Proposed Bill on Liberation War

There are several points to be made about this proposed Bill but in this letter I want to comment on the statement of the Minister for Liberation Affairs. one rationale he put forward for this was, and I quote from The Daily Star report "The Minister blamed the previous Awami League government for allowing a handful of people to use such organisations for their vested interests" The inevitable accusations of corruption followed.

I would like to put things into some historical perspective. In 1970

the Awami League won 298 seats out of the 300 seats it contested in the then East Pakistan. Following the War of Liberation in 1971 the Awami League formed the first government of Bangladesh in 1972. They were in power till August 1975. From that date to June 1996, for 21 years, successive regimes mentioned the Awami League only to hold it responsible for all the ills that the country was suffering. During that period there was no mention of Bangabandhu's or the Awami League's political contribution. Programmes on December 16th and March 26th came and went. The Liberation War was discussed

without mention of the role of the Awami League. It was quite a feat of suppression. This omission did not, however, seem to bother the selfappointed custodians of our history. It would appear that the existence of the various foundations did not need supervision so long as they were low key about what establishments are pleased to call sensitive matters. What has upset things is that during the last five years the Awami League was able to restore the balance. A whole new generation -born between 1975 and 1996 - has been able to hear its name mentioned without being reviled. The genii is now out of the bottle. So

'damage control' is needed. The excuse is that the Minister wishes to stop the vested interests using these organisations, institutes and foundations. The reality is that he and his ilk wish to control the truth.

It is too much to hope that the present government will try to stand on its own feet and face being evaluated on its record when they did not do so for the long period when the Awami League was out of the running. There are those who say that Sheikh Hasina went overboard during the last five years in her attempts to bring back Bangabandhu's name into the history books. one would have

more respect for those critics had they, in the 21 years of official silence, ever protested the distortion of history that was taking place Salma Sobhan

Dhaka

Canadian Minister

I was glad to see the Canadian Minister visiting Dhaka. But was this like one of those UN Conferences where nothing is achieved or did the Minister take a good look at what's happening to this country and made the necessary harsh comments?

He should've, among other things, looked at the evidence of state sponsored terrorism with the

nominations handed out for the Ward Commissioner elections, the failure of the parliamentary system of government in Bangladesh and the long list of people charged with sedition.

Bastiat

Dhaka

Listed terrorists

Bangladesh is probably the only country in the world where one can use the phrase "listed terrorist" with a straight face. Sort of like a listed contractor?

Where are those noisy NGos now when criminals are openly contesting City Corporation elec-

tions? Why is Transparency International silent? Isn't it their job to try and publicise this malpractice?

After the general elections when the minority communities were being oppressed, we had no end of NGos running about taking pictures, writing reports and giving interviews to the BBC. But when it comes to the real grunt work of protecting democracy from criminals, they are silent.

In my naivete I had imagined that Human Rights included protection from terrorist running our city. obviously the NGos, the hypocritical donors and the civic community care only about things like minori-

ties, Islamic fundamentalists and what have you.

Dorji

Dhaka

Say "NO" to hartal

The government should take the Awami League to court for calling hartal on April 6, disregarding the interest of the country. Democracy becomes anarchy when it starts to interfere with the welfare of the nation.

There are less destructive ways of making a point than calling hartal. Concerned, on e-mail