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Perry's fiction coming true?

F. ALAM AND S. RAHMAN
Alot of hue and cry was raised in Bangladesh in the last week of 2002 over the issue of "Deadly Cargo" -- an article written by Alex Perry in Time magazine. In the article, Perry attempted to prove that Bangladesh was a safe harbour for Islamic terrorists including al-Qaeda. Perry showed the existence of some organisations which in disguise and under the camouflage of philanthropic activities were raising funds for al-Qaeda and patronising terrorism. He categorically mentioned the linkages of al-Haramain and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (HUJI) with the terrorism. Perry in his report indicated that terrorists were growing in an organised way in the hill regions of the coastal belt of Bangladesh, taking the geographical and political advan-
tages: the presence of belligerent Muslim Rohingya refugees and long unprotected sea line convenient for trafficking arms and ammunitions. He also pointed out that the terrorists were also growing in the northern part of the country adjacent to the Indian border. Moreover, Perry in that report tried to build an image that a favourable environment for growing terrorists existed.
Government had banned that issue of Time magazine for Bangladesh. Jamaat-e-Islam, a component of the four-party alliance of the government condemned it as a "fictitious thriller in American Time magazine filed by reporter Alex Perry." The Bangladesh government reacted instantly to the report and protested it as a "figment of imagination." Other Islamic groups also
reacted furiously on the report and discarded it as false and a conspiracy. We, the general people, became very anxious and prayed that the statement of the government and the Jamat-e-Islami was true and that Perry's report was false, because that time was a sensitive time for any Islamic country as the United States of America was hunting Islamic terrorists desperately all over the world. Whatever the government [BNP and Jamat-e-Islami] do say, Bangladesh could never remove the suspicion of the US. And consequently Bangladesh had been blacklisted by the US along with many other Islamic countries, and all its citizens living in the US had to face the registration process as a part of the security of the US homeland.
Despite all this, the government
has never taken any big initiative to contain the terrorists. Rather, government tried to blame those who raised the issue of presence of the terrorists as spoiling the country's image. In fact, the government remained very indifference over it. This indifferent of the government has allowed the terrorists to be more organised and gain more power and the fiction of the Alex Perry started to become true. The terrorists have been successfully carrying out their operations, one after another. The most devastating and fierce attack was carried out on August 21. The terrorists lobbed at least a dozen grenades in a meeting of Awami League that killed at least 20 and injured more than 200 including many central leaders of the party. The meeting was called to protest against earlier bomb attacks that occurred in
many places of Bangladesh.
Earlier the terrorists attacked the Udichi cultural function at Jessore, the Bangla New Year festival at Ramna, the cinema halls in Mymensingh and Sylhet, the public meeting of Suranjeet Sengupta at Sunamgonj, and the Sylhet city Mayor, among others. The terrorists have also attempted to kill the British High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Mr. Anwar Chowdhury. This magnitude and frequency of the attacks resemble the situation in Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Iraq, which at present are shedding blood everyday. But, the difference is that the governments of those countries are sincerely fighting terrorism and seeking international help to combat the terrorists, while our government remains busy in defending itself to prove that there is
no presence of terrorists in this country. But, will anybody find the differences between the attack on British Consulate in Turkey, the American Embassy in Pakistan, and the attack on the British High Commissioner in Bangladesh? Are there any differences between the killing attempts on Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and the leader of the opposition Sheikh Hasina here? What is the difference between demolishing the biggest Buddhist sculptures in Afghanistan by discharging dynamite and the attacks on the shrines in Bangladesh? We do not notice any dissimilarity among the bomb attack in Bali, Spain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Chechnya, US, Pakistan, and the one in Bangladesh.
The symptom of rising terror is very much visible in Bangladesh.
Recently the daily Prothom Alo published an exclusive investigative report that found out that thousands of Islamic militants are being trained in the southeastern hilly regions of this country. As per the report of that newspaper, these militants are linked with the international terrorist elements and are getting funding support from those organisations which are already blacklisted by the US government. Another Islamic fanatic group is very much active in the
northern part of the country and it has already become a concern for the US Ambassador to Bangladesh.
The government should contain these terrorists immediately without giving further scope of their becoming stronger. Otherwise, a big price like that paid by Pakistan and Afghanistan will have to be paid. Pakistan has lost
complete control over a big part of its territory and Afghanistan is still struggling to take control over its territory despite the presence of a strong multinational force led by the US.
In Bangladesh, through the grenade attack on Sheikh Hasina and her party men and women, the terrorists have given a signal that they are irresistible. In the past they were testing their strength by hitting soft targets like journalists, cultural activists, and intellectuals. Now they are striking on hard targets like prominent political personalities and high value foreign diplomats. And it can be assumed that they will be preparing themselves for something in the future that is even more serious.
F. Alam is a columnist and S. Rahman is an Islamic researcher.