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The five dangers of a National Security Council

Sikder Haseeb Khan
***Bangladesh does not have an external security crisis to require the setup of an NSC. We have a political crisis that requires a political solution based on strengthening democracy, not oiie that creates a set of non-democratic irtirtttutions. 5b v/e need to recognise the proposal for an NSC for what it mainly is: it's an exit and entry strategy.***
WITHOUT oversight by elected representatives, the caretaker government is considering some permanent institutional changes in Bangladesh. Among these, the most prominent proposal now is to form a National Security Council (NSO, which would become the । top authority to deal with security issues.
The proposal was floated two months into emergency rule, in March 2007. By December, the Law Ministry had reportedly prepared a draft on a potential 24-member structure of the NSC. The army chief reasoned recently: It's [the NSC] there in India and Pakistan --so why not in Bangladesh?"
However attractive it may be made to look on paper, the creation of a non-democratic authority on security would be disastrous for Bangladesh. In countries where democracy is already weak, NSCs have been a guise to establish the policy supremacy of the military over elected authorities. So the five dangers outlined below are neither hypothetical nor far-fetched; they are real.
Danger 1: NSC will control internal law and order. In countries like Pakistan or Turkey, a possible rationale exists about having an NSC, since these countries face complex and compelling threats from their external environments. Bangladesh has no external enemies threatening its survival. The reality is that an NSC in Bangladesh will be used to
maintain and enforce internal security, providing cover for the many coercive agencies that already exist, such as the police, RAB, BDR, and so forth. Furthermore, as the experience of other weak democracies show, the NSC will likely operate outside judicial oversight. To strengthen our democracy, we need greater accountability for law enforcement - and creation of an NSC will be a big step away from that direction.
Danger 2: NSC will see politics as a threat. Let me put it simply: "Give a man a hammer, and everything will start to look like a nail." Once it is focused internally, the NSC will be able to interpret anything that it does not like as a tlireat. There may be legitimate security issues from time to time, but what will happen
most often is that political opposition to policies favored by the NSC will be seen as a security threat. In all weak democracies, the NSC has weakened democracy further by blurring the line between the freedom and threats, eventually resulting in situations where the state begins to view parts of its own citizens as enemy number one. This becomes a downward spiral: the more that threats are constructed and sold to the public, the more entrenched the NSC becomes. So, a security council may even increase conflict in society.
Danger 3: NSC will protect human rights abusers. We already have enough human rights abuses resulting from the government's heavy hand. Getting justice is extremely difficult; those trying to secure accountability for extra-judicial murders know this. The formation of an NSC will provide a shelter at the highest level for rights abusers. This has happened in Pakistan. The NSC will also protect those groups that it sees as allies.
Danger 4: NSC will not be accountable to elected authority. The NSC's formation is being accelerated to take advantage of the absence df elected authority. Nd announcement so far places the NSC directly under political authority. It will become at least a parallel authority to elected politicians, or worse, as a superior authority constituted by the president. There will some political representation on the council, but that representation will probably be used to convey the NSC’s wishes, rather than the other way around. There will be no popular oversight on the NSC. Once created in this way, the NSC cannot be undone easily.
Danger 5: NSC will politicise the military. The most influential members in the NSC will be from the armed forces: the three service chiefs, the paramilitary chiefs, the intelligence agencies, and their associates. This institutional role of the military in policymaking, combined with a focus on internal security, will quickly involve mili-
tary decision-makers in political controversies. This will compromise the professionalism of the military, and militarize profes-siohial pdlicyhiAking. Do We' rtally want a Pakistanisation of Bangladesh's civil institutions?
Bangladesh does not have an external security crisis to require the setup of an NSC. We have a political crisis that requires a political solution based on strengthening democracy, not one that creates a set of non-democratic institutions. So we need to recognise the proposal for an NSC for what it mainly is: it's an exit and entry strategy’.
It's being done to assure a protected exit for the current military government, but more importantly, to ensure the military’s permanent entry into the nation's political decisions. Those decisions must remain the domain of people's elected representatives, as stipulated by our constitution.
Sikder Haseeb Khan is a freelance contnbutor to The Daily Star.