.

While listening to Anu, I riffled through his medical file, looking at his discharge certificate, his blood reports, other reports. A line caught my eye, Thank you for being with Square. Yes, I thought, but is Square with its patients?

Pretty packaging outside. Ugly politics inside.

Discharged in the Middle of the Night

F M Masum, crime reporter, New Age was tortured by RAB officials, first at his home, and then later at RAB-10 headquarters. Not only had he protested, he had dared to ask RAB officials to speak civilly. As they should, being employees of the state, paid by the public exchequer. In exchange, they barged into his house, beat him up, blindfolded him, rubbed salt into his wounds. The torture grew worse, said Masum, when I showed them my ID card. According to them, Nurul Kabir had made things difficult for them. They had “suffered” because of his outspoken views, that’s how they put it.

After Masum’s release was finally secured an excruciating ten hours later, with the intervention of the home minister, his colleagues took him to the DMCH. It was nearly midnight. Were you examined? Well, the DMCH X-ray machine was out of order so I was taken to a private lab, we returned to the hospital with X-ray and CT scan reports. And then? They said, everything was fine and I could be taken home.

Even though you were covered with torture wounds? Even though your body and feet were swollen? Even though you were said to be in severe pain and should have been examined for internal injuries? Well, yes.

Masum was admitted to the Dhaka Community Hospital at Maghbazar Railgate the next day. And how are you now? I asked. Well, my feet still hurt a lot. And your ears? Oh, it’s much better now. Once the blood clot has completely dissolved, the ENT specialist said he’ll be able to examine and see whether my eardrum has suffered any rupture.

But DMCH has had courageous doctors too. I remembered Dr Shamsul Alam, professor of surgery, who accompanied communist leader Ila Mitra to Calcutta in the mid-50s. She had been imprisoned, tortured and raped by the police after the Tebhaga movement flared up with peasants demanding two-third share of the produce from their landowners. While serving a ten-year prison sentence she had fallen ill, had been hospitalised. Embarassed at street protests at home and outrage abroad, the Pakistan government released a weak, frail and emaciated Ila Mitra on parole, agreeing to let her go to Kolkata for better treatment. `But your khalu had to pay the price,’ his widowed wife reminded me. `They transferred him to Chittagong. They didn’t give him the promotion that was due.’ There are still a few left, I thought, as I remembered the words of gratitude Bidisha (ex-wife of former president Ershad) had written of Dr Afzal of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical university where she had been hospitalised. She had been remanded, and allegedly tortured by DGFI officials. Hospitals too, since Dhaka Community Hospital had admitted Masum, and had continued to treat him despite receiving intimidating phone calls.

I am sure there are other instances too. But the rest? Too busy doctoring to be real doctors.

Published in New Age, 9 November 2009

Tags: complicity, corruption, governance, hippocrates, journalist, medicine, negligence, politics, Rahnuma Ahmed, state, torture, Violence

On Forced Marriage, and Insourced Torture

Rahnuma Ahmed

…the [Nigerian] nationalist leader Nnamdi Azikiwe urged Africans and other colonized peoples to prepare their own blueprint of rights themselves instead of relying on those who are too busy preparing their own.
Bonny Ibhawoh, Imperialism and Human Rights, p 155

Forced marriage, says a British High Commission press release, is a crime (Dhaka, March 28, 2006). As opposed to arranged marriages, forced marriages – by dint of not being based on consent – are a form of domestic violence and human rights abuse.

To increase awareness, both in Britain and abroad, the British home ministry, and the foreign ministry, jointly formed a Forced Marriage Unit in January 2005. The unit was tasked with launching a publicity campaign: radio and press adverts, TV fillers and poster campaigns, and providing information. To those at risk, those affected, and those who are survivors.

The British government, said the state minister for home, Baroness Scotland QC, is determined to protect young people’s ‘right to choose’ their spouses. A determination backed by the state minister for foreign office Lord Triesman’s assurance that ‘help is available’ for its victims.

And so it was. Humayra Abedin, a 32-year old Bangladeshi and London-based doctor, was told her mother was very sick. She returned to her parents home in Dhaka in August 2008 only to be locked in a room, have her passport, ticket and other documents taken away. Before her cell phone was taken, Abedin managed to send text messages, much later, secret e-mail letters, to people in Britain seeking help. On August 13, she was forcibly taken to a psychiatric clinic, held and medicated against her will for nearly three months.

A court injunction issued in Britain was soon followed by a Bangladeshi court order. It instructed her parents to let her return to England if she so wished. She was escorted to the British High Commission, they arranged her return. Back in London, the British High Court issued an order preventing her from being removed from Britain without her consent. She had been forced to marry a man of her parents’ choice, said her lawyer, seeking its annulment as Abedin is a UK resident. Marriage without consent, declared High Court Judge Paul Coleridge in his ruling, was ‘a complete aberration of the whole concept of marriage in a civilised society.’

The British High Commission in Dhaka had been just as prompt several months earlier when 19-year old Nasrin Begum, a British citizen, had telephoned the British consular office in Sylhet. About to be forced into marriage, Nasrin had ‘begged’ the consulate staff to intervene. And that they did, aided by Bangladeshi police. Forced marriage rescues, says Toafiq Wahab, head of consular services, can be ‘very challenging’ (Asian Image, January 20, 2008). According to a British High Commission spokesperson in Dhaka, between April 2007 and March 2008, the embassy staff had provided assistance in 56 such cases. But he added, we think there are ‘more out there.’

The official website for the British High Commission in Dhaka has a Help for British Nationals page. Relatives and friends of those unfortunate enough to be detained or imprisoned are provided information about local prison conditions, the local legal system. Subject to prison approval, the high commission even passes on money sent to buy ‘prison comforts’. For victims of crime, the high commission provides much more: a list of local lawyers, interpreters, help in contacting a local doctor, and, in very exceptional cases, a loan from public funds. For those who have lost their passports, emergency travel documents, on occasions, even a passport. The website displays a customer feedback form inviting viewers to contribute ideas for improving their services.

I wonder how Jamil Rahman would have filled it.

Rahman, 31, a former civil servant from south Wales, settled in Bangladesh in 2005 after marrying a woman from Sylhet (Ian Cobain, Guardian, May 26, 2009). On December 1, 2005, says Rahman, police came to his wife’s family home to take him away. Two men, wearing balaclava masks towered over the police, peered at him through the slits and nodded their heads. Rahman and his wife were taken to the DGFI (Directorate General of Forces Intelligence) headquarters, and held in separate cells. He was stripped naked and beaten. He was told that his wife would be raped and murdered, that her body would be burned. He agreed to confess to a number of terrorist offences, to being the mastermind of the July 2005 underground and bus bombings in London. Released nearly three weeks later – after receiving strict instructions that he should not tell anyone of his experiences, nor contact any lawyers, or members of the media, or the British High Commission in Dhaka – he was frequently summoned for interrogations and repeated beatings for a period of more than two years.

Rahman alleges, two well-spoken Britons, who said they were MI5 officers, that their names were Liam and Andrew, would be present during the interrogations, only to leave the room when he was tortured. When he told them of his torture, of being forced to make false confessions, ‘help’ was not forthcoming. Instead they would leave the room, they ‘needed a break.’ Andrew reportedly added, ‘They haven’t done a very good job on you.’ He would be beaten, extreme pressure exerted on his testicles, threatened that his wife would be raped. After the questioning resumed, Andrew reportedly said, ‘That’s good, you’ve learned your lesson.’ Rahman was shown maps, instructed to copy these on to pieces of paper, which were taken away by the MI5 officers. He was shown hundreds of photographs, including surveillance pictures of UK friends, and asked to identify them. If he did not cooperate, MI5 officials would leave the room, the beating would resume. Senior DGFI agents would utter words of caution. His head should not be marked. His bones should not be broken.

‘We are not torturing you, are we?’ MI5 officers asked Rahman during many an interrogation session. Once, says Rahman, he was told to repeat ‘no’ in a louder voice. All sessions were recorded. During this period, he was also questioned by three men who said they belonged to Scotland Yard, and an American woman named Mary. His passport, says Rahman, withheld by officials of the high commission, was returned two and a half years later. In other words, it had been withheld by the very high commission that prides itself on ‘rescuing’ British nationals from emotional and physical abuse. Abuses, obviously, are only those that conform to Britain’s image of itself as civilised.

After Rahman’s return to the UK in May 2008, he was not questioned by the police nor was there any attempt to arrest him – largely assumed to be indications of innocence. His wife and son joined him a year later, and soon after, he embarked on legal proceedings, filing a damages claim against home secretary Jacqui Smith alleging that she was complicit in assault, unlawful arrest, false imprisonment and breaches of human rights legislation.

His case is one of the latest in a growing number of cases – 29, at last count – in which British intelligence services have been accused of colluding in the torture of British nationals and residents: Rangzieb Ahmed, Salahuddin Amin, Zeeshan Siddiqui, Rashid Rauf by the ISI, Binyam Mohamed in Morocco, Alam Ghafoor in Dubai, and Azhar Khan in Egypt. Rahman’s case provides the clearest indication so far, of torture outsourced.

Not to be outdone by the current public debate in America on whether it condones torture, the British, too, seem to be catching up with increasing calls for an independent enquiry into allegations of MI5 complicity. Contradictions appear as the UK foreign minister David Miliband keeps mouthing, ‘Torture is abhorrent. Britain never supports or condones it’, while simultaneously insisting that the interrogation policy at the heart of the allegations should not be made public (June 2009). Nor is the court injunction (February 2008) gagging Ben Griffin, an ex-SAS trooper, who had revealed extensive British collaboration with US rendition and torture, removed.

And what about us, at the insourced end? A Bangladeshi intelligence officer reportedly told Rahman, they were ‘only doing this for the British.’ This seems to be well borne out by what is known. But who authorised it? Was a memorandum of understanding signed? Rahman’s two-year long ordeal began during the BNP-Jamaat coalition rule and continued into the Fakhruddin-led emergency period. Two governments needing to be held accountable. I would include the current one as well as I read the UK state minister for security and counterterrorism Lord West’s recent speech in Dhaka, ‘we have worked to build the capacity of Bangladeshi agencies involved in counterterrorism work.’ Is capacity-building a polite euphemism for out-sourced torture? Is there something sinister behind his words, ‘the UK could further assist Bangladeshi law enforcement counterparts in improving their capabilities’? Does it mean more out-sourcing? Support from the metropole for the culture of impunity that protects our home-grown torturers, and ‘crossfire’ killers?

There are more victims of forced marriages out there, the high commission spokesperson had said. I’m sure. But are there more Rahmans as well?

First published in New Age

Tags: court, forced marriage, Great Britain, Marriage, MI5, Rahnuma Ahmed, torture, UK

A defining moment?

By Rahnuma Ahmed:

‘UNEASY lies the head that wears a crown,’ wrote Shakespeare. She is still haunted by memories of ‘grenades and bullets’, said Sheikh Hasina recently (New York Times, March 13, 2009). It was an obvious reference to the attempt on her life outside the Awami League central office during the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led four-party alliance government. An attack that left two dozen dead. In early February, before the BDR rebellion occurred, the prime minister had to move from her Dhanmondi residence to Jamuna, the state guesthouse, far more secure. According to newspaper reports, international intelligence sources (US, UAE, Pakistan) had informed the government that Sheikh Hasina’s life was at risk from global terrorist organisations working in league with local militant groups.

Uneasy too, it seems, lies the head that has lost a crown. Ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia also has reasons to fear for her life. Ministers and lawmakers belonging to her government, Ruhul Kuddus Talukdar Dulu, Nadim Mustofa, Mizanur Rahman Minu, Alamgir Kabir, had reportedly extended patronage to JMB militants . Its top-ranking leaders had been arrested during her reign. Although the executions had taken place during the caretaker government period, rumours say, JMB militants view it as a betrayal. One that they have not forgiven. (They had wanted to speak to the media, but it was a wish that remained unfulfilled. Who knows what beans they would have spilled?). Rumours say JMB militants are biding their time.

Leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, too, must be losing sleep as legal procedures for holding war crimes trials are increasingly worked out by the government. As a sidenote I cannot help but wonder about the US administration’s offer of help. Surely, it does not extend to extraditing Henry Kissinger, the-then US secretary of state, who had supported the Pakistan army’s campaign of genocide in 1971?

Regarding the BDR uprising, widespread public apprehension still remains: will we ever get to know the truth? Will we ever learn why, what happened, did happen? The commerce minister, Lt Col (retd) Faruk Khan, coordinator of three ongoing investigations, has since retreated on his earlier comments of JMB’s links to the Pilkhana carnage. These, we were informed, were based not on probe findings, but on ‘personal observations’. This was soon followed by a bit of wrangling with CID officials over whether video footage, containing evidence of the rebellion, had been recovered or not. Now that that is more or less settled, photographs have surfaced of the Durbar Hall meeting, in, of all places, Facebook. A selection has been printed in some of the leading dailies. How did they get there? The ISPR (Inter-Services Public Relations) surprisingly said they are ‘not aware of such pictures.’ More discerning minds, besides commenting that they ‘raise more questions than they answer,’ have pointed out that there is a central story line to the photos and the captions: that the BDR officers had not fired the first shot.

The Durbar Hall photographs seem to have distracted public attention away from the deaths of several BDR soldiers. According to Amnesty International there are credible reasons to think that four of these deaths were caused by torture. Surely, the timing of the release of these photographs, like the surfacing of many other events and innuendoes, is a mere coincidence?

Civil-military relations: replacing history with naiveté

SOON after the Pilkhana carnage, I happened to watch a talk-show on a private TV channel. The discussant was a senior retired army officer, also a freedom fighter. In the light of the carnage, he said, three things should no longer be mentioned: command failure, intelligence failure, and corruption (in the army). I add to this list, ‘accumulated grievances’, one that I have come across elsewhere.

They hardly are.

But the more I think about it, the more evident it becomes that he was advocating an erasure of history. The history of our army’s intervention in politics, including the two years of army-backed Fakhruddin rule.
It is difficult to follow his advice, especially as I listen to audio-tapes (the ban on YouTube having been lifted) of the March 1 encounter between angry army officers and the prime minister at Senakunja. Apologists have pointed out that the rudeness on display is understandable. Grief-stricken at having lost so many of the best and brightest, the emotional outburst of the officers was only to be expected.

But, of course. Particularly since bereavement in Bangladesh is neither individuated, nor is it a private affair, as is the norm in western societies. Launch and ferry disasters occur regularly, and one often sees bereaved family members crying out at the injustice: at Allah, for not having been merciful; at launch owners, for having been criminally negligent; at district officials, for their laxity in conducting rescue operations. But their aggrieved tone beseeches. It implores. It is that of a supplicant unlike that of the army officers at Senakunja.

Although the BDR rebellion was, in an objective sense, a fratricidal conflict (to quote from the prime minister’s moving address to the nation, ‘brother against brother’), it quickly took on the overtones of a civil-military conflict since the government had opted for a political (negotiations), instead of a military resolution to the rebellion (storm Pilkhana and ‘crush’ the rebels).

Emotions, too, are embedded in larger structures of power, and powerlessness. And although the voices of our respectable army officers refer to a senior-junior division within the officer ranks, to a division between power-hungry army elders vs juniors who are mere pawns in their power games, in the final analysis, this division gets over-ridden. What emerges is a collective voice, a voice that does not take cognisance of the fact that the person whom they address is no other than the one overwhelmingly voted to power by the nation’s electorate, to lead the nation. To embody and represent the collective will of the people. And this ability to not take cognisance is deeply embedded in a particular history of power. It is a history that cannot be denied or wished away, however much one may wish to do so. It is the history of the army as a contestant of state power. As a usurper of state power. As a wielder of state power. One that is, after all is said and done, based on its monopoly of coercive force. One of the questions raised, rather plaintively, amra ki emon shujog-shubidha pai? (After all, what benefits and facilities do we get?), speaks of a detachment from the social and material realities of Bangladesh. To civilian ears, it cannot sound anything but naive. And it is the entrenchment of these vocal officers (since only three splices of the Senajunja meeting have been made publicly-available) in a history-less space, one that is not materially grounded in the structures of either society or state, that in a sense, reinforces civilian perceptions of the army as an exclusive and isolationist group.

It has served to not only deepen the civilian-military divide but paradoxically enough (or, maybe not) to garner support for civilian power and authority.

A blurring of the civil-military divide in India and the US

IT IS generally assumed that military rule occurs only in third world countries, it is caused by weak political institutions, competition between political and military elites for power. But things are not as simple as that. Let’s take a closer look at two of the largest democracies in the world, India and the United States.

There is evidence of growing militarisation in neighbouring India, but this has been caused not by the weakening of political institutions, nor because of changes in civilian-military relations at the formal, institutional level. Sunil Dasgupta argues that two trends, the growing internal security role of the military, and the growing ‘militarisation’ of political, technical and administrative leadership, have resulted in a blurring of the civilian-military divide.

And, in the case of the United States, although state power rests with civilians, it is an acknowledged fact that the nation is ruled by the military industrial complex, interestingly enough, a term popularised by president Eisenhower, the general turned politician. Eugene Jarecki, author (The American Way of War), filmmaker (Why We Fight) and public policy thinker, in a recent interview says once upon a time Clemeceau had said that war should not be left to the generals. But in the last eight years, it was civilians (Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice) who brought the world to one of the most dangerous points witnessed in our human history. It was civilians who told the generals to shut up.

Eisenhower had said in his farewell address – and Jarecki adds, think about this in the 9/11 context – in meeting crises whether foreign or domestic, whether great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular or costly action could prove the miraculous solution to all difficulties. But the real answer to crises is to seek a balance in, and among, national programmes. There is no such thing as perfect security. It has never existed, it never will. In opting for spectacular or costly actions, we can destroy from within what we are trying to protect from without.

The nation’s subalterns. Lessons to be learnt

THE majority in this nation are subalterns: peasants, garment factory workers, jute mill workers, indigenous peoples protesting against coal mines that will uproot and destroy means of livelihood and ways of life, people lacking basic healthcare, schools, women wanting to be free of sexual harassment, and many, many others. We have lessons to learn from the Pilkhana tragedy. The real answer, as Eisenhower had reminded us, lies in seeking a balance in, and among, national programmes. Not in chasing after a mirage of perfect security.

NewAge, March 30, 2009

4 BDR men ‘fall ill’, land in DMCH

Tags: BDR, border security, governance, Military, Rahnuma Ahmed, torture

A tortured image

by rahnuma ahmed

I AM against torture. Nothing justifies torture. This is a principled stand, there are no ifs and buts.

But why is it that when I see a recent picture of Tarique Rahman, son of ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia, his face screwed up in sheer agony, I feel no empathy, no compassion? Why do I not allow myself to dwell on his pain? Why do I shut it out, turn to another news item, or turn the pages of the newspaper?

Why does a picture of this torture victim leave me cold?

His medical report (18.06.2008), records, among other illnesses, two fractured discs, D6 and D7. During a remand hearing on January 9 this year, Tarique claimed that he had been physically and mentally tortured. He was unable to stand in the dock, and had to be given a chair. Last week (15.06.08), his lawyer Rafiqul Islam Miah told an anti-graft court hearing that his client was in severe pain, that he could not stand or be seated for more than three minutes. The court was also informed that while in remand, Tarique had been tortured ‘in the most inhumane way’, he was ‘physically impaired’, and might be crippled for life if he did not receive immediate treatment, preferably abroad.

Several days later, a news item catches my eye, Tarique’s spinal problem is an old one, say intelligence agents (Shamokal, 24.06.08). They claim it dates back to 2005. The very next day, members of his medical board express their disquiet (Shamokal, 25.06.08). Dr Idris Ali, associate professor of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, BSMMU says X-ray, CT scan and MRI examinations have revealed disc fractures. The injury, he says, could have been caused either by falling down, or by a blunt instrument. A faculty member of the same department tells Shamokal, the 2005 report is not inaccurate. But the complaint, he says, was an easily curable one. Six weeks of rest; unlike his present complaint. Another medical board member, unwilling to disclose his name, says, to imply that Tarique’s spinal problem is a recurrence of the old one, indicates ‘a lack of respect’ toward the board’s expert opinion.

Around me I hear people muttering, ‘Why only two, they could have broken several more, for all I care.’ ‘I don’t feel sorry for him.’ ‘He deserves what he got.’ A CNG driver tells me, `Yes, this government is making a mess of things, but I can’t get over the pleasure of seeing him detained.’

Tarique was generally not liked. Not at all. Scores of grievances flew all around. He was a novice to politics but was nominated the BNP senior joint secretary general in one go. Not a minister himself, he was reputed to be the most powerful man in Bangladesh (from 2001-2006), to have run a parallel government from Hawa Bhaban. Cabinet members flocked there, they waited on him, attempting to curry favour with the man nicknamed the Crown Prince. His bunch of cronies milked many others dry. CNG auto rickshaw drivers of Dhaka city hated his guts. Many accused him of sucking their blood dry. The costs of new CNGs were set at 3,50,000 takas, instead of its actual price of 75,000 takas. This had led to CNG owners upping the daily rent from CNG drivers many times over, in order to recover their purchase costs. He was also reputed to be ruthless. I was talking things over with a close friend who insisted, ‘… and Tarique can’t get away by saying that much of it was fabricated by his political enemies. The fact that he did not try to undo people’s perceptions of him is itself very serious, after all, we are talking of institutional politics.’

I am against torture. I have always been against torture, and yet I have no sympathy for Tarique Rahman who, in all likelihood, is now a victim of torture.

This ambivalence in me is new. I see it reflected in others. People I know well, and also others who are new to me, who I come across in street corners, stores, tea-stalls – no, I don’t see anyone shedding tears over fractured discs. I do hear distress expressed over a passenger who was recently run over in Dhaka city, in an altercation over one taka with the bus driver and conductor. I hear sorrow expressed over other incidents that people read about in the papers but Tarique’s ill health? No. Is it part of the ill-famed minus-two plan? Who knows? I remember reading somewhere that ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia has agreed to leave, but stiff bargaining is taking place over who should leave first. It seems that the government wants her to leave first. Only then will her sons be allowed to go abroad for treatment. Political speculation is rife. It is difficult to separate fact from fiction. What concerns me more is our mixed feelings over torture.

Was this foreseen, that the torture of an intensely disliked political figure, one who was perceived by many to be the chief cause of the downward swing in the BNP’s popularity, would turn out to be a torture overlooked? Did this calculation feed into the decision to torture? If so, are not both parties equally sinful? How can chipping away at principles, that torture is inhumane, that it is evil per se, help to build a democratic society?

Is torture incidental?

Or is it systemic to the state in Bangladesh? Investigative studies carried out by both national and international human rights organisations, accounts delivered by scholars, activists and victims of torture, testify to the fact that torture and ill-treatment ‘particularly during the initial period of interrogation in police custody’ is all pervasive, that it is endemic in Bangladesh. This is equally true for all manners of regimes (civil, military) that have governed the land since independence. This is equally true for both single party, and alliance governments, that have ruled Bangladesh since the overthrow of the Ershad regime. Studies and accounts testify to the fact that the meting out of torture has, thus far, been inherent to the relations of ruling in Bangladesh. A more recent study (M Rafiqul and S M Solaiman, 2004) has argued that custodial tortures leading to deaths and irreparable bodily injuries increased alarmingly in the period after the October 2001 elections.

To turn to the issue of remand, according to the law, the venue of custody during remand can be no place other than the police station. But, as most Bangladeshis know, remand victims are often enough taken to the cantonment, or to unknown locations. Often, they are interrogated by police-army joint cells, notorious for their brutality and savagery. Incumbent governments exploit the police by getting them to arrest political dissidents. The police itself, on the other hand, exploit ordinary citizens, who are often enough randomly picked up, falsely implicated in cases, and then offered the choice of either paying up, or being put in remand.

Victims of torture speak of various methods that are applied: being given urine to drink when thirsty; being kept sleepless for days; being drowned in high-pressured water while hands are tied-up and faces covered; being hung upside down and beaten on the soles of the feet with batons and metal bars; of nails being hammered into fingers; hot water-filled bottles being pushed through the rectum; being beaten in a manner which damages the muscles but leaves no outward indication; pouring acid; drilling into the body with a drill machine.

A recently-published account of torture under remand is provided by Bidisha, ex-wife of ex-president HM Ershad (Shotrur Shonge Boshobash, May 2008). Her detailed account is chilling because of the brutality that it describes, a brutality that is deeply gendered, and sexualised (curiously enough, this was toward the end of Khaleda Zia’s regime). Midway through her account of torture, she wonders, the men who tortured me must have gone home to their wives and children. They must have caressed them as people do caress their loved ones. Could his wife tell, could their children tell what deeds these very hands had performed? I do not know whether the families of torturers here have to bear the brunt of what they do. Testimony from other places indicate that they do. Frantz Fanon, Algerian psychiatrist and theorist, in The Wretched of the Earth, wrote of a French police inspector who tortured not only colonised Algerians, but also his wife and children. ‘The patient dislikes noise. At home he wants to hit everybody all the time. In fact, he does hit his children, even the baby of twenty months, with unaccustomed savagery. But what really frightened him was one evening when his wife had criticised him particularly for hitting his children too much… He threw himself upon her, beat her and tied her to a chair, saying to himself “I’ll teach her once and for all that I’m master in this house.”‘

Torture is pervasive.

Dismantling the house of torture

Social classes are described as relationships of exploitation that endure. Likewise, torture in Bangladesh. It endures changes in government, in systems of ruling, in the legitimacy provided for ruling. Dismantling it won’t be easy. Those committed to doing so insist that the torturers be identified, and punished. Likewise, that those who are higher-up, those who order it, not be given any impunity.

And what about Tarique Rahman? Can we ever forgive him? Will his experience as a victim bring a sea-change in him? If and when he returns to a normal life, will he be remorseful? Will he turn into a defender of human rights? That remains to be seen.

First published in New Age on 26th June 2008

Tags: governance, politics, Rahnuma Ahmed, Tarique Zia, torture