EDITORIAL : THE DAILY STAR, BANGLADESH

          

 

AL GS's remarks

Avoid mixed signals

The ruling party's General Secretary has said that the opposition's latest hartal was in fact not called on the issue of the caretaker government system or the power crisis and price hike of essentials, but to hinder the process of the trial of war criminals and the proceedings of the corruption charges against BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia's sons.

The Awami League's GS has apparently tried to read motives into the opposition's hartal at variance with stated objectives of the BNP of making the hartal call. We do not know whether he speaks for the government or the party, but coming on the heels of the AL chief's reiterated offer for talks with the BNP, the GS's comments can only create confusion in the public's mind.

Where one of the prime duties of any political party is to inform parties that it is seized with the issue at hand and to politically educate the people, leaders of the ruling party seem rather to be misleading them by sidelining the issues raised and highlighting those which were not. While we do not support hartals for any reason, to imply that the opposition had no issue or had different ones from those suggested, raises questions about how grounded in reality the AL GS's comments are.

The primary issue of the last hartal being that of the caretaker government system, the government would do well to take it into consideration, do everything possible to engage in dialogue with the opposition as the party chief has offered and reach a reasonable and acceptable conclusion of the matter.

Hartals are disruptive for the economy, society and politics of the nation. Just as the opposition should abjure the path of aggression, the government, too, should be in tune with reality and try to grapple with the issues that are of concern to the nation.

Handling of hartal

Overreaction by police undesirable

We are relieved to note that Sunday's general strike called by the BNP went off relatively peacefully. But the inconvenience that people were put through during the period of hartal is highly regrettable, and we find it utterly reprehensible that private and public property should be made targets of attack by hartal supporters as we saw being done the day before hartal when as many as 12 vehicles were destroyed.

There were some sporadic clashes in several parts of the country on the hartal day, some of which had resulted from anticipatory and preemptive actions by the law enforcing agencies.

While restating our abhorrence for hartal we cannot help but say that the law enforcing agencies went a bit overboard in following the directives of the administration to not to allow any ground to the BNP and it alliance partners to enforce the strike.

We believe that it is the duty of the state to provide security to the people as much as we believe that it is the duty of the state to allow people to exercise their democratic rights of association, right to demonstrate and ventilate their grievances, within the bounds of law and without violence or endangering public peace. To that extent the law enforcing agencies should take necessary precautionary measures and remain in a state of readiness to prevent untoward incidents and violence.

But what we witnessed in the capital in particular was quite contrary to the principle of democracy and political freedom. We cannot understand why a political party should be prevented from holding meetings or bringing out processions as long as they follow the law of the land.

It is regrettable that intolerance of political opponents, of not allowing them political space, has become a part of our political culture. And this only adds to the pre-existing state of animus between the AL and BNP. The people should be spared this situation.