07-10-2021

THUrSDAY, OCTOBer 7, 2021
4
Why all eyes are on the Afghan-Tajikistan border
Acting Editor & Publisher : Jobaer Alam
e-mail: editor@thebangladeshtoday.com
Thursday, October 7, 2021
Saving government's
lands from grabbers
Bangladesh is a country where land is in
short supply. Every effort needs to be
made, therefore, to conserve land or to
ensure its best possible utilization. Specially,
government owned lands are required to be kept
free from squatters and grabbers.
Government's lands form a particularly
valuable asset. All sorts of demand for the quick
implementation of important projects can be met
from the availability of such lands. For example,
during summer some years ago when a severe
crisis of water gripped Dhaka city and some areas
were found to be very inadequately supplied, the
need arose to set up some underground water
pumping plants in these places for emergency
lifting and supplying of water.
But these plans suffered as suitable
government lands could not be found in these
areas. The ones that were there remained under
different kinds of illegal occupation by their
private occupiers and tangled by legal hurdles in
evicting them.
From distribution of lands to the landless
cultivators to even finding lands for the
establishment of power generating plants that
the country badly needs, the establishment of all
sorts of public utilities are getting hampered from
the usurpation of governmental lands. Buying
land from private owners some of whom many
not be willing also to be so dispossessed involve
greater costs in time and money for the
government as progress of high priority public
projects stagnate as a result. Thus, seen from any
perspective, the retention of government's
possession over its lands, ought to be seen as a
very important issue.
But this vital matter of concern appears to be
poorly addressed at the moment. It has
continued to be an easy practice for a long time
for locally powerful individuals to establish their
control over government's lands all over the
country. They usually occupy the lands and set
up their various enterprises in the grabbed lands.
There are vast areas in Dhaka city, for instance,
where individuals with money, influence and
connections both to the underworld and the
ruling political parties, had grabbed
government's lands .
Rice mills, saw mills, bustees (shanty
dwellings), small businesses, etc., have been
established in such lands and their unlawful
possessors are deriving every financial benefit
from either running them directly or from
getting rents. They have also succeeded in
tampering with land records to be able to lay
legal claims also over these lands.
Typically, government's reaction is to start a
case against such grabbers. But the process gets
bogged up in the extremely tedious legal
procedures . Besides, and more significantly,
government represents itself in these cases
through its lawyers who are very poorly paid in
contrast to the grabbers who pay lucrative fees to
their lawyers and sometimes even ensure the
inactivity of government's lawyers through
underhand bribing. Government's pleaders are
sometimes seen not even coming to courts
during hearing and the occupiers, thus, are able
to get one sided verdict in their favour.
From the continuation of this most
unacceptable neglect, government has already
lost its claim over thousands of acres of land
properties and would suffer more losses in the
future. Very urgent actions are necessary to check
and reverse this trend. Government must create
real incentives or motivation for its legal
practitioners to defend government's properties
through substantially and appropriately
increasing their fees and other benefits.
A truly efficient and accountable system must
be laid to ensure that they do their work with
sincerity and it becomes impossible for anyone to
so easily lay hands on public properties and
consolidate the usurpation.
Tajik President Emomali Rahmon
(left) is seen with his Russian
counterpart Vladimir Putin during a
meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow. Photo:
AFP / Sergey Guneev / Sputnik
Afghanistan and Tajikistan share a 1,400-
kilometer border. Recently, a war of words
erupted between Tajik President Emomali
Rahmon and the Taliban government in
Kabul. Rahmon censures the Taliban for the
destabilization of Central Asia by the export
of militant groups, while the Taliban
leadership has accused Tajikistan's
government of interference.
This summer, Rahmon mobilized 20,000
troops to the border, and held military
exercises and discussions with Russia and
other members of the Collective Security
Treaty Organization. Meanwhile, the
spokesman for the Afghan government,
Zabihullah Mujahid, tweeted pictures of
Afghan troops deployed to Takhar province
on the border of the two countries.
The escalation of harsh language
continues. Prospects of war between these
two countries should not be discounted, but
given the role Russia plays in Tajikistan, it is
unlikely. On September 3, former Afghan
vice-president Amrullah Saleh tweeted,
"The RESISTANCE is continuing and will
continue. I am here with my soil, for my soil
& defending its dignity." A few days later,
the Taliban took the Panjshir Valley, where
Saleh had taken refuge for the past two
weeks, and he slipped across the border into
Tajikistan. The resistance inside
Afghanistan died down.
Since 2001, Saleh had worked closely with
the US Central Intelligence Agency and then
had become the head of Afghanistan's
National Directorate of Security (2004-
2010). He had previously worked closely
with Ahmad Shah Massoud of the rightwing
Jamiat-e Islami and of the Northern
Alliance. Saleh fled by helicopter to
Tajikistan with Massoud's son Ahmad.
They were later joined in Tajikistan's capital
Dushanbe by Abdul Latif Pedram, leader of
the National Congress Party of Afghanistan.
These men followed the lead of the
Northern Alliance, which had taken refuge
in Tajikistan's Kulob region after the Taliban
victory in 1996. The personal ties between
Ahmad Shah Massoud and Tajikistan's
President Rahmon go back to the early
1990s. In March this year, Afghanistan's
ambassador to Tajikistan, Mohammad
Zahir Aghbar, remembered that in the early
1990s Massoud told a group of Tajik fighters
in Kabul, "I do not want the war in
Afghanistan to be transferred to Tajikistan
under the banner of Islam. It is enough that
our country has been fraudulently
destroyed. Go and make peace in your
country." That Massoud had backed the
anti-government United Tajik Opposition,
led by the Islamic Renaissance Party, is
conveniently forgotten.
After the Taliban took Kabul on August 15,
and just before Saleh and Massoud escaped
to Dushanbe, on September 2 Rahmon
conferred upon the late Ahmad Shah
Massoud the highest civilian award of
Tajikistan, the Order of Ismoili Somoni.
This, the protection afforded to the Salehled
resistance movement, and Tajikistan's
refusal to recognize the Taliban government
in Kabul sent a clear signal to the Taliban
from Rahmon's government.
Rahmon says the main reason is that he is
dismayed by the Taliban's anti-Tajik stance.
VIJAY PrASHAD
MArWAN BISHArA
But this is not entirely the case. One in four
Afghans is Tajik, while half of Kabul claims
Tajik ancestry. The economy minister, Qari
Din Mohammad Hanif, is not only Tajik,
but comes from Badakhshan province,
which borders Tajikistan. The real reason is
Rahmon's concerns about regional
destabilization. On September 11,
Saidmukarram Abdulqodirzoda, the head
of Tajikistan's Islamic Council of Ulema,
condemned the Taliban as being anti-
Islamic in its treatment of women and in its
promotion of terrorism.
Abdulqodirzoda, the lead imam in
Tajikistan, has led a decade-long process to
purge "extremists" from the ranks of
mosque leaders. Many foreign-trained
imams have been replaced
(Abdulqodirzoda had been trained in
Islamabad, Pakistan), and foreign funding
of mosques has been closely monitored.
Abdulqodirzoda frequently talks about
the bloody civil war that tore Tajikistan
apart between 1992 and 1997. Between
1990, when the USSR began to collapse,
and 1992, when the civil war began, a
thousand mosques - more than one a day -
opened across the country. Saudi Arabia's
money and influence rushed into the
country, as did the influence of the rightwing
Afghan leaders Massoud and
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Rahmon, as
chairman of the Supreme Assembly of
Tajikistan (1992-1994) and then as
president (from 1994), led the fight against
the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP), which
was eventually crushed by 1997. The ghost
of the civil war reappeared in 2010, when
Mullah Amriddin Tabarov, a commander in
the IRP, founded Jamaat Ansarullah. In
1997, Tabarov fled to join the Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), one of the
fiercest of the extremist groups in that era.
The IMU and Tabarov developed close ties
with al-Qaeda, fleeing Afghanistan and
Uzbekistan after the US invasion of 2001 for
Iraq, later Syria. Tabarov was caught by the
Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani in July
2015 and killed.
As the Taliban began to make gains in
Afghanistan late last year, a thousand
Ansarullah fighters arrived from their
sojourn with Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
When Darwaz fell to the Taliban in
November 2020, it was these Ansarullah
fighters who took the lead.
Tajikistan's Rahmon has made it clear
that he fears a spillover of Ansarullah into
his country, dragging it back into the war of
the 1990s. The fear of that war has allowed
Rahmon to remain in power, using every
means to squash any democratic opening in
Tajikistan. In mid-September, Dushanbe
hosted the 21st meeting of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization Council of the
Heads of State. Pakistani Prime Minister
Imran Khan had several talks with Rahmon
about the situation in Afghanistan. As the
war of words escalated, Khan called
Rahmon on October 3 to ask that the
tension be reduced. Russia and China have
also called for restraint. It is unlikely that
guns will be fired across the border; neither
Dushanbe nor Kabul would like to see that
outcome. But both sides are using the
tension for their own ends - for Rahmon, to
ensure that the Taliban will keep Ansarullah
in check, and for the Taliban, for Rahmon to
recognize their government.
Source: Asia times
Will Trump run again … and win?
The fear and rage that gripped the US
capital under the presidency of
Donald Trump have left the country
in peril, its democracy ill, and its
immunity weak.
Trump may have been excised from
office in November but Trumpism has not
been eradicated. After months of postelections
recovery, it is back with a
vengeance, slowly metastasising
throughout the country's body and soul.
Less than a year after winning "the
battle for the soul of America", President
Joe Biden is slipping in the polls while his
predecessor's numbers are, well, rising. In
fact, according to a recent poll, Trump is
already ahead of Biden, albeit by a small
margin of 48 to 46 points.
These numbers may flip again in favour
of the Democrats if they are able to pass
the New Deal-like infrastructure and
reconciliation bills in Congress before the
end of the year, which will inject trillions
of dollars into the US economy.
But even the effect of such legislation
may prove transitory, depending on a
number of economic and political factors,
and on the Republican opposition to the
socialist "nanny-state" policies on the
federal and state level.
Meanwhile, 14 Republican-controlled
states under Trumpian influence passed
24 new laws that assert their control over
the running of elections and make it easier
to overturn elections results.
Trump continues to reject the last
election results and is yet to officially
declare his candidacy, but everything he
says or does is campaigning. He is holding
rallies across the country and on October
9, he will hold one in the state of Iowa,
where all presidential bids start.
Back in July, journalist Michael Wolff,
who wrote three damning books about
Trump, concluded after a bizarre and
unexpected dinner invitation by the
former president, that his run in 2024 is a
certainty. But for now, the brand mogul
cherishes stoking the media speculations
and public anticipation, which helps heal
his bruised ego and keeps the donation
money flowing. His Political Action
Committees, PACs, have raked in more
than $82m during the first half of this
year. My guess is that he will start by
doubling down on his "rigged election"
false claim, and will ask his followers to
"Reverse the Steal" in order to "Make
American Honest Again".
He has got to go with the big lie all the
way to the polls - or not go at all. Anything
less outrageous, less audacious, less
offensive will not work. Besides, he clearly
cannot help it, anyway.
The man, whom US media has called
the "liar in chief" who "steals credit […]
invents history and spins conspiracy
theories", will do what it takes to win. So
smug, he will portend to teach America a
lesson in honesty and truth - his
alternative truth.
Trump's penchant for deception is well
Since 2001, Saleh had worked closely with the US Central
Intelligence Agency and then had become the head of
Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (2004-2010).
He had previously worked closely with Ahmad Shah Massoud
of the right-wing Jamiat-e Islami and of the Northern Alliance.
illustrated in author Bob Woodward's
trilogy, Fear, Rage, and Peril, the last cowritten
with fellow journalist Robert
Costa. In the three books published over
the past three years, the Washington Post
newspaper veteran journalist goes to a
great length to show how even Trump's
closest advisors and allies think he is "a
(expletive) liar".
Trump's own personal lawyer, John
Dowd thought he is such a pathological
liar that he cannot even be trusted to
testify to former Special Counsel Robert
Mueller during his investigation into
Russian meddling in the US elections
without perjuring himself.
But it is not only lying; politicians are
known to lie. The man portrayed rather
convincingly in the trilogy, is incredibly
devious, utterly incompetent, and terribly
dangerous.
Woodward interviewed hundreds of
people associated with the Trump
administration, leading members of his
cabinet and his party, as well as leaders of
Congress and the military. According to
him, many of them thought Trump is,
simply put, unfit to be president of the
United States.
They called him crazy, paranoid,
suffering from a narcissistic personality
disorder. His close ally and Attorney
General, William Barr rebuked him,
saying suburban voters "think you are a
f***ing a**hole".
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff of the military, General Mark Milley,
thought Trump was so erratic and
dangerous during his last months in
office, that he may take decisions that
could lead, albeit unintentionally, to
confrontations with the likes of China or
Iran with the potential use of nuclear
weapons. Trump directs his venom
against friends and foes alike. Over the
past few years, he has never hesitated to
humiliate Republican leaders, even war
heroes, regardless of political
repercussions. Even today, as he plans a
rerun for the White House, Trump
continues to degrade influential party
leaders including his own former Vice
President Mike Pence, and the Senate
Republican leader Mitch McConnell.
All of this begs the question: if Trump is
so offensive, so incompetent and so
dangerous to the country, why does he
continue to maintain such a strong grip
over the Republican party even after
leaving office? And, why are Republicans
running for Congress in 2022 either
seeking his endorsement or trying to
escape his wrath? Why is he likely to be
the party's official candidate in 2024?
To be sure, a lot depends on next year's
midterm elections.
A victory on November 8, 2022, that
allows for a Republican majority in either
or both Houses of Congress, will render
Biden a sitting duck president and boost
Trump's chances come November 5,
2024. Come to think of it, a Republican
defeat could also propel Trump to the top
of the 2024 list as the most likely saviour
of the party's influence against visibly
ageing Biden or against his vice president,
the lightweight Kamala Harris.
Trump may have been a terrible
president but he has proven himself a
talented populist. His uncanny
fearmongering is the main source of his
influence and the driver behind his
popularity, especially among the
Republican base. Funnily enough, Trump
allegedly did not even know what
Woodward interviewed hundreds of people associated with
the Trump administration, leading members of his cabinet
and his party, as well as leaders of Congress and the military.
According to him, many of them thought Trump is,
simply put, unfit to be president of the United States.
"populist" meant when he first began to
think about running for office, as one
hilarious anecdote at the beginning of
Woodward's first book illustrates.
The fact that Trump received 75 million
votes after four disastrous years that
included mismanaging the pandemic and
leading to an economic crash, and social
unrest, and that he continues to be so
popular with the party base, despite
damning media reports, is a testimony to
his ability to rally support, albeit by
dubious means.
Paradoxical as it may be, this
ostentatious bling-bling billionaire has
convinced the majority of his party base
and much of the country's white working
class that he is their best if not their only
ally against the snobbish, selfish elites
who manage America's decline.
In fact, he has garnered the support of
the majority of white Americans, against
the federal bureaucracy or as he has called
it, "the Deep State", which stands accused
of assaulting their rights, freedoms,
culture and, well, privileges.
Trump has mastered the politics of fear
and fury as Woodward's books show. In
the epilogue to Peril, the third book in the
trilogy which was published in
September, the author recounts an earlier
conversation with Trump, the bombastic
and confident outsider as well as the petty
and cruel insider, who is tantalised by the
prospect of power and is eager to use fear
to get his way. "Real power is, I don't even
want to use the word 'fear'," Trump says,
and he adds, "I bring rage out, I do bring
rage out, I always have."
But Woodward is so focused on
demonising Trump that he fails to see or
highlight the cynicism of his influential
detractors. He goes to a great length
exposing the former president but says
little about Washington's elites that
enabled him. But Trump's populism
would not have been as effective if it were
not for the cynicism of his detractors. The
ruling elites who pretend to be "holier
than thou", while robbing the country
blind; who preach political correctness
but lack political decency; who hold onto
power even if it means presiding over the
US's decline.
In that vein, Woodward's trilogy
constitutes selectively edited accounts of
those complicit with Trump, who talked
only after they were fired by Trump, or
after Trump was fired by the American
people. They are taken at their word and
excused about the rest.
When Woodward recounts Trump's
various exchanges with Gary Cohn, the
former Goldman Sachs executive-turned-
White House-economic adviser, the
former president is portrayed as an idiotic
protectionist who roots for US
manufacturing, while the laissez-faire,
free-trade investment banker is seen as a
brilliant man.
But is it really OK, for example, that the
US imports such a shocking amount of the
antibiotics and other basic medicines it
needs from China? No less during
pandemic times?
Woodward seems to have never met a
Wall Street executive or an Ivy League
school graduate he did not like. Same for
the generals, the congressional leaders,
and the establishment figures: they are
either right or excused for their
wrongness. Bottom line, Trump is evil but
the establishment is good, even if run by a
corrupt self-serving elite, be it, Democrat
or Republican.
When Trump demands justification for
any of the hundreds of military bases
around the globe or demands immediate
troops withdrawal from any part of the
world, he is portrayed as a fool, ignorant of
national security interests and processes.
Any shrinking of US overseas military
commitments is so preposterous in the
eyes of Woodward and his beloved
generals that it does not even merit
comment. And that is why as long as it is
business as usual in Washington, as long
as the ruling elites continue to be satisfied
with managing US decline, Trumpism will
persist and metastasise and there is no
stopping Trump and co laughing their
way to Washington, again. In sum, Trump
will certainly run. And if he wins, as he
may well do - my fingers trembling as I
type - his victory will spell the death of
American democracy with grave
consequences the world over.
Source: Al jazeera