Bangladesh is Now 50 Years Old

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottown, PEI] Guardian

As it marked Victory Day in December, Bangladesh, now 50 years old, has a lot to be thankful for.

In the first years of independence, the country struggled with military coups, political turmoil, poverty, and famine. Now the situation has dramatically changed for the better.

When British rule ended in the Indian subcontinent in 1947, two nations emerged. India had a Hindu majority but chose to be a secular republic, while Pakistan was to be home to the subcontinent’s Muslims.

Separated by about 1,600 kilometres, West Pakistan dominated politics, military and business. When the Pakistani leadership refused to grant the Bengali language in East Pakistan equal status with Urdu, the national language, discontent grew.

In the elections of 1970, the east voted overwhelmingly for the Awami League, established as a Bengali alternative to the Karachi-based Muslim League in 1949. Founded by Bengali nationalists in Dhaka, it won 167 of the 169 East Pakistan seats.

But instead of inviting its leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, to form a government, the incumbent Pakistani leader, General Yahya Khan, repeatedly postponed the meeting of the national assembly and sent thousands of troops to East Pakistan.

Mujibur Rahman insisted that “the people of Bangla want to have their rights.” What followed was a nine-month-long war, staring in March 1971.

The Pakistani military government resorted to genocide against Bangladeshis, while many Bangladeshis joined the Mukti Bahini (Freedom Fighters). Nearly ten million refugees also left for India, where the government set up camps and provided assistance to them.

In December 1971, after Pakistan attacked Indian airfields, India joined the war. Pakistan was defeated and forced to surrender to India. It was the largest military surrender since World War II.

The new nation that emerged, known as Bangladesh, remains uncertain of its identity. Is it a Muslim or a Bengali nation? Is it secular or religious?

The question is complicated by the fact that the country is also home to Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians, as well as those who speak Sylheti, Khasi, Garo and other languages. 

In 1997 a peace accord was signed between the government of Bangladesh and the Chittagong Hill Tracts people, who differ markedly from the Bengali majority of Bangladesh with respect to language, culture, and religion.

Also, at the time of Partition, many Muslims from the Indian state of Bihar moved to what was East Pakistan. The Biharis spoke Urdu and, over time, tension escalated with the local Bangla-speaking population.

When war broke out, the Bihari community sided with West Pakistan. Their side lost the war, meaning that thousands were displaced for a second time. Having already left their homes in India in 1947, many migrated once again. In Pakistan they found a country less than willing to welcome them. Even today, many Biharis do not have full Pakistani citizenship.

The reverse happened to millions of ethnic Bengalis who in 1971 sought refuge in the Indian state of Assam, but, 50 years later, they are still considered “foreigners.” In recent years, efforts in Assam to deport or detain ethnic Bengalis have stepped up.

In the early years of independence, the Bangladeshi economy was ruined by the war and remained underdeveloped. Over 80 per cent of the population were living in extreme poverty.    

But Bangladeshis have been resilient in nation building and have made advances in many areas. While it was primarily an agricultural economy in 1971, the composition has changed over the decades, with industry and services now accounting for the lion’s share of economic output. Agriculture’s share of GDP has dropped to just 13 per cent.

The government has lifted millions out of severe poverty, increased mass literacy and reduced child mortality.

Before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the economy was growing rapidly, recording an annual expansion in the range of eight per cent for years.

The multi-billion-dollar textile industry is the second-largest globally, only surpassed by China, and rakes in over $35 billion a year from exports. The sector employs four million people, the majority of whom are women.

Observers say the nation over the years has invested heavily in the lives of women and girls. Currently, 98 per cent of children nationwide have finished primary school, with more girls in secondary school than boys.

Bangladesh has now had two female prime ministers, Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League, the current incumbent, and Khalida Zia, head of the Nationalist Party.

 

Iran Continues to Develop Nuclear Weapons

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

There is no longer any meaningful obstacle to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The American administration is too predictable and fearful. The debacle in Afghanistan and the rhetoric about ending “forever wars” has emboldened Tehran, which now toys with the United States through on-and-off nuclear talks. 

In his address to the U.N. General Assembly last September, Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, mocked America. “From the Capitol to Kabul,” he told the assembled delegates, “one clear message was sent to the world: The U.S. hegemonic system has no credibility, whether inside or outside the country.”

Raisi, who became the country’s political leader last August, is the most hard-line president the country has had, and he pulls no punches. Known for his involvement in a massacre of nearly 30,000 political prisoners in 1988, he’s been called the “Butcher of Tehran.” And he has the ear of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Until now, the theocracy has relied on Shiite proxies and militias to project its power and influence across the Middle East in a relatively low-cost and effective way.  However, that only goes so far. To ensure that Iran can counter the United States, Israel and the Arab Gulf States, the regime will need more weapons – and nothing spells power like a nuclear arsenal.

Under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal negotiated between Iran and the P5+1 (the United States, Great Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany), Tehran agreed to dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of crushing international sanctions and the unfreezing of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets. But the deal was abrogated by former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018. Today, however, President Joe Biden’s vision of re-entering the agreement, then building something “longer and stronger,” appears all but gone.

Initially, American officials hoped Raisi would just take the agreement that had been negotiated, make minor alterations and celebrate a lifting of most Western sanctions. But that proved a miscalculation. In fact, Ali Bagheri Kani, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, does not refer to the new round of talks as nuclear negotiations at all. Instead, he refers to them as “negotiations to remove unlawful and inhuman sanctions.”

Raisi has said his government will support talks that “guarantee national interests,” but will not allow negotiations for the sake of negotiations. Iran, now in the driver’s seat, will insist on the lifting of both nuclear and non-nuclear sanctions and will want a guarantee that no future president could unilaterally abandon any new agreement, as Trump did.

Iran of course denies that it has any intention of ever building a nuclear weapon, though it has already been violating provisions of the old JCPOA. Earlier this year, Tehran began restricting some inspection activities by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Yet the Biden administration, in an attempt to revive the nuclear deal, is continuing to forge ahead. Its objective is not even to halt Iran’s nuclear program but just to limit it for a period of time, while removing the sanctions that hurt it economically.

Washington has suggested a new so-called sunset period of 25 years, which would stipulate when the various restrictions imposed on Iran’s nuclear program expire. This would allow the Islamic Republic to resume enriching uranium at any level they desire, make its reactors fully operational, build new heavy water reactors, produce as much fuel as they desire for the reactors, and maintain higher uranium enrichment capability with no restriction after the period of the agreement.

The sunset period terms would most likely ensure that after the pause detailed in any agreement, Iran will effectively be a nuclear state. After all, the most likely scenario is that it wants a “threshold capability,” one that would leave it able to produce a weapon in weeks or months, if it felt the need.

It is also pretty safe to assume, from Iran’s track record, that during the life of any agreement, Iran will be covertly violating the rules and getting ready to create a nuclear arsenal.

America, Israel, and Europe should start considering what comes next after Iran’s first test detonation of a bomb. Not a pleasant thought as we move into 2022.

 

Bangladesh Faces Climate Risks and Communal Violence

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

 

At the recent COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina called on wealthy nations to fulfill their pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions and provide the promised $100 billion to less wealthy countries to help them adapt to climate change and mitigate further rises in temperature.

Only a tiny fraction of global warming can be attributed to Bangladesh’s carbon emissions, Hasina stated. In an article published in October in the Financial Times, Hasina called for a “climate prosperity plan” instead of “empty pledges.”

Bangladesh currently spends about $2 billion annually on climate change-related adaptation measures, with 75 per cent of the money coming from domestic sources. The country would need almost three times that amount by 2050 to achieve its climate goals.

Hasina said Bangladesh was “committed to leading the path to a solution” to fight climate change “not only because we wish to avert the worst of climate change; it also makes economic sense.” Under the plan, Bangladesh intends to obtain 30 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by the end of the decade.

“We will enhance resilience, grow our economy, create jobs and expand opportunities for our citizens, using action on climate change as the catalyst,” Hasina wrote of the plan. Bangladesh will develop wind farms along its coast to revitalize the mangrove forests that help stabilize shifting shores, and so protecting the country against storms and flooding.

“We will empower banks to offer favorable terms to fossil fuel-free infrastructure projects and pursue co-operation with developed nations in areas such as green hydrogen.”

There’s certainly little time to lose. Over the last two decades, the annual Global Climate Risk Index has rated Bangladesh as the seventh most affected country in the world from extreme weather events. Depending on the extent of sea level rise in the coming decades, an estimated 15 to 30 million Bangladeshis could be displaced from coastal areas.

A 2018 U.S. government report, “Fragility and Climate Risks in Bangladesh,” noted that 90 million Bangladeshis, 56 per cent of the population, live in “high climate exposure areas,” with 53 million subject to “very high” exposure.

Bangladeshis in coastal communities have already begun migrating inland, mostly to urban areas. The main motives are better employment opportunities and education. About a third are displaced by flooding that created loss of arable land.

Over the last decade, the capital city Dhaka has been among the fastest growing cities in the world. Today, its population is estimated at over 20 million and projected to keep rising. But Bangladesh’s rapid urbanization has not been met with infrastructure improvements and environmental protections, which has deepened daily challenges.

The United Nations estimates that around four million people inhabit the city’s 5,000 slums. And Dhaka is itself prone to floods.

The number of Bangladeshis living in poverty had been in steady decline since 2000, but recent studies suggest that extreme poverty is rising in urban Bangladesh, and that was before COVID-19, which drove a 20-point increase in poverty in 2020.

As well, minority groups, particularly Hindus, have faced violence. In recent years, the Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh has had growing social influence. A Bangladeshi human rights organization has documented over 4,000 attacks on minorities since 2007.

In October Muslim fundamentalists went on a rampage. Hindu temples were desecrated, and hundreds of houses and businesses of the Hindu minority torched.

Hindus constitute less than nine per cent of Bangladesh’s more than 165 million population. Though there have been several attacks on religious minorities in the past, but community leaders said this was the worst large-scale mob violence against the community in the country’s history.

Climate change could further exacerbate this problem. Bangladesh’s coastal areas have large Hindu populations. As displaced persons from these communities move into Muslim majority areas in Bangladesh, increased interaction and competition for jobs and land are likely to exacerbate tension and conflict. 

Some displaced Muslim Bangladeshis will also end up at the border with India to seek work. Rising Hindu nationalism under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is inflaming anti-Muslim sentiment in India. Recent Indian actions perceived as anti-Muslim have caused strains with the Awami League government in Dhaka and contribute to growing support for Islamists.