Is Sheikh Hasina’s next destination Russia?

SALEEM SAMAD

Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus met with International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan QC at the United Nations General Assembly in New York last week.

Taking to Twitter (X), Karim Khan QC said, “Common visions to strengthen ICC cooperation ensure accountability for crimes committed against the Rohingya.”

ICC in The Hague (Den Haag) is hearing the war crimes and ethnic cleansing committed by Myanmar troops against the Rohingya Muslims after they were declared illegal migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh and dubbed as Bengali (meaning they are not Myanmar nationals).

It is not known whether Yunus has discussed ICC’s support for strengthening the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal. The ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been implicated in ‘crimes against humanity’ for the deaths of more than a thousand students and protesters during the Monsoon Revolution in July and early August.

The Interim Government, led by micro-credit inventor Dr Yunus, told audiences in New York that he would like to see former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina be extradited and brought to justice “if she” has committed crimes.

“Why shouldn’t be? If she committed crimes, she should be extradited and brought to justice…She should be facing justice too,” he said while responding to a question at “The New York Times Climate Forward Event”.

Earlier, he reiterated to an Indian media that Delhi should deport Hasina to face the music of justice for the deaths of thousands of protesters in less than 35 days of the Monsoon Revolution.

The number of times Yunus mentions “extradition” of Hasina, South Block in New Delhi is having hiccups. The worrisome seasoned officials and politicians in Delhi have kept their lamps burning regarding the future status of Hasina living in exile at a Safe House at Ghaziabad Hindon Air Base near Delhi.

A high-profile defence correspondent in Delhi said she is in a safe house for security reasons. Indian Intel believes that she has external threats and is forced to live in seclusion.

She is living incommunicado at the air base and unable to meet her daughter Saima Wazed, who has been the South East Asian regional director for the World Health Organisation since 1 November 2023 and is based in New Delhi.

Saima, in her tweet, admitted that she wanted to hug her beloved mother but was unable to do so due to preoccupation and hectic conferences in the South East Asian region. Does anybody believe her excuse?

Similarly, her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy, despite his best intention to meet his beleaguered mother in Delhi, has not been given diplomatic clearance to arrive in Delhi.

None of the ruling BJP politicians or officials of the Indian government has paid courtesy calls to Hasina, except for Ajit Doval, National Security Advisor of India. He was at the air base when she arrived in Delhi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is yet to meet her. External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, while briefing the all-party meeting, said, “We received a request for a short stay.”

Ousted Hasina has always given the impression that China, Russia and of course India are ‘all-weather friends’ of Bangladesh.

The three countries have always lent their shoulders to Hasina, despite appalling human rights records, fraudulent elections in 2014, 2018 and 2024, money laundering, bank loot, poor accountability of elected rogue politicians and politicisation of democratic institutions.

The time-tested friends unfortunately did not react to the autocratic regime. Delhi, Beijing and Moscow’s silence encouraged Hasina to become an iron lady – a Frankenstein. She has brutally cracked down on opposition, dissidents, critics, journalists and even netizens.

Now that her long stay in India is likely to dent its bilateral, regional and global relationship, Delhi has to find a reasonable argument for not extraditing Hasina to Bangladesh authorities for her trial.

Delhi knows very well that if Hasina faces a politically motivated trial for the deaths of students, the court will hand down the death penalty. The Interim Government will not take any risk in keeping her alive.

However, the trial is not expected soon. The Yunus administration will wait until United Nations Human Rights Commission Chief Volker Türk, who took responsibility for deploying an UN team of experts to probe into the killing of the protesters during the “student revolution”, gets the report from the team.

Bangladesh will have to wait for the UN fact-finding mission to submit its report to begin the much-talked-about trial.

It is very rare for China to give shelter to exiled leaders from other countries. Then it leaves with two other “all-weather friends” – India and Russia.

With Dr Yunus’s hectic parleys with world leaders at UNGA, India read the pulse that it would be difficult to provide a credible excuse not to extradite Hasina.

Thus the best alternative would be to send her to Russia, where she will be safe and secure, several officials of the Indian National Security Council (NSC), who are privy to the issue, have confided with this journalist.

Russia has a history of ignoring international calls for extradition. For India, it will be difficult to absorb diplomatic and international pressure. So the only country for Hasina to live happily ever after would be Russia.

Well, when did Hasina live in Russia? It would be extremely difficult to determine the time. However, the NSC officials guess that the balls will begin to roll when Bangladesh will officially seek her extradition.

A top official in the Chief Advisor’s Office, who declined to be quoted, said it would be too early to comment on what Bangladesh should do if Hasina is shifted to Russia.

First published in the Northeast News, Guwahati, India on 30 September 2024

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with the Reporters Without Borders (@RSF_inter). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

China-Russia-America, who is the friend of Bangladesh?

SALEEM SAMAD

As the much-talked-about general elections expected in early January 2024 approach, the global superpowers are zooming their hawkish eyes on Bangladesh.

Most concerned people in the West, of course, the Bangladeshi expatriates and especially the Indians frankly ask why the superpowers are interested in the political development in a country of 173 million people.

In one word – the “China card”. The West, neighbouring India and even Japan are feeling jittery over the growing Chinese influence in the Sheikh Hasina-led government and her party Awami League.

Once an Indian diplomat in a private gathering sought opinion on why China’s mega-projects get approval quickly, and India’s infrastructure development projects are delayed due to bureaucratic red tape. He was told that the Japanese had a similar experience of projects falling through the faultline of bureaucracy.

China’s inroad to Bangladesh and getting contracts for mega projects had irked India, Japan and the United States.

Indian media have written on the expansion and development project of the third largest airport at Sylhet, in northeast Bangladesh and the proposed Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project. However, the later project was shelved showing errors in the loan proposal.

The Osmani International Airport in Sylhet is in close proximity to Assam and Arunachal state is further north, where India borders with Tibet in China. The airport is in a strategic location for eavesdropping into Indian northeast states, it is feared by Delhi. Recently China’s official map shows Arunachal as South Tibet, inviting fresh ruckus with Red Dragon.

What is China’s interest in the Teesta River, a transboundary river that flows through India and Bangladesh? The proposed project has raised eyebrows in the region. The river is a significant source of water for both India and Bangladesh.

Indeed, the river is crucial for the economic development of the region as it is a source of water for agriculture and hydroelectric power generation. The river water sharing has been a bone of contention between the two neighbours for decades.

China’s involvement in the Teesta River dispute has added a new dimension to the conflict. The Red Dragon’s interest in the Teesta River can be attributed to its strategic ambitions in the region. The river originates in the Himalayas and flows through the Indian states of Sikkim and West Bengal before entering Bangladesh, says a river morphologist.

Japan has undertaken to construct the largest deep-sea port on Maheskhali island, in the Bay of Bengal and has been able to bulldoze the Chinese proposal of a second deep-sea port in Sonadia, not far from the ongoing project of the Rising Sun.

Tokyo has been able to convince Delhi that the deep-sea port on the Bangladesh coast which serves adequately to export/import of northeast Indian states, will boost economic growth and immensely contribute to the country’s GDP.

Bangladesh, last week became the 33rd member of the nuclear club. The under-construction Russian project Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant will augment electric generation in energy-starved northern Bangladesh.

Other than the nuclear power plant, Russia does not have a second mega project in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh imports food grains from Russia and exports various garments items, jute, frozen foods, tea, leather, home textiles and ceramic products.

Bangladesh, however, has a historic relationship with Russia. The former Soviet Union took a proactive position in favour of Bangladesh’s independence war in 1971.

Delhi and Moscow signed a historic Indo–Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation which expedited the bloody independence of Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, the United States is being bombarded by cyber-warriors with anti-American rhetoric in social media after Washington announced visa restrictions on officials of the governing party, opposition, government officials, police administration, judiciary and media persons. This applies to those who undermine or cause hindrance to the democratic elections in Bangladesh, the axe will fall upon individuals and their immediate family members.

It is understood that the visa restriction by the USA triggers a chain reaction in Australia, Canada, France Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the allies in the West in denial of entry to their countries.

The US Embassy in Dhaka to counter the rhetoric has launched the #DidYouKnow campaign for Bangladesh’s audience in social media.

For example: #DidYouKnow, the United States is the biggest foreign direct investor in #Bangladesh?

Bangladesh received USD 3.44 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) during 2021-2022 for three broad sectors of FDI inflows: infrastructure, manufacturing, and services, according to Bangladesh Bank (the central bank).

The USA FDI stood at $575 million in 2022, while China seems the largest FDI source of Bangladesh climbed to $940 million for 2022, reported Dhaka Tribune.

Diverse sectors offer opportunities for U.S. companies, including natural gas exploration and production, power generation, financial services, infrastructure, agribusiness, information technology, consulting services, and civil aviation to name just a few.

The garment sector has been a key driver of economic growth for Bangladesh over the past few decades. The US-Bangladesh has a $14 billion trade relationship and it’s growing, tweets the US Embassy in Dhaka.

What irks Bangladesh is when America expresses concern on stellar human rights record, democratic election process, freedom of the press and freedom of expression.

The relations went cold in 2021 when the US imposed punitive measures, in support of US Global Magnitsky human rights sanctions, targeting six of the elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion’s (RAB’s) former officials, including current and immediate past heads of the Bangladesh police.

The sanction did make an impact. A study claimed that RAB’s extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances have dramatically reduced, which received accolades from human rights organisations.

Meanwhile, Abed Khan, Chief Editor of Dainik Kalbela warns that in a week several economic sanctions against individuals, business establishments and government entities are likely to be imposed citing corruption and money-laundering, which is now a transnational crime.

Journalist Chandan Nandy, based in New Delhi writes in the Northeast News portal (blocked by Bangladesh authorities) also claims that sanction is in the offing against money laundering and corruption.

Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen trashed rumours of fresh sanctions by the US, in response to media reports told journalists. “We were in the US…they (US) only want free and fair elections. Even the words – participatory or caretaker government – were not mentioned,” he remarked.

While the United States pressure on the current government on the upcoming general election is visible, China and Russia’s position contradicts the United States, quoting unnamed sources in Washington DC.

The polarisation of the rivals United States, China and Russia has been observed, writes a commentator for BBC Bangla Service.

Humayun Kabir, a former Bangladesh ambassador to Washington, opines that Bangladesh has become the new ‘field of polarisation’ of the United States, China and Russia.

He said that the US President Joe Biden administration’s foreign policy envisages ‘establishing democracy and human rights’ in different countries of the world and Bangladesh is in the bigger canvass to neutralise China’s hegemony in South and South East Asia.

Another reason is that America’s Indo-Pacific strategy has focused on actively implementing the United States domination in the Asia region, with new and old allies.

Kabir said, the European Union too also want Bangladesh to strengthen democracy and hold free and fair elections in upcoming polls. In exchange, Bangladesh will benefit equally, especially from the trade facility, which is believed to strengthen the democratic process in the country.

China is a development partner of Bangladesh, retorted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, when she was confronted by overjealous Indian journalists.

Professor Imtiaz Ahmed of Dhaka University says Bangladesh is caught in a triangle of Russia, China and America, because of its geo-strategic position.

Bangladesh, positioned on the coast of the Bay of Bengal which merges with the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean comes under the fold of strategic partnership with America, Japan and India.

Political historian Mohiuddin Ahmad said the reason Bangladesh is a strategic partner in Asia because the country has made dramatic economic development and has been fairing on the parameters of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which gives hope to the big powers rivals that the country is not a failed state like Pakistan or Somalia.

Therefore, the agenda of the United States, European Union, Japan and India to encourage Bangladesh to hold free, fair and credible elections and remain steadfast on the path to democracy will enable Sheikh Hasina to be the longest-serving prime minister to return to power for the fifth tenure.

First published in Northeast News, Guwahati, Assam, India, 14 October 2023

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with the Reporters Without Borders (@RSF_inter). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter: @saleemsamad

Winners of ‘Talibanistan’

Taliban Fighters and Truck in Kabul, August 17 2021. Wikimedia commons

SALEEM SAMAD

Dhaka: Outspoken physicist Prof Pervez Hoodbhoy is based in Pakistan. In his popular column in the Dawn newspaper, published from Karachi says that Russia and the United States are squarely responsible for Afghanistan’s tragedy but Pakistan is certainly not innocent.

The political historians cannot hold their emotion that Afghanistan is often described as the “graveyard of empires” and never have been conquered by invaders.

The British or Soviet Russia failed to dominate the ferocious nation. The fiercest tribes fought all the invaders from the Persian and Arabs. Several centuries ago, Alexander the Great (Greek) and Tamerlane (Mongol) had to pack up and head for home.

After Russia’s withdrawal in 1988, Pakistan’s military hawks in Rawalpindi trained the Taliban to take over Afghanistan following a devastating civil war with the Mujahideen.

Some apologetic security analysts argue that new Taliban’s are reformed and have graduated from barbarianism to moderate militants. Many others trashed the argument and said the Taliban leadership has not moved an inch from the radical interpretation of Sunni Islam.

The cleric’s high command moved from Qatar to Kandahar has begun to execute the strict Sharia code, which is slated as misogynist to subjugate the vibrant Afghan women, especially those tens and thousands who rose in the last two decades.

The Taliban’s occupation ushers the demise of the women in higher education, sports (football and cricket), fashion industry, musical choir and choreography, not to speak of the fate of award-winning filmmaker Roya Sadat.

Talibanistan will be a living hell for millions of Afghans who dreamt of pluralism, democracy, freedom of expression, and freedom of faith.

Taliban-wallas cannot deny their three-decade nexus with Pakistan’s spy agency ISI bonded in a trusted relationship.

Most of the families of the top Taliban leaders live in Pakistan for their security and safety coordinated by Rawalpindi.

With full knowledge of the Rawalpindi, the Taliban regime provided sanctuary to the dreaded international terror network Al-Qaeda, which launched brazen 9/11 attacks on the soil of the United States.

The emergence of the Taliban after 20 years will surely benefit other regional players from the invasion. The country is obviously a win for all who wish to see the Americans humiliated. Iran is happy to see that the United States and NATO left her neighborhood.

Obviously, the “winners” are China, Iran, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia and Turkey. Most of these countries hosted the Taliban and backed them up.

Landlocked Afghanistan, unfortunately, has two rogue states Iran and Pakistan as its neighbors. Pakistan and Iran should be held responsible for destroying Afghanistan and creating a new Talibanistan state.

Pakistan is also a winner when its Prime Minister Imran Khan said Afghans have broken the “shackles of slavery”.

Pakistan is looking forward to the Taliban joining the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

That would boost Pakistan’s ailing economy amid the Covid-19 pandemic and lack of US aid.

Christine Fair, a security pundit explains that Pakistan will continue to use 1.4 million Afghan refugees as rent-seekers from international aid organizations and sympathy of the west.

Weeks before the collapse of Kabul, both Russia and China held parleys with high-profile Taliban delegations.

Like China and Pakistan, the Russian diplomatic mission remained open in Afghanistan. Russia wants secure borders for its Central Asian allies and to stymie terrorism and drug trafficking.

The two power players, Russia and China for a century have had a love and hate relationship. They played a crucial role in the United Nations Security Council meets on the Afghanistan crisis. With Moscow and Beijing’s support, the Taliban is likely to obtain international clout.

The preceding Kabul government showed cold feet to join the “Golden Ring” nexus – proposed by China’s vision of Road and Belt Initiative (BRI) megaproject in West Asia.

Russia, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey gave their green signal to the Chinese “Golden Ring” nexus for their superiority in South and West Asia.

The axis of evil has its eyes on energy and rich mineral resources in Afghanistan, plus transnational gas pipeline through the heartland of Talibanistan.

For now, the Afghanistan debacle is a major setback for the image of the USA globally in terms of the perception that US-backed systems tend to be as weak and temporary as the grass that greens with the spring and withers in the fall.

A humorist posted on social media writes: Taliban’s has proved HG Wells’ time-machine is possible, but the device goes backward into the 7th century, unfortunately, it does not have a fast-forward lever.

First published in Pressenza portal, 14 September 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender in Bangladesh. Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter: @saleemsamad

Economy, hunger, drought, poverty challenges the Taliban

Taliban militants patrolling streets of Kabul - Reuters

SALEEM SAMAD

While world leaders and international organizations are eagerly awaiting for the chicken to hatch from the Taliban’s government, they have begun to implement the Islamic Sharia to govern the nation -- a harsh interpretation of Islamic law.

The stakeholder countries, including China, Iran, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, are pursuing the Taliban to form an inclusive government to unify the nation that has been riddled with civil strife, poverty, and hunger for several decades.

Qatar, UAE, and Turkey will be major partners in the operational management of Afghanistan, while China will be the development partner. The Taliban’s military partner -- a well-known secret -- is Pakistan.

Moments after the Taliban invasion of Kabul, they rechristened the country as an “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” which overrides the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan stated by the American-backed government.

The Taliban has already pressed the “factory reset” button to return to the medieval age. The Taliban’s commanders and leaders have proved that the HG Wells book The Time Machine is now a reality. Unfortunately, the Taliban’s time machine will push an entire nation back to the 7th century.

The Islamists have won the war against the giant Americans and Nato forces -- now they have to put their heads on the drawing board to govern Afghanistan. They also have to learn the best means to win public trust and confidence, which comes through ballots, not through bullets.

The crucial issue that lies ahead for the Taliban is way forward strategies in recovery from civil war, cash crunch, hunger, severe drought, and of course, poverty. The Taliban leaders have proven their ability in public diplomacy and handling the international media efficiently.

The mullahs have taken charge of a nation that relies heavily on international aid; amidst a cash crunch, that could spell disaster for the finance of the government. On the other hand, the local currency is losing value, while foreign reserves are held abroad and currently frozen.

The immediate challenge the Taliban will face is reviving the economy. Western nations are waiting to twist the arms of cleric leaders sitting in Kabul and Kandahar. The Taliban need to work out how to pay government employees and keep running crucial utility services and infrastructures such as water, power, and communications.

There is widespread suspicion among Afghans about how much the Taliban has really changed since the 1990s -- especially among religious minorities and sects like Hazara, Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians, not to speak of the future of the LGBTQ community.

Afghanistan is one of the poorest nations in the world. After the Taliban were toppled in 2001, huge amounts of foreign aid flowed into the country. International assistance was more than 40% of the Afghan GDP in 2020. Most of it is now suspended, with no guarantees about the rest.

The other challenge is the critical shortage of skilled Afghans, including bureaucrats, bankers, doctors, engineers, professors, and university graduates, all terrified of life under the Islamists.

The United Nations has warned of a humanitarian crisis, with food stocks running low because of disruptions caused by conflict. With winter approaching and the drought still ongoing, the political scenario will dent the credibility of the Taliban among Afghans who have suffered pain, and agony in the civil war.

An Egyptian-French political scientist, Samir Amin, who died at the age of 86 three years ago, aptly said: “Never have the armies of the North (the West) brought peace, prosperity, or democracy to the peoples of the South (Asia, Africa, or Latin America).”

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 7 September 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

America’s political motives further complicated Bangladesh’s Liberation War

Photo: BIGSTOCK

SALEEM SAMAD

Pakistan’s acceptance of Bangladesh’s independence during the height of the Liberation War in 1971 would have shed more bloodletting in the restive region.

The supposedly brokered ceasefire by China and America would have surely collapsed, as the Mukti Bahini, the East Bengal guerrillas, would not have obeyed the call.

By October, the Pakistani junta had deliberately transferred back to Pakistan the amphibian battle tanks, the newly-installed radar at Dhaka was dismantled, as were the squadron of fighter aircraft, which were brought from China.

For many in Karachi, where the military hardware was unloaded in the port, they understood that it was a matter of weeks. The eastern province was to become an independent country, but it was worried about thousands of soldiers and officers, civil administration, business entrepreneurs, and Pakistan civilians in the eastern province.

Henry Kissinger, the double-edge former US secretary of state, in an interview by Jeffrey Goldberg published in The Atlantic, said talks between America and China would have collapsed if the US had publicly condemned human rights violations and atrocities by the Pakistan army against the people of then East Pakistan.

Months before the violent crackdown Operation Searchlight by the Pakistan military, Pakistan emerged as the interlocutor most acceptable to Beijing and Washington, and exchanges were conducted from Islamabad.

Goldberg’s question was whether the opening to China was worth the sacrifices and deaths experienced in the India-Pakistan Bangladesh crisis, to which Kissinger retorted that Bangladesh demonstrates how this issue has been confused in our public debate. There was never a choice between suffering in Bangladesh and the opening to China.

He did not hesitate to state that Pakistan deployed extreme violence and gross human rights violations when Bangladesh was battling to achieve independence.

“The US diplomats witnessing the Bangladesh tragedy were ignorant of the opening to China. Their descriptions were heartfelt and valid, but we could not respond publicly,” he said.

By the time of the Bangladesh crisis in 1971 -- when Pakistan imposed martial law to crush the territory’s bid for independence -- Nixon felt he owed Pakistan’s military dictator, General Yahya Khan, a debt of gratitude for his government’s role in facilitating Kissinger’s secret trip to China, ignoring reports of Pakistan’s military atrocities against Bangladeshi civilians. 

The US actively supported Pakistan, to the extent of violating congressional restrictions on supplying arms to Pakistani troops.

“In November, the Pakistani president agreed with Nixon to grant independence the following March,” Kissinger said.

But the following December, “India, after having made a treaty including military provisions with the Soviet Union, and in order to relieve the strain of refugees, invaded East Pakistan,” he said, adding that the US had to navigate between Soviet pressures, Indian objectives, Chinese suspicions, and Pakistani nationalism.

“By March 1972 -- within less than a year of the commencement of the crisis  -- Bangladesh was independent; the India-Pakistan War ended, and the opening to China completed at a summit in Beijing in February 1972,” said Kissinger.

In his book World Order, Kissinger describes India as “a fulcrum of twenty first century order: An indispensable element, based on its geography, resources, and tradition of sophisticated leadership, in the strategic and ideological evolution of the regions and the concepts of order at whose intersection it stands.”

But in 1971, when Pakistan’s erstwhile eastern wing fought to become Bangladesh, Kissinger made a U-Turn and scorned India as “a Soviet stooge, supported with Soviet arms” over its support for Bangladesh independence.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune on 19 October 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, and recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com. Twitter @saleemsamad

What is the ‘golden ring’ axis?

China continues to consolidate power and strengthen ties with Asian countries

SALEEM SAMAD

In a geopolitical response to the decline of the Western influence in South Asia and West Asia, China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey envisage a “golden ring” axis to expand their hegemony on South and West Asia.

The vision of the golden ring of China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey was first disclosed recently by Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan.

The effort to forge an alliance surfaced after Afghanistan refused to be drawn into the golden ring axis. Kabul does not trust their immediate neighbour Pakistan and the nation has not forgotten the ruthless Russian occupation installing a puppet regime.

Afghanistan squarely blames Pakistan’s elite security agency in Rawalpindi GHQ for aiding and abetting ruthless Taliban militia.

Kabul is equally not comfortable with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The assassinated General Qasem Soleimani of the elite Al Quds military had recruited Afghan Shia militia to fight the Kabul government, which Iran believes is a stooge of the Americans, and thus an enemy of Islam.

Contrary to US perceptions, the Kremlin realizes the importance of Pakistan for a peaceful settlement of the Afghan conflict. Unfortunately, Afghanistan seemed to have disappeared from the White House radar in the run-up to the US Presidential Elections.

The US author Robert D Kaplan wrote in his book, The Revenge of Geography: “Pressure on land can help the United States thwart China at Sea.” But post exit from Afghanistan, America will lose that advantage since its “pivot Asia” will be largely reduced to the high seas.

Well, the US has been an undisputed global power since the collapse of the Soviet Union. China has risen from Mao’s anti-capitalist policy into a strong rival to the US. The Trump administration’s aggressive foreign policy is pushing away China and pulling closer allies who were never their loyal partners in economic development.

China has strengthened its ties with countries that were ignored or bullied by America. Therefore, the emergence of a new golden ring of China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey is becoming a reality.

China has fathomless pockets to fund economic development, and forging ties with Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and Turkey to join the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

In 2019, Iran formally joined China’s “One Belt One Road” initiative. Tehran announced that it has partnered with Beijing for the strategist Chabahar port in Iran. It will make Iran an integral part of the BRI, linking China with Europe via Turkey.

Turkey, despite being an ally of the NATO military alliance, has drifted from Washington in recent times.

Ankara’s occupation of Northern Cyprus for more than four decades, military assistance to rogue rebel General Haftar opposed to UN-backed Libyan government, intermittent military strikes against Kurds -- the bravehearts who fought the dreaded Islamic State marauder -- has angered not only the US, but also European nations.

America could have said “checkmate” when US aircraft carriers and hosts of battleships were joined by naval forces of Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia to take strategic control of the South China Sea, where China wanted its hegemony of the disputed sea.

Meanwhile, after the Galwan Valley face-off between India and China, India has readied its naval fleet in the Indian Ocean, rallying with US frigates from the Seventh Fleet, a tacit threat to China maritime for oil shipment from Iran. The manipulative geopolitical strategy in Asia may yield dividends which could be measured with a yardstick. Eventually, it needs to be understood about who will reap the maximum gain from the golden ring axis.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 27 July 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship, and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com. Twitter @saleemsamad

Bangladesh speaks no evil about illegal immigrants

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladesh authorities do not have any data on immigrants or migrants who have illegally entered or are staying after their stay permit or tourist visa has expired.

The illegal immigrant issue was never a concern for the government, politicians, research outfits, nor the media. No wonder, the issue of illegal migration was never on the political agenda of the ruling party or the opposition.

Most critics do not want to understand that there are illegal and legal migrants in Bangladesh. The illegal migrant is not unusual when the migrant's countries such as India and Myanmar share porous borders, despite having barbed wire fences and stringent border management and border guards along both sides of the international border it is still not easy to seal the difficult terrain.

Countries in this region for more than seven decades are prone to the smuggling of contraband goods, human trafficking, and cross-border terrorism ----- activities which make the border and adjacent regions sensitive.

On both sides, there are many people whose livelihoods are dependent on the non-formal trade along the border.

Indian authorities in the last ten years have raised the issue of illegal immigration from Bangladesh at bilateral talks. Meanwhile, the Indian National Register of Citizens (NRC) has made an outcry in both India and Bangladesh media, among political parties and government.

Bangladeshi media debates the issue of illegal immigrants, who have allegedly settled in Assam from Bangladesh.

Nearly one million expats are legally and illegally working in garments, composite textile mills, knitwear, sweater, buying houses, merchandiser companies, fashion houses, food processing and marketing, poultry, tannery, and research organisations, according to a security agencies report.

A recent report in Obhijatra, a Bangladeshi news portal, argues that illegal immigrants are a huge burden for Bangladesh’s economy. The report identifies Afghanistan, Algeria, China, Congo, Ghana, India, Iraq, Libya, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Somalia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tanzania, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States, are major countries from where illegal immigrants come into Bangladesh.

According to a study by Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Indians in Bangladesh sent more than $126 million back home in 2017, while Bangladesh got $4,033 million in remittances from India the same year.

The national census and other surveys carried out by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) do not indicate any illegal migration.

Neither India nor Bangladesh has any specific official data on illegal immigrants. The Indian government has time and again reiterated that the country lacks an official database of illegal immigrants.

Researchers argue that migration takes place for either economic reasons or due to compulsions arising from persecutions. It appears that Bangladesh has crossed the economic threshold, and if anything, people from poorer countries are migrating there in large numbers.

First published in Bangla Tribune online edition, 31 October 2019

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, also a recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award.
He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com

Spending in Bangladesh: The most bucks for the biggest bang

Buddy, can you spare a dime? A very, very large one?

THERE is no lack of world-beating records in Bangladesh. It starts as the world’s most densely populated country (not counting city-states and the like). Its capital, Dhaka, merely an undistinguished district headquarters at time of partition from India in 1947, can now be counted as the fastest-growing city in the world. Female leaders have ruled the country for longer than have men—which is to say, longer than women have anywhere else. No country at peace with its neighbours has more citizens shot dead by the security forces of one of its neighbours. The world’s biggest NGO, also apparently the best, BRAC (formerly the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee), bears the name of its home country. Despite astounding progress, 53m Bangladeshis, fully one-third of the population, still live below the poverty line.

Until the end of January, Bangladesh was also the location of South Asia’s biggest infrastructure project to funded by donors. The Padma bridge, a proposed river crossing that was to cost $3 billion to build, would also have been the world’s longest, at a length of about 10km. But its fate has become forlorn, since the Bangladesh government withdrew its request to the Word Bank for financing, on January 31st. The decision to turn down $1.2 billion in cheap loans—the biggest pile of cash the World Bank has ever offered to a single country—came a day after the bank’s president, Jim Yong Kim, forcefully stated his commitment to not allow crony capitalism to persist under his watch. (Mr Kim went on to use the Padma bridge as an example of the bank’s stance in the face of “insufficient response by the authorities to the evidence of corruption”.)

Thanks, but no thanks, seemed to be Bangladesh’s reply. With the refusal of the World Bank’s conditions went the loans that had under negotiation with the Asian Development Bank and the Japan International Co-operation Agency: altogether nearly $3 billion. Since Bangladesh cannot borrow from international markets, the net result of the government’s apparent intransigence is that 30m people, who are cut off from Dhaka by the vast Padma and the Jamuna (known to India as the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, respectively), and cut off from the rest of the country as well, will have to be patient.

But forget the bridge for a moment. It appears that the government has developed a taste for other symbols of power, of the kind that were till recently in the preserve of regional-powers-with-adversaries. No longer. Last year Bangladesh ordered its first satellite. Only last week it announced plans to buy its first submarines. Finally, Bangladesh intends to spend the single-largest amount of cash it has ever seen devoted to a single project—and start building nuclear power plants.

More than 50 years after politicians in what was then East Pakistan conceived the idea, the government has found a donor in Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia. Mr Putin’s conditions, compared with those of Bangladesh’s other international partners, are financially inferior but politically irresistible.

This is a country, after all, where as recently as 2007 the army stepped in to lock up the political class, including the two heads of dynasty, and installed its own military-backed administration. One must be prepared for exigencies, and it helps when the men in green see things the same way. Russia made a $1 billion loan to Bangladesh, to buy Russian-made arms, last month, which might well punch a hole in those recent statistical estimateswhich showed that Bangladesh might be at especially high risk of suffering a coup d’etat in 2013.

The arms sale however will be small in comparison. The price tag for the country’s first nuclear plants is believed to be somewhere between $2 billion and $4 billion; the Russians have agreed to lend $500m to kick-start the project. The idea is for Rosatom, the Russian state’s nuclear company, to build and operate two plants in Rooppur, in western Bangladesh. If all goes well Bangladesh may soon be the seventh Asian country with an operational nuclear power plant (the others being China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Pakistan).

So how bad an idea is it?

The first thing to say is that Bangladesh has an energy problem the scale of which tends to be, like the country as a whole, hugely underreported. According to the World Bank, there is no country where businesses find it more difficult to get electricity than Bangladesh. In its latest “Doing Business Survey”, the bank ranks Bangladesh an unflattering 185th out of 185 countries in this category. More than 60% of people do not have access to electricity.

So if the size of the problem were to suggest the size of the solution, a chunky 2,000MW more from two nuclear power stations might be a good start. The Russian plants would generate enough power to fill the current supply gap and would be a big step towards meeting the government’s goal of producing 20,000MW by 2020. The country’s current electricity-generation capacity stands at a mere 5,000-6,000MW. Domestic reserves of gas, the main source of energy, are not plentiful. The government’s short-term strategy, to fix the power crisis by installing oil-based power plants, is both unaffordable and environmentally precarious. Coal deposits exist, but too many people live on top of them. Any politician who dares touch the coal is likely to get a hostile reaction similar to the one experienced last week by foreigners who offered to help in digging it up.

The obvious solutions to Bangladesh’s long-term energy future would be a mix of coal and gas imports from Myanmar or the Middle East. But they don’t sound nearly as impressive as indigenous nukes, do they? Bangladesh’s political parties cannot agree on much, but they both like the idea of nuclear power.

There are a few problems with trying to produce 5,000MW of nuclear power (ie a fifth of the total projected generating capacity) by 2030 in what is essentially one big hot river delta. The lack of an alternative source of power, in case cooling systems collapse, and annual flooding, which, in a bad year, can cover up to two-thirds of the delta, come to mind. An earthquake once shifted the course of the mighty Brahmaputra, which used to flow east of Dhaka, to its current riverbed, 150km west of the capital. Experts may find that the plants’ proposed site on the bank of the Padma river is safe. Yet public protests, like the one in Kundankulam in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, over the same type of Russian reactor, are to be expected nonetheless. 

Bangladesh is not set to enrich its own uranium in any case; Russia would provide the radioactive fuel rods. But both the Bangladeshi public and neighbouring India, whose border with Bangladesh is only 25km from the proposed site, are likely to demand guarantees concerning the safe transport of nuclear material. The rods would have to travel from the port of Chittagong on roads that are among the world’s deadliest.

And if the transport of nuclear material is to circumambulate the urban sprawl of Dhaka, then they will have to cross the Padma. So unless the government puts the Chinese, say, in charge of constructing that bridge quite swiftly, the nation’s first nuclear-fuel cask will have to take a boat.

First appeared in The Economist, February 6th 2013

Rooppur Nuclear Deal Between Russia And Bangladesh

Dr. PETER CUSTERS

Few critical questions have been raised so far by Bangladesh’s intellectual community regarding the deal towards construction of two nuclear power plants in Rooppur. Yet questions do need to be posed. On November 2 last, Russia and Bangladesh signed the long awaited nuclear power agreement on the supply of two 1000 Megawatt reactors. 

Significantly, the deal was closely followed up by a major defense deal worth $1 Billion Dollars for delivery of armored vehicles, transport helicopters and other weaponry. This last deal was sealed during Sheikh Hasina’s recent Moscow visit. The given pattern - of a deal facilitating the purchase and transfer of nuclear technology paving the way for enlarged armament transfers – is broadly similar to the pattern set by the US and India when they signed their framework agreement on nuclear cooperation in 2008 (*). Here, an expansion in US exports of armaments to India was the hidden, reverse side of the nuclear deal. And while ostensibly there is no direct link between the two types of trade, - both the US and Russia evidently are equally eager to enlarge both their sales of nuclear technology and of weaponry towards countries of the Global South. Yet whether the Rooppur deal and the sequential defence deal – both involving huge sums of public money - are really in the interests of Bangladesh? This urgently needs to be scrutinized.

Here I will limit myself to last November’s deal on Rooppur, which Bangladesh’s nuclear lobby undoubtedly will have celebrated as a grand success. After all the dream to provide Bangladesh with nuclear energy is longstanding, dating from the time Bangladesh was a part of Pakistan. The first critical point to be noted is the fact that few details regarding the contents of the nuclear agreement have been revealed to Bangladesh’s public. From the ‘self-evaluation report’ submitted by Bangladesh to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the middle of 2012, however, it appears that the two nuclear reactors to be supplied by Russia to Bangladesh will be of VVER-1000 design. This is a water-cooled and water-moderated reactor reportedly devised in the late 1970s. Towards the cooling of the nuclear fuel rods, water is pumped into the primary circuit of the reactor and kept under constant pressure to prevent it from reaching boiling point. And after its use in the reactor complex, the (polluted) water needs to be released, i.e. dumped back onto the environment. This immediately raises the question as to the consequences of Rooppur for the fisherfolk in Ishwardi, the subdistrict of Pabna where Rooppur is located. Will biodiversity in the reactor’s surrounding water bodies be affected, yes or no?

Further pertinent questions arise once we try to envision how Rooppur’s nuclear fuel rods will be supplied and disposed of. To some extent the arrangements chosen imply that Bangladesh’s own population will not itself be burdened with the damaging conse-quences of the nuclear waste that is generated in the nuclear production chain. Neither will massive amounts of low-level waste be dumped in the country in consequence of uranium mining. Nor will the country’s landscape or subsoil be disfigured due to the presence of storage tanks containing long-lasting, high-level fluid waste from nuclear reprocessing. These consequences will be borne by people elsewhere (!). Yet will these facts suffice to allay the public’s fears? Under the agreement signed between Russia and Bangladesh, Bangladesh will not itself enrich uranium. Russia will both supply the fuel elements for the reactors, and will take back the highly radio-active rods once they have completed their ‘life-cycle’. However, this does not mean that the people of Ishwardi and Pabna can rest re-assured. Central issues to be looked into here are the temporary storage of the radioactive fuel rods after the end of their usage and the transportation of the fuel rods to and from the Rooppur nuclear complex. In Europe the transportation by road of used fuel elements has for many years aroused fierce resistance by anti-nuclear activists.

Thirdly, there is the question of reactor safety from a nuclear catastrophe. Russian officials will surely argue that the VVER-1000 design has proven to be more secure than the design of the granite-moderated reactor in Chernobyl, Ukraine, where the world’s most catastrophic nuclear accident ever took place in 1986. Surely, it is the last-mentioned RBMK-design which has burdened the Russian state and people with nightmarish problems, - of hundreds of thousands of cancer deaths, of a vast contaminated region where agricultural production had to be suspended, and of a huge financial burden for the construction and re-building of a reactor-sarcophage. Yet the so-called ‘stress tests’ undertaken in Russia in 2011, subsequent to the Fukushima disaster in Japan, have laid bare numerous basic defects that Russian reactors share with those in Japan. A joint report brought out by Rosatom and other Russian state institutions in the middle of 2011, for instance, questioned the capability of the country’s reactors to remain safe if cooling systems collapse, and there reportedly is no guarantee that power backup systems will be effective in case of a cooling system failure. The official report also described how spent fuel is simply allowed to accrue in onsite storage sites because of lack of space. One wonders whether scientists belonging to Bangladesh’s nuclear establishment have reviewed this report by Russia’s state agencies. And whether their own worries have been dispelled.

What then is the best way forward? How can the risks deriving from Rooppur for Bangladesh’s population best be assessed? Scientists and economists who are concerned about solving Bangladesh’s energy needs will undoubtedly argue that we need a dispassionate debate on the issue, and that it would be wrong to oppose Rooppur merely on the basis of fear. Being no natural scientist myself and aware of the risks of over-simplification, I would nevertheless argue that the country would do well to take notice of the huge international controversy surrounding nuclear energy today. In neighboring India, for instance, there has emerged an informed debate, which is of immediate relevance for Bangladesh. Coincidentally the strongest opposition against nuclear construction has been built in the area surrounding Koodankulam, in Tamil Nadu, precisely in opposition against a VVER-reactor supplied by the Russian Federation. Being densely populated and subject to annual river flooding, Bangladesh can ill afford to take risks. Hence, whatever construction works in Rooppur, if any, should be preceded by an informed public debate, - a debate in which both the country’s progressive intellectuals, the new generation of urban activists, and Pabna’s peasants and fisher folk take part.

First published in Countercurrents.org, 22 January, 2013

Dr. Peter Custers, a theoretician on nuclear production, lives in Leiden, the Netherlands, author of Questioning Globalized Militarism (Tulika, New Delhi/Merlin Press, London, 2007), www.petercusters.nl