BANGLADESH A FUTURE? by IBNE AZAD, Nearly four years ago, on the night of November 12-13, 1970, an unprecedented cyclone and tidal wave ravaged the coastal districts of what was then East Pakistan. About one million lives were lost in that catastrophe. The Fakistani military regime made very little effort to save the lives of the cyclonedevastated people. Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, the present prime minister of Bangladesh, was then the leader of the opposition party in East Pakistan. He stated before a press conference on November 26, 1970: "We have lived with floods and cyclones since Independence (1947 when the British left India). Today, after twenty-three years of shared nationhood, we are without even plans for flood control. . . . We are confirmed today in our conviction that if we are to save the people of Bangladesh we must attain full regional autonomy... We must have plenary powers to manage our economy. It is only when we can wrest away from the ruling coterie and attain full regional autonomy ... that we can expect to solve our urgent problems, be they those of economic development, flood control, or those of reconstructing the villages and rehabilitating the people ravaged by the cyclone. " Floods and cyclones are two major natural disasters that hit Bangladesh almost every year. Effective control of floods had been one of the pledges made by Rehman during the fight against the Pakistani military regime. On January 3, 1971, speaking before a gathering of nearly 2 million people in Dacca, Rehman promised, "Whenever the question of flood control was raised in the past, the plea of non-availability of funds was given. I shall show how money can be arranged for flood control." (Morning News, Dacca, January 4, 1971.) Rehman has been prime minister of Bangladesh for more than two and a half years now. When he became prime minister, he promised the people a Sonar Bangla (Golden Bengal). But instead, Rehman and his henchmen in the ruling Awami League have converted Bangladesh into a graveyard. Limitless corruption, misadministration, and inefficiency reign supreme. Bangladesh is ruined. Its economy had collapsed long before the recent flood struck Bangladesh. Rehman has not fared any better than the Pakistani butchers. On the contrary, the toiling 20 itself with a much greater margin for maneuver than that possessed by its counterparts in Western Europe, for example. At the same time, the lack of a mass working-class party imposes additional restraints on the development of class consciousness among the proletariat, thus lending the trade-union bureaucracy greater maneuvering room as well. To meet the many-sided assault on workers' standard of living, independent political action by the unions will be required. An independent labor party is needed to help coordinate and centralize workers struggles and to fight for labor's inferests on crucial political questions of war and peace, racial oppression, the oppression of women, taxes, wage controls, unemployment, and social services. Such a break with capitalist politics is the next crucial step forward for U.S. labor. masses were in some ways better off during those days than at present. Now, few shout about "Joi Bangla" (Glory to Bengal). The most common question is: "Has Bangladesh a future?" The June flood Floods struck Bangladesh this year in the month of June. Water level in the different rivers was rising steadily and the situation was aggravated by the heavy rain fall. By the beginning of August the country was in the grip of the worst flood in 150 years. Two-thirds of the country's 55, 000 square miles were under flood water. Nearly 30 million people were affected; 3,000 were killed; 3,500 miles of road were destroyed. As of this writing it is not possible to accurately estimate the real extent of the damage. The Bangladesh government has put it on the order of $500 million. The sufferings of the people are indescribable. Rehman has done very little to fight against the floods. Nor has his government done anything to protect people from the cyclones. In the current year's budget only 3 million takas (US$1=7 takas approximately) Las been allocated, whereas the minimum requirement according to the Flood Control Ministry was 6.5 million takas (Holiday, Dacca, August 4, 1974). The first five-year plan has completely omitted the problem of flood control and has only touched upon flood protection. In the same issue of Holiday N. M. Harun wrote, "Experts hold that there are two approaches to the problem of flood control and flood protection: a) effective flood control is possible on basin-wide planning and multi-national efforts; and b) labour-intensive projects within a comprehensive plan can be undertaken even with the existing resources of the country to protect vast areas from floods. "The present administration is yet to consider the first approach. And, for the second approach, earnestness has not been shown." Despite the unprecedented havoc created by the flood, the international response has been far from big. As soon as the flood water started to engulf vast parts of the country, Rehman arranged for the heads of different diplomatic missions to be
BANGLADESH flown by helicopter over the flood-devastated countryside. The government appealed to the United Nations and other international agencies for help. But the international response was pathetic. In the past, both during the cyclone of 1970 and during the first year after the liberation of Bangladesh, the government was provided with large assistance from abroad. In the first year of independence, the United Nations Relief OperationDacca provided more than £500 million. Yet at the time of this writing, very little has been offered to the government of Bangladesh. The U.S. government has donated only $4 million. The United Nations Disasters Relief office in Dacca has donated only $20,000. The World Food Program in Rome has announced an offer of $2.5 million. These sums are far less than the $500 million estimated as needed by the Bangladesh government. Commenting on this, Michael Hornsby wrote: "This parsimony undoubtedly reflects in part the disillusionment of international agencies and other aid donors at the way in which massive injections of relief funds over the past three years have been dissipated and embezzled by corrupt Bangladesh officials" (The Times, London, August 14, 1974). A correspondent of the Bangladesh weekly Deshbangla reported that most of the foreign missions in Bangladesh were aware of how the Bangladesh government had misused and squandered a good part of the foreign aid. The foreign offices in Bangladesh believed that about 50 percent of this aid found its way to India, 30 percent was misappropriated by the distributors, who were and still are solely the members of the ruling Awami League, and only 20 percent actually had reached the needy and the poor of Bangladesh (Deshbangla, Dacca, August 8, 1974). After the November 1970 cyclone, Rehman accused the Pakistani military regime of criminal negligence because of its failure to launch an intensive relief and rescue operation. But how is the relief operation being carried out under the rule of the Awami League? According to a reporf by lan Ward in the August 15 London Daily Telegraph there were only six helicopters in service. He narrates how the relief operation is being carried out: "I flew here today aboard a Russian-made helicopter with the Russian crew to experience at first hand some of the hopeless confusion which has engulfed trying to bring relief to the stricken areas. "The flight was timed for 8 a.m. sharp. The Russian crew were standing by their craft on Dacca airport at 6 a.m. ready to load the trucks of packaged bread parked nearby along with a four ton consignment of drugs. But with no government official in attendance nothing stirred. At 8:15 a.m. the Dacca airport relief coordination officer strolled into his quarters. The telephone on his desk was ouf of order. Piles of receipts, documents, files and scraps of official notes lay under a paperweight awaiting his signature -- testaments to the extraordinary bureaucracy and red tape that throttles every Government move here. When loading finally began the Russian crewmen requested destinations. The officials, who by this time outnumbered the loaders by two to one, were uncertain. Then the Russians sought cargo weights, but none had been taken. The officials did their sums and decided that the total cargo to be lifted was eight and a half tons. Later I made a boat trip to three flooded villages where families were living on rafts made of matted water hyacinth secured to the roofs of their water logged mud and thatched dwellings. Fishing families huddled in open boats which also floated beside their inundated homes. Not one of the families had been visited by relief teams, nor had they received aid in any form." In this time of national crisis Rehman should have taken up a united program to deal with such a calamity. Instead, he has played politics with flood. He is using his police force to obstruct the relief work carried out by the opposition parties. The message is clear. He and his henchmen want to divide among themselves all the aid tha. might flow into the country! A dying economy Long before the recent flood, the economy of the country had reached a point of collapse. Foreign reserves had dried up. Consequently, the import of essential commodities is being held up, and foreign importers are refusing to entertain Bangladesh letters of credit. The 1973-74 deficit in foreign trade has amounied to 44.5 million takas (Deshbangla, August 8, 1974). By the end of last June the foreign reserves of Bangladesh reached almost a zero level. Bangladesh sought a major loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). According to a report published in the London Observer, the IMF had granted only El6 million, whereas Bangladesh needed a sum of £300 million for the import of essential materials for the second half of the current year. Now the flood has come, and this has put additional pressure
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BANGLADESH on the already dying economy of Bangladesh. During the last two to three months Mujib has been sending his emissaries to various world capitals to procure some help. The foreign minister approached oil-rich countries like Iran, Bahrain, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi. The finance minister was sent to Washington. Two members of the Bangladesh planning commission were sent to Hungary, West Germany, Jordan, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, the Kremlin bureaucrats made it known that they had no intention of lifting Bangladesh out of the present crisis by offering aid in the form of hard currencies. It is believed that the Soviet aid would be based on a barter system to be repaid by industrial goods from an industry set up with the Soviet aid. The economic situation is so bad that the Bangladesh planning commission has given up the idea of carrying out the country's first five-year plan. Instead there will be a developmental program on a year to year basis. Even the Rehman administration finds it extremely hard to service the foreign debts. On September 1, 1973, Mr. Hamidullah, governor of the Bangladesh Bank, pointed out that three factors had contributed to the collapse of t! - Bangladesh economy: the flight of capital, heavy smuggling to India, and production failure in mills and factories. But who is paying for the economic collapse? The hardship of the toiling masses is indescribable. How are the people maintaining their lives when the per capita income is less than $200 a year and when rice is being sold at 50 cents a pound and an ordinary men's shirt costs, at least $20-25? Death by starvation is very frequent. During the period of Rehman's rule prices have increased at least 500-600 percent. The toiling masses have been bled white. In the last four months alone, the price of rice has at least doubled. The price of cloth has gone up at least tenfold since the liberation of Bangladesh: The inefficiency of the Rehman administration is such that due simply to the lack of a signature from the Planning Commission a large project for cotton cultivation could not be put into effect. (Dainik Bangla, Dacca, July 4, 1974). Corruption, blackmarketeering, hoarding, bribery, and all other antisocial activities are going unchecked these days. A section of the ruling Awami League has accumulated considerable wealth. It is popularly believed in Bangladesh that Rehman himself has accumulated enough wealth to become one of the ten richest persons in the country. Who comprises the new rich class of Bangladesh? Just to give one example, Rehman's own nephew, Sheikh Fazlul Huq Moni (popularly known as Sheikh Moni), has become one of the richest men of the country. He has been openly criticized even by many Awami League members and is well known for his corrupt practices. His maternal uncle undoubtedly offers full protection and immunity. Last year even Rehman's son was caught redhanded in antisocial activities. Economics of smuggling The grim food crisis that prevailed in Bangladesh even before the recent flood was absolutely man-made. According to the official government estimate, the shortage was on the order of 1.8 million tons (Holiday, April 7, 1974). On the other ing to an estimate by a Commonwealth organization, Banglabeen sufficient for a population of 75 million. Why then should there be any scarcity of rice? The answer is simple. Rice is being smuggled across the border to India, where there is a 22 chronic shortage of rice and other agricultural products. The item most affected by smuggling is jute, which used to make up 85 percent of Bangladesh's foreign exchange earnings. Today the jute industry is facing a virtual collapse. Before 1971, India was deficit in raw jute to an extent of 500, 000 bales a year. The Indian jute industry was steadily declining. In 1964-65 Indian jute production was 1, 222, 600 tons; by 1969-70 it had dropped to 953, 000 tons (Far Eastern Economic Review, January 21, 1974). During the same period, Indian jute exports dropped from 843, 600 tons to 466, 700 tons. One can compare the decline of the Indian jute industry with the growth of the jute industry of what was then East Pakistan. In 1947, the jute industry in East Pakistan was almost nonexistent. By 1971, however, 77 jute mills had been established. In 196465, the jute mills of Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) produced 280, 112 tons; by 1969-70 the figure had risen to 587, 500 tons. During the same period exports rose from 218, 629 tons to 496, 300 In recent years, however, the picture has changed dramatically. It was recently disclosed in an Indian daily that India had accumulated one million bales of jute through smuggling and had set a goal of 500,000 bales of raw jute as an export target. (The Hindustan Standard, March 16, 1974). Since jute was procured from Bangladesh by the Indian jute industrialists through smuggling, the 62 jute mills in West Bengal, India, are not only working at full capacity, but even on double shifts. On the other hand, the 77 jute mills in Bangladesh are facing an acute crisis in production; many of them will be closed soon because of shortages of raw jute and imported material such as lubricants, spare parts, etc. The closure of jute mills would definitely throw thousands of workers out of work. At the same time, the foreign exchange earnings of the Bangladesh government through jute and jute products has dropped sharply -from 3.5 thousand million takas in 1969-70 to 2.6 thousand million takas in 1973-74. The economics behind the smuggling are very simple. Officially, one Indian rupee is equivalent to one Bangladesh taka. But according to the unofficial exchange rate, one Indian rupee commands at least two Bangladesh takas. The price of one maund (82 pounds) of jute is 60 takas in Bangladesh, and the price is the same in India. By smuggling one maund of jute, a smuggler gets 60 Indian rupees, which can be converted into 120 Bangladesh takas. The 120 takas can be brought back to Bangladesh or a piece of cloth for 120 takas can be brought back and sold in Bangladesh for 150 takas. Because of this very simple economics not only jute but also rice, vegetables, and milk are smuggled out of Bangladesh, giving rise to a man-made food crisis. Opposition meets repression Since independence Rehman has promised on several occasions to use the armed forces to "stamp out corruption, hoarding, smuggling, and other antisocial activities. " All these promises have turned out to be absolutely hollow. The reason is that very few persons in Bangladesh except the members of the ruling Awami League have access to licenses and permits to carry out both external and internal trade. The members of the Awami League have virtually monopolized all gainful offices, business, commerce, and industries. This meant that Mriw would have to use armed force against his own party men. Instead, he has used the army to suppress the opposition. On February 5, 1974, the government issued a special powers act according to which the regime is entitled to resort to mea-
sures such as preventive detention without trial, censorship of newspapers, proscription of objectionable publications, and prohibition of objectionable associations and organizations. Rehman has made full use of this "special powers act" to gag the voice of the people. It is worth while to recollect what he had pledged in the past. On October 28, 1970, in a broadcast to the people of Pakistan he said, "A real living democracy must be established, in which all the fundamental freedom shall be constitutionally guaranteed. Our manifesto outlines a framework for the healthy growth of political parties, trade unions, and local self-government. We do pledge to restore complete freedom of the press and academic freedom and to eradicate corruption which has grown like cancer in our society. " (Dawn, Karachi, October 29, 1970.) Events of the past few years have clearly demonstrated how empty Rehman's promises were. Since the liberation of Bangladesh several leftist papers have been forcibly closed down. Freedom of the press has been greatly curtailed. The editor of the most popular daily of Bangladesh, Ganakantha (People's Voice), a newspaper of the opposition Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD -- National Socialist party, has been put under arrest under the special powers act. Most of the daily newspapers are government controlled, as during Pakistani rule they belonged to the Pakistani government, people from what was then West Pakistan, or proPakistani Bengalis. Rehman has found a unique way of curtailing freedom of the press. The government has started to ration newsprint to the newspapers whose policies are not in conformity with those of the government. While most of the dailies are governmentrun, there are many weeklies that are opposed to the Rehman regime. In 1973-74 all the weekly newspapers were allocated 200 tons of newsprint. This quota has now been slashed to only 15 tons. This has forced several weeklies to reduce their circulations. And the price of newsprint has gone up by 250 percent during the last eight months, dealing a heavy blow to the survival of the small newspapers. Awami League: the new rich On February 15, 1971, at the Bengali Academy in Dacca Sheikh Mujib declared: "We firmly believe in a socialist economy and a society free from exploitation. We will not stay in power unless we can translate the hopes of the people that have been reposed in us " (The Pakistan Observer, Dacca, February 16,1971). A few days later he again repeated his promise: "Without a socialist pattern of economy, 70 million people cannot live in an area of 55,000 square miles. " (Dawn, Karachi, March 1, 1971.) Such were the promises of Sheikh Mujib before the people. After the liberation of Bangladesh, banks, insurance companies, and big industries were nationalized and the government put a ceiling on investment in private sectors. The Awami League had no other alternative but to resort to such measures, since the Bengali bourgeoisie was very weak and was not at all capable of starting its activities by itself. It is worth noting that no foreign capital was affected by the Awami League nationalization program. On July 4, 1974, the national eco: omic council of Bangladesh decided to lift restrictions on private investment, raising the upper limit from 2.5 million takas to 30 million takas. Restrictions on foreign investments have also been lifted, making Bangladesh suitable for direct neocolonial exploitation. During its two years of outright monopoly in corruption, the Awami League has been able to create a new rich class (although not a very strong one) whose members have acquired their property primarily through illegal means. By lifting the ceiling or private investments, the government has made provisions for this sector to invest its capital accumulated from From the very beginning Rehman's nationalization program was a big hoax. Badruddin Umar, a Bangladesh political scientist, put it in this way: "In Bangladesh there was nothing revolutionary in the various measures that the government has been following in respect to industry, agriculture, commerce, and every other sphere of national life. Their nationalization was not at all an attack on capital; it was not at all meant to be an a tack on capital. It was a mechanism and an arrangement for the smooth transference of private property from some hands to other hands, from the hands of those not in the Awami League to those of the Awami League or closely connected with them. That is the reason why no one really took any interest in promoting the nationalized industries and other concerns. On the other hand, they all saw to it that the nationalized industries were used in various ways for the accumulation of property in private hands; production in the national•ized sector did not pick up, and through a gross mismanagement of such industries the entire idea of nationalization, and with it of socialism, are totally discredited in the eyes of the people." (Holiday, July 7, 1974.)
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Slander Campaign