09-05-2022

MOnDAY, MAY 9, 2022
4
Acting Editor & Publisher : Jobaer Alam
e-mail: editor@thebangladeshtoday.com
Monday, May 9, 2022
Eid with a difference
Eid-ul- Fitr was observed all throughout
Bangladesh on last Saturday. But this was an Eid
unlike others we have seen in a long long time. Senior
citizens have almost come to forget Eids in the long
past when life and living was much easier with hardly
any stress. In recent years, Eid has come to mean a
stressful time.
Bangladeshis in great number have their second
homes or ancestral homes in rural areas. They tend to
habitually and customarily travel to their points of
origin and spend the Eid there with or without their
ancestors. This coming and observing Eid in the
village homes is a matter of great satisfaction for them.
But in recent years people of the country have found
their joys of Eid much diminished from harassments
faced during Eid time travel. Awful jams and
overcrowding at bus, train and steamer terminals,
ticket black marketing, pickpocketing, etc. tended to
mar the happiness of the occasion.
Therefore, this just observed Eid marked a very
striking difference for the better from other years.
People in the greatest number found their Eid time
travel free from hassles worth mentioning. The
overcrowding at conduit points were found peaceful
and serene in contrast to yester years. There was
found no need to jostle for tickets and find places to sit
in buses, trains and steamers. Tickets and buses,
trains and steamers were plenty so that the demand
for tickets and their buyers were well matched and
hardly there was opportunity for ticket black
marketing. Specially the scourge of ticket black
marketing was taken care of as if with iron hands by
the law enforcers.
The administration was found very alert to this need.
The buses, trains and steamers were noted punctually
coming and departing from the places of departure.
Police and other security forces were seen ensuring
travel safety and maintenance of law and order very
keenly. Thus, compared to any other time in recent
years people's experience of Eid time travel this year
was one of true bliss.
Not only Eid travel, people were found pleased with
their Eid time buying as well. Except for profiteering
move in relation to one kitchen item, cooking oil (that
was foiled) the markets were seen overflowing with
goods well withing the purchasing powers of all
categories of people. The release of regular salaries,
bonuses and other arrear payments well ahead of Eid
contributed to people having enough resources
generally in their hands to be able to spend freely
before and during the Eid. Needless to say, all these
aspects added to satisfactory observance of the Eid.
The ones who were left behind in the major cities,
their needs were very well attended. A major
concern for them was burglary and other incidents
of law and order in the backdrop of the thinned
population of the city. But such concerns were very
well taken care of by excellent vigil of police and
other agencies round the clock that meant residents
at homes in major cities could enjoy very secure and
unperturbed time. Of course, a few incidents of law
breaking could have happened. But the same were
too few in a country with over 160 million people not
worth giving any special focus.
The government leaders were found promising
before the Eid that they would be doing everything to
make sure that people could enjoy the Eid truly
happily in all respects. The pledges proved not fickle
ones but kept fully. This again proves that given
determination and planning we can repeat the good
administrative performance shown during this Eid
and make it a regular feature.
Perhaps the greatest relief people could feel during
this Eid was one of deliverance. The Corona menace
has very conspicuously declined in Bangladesh when
other countries, including China, are suffering from
more virulent outbreaks of the disease. Bangladesh
proudly stands at number five for its success in
keeping Corona under threat. There have been no
deaths from Corona for nearly a month in Bangladesh.
The daily infection rate yesterday was only 10 persons
or much less than even one per cent of the total tested.
It can be said reasonably that Bangladesh has become
triumphant against Corona after two long years of
struggle. No doubt this is a blessing also bestowed on
Bangladesh by Providence.
Yemen’s internal security challenges and the Riyadh talks
The attack on a liquefied natural gas
pipeline on Sunday was the latest
security incident in the oil and gasrich
Shabwa province in southern Yemen.
This incident and other security breaches
in government-controlled areas represent
a serious challenge to the authority of the
Presidential Leadership Council, which
was chosen during Gulf Cooperation
Council-facilitated Yemeni talks in
Riyadh earlier this month.
The province's newly appointed
governor, Awadh bin Al-Wazir Al-Awlaqi,
said on Monday that the attack was a
"terrorist destructive act," accusing
unnamed "terrorist groups" of carrying it
out. He said that the attack provided
evidence that terrorist groups are living
their final days but also attempting to
sabotage the process of restoring security
and stability in Yemen and divert the
PLC's attention.
This was not the first incident of
sabotage of oil and gas installations or
pipes in Yemen or even in Shabwa.
During the best of times there were
attacks, which gradually led to the flight
of foreign operators and a sharp
reduction in oil and gas production
throughout Yemen. As oil and gas have
long been a key source of government
revenue, these disruptions have put
severe pressure on its ability to provide
basic services.
However, Sunday's attack was the first
of its kind since the conclusion of the
GCC-hosted Yemeni talks. It came a few
days after Prime Minister Maeen Abdul
Malik Saeed had announced his
government's decision to resume LNG
production to help pay the salaries of
government employees and stabilize the
national currency.
The Yemen war has produced an
Stateless Ukrainians: No nationality and now, no home Stateless Ukrainian refugees fight for recognition and protection
As Europe mobilises to accommodate
the growing number of Ukrainians
fleeing the country - now more than
four million - stateless Ukrainians are
fighting a losing battle for protection and
recognition. Not recognised as nationals by
Ukraine or any other state under the
operation of its laws, stateless Ukrainians,
who number approximately 40,000, are
denied access to basic rights and have been
the targets of pervasive discrimination as
they seek refuge abroad. European states
must act decisively within their
international legal obligations to ensure
protections for all refugees, irrespective of
nationality, race, or ethnicity.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union,
people in former Soviet nations who fell
through the gaps of new nationality laws
became stateless. Racism and ethnic
discrimination left certain minority groups
particularly vulnerable. For example, Roma
represent one of the largest groups of
stateless people in Ukraine - and one of the
most discriminated against across Europe.
Lacking a nationality - and the
corresponding ability to establish one's legal
identity - has severe consequences.
Nationality is often referred to as a "gateway
right", without which access to other basic
rights is extremely challenging.
Statelessness creates barriers to accessing
work, healthcare, education, and housing,
and even to pursuing redress for those rights
violations in court. Without a legal identity,
it is as though stateless people do not exist.
When stateless people become refugees,
these risks multiply. Stateless status - which
should alone be grounds for protection - is
regularly overlooked in immigration
proceedings, despite being a critical factor in
US-ASEAN Summit opens up UNCLOS ratification issue
US Navy FONOPs (freedom of
navigation operations) in the South
China Sea would have more legitimacy
if Washington were to ratify UNCLOS. Photo:
US Naval Institute
When President Joe Biden and his White
House welcome Southeast Asian leaders on
May 12 for the start of a two-day US-ASEAN
Summit, it is worth noting that they will be
commemorating a 45th anniversary of this
relationship, one that validates the
administration's Indo-Pacific Strategy as well
as charting the future direction of the US with
ASEAN's 10 member states.
If one of the goals of hosting this
organization comprising Brunei, Cambodia,
Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam
is to secure their participation in a multipartner
Indo-Pacific Pax Americana or "rulesbased
international order" to curb China's
rising power in the disputed South China Sea,
then what better timing for the US to join the
UN Convention on the Law of the Sea
(UNCLOS) ?
Since Washington has been recalibrating its
DR. ABDEL AZIZ ALUWAISHEG
unprecedented breakdown in the rule of
law throughout the country, albeit its
severity has varied regionally. In Houthicontrolled
areas, lawlessness from the top
has been the primary tool for political and
social control, but it has also been used by
individual leaders for financial gain.
Assassinations, kidnappings, torture and
wholesale detentions have been
sanctioned by the group against its
political opponents. It has become
routine practice to blow up adversaries'
homes, mete out collective punishment
against tribes not fulfilling their quota of
recruits, and defile and board up mosques
not following their religious instructions.
By contrast, violence in governmentheld
areas comes from many sources,
including terrorist groups such as Al-
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and
Houthi agents. The Houthis were last
year able to briefly capture parts of
Shabwa, with the help of some local
agents, before being driven out, but future
attacks by the militia cannot be ruled out.
However, violence in Shabwa and other
government-held areas also comes as a
result of fighting between political groups
over influence and among criminal
elements of all sorts over turf. In Shabwa,
high rates of addiction to the local variety
of shabu, an amphetamine-based drug
the assessment of a refugee or asylum claim.
Where their refugee or asylum claim is
denied, stateless people are often
indefinitely detained [PDF] simply because
there is no state that recognises them as
nationals to which they can be "returned".
With Europe facing what UNHCR
Commissioner Filippo Grandi called "the
fastest growing refugee crisis since World
War II", stateless Ukrainian refugees are
forced to confront these problems head-on.
One stateless Ukrainian woman expressed
her fear of leaving, even as her home was
bombed: "I'm afraid that if I decided to leave
I wouldn't be able to cross checkpoints or
borders because I don't have documents.
I'm also very scared they'd separate me from
my children because I have no proof that I'm
their mother."
But the lack of legal protection is not the
only problem stateless refugees are facing.
Racial and ethnic minorities - such as the
Roma, whose intersecting ethnic and
stateless identities make them doubly
vulnerable to discrimination - are finding it
particularly difficult to access the protection
they so desperately need. Many have
recounted horror stories of waiting for days
in camps without food or water, while their
Ukrainian citizen counterparts were
relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization in a concerted response to
Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the interests of
the Biden administration and Congress may
also be well served by bringing to a vote the
ratification of UNCLOS, the recognized legal
instrument to define issues relating to
sovereignty, territorial waters and rights and
obligations of a maritime state.
While this summit serves to explain
America's Indo-Pacific mission that reinforces
a commitment to international law, the
ratification of UNCLOS would convince
members of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations that the US is no longer merely
offering empty promises and geopolitical
rhetoric. China's offensive maritime
maneuvers and its militarization of outposts in
the South China Sea do much more than
highlight the need for the US Senate to ratify
UNCLOS. Two months ago, the US House of
Representatives passed the America
COMPETES Act of 2022 aimed at increasing
US economic competitiveness with China.
The bill included an amendment that
stipulated it is in the nation's best interest to
KRISTInA FRIED
JAMES BORTOn
used throughout Asia, is also blamed for a
spate of incidents involving traffickers,
distributors and addicts.
While the authorities have yet to pin
down responsibility for the attack on the
LNG pipeline or other recent incidents in
Shabwa, there has been plenty of
speculation about the perpetrators. Some
sources have accused AQAP of carrying
out some of the attacks, including
Sunday's bombing of the pipeline, while
others have suggested that the Houthis
were indirectly behind the latest incident.
This was not the first incident of sabotage of oil and gas installations or
pipes in Yemen or even in Shabwa. During the best of times there were
attacks, which gradually led to the flight of foreign operators and a sharp
reduction in oil and gas production throughout Yemen. As oil and gas have
long been a key source of government revenue, these disruptions have put
severe pressure on its ability to provide basic services.
Most likely, there are multiple groups and
individuals behind the security breaches,
with both political and criminal motives.
Regardless of who the perpetrators are,
the recurring attacks underscore the need
to implement the security
recommendations of the Riyadh talks.
Several governors, law enforcement
officials and experts discussed the
security situation in government-held
areas. More than a dozen working papers
and policy proposals were considered,
identifying serious political,
administrative and financial challenges
that have weakened the rule of law in
those areas. Among the key
recommendations to address those
challenges was the need to speed up the
implementation of the Riyadh Accord of
welcomed with open arms. States' lack of
comprehensive legal frameworks
addressing statelessness - in violation of
their international legal obligations - is
largely to blame for the chronic
disenfranchisement of stateless people.
To be sure, many European states have
created safeguards against statelessness.
Ten states have a procedure for identifying
stateless individuals and conferring a
When stateless people become refugees, these risks multiply. Stateless status
- which should alone be grounds for protection - is regularly overlooked in
immigration proceedings, despite being a critical factor in the assessment of a
refugee or asylum claim. Where their refugee or asylum claim is denied,
stateless people are often indefinitely detained [PDF] simply because there is
no state that recognises them as nationals to which they can be "returned".
dedicated stateless status. Other states have
piecemeal procedures, but no
comprehensive framework that allows for
both determination and protection.
Ukraine's new framework, adopted in 2021,
establishes a stateless status determination
procedure and a process for naturalisation.
However, these safeguards do not fully
comply with states' legal obligations, nor do
they offer sufficient protection for stateless
refugees. As of December 31, 2021, only 55
stateless Ukrainians - out of 737 applicants -
have been recognised as stateless. They will
still have to wait three years before they can
apply for naturalisation and gain access to
their full rights. Now that process has been
interrupted. Meanwhile, most European
states, including all but one of Ukraine's
immediate neighbours, lack adequate legal
frameworks for the protection of stateless
ratify the UNCLOS treaty formally. (The
acronym COMPETES stands for Creating
Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote
Excellence in Technology, Education and
Science.) The Third United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea was adopted
in 1982. One hundred and sixty-two countries,
including China and Russia, are signatories to
the treaty that governs the world's oceans. The
US is not. Past endorsements by American
presidents Bill Clinton, George W Bush and
Barack Obama failed to move the needle
forward on this issue. Some Washington policy
observers don't think the recent resolution
from the US House of Representatives is
anything more than performative.
However, increasing numbers of
proponents argue that ratifying the agreement
would give the US more leverage in pressuring
other nations to do the same. The US Navy
and Coast Guard already largely follow the
rules of navigation the treaty lays out.
The time has come to put partisan politics
aside and focus on national interests. While
the US Navy's Seventh Fleet continues to
reinforce freedom of navigation in the South
2019, which was agreed between the
government and the Southern
Transitional Council, to reduce the
number of politically-motivated attacks.
Some of the other recommendations
focused on the need for coordination
among security forces and the armed
forces. In areas where coordination is low,
some law enforcement capacity has been
reduced as security forces have to lie low
and leave control to the militias.
Participants also called for better
coverage of secured communications
between the security forces, better
training and improved governance to
weed out corruption.
The recurring attacks underscore the
need to implement the security
recommendations of the Riyadh talks.
Echoing those understandings, Al-
Awlaqi on Monday called for enhanced
protection of the oil and LNG pipes,
improved preparedness in the military
and security forces, and increased
security patrols throughout his
province.
One of the key outcomes of the Riyadh
talks was the decision to set up a joint
military and security committee under
the PLC with a wide mandate. While its
focus is to coordinate the work of the
armed forces to prevent conflict between
them, it is also charged with coordinating
between the military and internal security
forces. By demarcating the lines of
responsibility, law enforcement agencies
will feel safe to carry out their duties and
focus on protection, prevention and
fighting crime and terrorism.
(Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg is the GCC
assistant secretary-general for political
affairs and negotiation, and a
columnist for Arab News.)
people. Even those with comprehensive
frameworks fall short in their
implementation, with stateless people -
particularly ethnic minorities - unable to
access basic rights and vulnerable to
detention.
Critically, Europe has excluded stateless
individuals from its refugee response plan,
which offers immediate protection to
Ukrainian nationals and permanent
residents. Although Moldova, Poland,
Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania have
promised to admit all refugees, including
those who are stateless, experts worry that
without dedicated protections, stateless
refugees will be left behind. Importantly,
these ad hoc policies do not consider that
many stateless refugees are at increased risk
because of their ethnicity or race - officials
have prevented Roma refugees from
entering Hungary and Slovakia, and
they have experienced widespread
discrimination in Moldova.
European states must make the necessary
policy and legislative changes to fulfill their
legal obligations respecting stateless people.
Statelessness is not a new problem in
Europe, but as the number of Ukrainian
refugees continues to rise, it has taken on a
new sense of urgency. Granting stateless
Ukrainians immediate, non-discriminatory
protection is the first step. But long-term,
systemic change is needed to ensure that
stateless people across Europe can finally
access their most fundamental right - the
right to a nationality.
(Kristina Fried is a volunteer attorney
with United Stateless, an US-based
organisation founded by and for stateless
persons to advocate for their rights, and
previously worked for the UN Refugee
Agency on statelessness)
China Sea's troubled waters, UNCLOS
formally defines limits of a country's territorial
seas, and establishes clear rules for transit
through "international straits" and "exclusive
economic zones" (EEZs).
With ratification, the United States would
have legal standing to bring any complaints to
an international dispute resolution body and
thus avoid possible confrontation with
Chinese naval forces and paramilitary fishing
trawlers in the Spratly Islands.
Vietnam, a former chair of ASEAN and a
comprehensive partner of the US, has been
one of the most vocal critics of China's
assertive actions in the South China Sea.
Hanoi is also quick to support the Law of the
Sea as a vital instrument for maintaining
peace, security, and freedom of navigation and
overflights above the challenged sea.
(James Borton is a senior fellow at the
Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins
University's School of Advanced
International Studies and the author of
Dispatches from the South China Sea:
Navigating to Common Ground.)