"The passage of the indemnity bill is the one of the greatest insult that one could bring on a democratic society. By this single action we have eroded our credibility as a democratic nation, called into question our respect for law and made a mockery of our justice system. Seldom in the history of modern-day parliament has such a shameful, outrageous, disreputable and unethical law been passed in peacetime and nonemergency situation." ("Mockery of a law brings shame on the nation", February 27).

Mr. Editor, you have lived long enough in this country to understand how the business is taken care here. The army personnel didn't kill these individuals to settle their personal scores. We needed them desperately to help us get rid of the evils that basically brought the country to its knees. We have full sympathy for the victims. Yet, we still feel that the nation should be ready to absorb the

sacrifices.

You want the army to clean your dirty linen, yet you will not spare them. How hypocratic can it get? Mr. Anam, we did have our share of the "intellectuals" like Kabir Chaudhury and Muntasir Mamun. Please spare us. We don't want any more political "intellectuals" in this country. Please try to understand that editorship of a popular daily like The Daily Star News does not qualify to abuse your authority and mislead the nation.

Mahbub

On e-mail

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Someone once said, "Politicians think about the next election; Leaders think about the next generation." We have a lot of politicians but none of them seems to be a leader. Wait a minute. Do we really have a lot of politicians? Are BNP lawmakers thinking about the next election at all?

PirSaheb

USA

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I must say I agree with everything Mahfuz Anam has written in his commentary about the Indemnity Law. If anything, I found his commentary guarded.

He seems to hang on to some sort of belief that the parliament and our politicians can possibly offer some sort of moral leadership in this country. That is an impossibility, even civilised democracies have a tough time getting moral and ethical direction from politicians. There is no likelihood of such direction from our politicians, at best we can hope for a civil society to restrain their worst excesses.

Mahfuz Anam also seems to be trying to elevate our present President to some sort of apolitical authority figure, like Shahbuddin was. Unfortunately that is not the case. BNP is proving itself to be the problem rather than the solution.

The other day, Shomit

Chowdhury in a letter regarding the war in Iraq asked rhetorically if we deserved colonial subjugation by the British.

From the look of things we might as well invite them back.

Azad

Dhaka