Monday, April 02, 2007

The Bangladesh situation

Nope, I am not talking about world cup cricket !

For background information on recent developments, read the following

1) The take over of the interim caretaker government(s) , oct 06 to jan 07 and jan 07 to present

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006%E2%80%932007_Bangladeshi_political_crisis

2) The execution of the six militants recently

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6509163.stm

3) The most recent ( google news says 5 hour old news) statement by the army

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6517887.stm

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A few observations

a) Both the "fallen" out nations from the old india - pakistan and bangladesh, now have military govts. not democratically elected ones ..

b) is the failure of democracy to be attributed to the fundamental islamic character of these states ?

c) from the army heads statement, it appears that like pakistan, this one also may continue for a long time to come.. unless of course, a pro-jihadi revolt happens either within the country ( and a possible civil war) or, who knows, may be within the army

d) why hasn't such a revolt happened within pakistan and its army yet for so long ? is it because of external pressure/influence ( US), or is it that fact that at some level the establishment continues to support things which the jihadis like to see ? like sheltering taliban/osama, and to continue to bleed india ...

e) if point d) is valid, then would the new bangladeshi regime and the now-influential army also go the same way at some point (and if so what will that imply for India) ? Or will they continue to take a tough stance against the jihadis as they have seemingly done in executing the six militants ?

mmm.... lets wait and watch .. meantime, interesting to read the way al jazeera covered the news

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/55BB8885-E916-4C42-9B65-1820E1EFC761.htm

comments / thoughts welcome.. me not a bangladesh expert, just a casual reader

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