Photos courtesy of New Age, Shamokal, Manabzamin, and Prothom Alo.

Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945 and the World War II finished. And Corea took back its sovereignty.

According to the agreement of Yalta Conference, US and USSR divided Corea by the 38th parallel. Russia ruled over the north part of Corea and US south part of Corea.

General John Hodge came to Korea through Inchon as a governor of US Military government. And he made his first mistake in Korea - he let the Japanese troops in Korea keep the public security and peace. The Korea groaned under Japan for thirty six years! And as the result, the Japanese troop shot and killed two Koreans welcoming General Hodge.

And soon after that, the very worst thing in Corean history happened. The US military government in Korea hired all the projaps again. Remember how France did to those who helped Nazi Germany.

The Korean helper for Japanese police became the police - they persecuted his own people quite much under Japanese colony government for his selfish desire.

The Korean helper in Japanse court became the judge - they helped the Japanese judges to sentence death to those who fought for their own country.

The prosecutors were the same, the soldiers were the same. The projaps seized the new government in every department.

The US gave the power to the betrayers of the country and people again, and this became the root of all problems and evils in South Korea from then even until now. It is not yet healed.

The projap police still persecutes their own people for their dirty desire. The judges still make false judgement for their own filthy desire.

Now, the descendants of the projaps, the betrayers of country are still very rich and live well while the descendants of those who fought for the country's Independence against Japan are very poor and live like dogs.

The Korean people have learned that there is no justice in the world, and it is absolutely useless to devote for others - the very best thing is to be a rich and to have power at what costs, lying and cheating to others are not even a problem.

The Korean society is very much corrupted. There is no philosophy but only money and power.

Many times Korea tried to punish the projaps and lift the justice but only in vain. Each try failed. Why? The government has been full of projaps, and do you think they would allow to punish themselves? They are now falsifying the modern history to hide their dirty origin and disgusting things what they have done.

This is almost all because of US. The US military government hired the projaps and did not allow us to punish them. At least in Korea, US is the root of all evil. They are more than the axis.

Although the contents of that meeting are not widely known, they are going to prove crucial as to how the government's last six months pass. Sheikh Hasina, long this military government's most outspoken and strident critic, has maintained a studious silence over the military government. This silence, added with the fact that the top Bangladeshi diplomats in England and the United States went to receive her when she landed in these countries, have added to these speculations.

As Jyoti Rahman has pointed out, that Bangladesh's politics is currently a three-player game, makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to resolve without putting one side out of business. It looks like the current government has picked the AL combine to blunt as much of the BNP-led alliance's protests, before RAB and DGFI take care of the rest.

Personally speaking, I don't think combining with JP will help AL that much. Any combine looks to attract Jatiyo Party for mainly two regions of the country: Greater Rangpur, including Rangpur, Kurigram, and Thakurgaon, and some seats in Sylhet. With JP's vote share shrinking in greater Rangpur every election, there is one party that has been edging them out, and that is AL. This year, I doubt JP would win ten seats in total if they contested elections by themselves.

The military government's original plan was to led the 14-party led alliance led by AL contest by themselves, while JP would lead a Nationalist-lite combine, trying to divert away as many votes and seats away from BNP as possible. However, this would mean that AL would be the governing party, and the JP-led combine, at best, the main opposition party in the parliament. And Ershad does not have time for this. He is already 78; the man who came to state power in Bangladesh twenty-six years ago through a military coup, badly wants another taste of state power for the last years of his life, and he believes that another military coup has given him the perfect opportunity to achieve his goal.

Awami League would probably be better off not aligning with JP. For one thing, this alignment would immediately mean that the heavy artillery they would aim at the BNP in the coming elections about being aligned with Jamaat would automatically be that much less effective. Also, for the January 22nd elections, AL roped in JP, and Bikolpo Dhara, and LDP, and they were still not confident enough that the gains in votes would be enough to offset the seats they had to give up. That these parties will be helpful to the AL in the coming elections is even less helpful.

Sheikh Hasina is trying to survey, from London and Virginia, the extent of damage that AL has suffered in the last two years, and how much loyalty she still retains amongst the AL top leadership. Her old loyalists, like Obaidul Quader and Dr. Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, were among the first people imprisoned by the military government, so as to weaken her grip on the party as much as possible. It remains to be seen what decision she take regarding Ershad, and how much freedom she will have to take such a decision.

But let us now turn to men, men with enough spine to stand up to our military government and let them know that our principles, and our nation, are not for sale. First, our High Court bench of Justice ABM Khairul Huq and Justice Abu Tarique delivered a stinging rebuke to our military government and all of their proponents who advocate the "maximalist" view of their function, pointing out that:

The president and the caretaker government do not represent the people… The shorter the tenure of such an undemocratic government, the better it is for all.

All powers in the republic belong to the people. In Bangladesh, elected parliament runs the state. The prime minister and the cabinet are accountable to the parliament for their functions. It means the elected government is accountable to the people.

This judgment came as result of a case challenging the legality of the ordinance titled Muslim Marriage and Divorce Ordinance 2008. It ruled that the current government should limit their activities to those concerning the coming elections. It is a welcome affirmation for those of us who hold the constitution of Bangladesh should not be subverted for personal ambition.

A different High Court album, comprising of Justice M Iman Ali and S.M. Emdadul Hoque, have asked the government why even though the voter lists have not been completed, local government elections have already been announced. It has also asked the government to defend on the constitutionality of a provision that would allow the government to disqualify candidates even after they had been elected.

Together, these High Court actions throw light on the maneuvering of the current government to engineer the upcoming election. Worse it yet to come, as the extent of the military government's plight and lack of popular support become more and more apparent.

Going into battle, Alexander was heavily outnumbered. He feared that if the battle developed into a full-day slog, Darius' superior numbers may have grinded his smaller army into defeat. Thus, he came up with his strategy: stage a diversion and go after the king himself. If Darius could be killed or captured, the Persian army would disintegrate automatically, and Alexander would have won.

Since that time, this general strategy has been used, over and over, generally with the same great success, most commonly in colonial wars. We saw it in Palashi, where the death of Mir Madan heralded the victory of British East India Company. And we see it in Bangladesh today.

Our armed forces and the police together maybe make up four hundred thousand people. But just using these four hundred thousand, the rest of us one hundred and fifty million are kept in docile servitude, and beaten, humiliated and imprisoned if they dare to speak up. Once the two leaders are gone, the military government expects, like Alexander, to have a famous and implausible victory. 

Robert Clive later confessed if the farmers standing by the battlefield had rushed in and joined the Nawab's Army, the outcome would have been very different. However, they did not do so, probably figuring that this battle would just be another one between two opposing forces that would have little effect on the lives of the common people. Alas, Palashi introduced the taxation system that would turn Bengal from one of the richest provinces in the world to one of its most impoverished.

For those who are aware, the parallels between then and now are painfully clear. As for the rest, we can only plead again and again, please do not allow a small group of unelected men to squander away our entire country. We have come too far to deserve such a horrific betrayal.

The organizers of FOBANA pay for some dignitaries from Bangladesh to fly here and grace us with their presence. For example, this year's FOBANA was inaugarated by S. M. Faiz, the Vice-chancellor of Dhaka University. Amongst others who were present was Nurul Kabir, Editor of the New Age. In his speech, he gave an appraisal of our country's current condition and the steps necessary to find our way back to elections and democracy. He was harsh on all the actors involved, but he was scathing in his criticism of the top figures of the current civilian and military administration for their shortsightedness and inaptitude.

Later on, he was asked by a group of reporters from the Bangla newspapers in North America about whether he was scared about being arrested and tortured by the military government. He revealed that he had been mentally prepared for such for almost two years now. He also said that he had been visited by military officers at his house before leaving for FOBANA, to warn him to not criticize the government abroad. Their sermon delivered, while leaving, one of the officers commented on the broad verandah at the front of his house and the excellent view it commanded of the neighbourhood. Mr. Kabir replied, "I will be standing here and watching you guys run for it in your lungis when the time comes."

The optimist in me hopes that once elections start happening, the military government's umpteenth plan to subjugate BNP and get a permanent fix on power in Bangladesh will meet the fate of all the attempts so far, and force them to allow the hundred or so politicians they are trying to disbar from contesting in the elections, to contest in them. The pessimist in me fears that seeing the caretaker government attempt to jig an election, the one thing caretaker governments are not supposed to do, the very thing caretaker governments were envisioned to prevent, will not bode well for our League of Extra-Educated Gentlemen.

It has been disappointing to see the coverage of the candidates in Prothom Alo and Daily Star. It has been the same tripe about their criminal records and imprisonments and whatnot. For one thing, after this military government's merry little conviction spree, all such accusations lose a little bit of their value. It's also sad to see PA and DS indulging in the same behavior all over again: pretending that we are again about to elect men and women into leadership positions who will dismantle Bangladesh Bank brick by brick and and hide it under their bed, instead of highlighting the many undoubtedly fine men and women who will also be contesting these elections. If nothing else, our newspapers need to start endorsing candidates, so that we know what they find acceptable.

In a way, the last eighteen months have been an ideological battle between those who believe in absolutes, the absolutely efficient governments, the absolutely un-corrupt leaders, the absolutely perfect jail sentences, against those of us who believe in shades of grey, in relative degrees of progress, in the notion that our arc is a slow but steadily upward-moving one. These elections will be an important milestone for those convinced of the latter.

Yet, Zafar Sobhan's newest piece still deserves some of our attention. Mr. Sobhan makes three main points:

• The current anti-corruption drive's main objective is to eliminate some politicians from our national scene.
• The anti-corruption drive is failing.
• The politicians should instead be convicted using charges of political violence.

And then, most importantly:

• It is perfectly acceptable to manipulate our judicial system to achieve the above-mentioned aim.

To make sense of how just how low Mr. Sobhan has slipped on his support for military rule, let's just examine for a while his bright idea of prosecuting individuals for political violence. If we take take his allegations at face value, he is talking about people who removed their political rivals, by taking advantage of the prevailing situation in the country, using illegal means and state-backed violence. Mr. Sobhan believes in removing these very people from the political scene, by taking advantage of the prevailing situation in the country, using illegal means and state-backed violence.

The glaring lack of morals on display here is breathtaking. According to Mr. Sobhan, it is alright to blatantly disregard constitutional safeguards granted to all us Bangladeshis, destroy the rule of law, and undermine the functioning of our judicial system, just to turn fulfill the military government's vision of creating enough of a political vacuam so that they can solidify their grip on Bangladesh.

At least his candor is refreshing. There is no more pretense that the present anti-corruption drive is anything other than an attempt to lock up as many opposing politicians as possible. And now that is running out of steam, the lackies like Mr. Sobhan are ready as ever to come up with new schemes to keep this charade going as long as possible.  

As we start inching our way back to democracy, albeit slowly and in a round-about manner, it is tragic to see the increasingly-desparate attempts of people like Mr. Sobhan and his colleague, the hilariously frantic Shahnoor Wahid (oil our whiskers, trim our hairs, bring out our capes... are we talking about Bangladeshi politics or the latest Broadway hit) to prolong the military government's regime for that much longer. We all await with trepidation to see what comes next, but it'll be hard for it to be worse than this government.

Now, the issue has come up regarding this release as to whether this is how all this trouble and ferment is going to end. Mid-level officers of the army are not happy; they are the people who have done the legwork for the ACC investigation teams, provided manpower for RAB and joint interrogation cells, and conducted torture on political prisoners. According to them, they did not go through all this trouble, possibly imperiling the lives of themselves and their loved ones, just to see a nice little electoral coalition where everything goes back to normal. This is not what Moeen and the GOCs promised to them when they all met in Durbar Hall and Moeen justified the military coup in 2007. And they are not shy about airing their grievances. It is due to them that Lt. Gen. Masududdin Chowdhury still has not been posted out of the country as an ambassador, even though he has been deputed to the Foreign Ministry. To keep this dangerous development under control, General Moeen U. Ahmed has currently placed Masud under house arrest. Anticipating this, Masud desperately tried to get his teenage daughter out of the country before the house-arrest was put in place; it has not been determined whether he was successful. As yet unsubstantiated reports have also arrived detailing the confinement of twenty-seven officers of different ranks in various cantonments across the country for similar reasons. Plans to court-martial Masud, as well as some of his closest associates, have already put into motion. Plainly, Moeen is also planning to betray this key group of people who were instrumental in his power grab, all to ensure his own safety. What is the cost to our armed forces before this power struggle draws to a close will only be assessed in the future, once the dust has settled.

When this military government came to power after last year's military coup, its natural impulse was to go hard against the party it was revolting against: the BNP. In the middle, some long-winded rhetoric has gone into hailing this government as one that would clean up all politics in Bangladesh and start a new era in our country's governance, but that has been shown to be the nonsense it is. Now, they are back where they started: the only question is how they are going to deal with the BNP.

For all their bravado, they will find it hard to quash BNP's millions of dedicated workers and grassroots activists. In fact, it was the growing cry of unity between BNP and AL that really prompted them to release Hasina. She should be thankful to the workers and activists of both BNP and AL who chose to do the right thing, not the easy thing. She should also give a special thanks to Khandokar Delwar Hossain, the loudest proponent of united and coordinated action between the BNP or AL, and a man who has demanded her release louder and more consistently than many who thronged her drawing-room in Sudha Shadhan yesterday.

They would love to exile Khaleda Zia from Bangladesh as well, throw Khandokar Delwar Hossain inside the prison cells, and remould BNP into a party that would be subservient to the military government and their political toadies. In fact, this revamped BNP would get the most-preferred toady status. But for that to happen, Khaleda Zia has to leave, and for now, whatever slim hopes there are of her leaving will materialize only if they also free her sons: Tareq Rahman and Arafat Rahman. And they will have a very hard time freeing Tareq Rahman. As secret negotiations between Khaleda Zia and the military government stand right now, if only Arafat Rahman is allowed to go abroad, then Zia will stay in the country, but BNP will participate in the dialogues with the government.

It is worth noting that if by any chance Khaleda Zia can be sent out of the country, then the next month or so will be hell for BNP, because all of us know that sooner or later, Khaleda Zia will indeed return to Bangladesh. Moeen U. Ahmed also knows this, thus he will use the grace period immediately after Zia's departure to sideline Khandokar Delwar Hossain and get his minions in BNP top offices. The preparation for this has already started, with Prothom Alo only too delighted to resume their role as the military government's propaganda piece and start attacking whomever is the current number one enemy of the military government.

As long as Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina were behind bars, the military government had the luxury of intiating all the moves. The two leaders were reduced to passive defense; they could only react to the actions of the military government, althought they did a stalwart job doing so. With Sheikh Hasina released, the military government has already lost much of this advantage, especially given Hasina's mercurial temperment. Give her maybe a couple of days to regain her spirits, but then be prepared to hear some startling revealations about Bangladesh's current tyrants.

Also, the last time the military government arrested our two leaders, they went quietly, without a murmur. Don't expect the same thing to happen again. The military government has had their move, and they've failed in a mind-blowing scale. The next time they try to arrest either Khaleda or Hasina after releasing them, they'd better bring their tanks with them.

Lastly, this would be a good time to remind all of us that our generals still want the same thing they have always wanted, to get off scot-free for the two years of torture and oppression, and to leave behind a powerful President who will safeguward their interests. And releases or no releases, the only language they understand is that of force. This nightmare is not over.

The military government undertook their latest efforts to recover money hidden by Tareq Rahman. Acting on reports that he had secreted the billions of dollars he earned in the stretcher, he was laid upon it, but no money was found. Upon further reports that he had hidden the Kohinoor diamond in his wheelchair, he was strapped to that as well, but nothing was recovered. Disappointed , the authorities have sent him back to the cell. However, a spokesperson for the government claimed "We will hunt down every taka he has secreted everywhere, and bring it back." Reportedly, they are now busy utilizing Moeen U. Ahmed's Kennedy School of Government connections to enlist the help of Professor Robert Langdon.

Bangla description of proceedings here. The English version here.

- Syed Ashraful Islam, Awami League Acting General Secretary, responding on calls of unity with BNP, June 3 2008.

You know, we have a lesser portion of shame and propriety. For the sake of our country's democracy, a united movement amongst all the political parties of our country is now necessary. For God's sake, say yes, not no, to unity.

- Khandokar Delwar Hossain, BNP Secretary General, on why he was repeatedly asking for alliance between BNP, Awami League, and all other political parties at this point, June 5 2008.

It's true. Those of us likeminded on the subject of unconstitutionality, brutality, and incompetence of this military government must really be running low on shame, bordering on the shameless.

After all, this is a government of our best and the brightest, right? A government of brothers and brother-in-laws that will rid this country of nepotism. A government of honest do-gooders who will rid our country of corruption. A government of defenders of freedom who will make Bangladesh a shining beacon in all that concerns human rights. A government that advocates untramelled rights for its citizens and will ensure all future governments do so as well. A government that follows the rule of law, and comes down severely on those who do not.

How shameless must one be not to support this government. So much easier to support this government, Bangladesh's first-ever bhadralok government. So much easier to bask in the collective glow of Princeton graduates and Nobel-laureates. So much more easier to believe that those square-jawed men in olive fatigues will protect us and keep us safe.

Instead, the Secretary-General of BNP, the party that brought back both the multi-party political system and parliamentary democracy to Bangladesh, tells us, nay, begs us, to unite against this government. The Awami League, of course, will not condescend to stoop so low. Even many within the BNP object to these repeated offers of unity and prefer to go it alone.

Maybe the lack of shame comes with a slice of foresight, because the speech by Khaleda Zia and now this offer mark another turning-point in this military government's downfall. The members of the military government knows that sooner or later, they will again have to face the people of Bangladesh whom they continue to oppress, and the current arrest spree is merely another ploy of trying to forestall that explosion of anger, to put off the day of reckoning for a moment more.

I submit, with the utmost respect, the notion that the people of Bangladesh are forward-looking. Once the Liberation Movement of 1971 started, we did not sit around to analyze what went wrong with the two-nation theory and whether we could have done something better to have avoided this war. Instead, we waged war, and won our independence. In 1990, we did not sit around to debate the failings of Justice Sattar; instead, we toppled H. M. Ershad's dictatorship. Similarly, the people of Bangladesh now want to be free of this military government. Those who miss this opportunity to do their utmost to overthrow the government, instead choosing to debate how the military government appeared in the first place, are swimming against the tide of history. There will be a place and time for that discussion, but it is not while our brothers and sisters are rotting in jail.   

The offer has been made. History will judge its success. But, for today, I rejoice in my shamelessness.

Earl Woods was the architect and driving force behind the world number one's incredible career.

He died on Wednesday morning after a long battle with prostate cancer, with which he was diagnosed in 1998.

"My dad was my best friend and greatest role model, and I will miss him deeply. I wouldn't be where I am today without him," Tiger Woods said.

"I'm overwhelmed when I think of all of the great things he accomplished in his life.

"He was an amazing dad, coach, mentor, soldier, husband and friend. I'm honoured to continue his legacy of sharing and caring."

Woods has recently taken time out from his career to be with his father, who looked to have beaten the disease in 2004 after six years of treatment, only for it to return.

Last month, Earl Woods was for the first time too frail to travel to the Masters, his favourite major.

Tiger, who was the reigning champion, finished tied for third.

Tiger, who was introduced to golf as a young child by Earl, has often attributed his mental toughness in tournaments to his former Green Beret father.

Earl nicknamed his son "Tiger" after a Vietnamese soldier who became a good friend when he served with the US military in Vietnam.

Earl, a former catcher with Kansas State who became the first black to play baseball in the Big Eight Conference, is also survived by three children from his first marriage.

Jack Nicklaus, who was also 30 when his father died, said he had long "admired and related to the close bond" shared by Tiger and Earl.

"My father was my best friend, my mentor and perhaps my greatest support system. Earl was all of that to Tiger," said Nicklaus, whose record of 18 major victories Tiger - who currently has 10 - is aiming to break.

First, perhaps aptly, a quotation from The Once and Future King: 

The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn.

What have we learned from the past sixteen months? That the entire vocabulary in which politics and governance of Bangladesh is conducted needs to be changed. Slowly, we have expected the vital institutions of our country to be "depoliticized," even though they are run by politicians, we have sent blamed politicians for this current impasse, sent them to jail, and now blame them for not finding a way out of this mess.

It is worth repeating that politics is the art of finding answers to questions to which there are no good answers. When we have limited resources, which we can only use to build a primary school, a twenty-bed hospital, or a road to the nearest market, we turn to politics. And in our country of one hundred and fifty million people, politics must be all-embracing, inclusive and populist. Trying to administer this country sitting in the air-conditioned drawing rooms of Gulshan and Banani, or even from the heady, well-furnished editorial offices in Karwan Bazar, will fail disastrously, as we have now seen from the past sixteen months.

We need to understand the January 11th, 2007 coup within the broader framework of our historial context. We have previously also lived through times when our entire political class was jailed or on the run, allegations of corruption were rampamt, and a well-orchestrated chorus of toadies calling for political reform and new leadership. We managed to survive each of thse episodes, with a return to democratic politics. We shall survive this one too. But we need to learn how to diffuse these crises without letting them mutate into full-blown coups, into events that set back our nation by decades or generations. 

And any time there will be military intervention against our nation, the first sign will inevitably be an onslaught of slander against our politicians. Remember Tareq Rahman? Remember the stories and charges that were bandied about against him during the last days of the Four-party alliance government, and the initial days of this military government? Remember how he was supposed to have pretty much made enough money to cause serious anguish to Bill Gates?

There are voices in the wind, whispering to us names from the past, harbingers of what is to come. Does the name Sheikh Moni ring a bell? To those of us who lived thought the initial days of our republic, the intense propaganda campaign carried out against Sheikh Moni, Sheikh Kamal, Sheikh Jamal and others of their family were the opening shots in the first attempt to permanently erase politics from this country. Although they failed, the battle has been waged ever since.

There is a vision of Bangladesh, where it does not manufacture, it does not produce, and it does not industrialize. Instead, it exports manpower to the Gulf Kingdoms of the Middle East, to United States, and to United Kingdom and Europe. In these countries, our potential engineers, doctors, industrialists, businessmen, and enterpreneurs hold down menial jobs and send them back to their relatives back in Bangladesh. The vast foreign reserves thus generated are then used to import every possible good, thus turning our country only into a vast potential market to be flooded and controlled. We only exist as a vast pool of unskilled laborers, adding no value to any production chains, only serving as a transit point between South and East Asia, letting out excellent deep-seaport transport oil and gas all over the world.

This is not a new vision for Bangladesh. Either Sheikh Hasina or Khaleda Zia could have signed onto these plans, and been guaranteed the leadership of our country for life, much in the fashion of the ex-communist strongmen who rule the former USSR-stans now. Instead of all this talk about the need for better leadership, they would have been wined and dined in capitals across the world, and become the toast of the international community. If they wanted to, forget little scams like Niko, they could have become legitimate billionaires, several times over.

But they did not sign, did not choose thus, and did not compromise. Nor would a vast majority of ordinary Bangladeshis, presented with this same choice.  And here we are now. 

Tajuddin Ahmed, in difficult circumstances, had to make difficult compromises to steer us to victory during the War of Independence in 1971. It took the blood of two of our Presidents, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Ziaur Rahman, to cancel those commitments, to ensure that we are still standing today as an independent and sovereign nation, master of our own destiny. We won't know fully, until the military government has stepped down and handed over power to a democratic government, as to the full extent of the damage that this government will have done to our long-term interest; we won't know what else they have signed away in the last year, but I fear how many of our future Prime Ministers may have to give their lives to efface the folly of this military government.

All this talk about a national charter, an exit strategy for the stooges who are running the current government is also unnecessary. Khandokar Mushtaque lived out a decade of his blighted life in Aga Mosih lane after 1975, Hussain Mohammed Ershad can still be seen around Dhaka. Nobody wastes time or energy on those who have already sold out their integrity and patriotism completely. Hossain Zillur Rahman will go back to being an economist wondering about the aesthetics of development, and Fakhruddin Ahmed will retire to his town-home in Virginia; they will live out the rest of their lives in obscurity and only the occasional ignomy. Our history will continue to be about the struggle for sovereignty and building a strong, prosperous Bangladesh, where not only the one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants of selected Dhaka area codes, but all one hundred and fifty million Bangladeshis matter.

I haven't seen a sight more incongruous since, well, since Hossain Ershad went around the mosques of our country braying his piety to all.

Any ideas about what the PGR soldier is asking the SSF agent?

 With the announcement of the Supreme Court Bar Association that they will boycott the Appellate Division for part of the 15th of May, another very important step has been taken in exposing the unfortunate condition in our country today. The Appellate Division recently took two divisions, one declaring that individuals arrested by the government under the Emergency Powers Regulations (EPR) have no right to bail, and another one saying that the government could prosecute anyone, for any crime, even if it was committed before the promulgation of the EPR. Taken together, these decisions have virtually allow the government to keep any individual locked up indefinitely, even for alleged offenses committed twn or twenty years ago, and even if there is just the suspicion of wrong-doing. Practically, this gives legal cover for the government's strategy of detaining political leaders and activists without any specific charges being brought against them.

Spare a thought for Moeen U. Ahmed. By now, the entire army top brass has understood that the best they can hope to get out of this misadventure is to survive it. However, the young officers who did the groundwork for this junta: the majors who have been leading the joint forces teams and the colonels who have been torturing people in DGFI torture cells, are adamant about not giving any quarters to the political parties. The junior officers say that they were told that if they did what they were told to do, the country would be rid of Khaleda and Hasina fore good. So, why should they leave their mission unfinished and allow these two leaders to reappear on the stage? If necessary, some of these men are still ready to do to these two leaders and Tareq Rahman what was done to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and to Ziaur Rahman during the first decade of our independence. These officers may just as easily turn on their seniors at any time. All in all, the chain of command in the Bangladeshi Army is more frayed now than any time I have seen previously.

I am glad Saifur Rahman was allowed to leave Bangladesh. Out of his three sons, Shafiur Rahman was already abroad, and he managed to get Kaisar Rahman out as well. His daughter and son-in-law have also managed to leave the country.

The GATCO case saw the most serious rift between Moeen and ACC Chief Hasan Mashud Chowdhury yet. Moeen was not convinced that Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan and Saifur Rahman had to be implicated in the case, despite being told repeatedly that this already threadbare case would lose all credibility if these two former senior ministers were left out of the chargesheet. There was also some disquiet about former Sargodhian Kamal Uddin Siddiqi also being indicted with the rest. Things should also get interesting once Motiur Rahman Nizami gets arrested, which I am greatly looking forward to. Jamaat is finally about to attend the party.

All in all, the government is rapidly running out of new moves to make. As previously predicted, the coming summer months will be difficult.

Updated 1: I hope everyone notices how our fearless military government, normally so cavalier about locking up men and women, is dithering about the arrest of Matiur Rahman Nizami, Amir of Jamaat-e-Islami. Let there be no confusion about the quarters this military government fears to cross.

• Do Awami League's new generation of leaders think of her as an asset or a liability?
• How comfortable will the military government be with dealing with Amir Hossain Amu or Tofael Ahmed?
• How accepting would Awami League grassroots leaders and workers be of an election campaign without Sheikh Hasina?

Before we start delving on the answers to these questions, let's talk a little background. While I think Awami League had a very good chance of winning the January 2007 election, it was by no means guaranteed. The move to rope in Ershad had cost AL much more than it should have, and the allocation of seats with Dr. B Chowdhury's BDB and Ershad's JP left too few seats to give to the electoral allies within the 14-party alliance itself. Moreover, after the 2001 debacle, Sheikh Hasina distanced herself from the entire first-rung Awami League leadership: primarily Tofael Ahmed, Suranjit Sengupta, Abdur Razzaq, and Motia Chowdhury. Mohammed Nasim she still depended on as her point man for street agitations, while the indignity she visited on Mohammed Hanif is well-documented. To replace them, she promoted an alternate, younger leadership: Obaidul Quader, Kazi Zaforullah, Sheikh Selim and Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir. Abdul Jalil, Abdul Hamid, Shah Kibria and Zillur Rahman were kept on as established senior leaders with their own political bases who would not challenge Hasina's leadership. This division festered throughout the entire 2001-2006 period, and peaked  when the nominating process got under way. The party headed to the January 2007 election very much a house divided against itself.

After the military government took over, in their efforts to "minus" Sheikh Hasina from politics, they brutally cracked down on the leadership promoted by Sheikh Hasina, while aiding the senior anti-Hasina faction of the party to take over party. They have not fully succeeded yet, but the fact that AL went to the pre-dialogue based on a sms rather than a formal invitation letter as they had originally demanded, the continuous curtailment of programs demanding Sheikh Hasina's freedom, and the recent announcement that a military presence in the talks between the government and the political parties would be acceptable, are all signs of the sway that this faction has gained over the decision-making process.

With that in mind, let's turn to the questions posted above. A new generation of leaders have also emerged in Awami League, former student leaders from Chatra League and Jubo League and successful entrepreneurs who have established themselves in Bangladeshi society and chose the Awami brand of politics to make their mark. This group of leaders came to politics to leave a mark on the nation, if it can be demonstrated to them that they can do so clearly and honorably without Sheikh Hasina, they may decide to reinvent the party without her.

Opposed to this is the soft corner that every Bangladeshi holds for Sheikh Mujib and his progeny, the ideological fervor of those who see Hasina as the best hope for the Bangladesh that was envisioned in 1972, and the real disgust at seeing the mistreatment being meted out to this former Prime Minister by the military government.

Could Amir Hossain Amu balance the military's exit strategy while keeping the party united behind him? Absolutely not. This man has only won one general election in his life, and even that the by-election after the sitting MP from Jhalkathi, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, had an untimely death (he promptly lost the next election to Mr. Bhutto's widow, Elaine Bhutto). Could Tofael Ahmed do it? Certainly. He has the political savvy, he has the street credentials, and he has the history to provide the leadership, but even for the architect of the 1994-96 street agitations, this will be a hard act. However, if he can't do it, then nobody else in Awami League can.

It will be a supreme piece of irony if Tofael Ahmed finishes in 2008 what he started in 1975, while head of Sheikh Shaheb's Praetorian Guard.

What would be the reaction of the AL grassroots if the party went to the elections without Sheikh Hasina? Could it be sold to them as a ploy that would free Hasina and install AL in the government in the same time? No, it can not. AL is still blessed to have the most exclusively political apparatus of any political party in Bangladesh. An entire generation of men and women have given their lives to this party, and they will not be so easily swayed by the promise of government power.

All of which explains Sheikh Hasina's recent confidence that she will contest in the next parliamentary elections at the head of Awami League.

So much for minus two. 

There are two major situations that can change this imagined scenario. If BNP pledges to disavow Khaleda Zia completely, and elect a leader who will do the government's bidding, things will be arranged to sweep BNP back to power. And if the parties do decide to mount street agitations, the military government will postpone elections and try to outstay the street protests. It figures it has already beaten out 90% of the resistance out of the country's political workers, and thus it might as well finish the job.

Now opposition to the government will start coalescing around two schools of thought. It will be difficult, nay near impossible, to reconcile them, but I hope they will work together, because in that lies the best hope to limit the damage done by this government.

The adherents of the first school of thought initially welcome this military government. Although they have since been disillusioned by the government's many blatant breaches of human rights violation, it given the chance to go back in time, they would still have allowed a military takeover. They believe that only if the military government had pursued a different set of priorities, followed different advise, made different choices, we would actually be headed towards a much healtheir and cleaner form of democracy now.

The adherents of the second group, and I number myself amongst them, who believe that given the beginning of this government, there is no other path these men could have followed. They came to power based on, not the best interests of our democracy or as the least-bad option, no matter hoever much the International Crisis Group may want us to believe that, but to seize power based on the political dynamics of a particular moment, predicted years ago, and prepared for years ago.

To add to the irony, it is members of the first group who have traditionally most vocally spoken out for human rights in Bangladesh, whether paying lip service, or out of genuine convictions.

Now it is time for a debate, and a resolution. On what ideas, commitments, and principled stands do we oppose this military government? Because I do believe that this military government will not last, nor will their grand plans of power-mongering, but the ideals based on which we oppose this government will affect the future course of Bangladesh for years to come. 

The government needs to have both the BNP and the Awami League in the coming election. The government will have a easier time to persuade AL. Almost the entire senior-level of the party have no objections to participate in such elections, which they envision they will win handsomely, especially if the government keeps hounding the BNP as it is doing currently. They will then form the government, and this time, unlike 1996-2001, they will not be in Sheikh Hasina's shadow. Many of them have probably even started allocating the cabinet portfolios amongst themselves.

The government will only let BNP contest the elections if it agrees to do so with Khaleda Zia still locked in jail, and if it vows to indemnify this government's actions after the elections. As a surety, it will insert its henchmen like Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, Hafizuddin Ahmed, Osman Faruq, and Z. A. Khan in key BNP positions, and through them seek to control BNP just as they are currently using Tofael Ahmed, Abdur Razzaq, and Amir Hossin Amu to control AL. If there is the slightest sign that the BNP will not do as it wishes, it will give let Hafiz-Saifur Party (HSP) contest the elections, calling it the BNP and allocating it the paddy symbol. In fact, there is a sizable chunk of the current government who would like to do so anyways, and shut out BNP from the next elections altogether.

It is imperative to understand the extent to which the decks are stacked against BNP. The current military government fears BNP above all others. This fear is grounded in reality, over the last fifteen months, BNP leaders and activists have been tortured in police stations and army interrogation cells, they have been arrested and kept in prison without any cases being filed against them, their houses and property have been seized without any court convictions, and their family have had to endure terrible hardships and sufferings. There is enough evidence of thoese wrong-doings that even if the members of the current regime are treated in a normal court of law, their guilt will be undeniable. If they are treated using the same draconian laws they wield with such glee, their sentences will be much more severe.

This is one reason that BNP is the enemy number one of this regime. But a deeper ideological divide stands beneath that. BNP is a party that is refreshingly unencumbered of ideological baggage. It simply stands for the general people of Bangladesh, without being slave to any high-faluting principles. It has governed the country for ten out of the fifteen years of democracy we have had since 1991, and its efforts have simply been towards economic growth and rural development.

This is unbearable to the ideologues who support this current government. To them, the notion that an average Bangladeshi from the villages of Bangladesh, or a small businessman without much formal education in Dhaka may have as much right to chart our country's course as themselves is unthinkable. Many of these ideologues are scions of our most famous families, they have studied with great distinction in the world's best universities, and achieved high acclaim in their professional lives, in home and abroad. They can not accept the fact that when it comes to setting their agenda for their own country, their opinion, so cherished by foreign embassies and international aid agencies, may be discarded by our country's majority population, with whom these ideologues are hopelessly out-of-sync. They have simmered in this bitter broth of resentment for the past fifteen years, and they see this military government as their best bet of making permanent their own dominance on the body politic.

And now, we come to the crux of the matter. What is BNP to do now? If it launches agitations right now, it will be ruthlessly crushed by the military government, and thus when the time for agitations do come around in a few months, it will not be able to contribute in any meaningful way then. It can not compromise with the military government, because to do so will involve deserting the very basic tenets of the party, and will lead to the death of BNP more completely than any repressive government can achieve.

Under Khandokar Delwar Hossain, it has done the one thing it can do, it has killed time. We are now almost in the beginning of May. In the original scheme of things which the military government worked out, BNP and AL would have been complete under its sway. The summer months of May to August are going be grim this year, what with rising food prices and electricity shortages, so the government will have to resort to kangaroo trials of Khaleda Zia, Sheikh Hasina, and their relatives to divert attention from its true intentions. Then, after the summer was over, local elections would have taken place. About a month would have been given to the current government's comissars in the local level to consolidate their positions, and then parliamentary elections at the end of this year.

Instead in reality, the government has not even managed to consolidate BNP and AL under its control. AL grassroot organizations are becoming more restive, and the senior leadership will have to answer to them as to why, now faced with the most oppressive and anti-democratic of governments, they are suddenly paragons of virtue and restraint. The antics of the Election Commission have made it very clear to our countrymen the depth this goverment will go to in order to get their own way; it has effectively discredited the lie that the only aim of our military governemnt is to hold a fair and democratic election and return our nation to normalcy.

BNP must also continue this dance of pre-dialogues and semi-dialogues and lawsuits as long as possible. It must be clear to all of us that the party gave the government every chance to fulfill its constitutional mandate of a free and fair elections. BNP does this out of its obligations to the common people of Bangladesh, to spare them the agony of more political unrest and turbulence. If the government chooses to spurn this offered opportunity, let it be on the government's head.

With the beginning of May, the dangerous summer months are almost on us. Much of the government's energy will have to be used to counter the ongoing food and energy crises and labor unrests that are occurring in various parts of our country. Added to that the simmering discontent brewing just underneath our everyday lives, and this will not be an easy summer. After the government has survived the summer, it will be left with very little time to line everything up.

As long as BNP refuses to buckle beneath the government's oppression, AL workers will feel honour-bound to do the same. Not out of fraternal love, but simply because doing otherwise will fatally undermine the legacy of fifty years of pro-people struggle that is AL. And to break this deadlock, the government will have to resort to more and more desparate measures, making its oppressiveness ever more apparent every day, and opening itself to making dangerous mistakes.

We are in a waiting game now. Bear with us, and don't lose faith. The coming months will be very hot.

Cholesh Ritchil's dead face starting out at us from under the tarpaulin covers, pedestrians tied to street signals as a punishment for being out during curfew, a fait held at a five-star hotel promoting potatos as substitute for rice, the list is never-ending. Every time someone tried to persuade me that this government, for all its erros, had good intentions, one of these images would flash in front of my mind. Our nation is, after all, composed of nameless, faceless millions. How could a government that inflicted such horrors in the micro-dimension even have pretensions of being a force for good in the macro-dimension?

And now, one more image to add to the collection of horrors we are living through. Though Saifur Rahman has won himself few friends in the last fifteen months, even those who do not number amongst his well-wishers will not savor the picture below. Rahman has served the nation to the best of his capacity as finance minister for more than a decade; he will always inextricably be linked with Bangladesh's economic liberalization and the early years of market capitalism. 

Thus, the more shocking this image of Rahman being dragged from his sickbed, at the orders of the current military government, to lend the last shreds of his capability to BNP's renegade breakaway faction. It is a tragedy of Bangladesh today that the sins of the sons are visited upon the parents, and I hope that Naser Rahman and Shafiqur Rahman feel at least a moment of remorse at seeing their sire in this sorry state, and knowing it is his love for them that makes him captive to the military government's manipulations. 

For the rest of us, we can only hope that this is the last incident of its kind. But we see no reason to be optimistic. 

First, what shall we make of the unprecedented surge of former Clinton officials and beneficiaries who are now deserting Clinton and flocking to Obama? When Bill Richardson, a Cabinet Secretary and ambassador to the United Nations under Clinton, decided to back Barack Obama, James Carville aptly described the decision in terms of Judas and the thirty pieces of silver. She can take solace in the fact that political loyalty is a scarce commodity all over the world, and at least Richardson is not foresworn. Take the example of our dear own Moeen U. Ahmed. When he was promoted to the post of Chief of Army Staff during Begum Zia's administration, superseding eight senior generals, it was done solely on the insistence of Sayeed Iskandar. The day before he was promoted to his new post, Moeen put his hand on the Holy Koran, and swore, in front of Sayeed Iskandar and Barkatulla Bulu, to preserve the constitution and act neutrally during the general elections. He violated his own vow by mounting 2007's military coup. We know how our faith describes the punishment of breaking vows. Let us see where Moeen's fate takes him.

Or, for instance, what about the raw chauvinism and sexism with which some elements of the media have attacked Senator Clinton? Suddenly, all of her husband's faults are also her faults, and, in addition, she's "pimping out" her daughter. But those of us who have seen, for the past twenty years, countless media stories and whisper campaigns to paint Zia as a simplistic single-dimensional housewife who had no grasp for the finer intricacies of statecraft, all this is child's play. Despite being Bangladesh's longest-serving democratically-elected prime minister, there are a generation of men to whom Zia will be nothing more than an accident of history. An accident they are trying their very best to efface right now.

 Or what about the unabashed media adulation that was heaped on Senator Obama for most of the early part of this campaign? The entire nation watched as a collective madness overtook the American journalistic corp and the blogosphere, as they decided that a person who could make everything right by "feel-good" was preferable to a candidate who put her trust in real numbers and hard work. President Clinton aptly described the Obama campaign as a fairytale, and was viciously chastised for speaking the truth. The media was up to their neck in the collective guilt and shame that made the last eight years and the Iraq War possible, and they staked their hope on a candidate who could spread a bit of pixie dust on the mess and make it go away.

Well, the media in Bangladesh, with a few honorable exceptions, have been that way since the beginning of this decade. Fed up with the hustle-bustle of democracy, the village-centric mode of development, the bottom-up economic growth, our media moguls decided that this was not working. Bangladesh was not ready for democracy, they decided; the people of Bangladesh were children who needed to be led in hand by their elders, some in olive fatigues, and some with impressive-sounding letters before and after their names. Democracy was a promise for the distant future, now it was time to let our elders and betters decide, in their wisdom, what was good for all of us.

And we all know how that has worked out.  

Ever since it became clear that Khaleda Zia would not be co-opted or bought, no matter what the alternatives, and was ready to literally die in prison, Moeen has been toying with the idea of going from Chief of Staff to President. He would be hailed as the savior of our country, and the person who would oversee our country's transition to a "proper" form of democracy. Obedient politicians would be found to sit in the parliament and form a government, and the sham facade of the caretake government would be done away for good. 

What has derailed this plan has been the widespread discontent all over the country over the surging uprise in our country's food prices, the stagflation that is threatening the very fabric of our economy, and the military government's sorry inability to take any steps whatsoever to stem this trend. To a lesser extent, the other factor has been the astounding fact that Khaleda Zia found, in Khandokar Delwar Hossain, apparently the one politician who seems to have the moral fibre to withstand all the temptations and coercion that the military government has thrown his way, from his son being sentenced to jail, and his daughter being fired from her job.

So, the easier options is out. Anyways, the international community was aware of this possibility, and was starting to voice, overtly and covertly, their displeasure at naked military rule. Thus, what we should see from now is the original plan's execution, with minor twists and turns.

When the elections do happen the government will do their utmost to get their selected panel of politicians elected. These politicians will be distributed across BNP, Awami League, JP, Jamaat, Independents, and the other smaller parties, making them hard to resist. However, once elected, their mission will be the same, they willgive indemnity to all the actions of this military government, give the ACC even more draconian powers then they currently enjoy, give the president the power to disband parliaments and head the National Security Council, and then elect Moeen to the Presidency after he retires from his army post.

The work for accomplishing this goal is steadily progressing. A list of 1665 politicians, at the national and local level, have already been compiled. A panel of twelve army officers have meeting at the state guest house Padma for quite a while now. Every evening, they entertain people from this list, the ones they have selected to contest in the next parliamentary elections. Over biriyani, they tell their guest that they just want to leave the country to the people and return to their barracks. If honest and capable people like their guest stand up and do the right thing, the army will be able to return to the barracks, and the people like their guest can finally run the country, something they deserve to do much more than Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina. However, the panel asks, they are concerned about the inevitable pressure the new government will face. Will they be able to stand up to our two former prime ministers once the emergency has been withdrawn?

The trick to forming this coalition has been to promise the people involved a promotion over what they had previously. For perennial also-rans like most of our Leftist leaders such as Hasanul Huq Inu and Fazle Hossain Badshah, it's a chance to finally be in our parliament. For habitual losers like Omar Faruq Chowdhury and Sardar Amzad Hossain, it's the chance of a lifetime to add those two glorious letters- M.P. - after their names while their much more popular rivals are kept out of the action by the army.  For leaders like BNP's Nazrul Islam Khan and Goyeshwar Roy, it's the chance to finally have their parliamentary constituencies to themselves now that their more popular rivals in the BNP have been eliminated. For Awami League's aptly-named RATS team of Abdur Razzaq, Amir Hossain Amu, Tofael Ahmed, and Suranjit Sengupta, it's the chance to finally take their rightful (in their own mind) places in the center of our political firmament that formerly belonged to Khaleda and Hasina. For one-hit wonders like  Kader Siddiqi, it'll be the chance to finally hold a ministerial portfolio. Kamal Hossein and Badruddoza Chowdhury were, of course, charter members of this intiative, and suitable senior-level positions will be created to fill their avarice, as well that of Col. Oli Ahmed's, who will make a return to a ministerial job after thirteen long years in the wilderness. Instead of running in a united front, these people will be spread across all of our political parties. It is only after they are elected that they will act in unison to serve their olive masters.

Come election time, the military will do their utmost to shape polling in favor of their preferred candidates, and the compliant media, led by Daily Star and Prothom Alo, will launch a concerted media blitz to sway the public opinion as much as possible in favor of the militry government's candidates, and to distract the public attention from the upwards spiral of food prices and the gradual decline of economic and development activities. Big-name trials will be staggered so that there is always something to fill the space in the front pages, and shocking revealations will be made now and then about the activities of our past government.

Aginst this, we only have the determination of our grassroot political workers, who have magnificiently stood up for our democracy, and the political awareness of our people, who have yet never made a wrong choice when presented with one. One more test awaits.

The interview is one of the most viewed videos ever; it may be found here. Stewart makes the charge that CNN is not discharging their responsibilities to the nation in presenting the news correctly and impartially in the run up to the politically-supercharged 2004 election. As expected, the hosts of Crossfire do not react well to this, with one of them, Tucker Carlson, retorting that Jon Stewart is not doing so great himself. To this, Stewart had a great response (from the transcript):

You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.

The rest was a foregone conclusion. Within three months, the show was canceled, and Carlson was out of a job.

Earlier this week, I had my own Crossfire moment with Zafar Sobhan, Assistant Editor of Daily Star, while discussing a Drishtipat article. I noted if one goes to the Daily Star webpage and googles torture, the results, as least for the first three pages are almost all about 2004 and 2005. On the contrary, if one does the same thing at the New Age website, the very first item of the results is a strong denunciation of torture under the current government by Rahnuma Ahmed.

In response, Mr. Sobhan angrily retorted:

2. please feel free to switch to the new age if you find it a better paper. of course, neither new age nor you had much to say about torture under the last government. i guess it come down to who’s ox is being gored, eh?

3. http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/05/04/d70504020330.htm

perhaps not as tough as you would like, but, then again, neither have i ever read anything by you condemning torture under the last government.

So, here was the Assistant Editor of the most widely-read English newspaper in Bangladesh, accusing me of not doing my part in protesting torture, particularly under the last government. The irony here, of course, is too sad to really savor. One only hopes that Mr. Sobhan and others like him who continue to look the other way  as this military government continues to torture with impunity find a sliver of conscience somewhere in themselves and speak up against all that is wrong in Bangladesh today.