Download - President Ziaur Rahman_The Statesman
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman. A compilation of
news and articles, published by The Daily Dinkal, 441/1,
Tejgaon, I/A, Dhaka-1208. Price: Tk. 350.00, US
$ 20.00
Preface
Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim.
This book entitled “President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman”
highlights Ziaur Rahman’s statesmanship as focused specially
in the foreign media.
Statesmanship is not a quality common to politicians running
the affairs of the state. Only a few politicians could leave
behind their marks as statesmen today shining in the global
galaxy.
President Ziaur Rahman’s initial days as President were not a
bed of roses. In a new born state plagued with utter poverty,
cyclone flood and drought, malnutrition, population explosion,
sheer unemployment, extremely low education rate and above
all misgovernance of the previous regime, it was a yeoman’s
task President Zia faced with. But President Ziaur Rahman soon
made his presence felt home and abroad by dint of his dynamic
leadership qualities and statesmanship attributes. He soon
ushered in a new era of light and hope among the common
people. He proved to be the symbol of stability and his 19-point
program got immensely applauded as the epitome of
development.
Unlike a professional soldier, President Ziaur Rahman, a very
sharp and thoughtful statesman as he was, could quickly
identify our basic national problems. His extra ordinary quality
was his ability to go deep into the issue and find out ways and
means for their lasting solution. He raised above partisan
parochialism, amassed around him collective wisdom of experts
in their respective fields, irrespective of faith, colour and creed.
He identified population explosion as No.1 national problem
and highly emphasized on agricultural, rural, youth and women
development. His canal digging program, his special emphasis
on fisheries, poultry and livestock development, did open a new
vista development agriculture.
President Zia had the potential to think big and look distant. It’s
he who had conceived the concept of our garment exports and
export of our skilled and semi skilled manpower overseas which
proved today the very rock foundation of our economy.
Stern-looking but soft spoken, icy-cold calm in decision
making, people witnessed in Ziaur Rahman the advent of a new
promising leader and new hero. While in domestic sector he
ensured discipline, good law and order, bumper food stock, low
inflation, less cost of living, effective and fruitful family
planning measures and far reaching measures for agricultural
and youth development, on the bilateral and multilateral areas,
President Zia with his deep sense of patriotism and
statesmanship proved even sharper and brighter. The architect
of SAARC, President Zia for the first time felt the importance
of regional co-operation in South Asia. His foreign policy was
based on equality with all Countries. It’s President Ziaur
Rahman’s personal charisma and his incomparable
statesmanship that he was chosen by the world leaders as
negotiators in the wake of Iran-Iraq war, the role that was
highly applauded and globally acknowledged. It was his
brilliance and proven statesmanship and not the least his
personal integrity, incorruptible as he was that made him a
popular leader home and abroad.
This book will no doubt help the readers, specially the new
generation young readers to know how President Ziaur Rahman,
who had braved declare independence of Bangladesh in those
critical of our national days in 1971, how subsequently he
ensured stability, peace and development, how he put
Bangladesh back to democratic track, pulled it out of the
“bottomless basket case” of economy and led Bangladesh as its
elected President to an enviable newer height home and abroad.
But for his untimely death caused by a handful of derailed
soldiers, our beloved Bangladesh would have been within the
list of developed nations long back.
Special thanks to Mr. Ismail Zabiullah, Mr. Shohidul Islam
Babul, Barrister Rumeen Farhana, Mr. Rezwanul Haque
Shovan for their kind co-operation, co-ordination and support
for bringing this initiative into light. We hope that the readers
will consider unintentional typing mistakes and will heartily
welcome the effort. We also hope that this book will add a new
dimension to the history of Bangladesh.
Bangladesh Zindabad
Behind The Curtain
News Collection:
Imamul Haque
Osman Ahmed Sakib
Co-ordination:
Osman Ahmed Sakib
Sharifur Rahman Bipu
Translation/Compose:
Sharifur Rahman Bipu
Sabina Ahmed
Osman Ahmed Sakib
Rahat Shantonu
Monjur Rahman
Mijanur Rahman Sumon
Fatema Zohora
Mufid Bin Rabi
Rafsanjani Rafsan
Iqbal Hossain
Hasan Mahadi
Murad Ahmed
Management:
Abdur Rahman Noor Rajon
Zahirul Islam Tito
Other Supports:
Mostofa Kamal Palash
Hashan Chowdhury
Nazim Uddin
Easin Mahmood
Humayun Kabir
Moshiur Rahman
Kamrul Hassan
Manira Sultana
Tahsin Mehedy Prince
Abdus Salam Fahim
Syef Uddin
Rakib Shahriar
Kajol Rehman
Rashed Khan
Rafat Noor
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 1
Bangladesh slowly returns to normal DACCA (AP) - Government offices, businesses and shops reopened Saturday as Bangladesh began returning to normal
after power struggle brought two Government changes in a week.
Major-General Ziaur Rahman, the army chief who was ousted Monday only to return with more power Friday, apparently was
in firm control behind President Abu Sadat Mohammed Sayem.
Diplomatic reports reaching New Delhi, India, said Brigadier-General Khalid Musharaf, the officer who led the abortive coup against Rahman had been killed. The reports were not
confirmed here.
The power struggle was the culmination of a feud within the military that began Aug. 15 with the overthrow of President Sheik Mujibur Rahman, leader of the country‟s fight for
independence from Pakistan. Musharaf was reported to have resented the power wielded by the junior officers who ousted
and killed Mujibur. The struggle broke into the open Monday after a Dacca jail
massacre took the lives of four of Sheik Mujibur‟s close associates. Musharaf seized power, President Khondakar
Mushtaque Ahmed resigned and the junior officers who supported him and were suspected of ordering the jail massacre fled to Bangkok, Thailand.
Rahman regained command of the army Friday and swiftly
increased the role of the military in Government. But he accepted President Sayem, who had been installed under Musharaf. Sayem was named chief martial-law administrator
with Rahman and two other deputy chiefs.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 2
Former President Mushtaque Ahmed was reported to be at his
residence to “pray for happiness of the people and prosperity of the country.”
Biman, the national airline, resumed domestic flights and a Biman jetliner was expected to carry 163 pilgrims to Mecca in
Saudi Arabia today. Source: The Saturday Citizen (Dated: 08-Nov-1975)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2455&dat=1975
1108&id=z8kyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=re0FAAAAIBAJ&pg=3184,3
736364
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 3
Poor But Hopeful: Bangladesh Has Not Collapsed,
After All
LONDON- Bangladesh is not merely poor, it is the poorest of developing countries, but for the first time in its five years of independence, there is hope for a better future.
The change has come unexpectedly because, following the
assassination last August of Sheik Mujilur Rahman, the one man revered throughout the nation, there was a general expectation of chaos of squabbles for power, of political
disaster piled on top of natural disaster.
Bangladesh is still poor. Eighty million people, a number expected to grow to 150 million by the turn of the century are crowded into a Wisconsin-sized land, a third of which is
flooded every year.
It has few natural resources and practically no source of export earnings apart from jute, which is losing its world market. Per capita income is $55 a year compared with $70 to $80 in 1970
when Bangladesh was East Pakistan. Every year there is the promise of natural disaster, if not flood, then drought or
cyclone. The chances for turmoil were increased after the assassination
of Sheik Mujib because there was no one of national rank, no other politician who matched his prestige. The majors who
carried out the coup belonged to just one of many factions in the army.
But two things have prevented the predicted political disasters.
One was a bumper harvest. The storage depots of Bangladesh are overflowing and grain is being stored in the open. The price
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 4
of rice has slumped from 25.5 cents a pound last year to an
average price of 7 cents this year. Equally important has been the rise to power of Maj. Gen. Ziaur
Rahman, the army chief of staff who is the strongman of the martial law Government. He has managed to discipline an army
which threatened to split into fragments after the murder of Sheik Mujib and the coup and the countercoup of November. He has tried to restore law and order which „had deteriorated‟
through the rule of Sheik Mujib. He is trying to end corruption. He is reforming the administration and exerting a much more
decisive influence in the manner of the crisp military man he is. He is urging new family planning and rural development programs. General Ziaur dislikes sloppiness and is said to have
been disappointed by the standards of the British Army on a visit to Germany.
The effect of the new regime is visible in both big and little things. The fall in the rice price has been helped by the
crackdown on smuggling trade with India. It is now safe to go out after dark on the streets. It is easier to drive a car in Dacca
because the pedicabs which used to straggle all over the place are being confined to special narrow track.
How long this hope will last is another matter. At the moment, the Government is still committed to elections 12 months hence.
Most people, both Bangalee and foreign are upset by the prospect of the corrupt politicians coming back. But if he stays on, General Ziaur and Bangladesh could follow the pattern
toward dictatorial Government now so prevalent in Asia and worldwide. It is not clear that the general, essentially middle-
class and army-educated understands the plight of the rural masses, though at the moment he is making more efforts to help them than most military regimes have done.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 5
External matters can also affect the country‟s progress toward
stability, particularly relations with India, with which there has been a resurgence of
border trouble. Bangladesh has accused its former ally
and liberator of supporting a group of several hundred rebels in northern
Bangladesh. India has denied the allegations. At any rate,
quietly and hampered by its lack of resources, Bangladesh is looking for new arms.
But for the moment there is
relative happiness in the villages. Even in the really poor and hopeless urban areas where some Bangalees have only the scratch of ground they occupy,
plus a big pot for cooking and wishing, there is food to cook for the night. With a full belly it is possible to forget the wretched
past and the uncertain future. (Kevin Rafferty is a correspondent for The Financial Times of
London, who was recently in Bangladesh.)
By KEVIN RAFFERTY Source: The New York Times (Dated: 29-Feb-1976)
Link: http://sphotos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-
ash4/q71/1002161_158351967687435_265563032_n.jpg
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 6
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 7
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 8
Bangladesh, India on Collision Course?
DACCA - (LENS) - The fumbling towards yet another conflict
on the Indian subcontinent have begun. The nine-month-old
military Government of Bangladesh seems to be shaping up for
a confrontation with its giant neighbor, India.
For the past few months Bangladesh‟s military leader, Major
General Ziaur Rahman, who seized power last November, has
been attempting to deal with the causes of the quarrel by
discreet diplomacy. But it is now being said in Bangladesh‟s
capital, Dacca, that these approaches have proved fruitless and
the Bangladeshis have decided to go for broke by confronting
India publicly and even preparing for the possibility of a real
conflict.
Last weekend, General Ziaur Rahman told a widely cheering
gathering in Dacca of Mukti Bahini “freedom fighters” - the
men who fought against Pakistan in 1971 - that they “might
soon have to fight again to protect the Independence of
Bangladesh.” He announced that the Mukti Bahini would get
new military training so that they could reinforce the 65,000
men of the Bangladeshi army.
The warning came three days after General Ziaur Rahman
launched a strong attack on India at the Colombo non-aligned
summit. During the conference Bangladeshi delegates lobbied
for support against India and called it “neo-colonialist” and
“expansionist.”
In the past month there has been a resurgence of strident anti-
Indian propaganda in the Bangladeshi press, with editorial
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 9
writers talking of a “manmade tragedy which could engulf the
whole subcontinent.” The dispute with India involves two
issues. First, Bangladesh alleges that India has broken an
agreement drawn up when the $300 million Farakka barrage
was completed 11 miles inside Indian territory. The barrage
complex, with a 20 mile feeder canal, is designed to divert
water from the Ganges to the Hooghly river in an attempt to
clear away the dangerous silting of the waterways around
India‟s port of Calcutta. According to Bangladeshi officials, the
two countries agreed to conduct a brief test diversion of water in
May, 1975 but India continued syphoning after the test ended.
The diversion has had a marked effect on Bangladesh‟s
agriculture. According to B.M. Abbas, the presidential adviser
on irrigation and water control, during the dry season from mid-
March to mid-May more than 70,000 acres of paddy were lost
to drought, nearly two thirds of the tube-wells could not be used
and serious sanitation problems developed in the south of
Bangladesh as salt water began seeping up canals and rivers.
The cost this year alone has been more than $2 million and this
will grow.
General Ziaur‟s second accusation is that India is training and
arming guerrilla groups which since January have been making
sabotage raids into the province of Mymensingh from base
camps just inside the Indian border in the Meghalaya area.
The guerrillas are mainly those supporters of Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman who fled Bangladesh after the overthrow and murder
of the Sheikh a year ago. They are led by a flamboyant hero of
the 1971 war against Pakistan, Kader Siddique, and have blown
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 10
up bridges and Government buildings and murdered local
officials in the north.
The martial law authorities in Dacca assert that they are trained
by India‟s Border Security Force and claim to have captured
documents and weapons proving the Indian connection.
No doubt Bangladesh, at least in public is exaggerating both
issues. But they have now become the focus of intense anti-
Indian feelings, the depth of which surprises even Western
diplomats. Perhaps part of the Government‟s aim is to use this
as a means of uniting Bangladesh, no small attraction in a
country which has gone through three coups d‟etat in 12 months
and is facing a new round of instability as next February‟s
election approaches.
India‟s motives are more obscure. Admiral M.H. Khan, the
Bangladesh navy‟s Chief of staff, hazards the guess that India
wants to “destabilize” his country in the hope of imposing a
more pro-Indian administration in Dacca. Given Indians high-
handed policies in the past towards its smaller neighbors,
Sikkim and Nepal, other senior officials claim that it is just
another manifestation of Indian “arrogance.”
The prospect of overt Indian military action against Bangladesh
might seem remote.
The Economist of London
Source: The Times-News (Dated: 27-Sep-1976)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1665&dat=1976
0927&id=K1NPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=UyQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=35
69,2922842
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 11
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 12
India Charged With Moves to Infiltrate Bangladesh
DACCA, Bangladesh - The military ruler of the Government
here has charged that India was systematically training
Bangladesh dissidents as guerrillas and was helping them to
infiltrate into the country from several dozen special camps it
had set up along the border.
Maj. Gen. Ziaur Rahman said that the Indians were arming the
guerrillas and training them to attack rural police stations and
villages, to blow up bridges and highways and to spread urban
terror.
“We have apprehended several hundred of them and they tell of
being trained by Indian troops along the border, or even as far
away as Calcutta”, the General said in an interview at the
modest white bungalow he occupies in a military reservation
just outside Dacca.
In recent months, lower ranking officials here have said that
India was encouraging Bangladesh dissidents. But this was the
first time that such specific and detailed charges had been made
publicly by General Zlaur Rahman, who took over the
leadership of this critically poor country 10 months ago.
“Most of the Indian training camps are along our northern
border in the region just past Mymensingh”, General Ziaur
Rahman said indicating on a map an area 100 miles north of the
capital.
“But we know that they have also set up a few camps on the
western border and on the eastern border as well,” he continued,
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 13
tracing the 2,300-mile border with India, which almost
completely surrounds Bangladesh.
The 40-year-old General, a soft-spoken professional soldier
with intense, stern eyes and a military bearing, sipped coffee as
he methodically chose his words, professing puzzlement about
“Why these Indian chaps keep this up?”
India has made no secret of its coolness toward the new
Government in Dacca, but it stoutly denies that it is giving any
help at all to Bangladeshi dissidents.
A high-ranking Indian recently expressed the official view in
New Delhi this way: “It‟s not our fault that there are people in
that country who roam about shooting things up because they
don‟t like the Government that is being imposed upon them
from Dacca.”
Relations between New Delhi and Dacca began to decline 13
months ago at the time of the coup d‟etatin which Sheik
Mujibur Rahman was assassinated.
Sheik Mujib was the father of this country, which used to be
East Pakistan and with the help of the Indians he won its
Independence in 1971.
These are the men who, General Ziaur Rahman says, are now
being trained and sent back into Bangladesh.
By WILLIAM BORDERS
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 14
Source: The Dispatch (Dated: 29-Sep-1976)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1734&dat=1976
0929&id=cnsfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=hFEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6507,
2491983
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 15
Thousands in Bangladesh Begin Drive to
Encourage Birth Control
DACCA, Bangladesh, Sept. 28 - Under the direction of the
stern military Government that has been in control for the last
10 months, Bangladesh has just grown up its first
comprehensive national population policy and is sending
thousands of workers into the marshy countryside to carry it
out.
Among Dacca's sizable community of foreign-aid experts, who
have been frustrated by the inaction of the past, there is hope
about what one of them called “a genuine new sense of
commitment.” and government planners claim they have
already begun to bring down the roaring birth rate.
“We must mobilize all out resources to solve this critical
population problem,” said Maj. Gen. Ziaur Rahman, who has
ruled this country since last November, in a recent interview. “If
we cannot do something about population, nothing else that we
accomplish will matter much.”
To the people who care about population planning, both
Bangladeshis and foreign, that kind of talk is a welcome change
from the approach of Sheik Mujibur Rahman, the founder of the
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 16
country who was assassinated a year ago. When pressed on the
subject, Sheik Mujib reportedly used to respond with some
comment like, "We Bengalis love our children."
Always Must Import Grain
Nevertheless, the problem is dizzying in its scope. With 80
Million people living in an area smaller that Wisconsin,
Bangladesh is as crowded as the continental United States
would be if the whole world's population lived there. Even in
the best of years, like this one, when the harvest has been very
good, Bangladesh must import grain to feed its people.
At the present birth rate of 46 per thousand (compared with 35
in India and 14 in United States), the population of Bangladesh
will double by the time a baby born today reaches the age of 21.
Moreover, in the words of Prof. Marcus F. Franda an American
political scientist who specializes in this area, “Since half the
people in Bangladesh are now less than 16 years of age, the
population boom has barely started.”
The population policy published last week includes incentives
to encourage sterilization operations and better planning and
training for workers who deliver condoms and birth-control
pills door to door.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 17
“But basically it's just a question of commitment, which we
didn't have before and now we do,” said Mohammed
AbdusSattar, a Harvard-trained economist who became family
planning secretary early this year.
Sterilizations Increasing
Sterilizations have risen to 8,000 a month, as many as there
were in all of 1975 and the percentage of fertile couples
practicing that or some other form of birth control has gone up
from 4percent to 7 percent. But that still means that 93 percent
of all the couple in the country - 32 million people - are doing
nothing at all to prevent conception, which is why seven babies
are born in Bangladesh every minutes of every day.
Virtually every cent that this impoverished country spends on
population control comes as aid from abroad. But that is no
problem, the donor countries freely concede that they consider
it so essential that they are happy to give as much for family
planning as Bangladesh is prepared to spend.
“My only restraint as far as money is concerned is the
absorptive capacity or our program”, Mr. Sattar said.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 18
And yet the problems remain enormous in this traditional
Moslem society in which medical people are widely suspect and
only one person in five can read. In one area, a birth-control
canvasser found that, when asked how many children they
wanted, women invariably replied with the number that their
mothers had had - six on average. The reason, one of them
explained, was that "to say you want fewer that your mother had
is insulting to you younger brothers and sisters, as if you wish
they had not been born."
Even here in the capital, a well-educated government
economist, asked why he had 11 children, replied with a hearty
laugh: “Allah gave us the children. Allah will watch out for
them.”
BY WILLIAM BORDERS
Source: New York Times (Dated: 30-Sep-1976)
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-
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05050729_9eee074728bdf5c9c2c4fbebb8a20f8d
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 19
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 20
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 21
Good Crop and Lower Costs Raise Spirits in
Bangladesh
DACCA, Bangladesh, Sept. 28 – The news from Bangladesh is
good for a change or at least not quite so bad as usual.
Malnutrition is still almost the norm, but two very good
harvests have built food stocks, so that almost no one is starving
to death this year, as thousands of Bangladeshis were two years
ago.
Inflation, which was running at a rate of more than 60 percent
early last year, has been brought under control; rice, the staple
food of the 80 million people who live in this desperately poor
country, actually costs half what it did in 1974.
At Government offices in this grim, sprawling capital and out in
the swampy countryside on the tiny farms into which this
critically overcrowded land is partitioned, the mood is more
hopeful now than it has been for some time. But it is tempered
by a caution that a wizened old farmer in a gray and tattered
loincloth expressed this way: “Allah has make things better for
a while, but they could quickly get bad again, the way they
were.”
Weather the Principal Reason
The principal reason for the improvement is the weather-two
years with just the right amount of rainfall, after a crippling
cycle of floods and droughts. But knowledgeable people here
also give credit to Maj. Gen. Ziaur Rahman, the tough
professional soldier who took over the Government last
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 22
November, three months after the assassination of Sheik
Mujibur Rahman, the flamboyant father of Bangladesh.
Sheik Mujib, much beloved for leading his country to
independence from the rest of Pakistan in 1971, was widely
scorned near the end of his life for having let his Government
slide into an indisciplined mess of corruption and inaction. By
contrast, General Ziaur’s strict martial-law regime has cracked
down smugglers and corrupt officials, is getting better
production out of the sluggish state corporations and is even
taking firmer steps to slow the soaring population increase
which planners regard as Bangladesh‟s basic problem.
Now the 40-years-old strongman is facing an important
decision; whether to
keep a promise of a
return to elected
civilian Government
early next year, or to
extend his rule, as
some people are
encouraging him to
do.
One middle-class
merchant, expressing
a popular view, said, “I hate to see him turn it back over to the
politicians, who spent the first four years of independence just
squabbling among themselves and scrambling for power as
Bangladesh went to pieces.”
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 23
General Ziaur is the undisputed ruler of the country, governing
through a figurehead civilian President and a panel of 10
civilian advisers.
In an interview at his closely guarded residence on the military
reservation just outside Dacca, the General, a thoughtful and
soft-spoken man, avoided specifically reaffirming the pledge
that elections would be held in February. The closest he would
come was to say that he had “no reason at the moment to think
that they will be postponed.”
Meanwhile, the politicians say nervously that they are watching
for signs that military rule might be extended. “It‟s time for
them to go back to the barracks,” said Khondakar Mushtaque
Ahmed, who would be a leading contender for leadership if
elections are held. “The country has to be governed by the
people‟s representatives,” he said.
Political Activities Resume
After political activities had been banned under martial law, Mr.
Mushtaque Ahmed and other former civilian leaders were
permitted to resume partisan activities in July and to reorganize
into parties. But before allowing the resumption of politics, the
Government moved to neutralize one of the most powerful
factions, the Socialist Nationalist Party, a radical leftist party
that advocates “a socialist revolution.”
At two secret martial-law trials here in July and September, a
dozen of the party‟s leaders, including army officers who were
thought to have been encouraging anti-Ziaur mutinies in the
ranks, drew long jail sentences. They were convicted on charges
of having conspired against the state, one defendant, Col. Abu
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 24
Taher, a hero of the war of independence, like General Ziaur,
was sentenced to death and executed within a few days.
Some Political Prisoners Freed
It was at the second of these trials that a young Dutchman, Peter
Custers, was convicted and sentenced to 14 years jail, but Mr.
Custers, whose case had aroused some concern in the
Netherlands, was pardoned and deported last week, three days
after his conviction.
The secret trials with their unappealable sentences have drawn
mutterings of opposition and so have the scores of other
political arrests that have reportedly been made, often in
midnight raid, in the 10 months since General Ziaur took over.
On the other hand, General Ziaur‟s supporters point out that he
has released many political prisoners who were jailed under
Sheik Mujib. Sheik Mujib, who owed the independence of his
country to the military intervention of India in the independence
war of 1971, was a close ally of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi,
General Ziaur is not.
The General says that because the Indians are displeased by his
leadership they are training dissident Bangladeshis in special
camps just across the border and helping them to slip back as
saboteurs and terrorists. India denies the charge. But by making
it frequently through the controlled Bangladeshi press, General
Ziaur has made India the focus of widespread animosity here.
Security Still Stressed
His Government is waging a similar propaganda campaign
regarding the Farakka dam, a huge water-diversion project that
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 25
India built on the Ganges River, just across the border.
Bangladesh charges that the project has had a “devastating”
effect on its agriculture. India disputes that charge. Its general
view of the situation was expressed this way by an official in
New Delhi, “Ziaur‟s got a lot of troubles over there and he is
blaming India for all of them.” Among the army of foreign
experts who flock to Dacca to study the country‟s appalling
demographic statistics, there are often despairing discussions
about the future of Bangladesh which many regard as one of the
most hopeless countries on earth.
With the world‟s eighth largest population crowded into an area
smaller than Wisconsin‟s 54,464 square miles, with the prospect
that the population will double to 160 million by the turn of the
century, with 80 percent of the people illiterate and half of the
country hungry, what can the future bring, the planners ask each
other.
One Western economist who praises General Ziaur for bringing
at least “a considerably more constructive attitude” to the
Government, counsels against despair. “Other westerners ask
me, can Bangladesh make it?” The economist said in disgust,
“Well of course it can make it. What alternative is there? But
it‟s going to take considerable foreign assistance for a long,
long time - 20, 30 years or more.”
“After all,” be continued, “you‟ve got 80 million people here,
the world can‟t just walk away from it, what we have to do
instead is to work along with them and try to pull them up.”
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 26
By WLLIAM BORDERS
Source: New York Times (Dated: 04-Oct-1976)
Link:http://sphotos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-
frc1/q71/s720x720/1098248_163571207165511_2124571982_
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 27
Economic Hope for Bangladesh DACCA, Bangladesh - Which Asian country last year achieved double-digit economic growth? It was certainly not Japan,
which is still staggering out of recession and was thankful to turn in a positive 2 percent growth after a 1.2 percent shrinkage
in 1974. Nor was it Singapore or Malaysia or any of the other traditional high-flyers which were also blown off course by adverse world conditions. Nor was it India, with its much-
vaunted improved discipline.
No, the champion Asian country in terms of growth was Bangladesh, the so-called “bottomless basketcase,” whose economy grew by almost 12 percent in the year ending in June,
according to official figures.
A good monsoon was the main factor helping to produce the record growth. But, a new regime is also claiming its share of the credit.
The kingpin of the Government is Maj. Gen. Ziaur Rahman
who is Chief of Staff of the Army, deputy chief administrator of martial law and head of the Ministries of Finance, Home Affairs and Information. The 40-year-old soldier is an impressive man,
if only because he has a disciplined flat stomach rather than the well rounded pot bellies that many Bengalis acquire when they
achieve the privileges of the middle class. General Ziaur is also trying hard to put new discipline into the
economy. Under the late Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, economic decision making had become a higgledy-piggledy obstacle
course, with corruption, political favors and nepotism abounding. Sheikh Mujib, who was assassinated last year, had a team of economic planners unmatched anywhere in the world in
terms of brainpower but they could never find a coherent way through the political and bureaucratic maze which faced them
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 28
under the label of socialism. Now, General Ziaur has organized
a National Economic Council to make the most important decisions and encouraged the middle and lower-ranking civil servants to make the less important decisions without referring
them to the top.
In his office in Army general headquarters at Dacca recently, he returned time and again to the need to change attitudes in Bangladesh. “We must not be beggars,” he said. “Why should
we beg? We have something to offer.” In past weeks, delegations have gone to various countries in the Middle East,
particularly to Saudi Arabia, offering the services of skilled Bengali manpower in return for money for projects in Bangladesh.
General Ziaur is determined that the country‟s salvation must lie
in the rural areas. He has directed that civil servants must spend time getting their feet dirty in the villages. “I have directed that the most senior officials must spend five days a month and
junior ones up to 15 days in the villages,” he said. The General has also lent his weight to a full- fledged birth control campaign.
So much for the good news, both the General and his country still face enormous problems. Reality in Bangladesh is harsh
indeed. Singapore‟s gross national product, for example, amounts to more than $2,200 a head, compared to a paltry $70
in Bangladesh. In spite of its improved performance, Bangladesh has not yet managed in real per capita terms to catch up with the performance of the 1969-70 year, the last
effective year of the old rule from Pakistan.
Even with the good monsoon, food imports of more than a million tons were needed. And Bangladesh‟s underlying economic data are too wretchedly well known to need much
lingering over. A population of 80 million people is packed into a land about the size of England and Wales-55,000 square miles
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 29
of which a third is flooded every year. More than half of the
Bangalis suffer from calorie and vitamin deficiencies. The nation depends for 85 percent of its exports on jute, which is declining in world markets, yet it has an insatiable demand for
the products of other countries including even basics like food, clothing, industrial products and medicines.
Last year, even as the Bangladesh economy grew, its imports amounted to the equivalent of about $1.2 billion whereas
exports were less than $370 million. In the 1969-1970 year, exports were 21 percent higher and imports 94 percent lower.
Last year consumer prices fell by 15 percent but essential goods cost two to four times more than in 1971.
And over the economic gloom lies the threat of population explosion. By the turn of the century, Bangladesh‟s population
will have doubled to 160 million or about 3,000 people per square mile, including the rivers.
(Kevin Rafferty, former Asia correspondent for the Financial Times of London, is editor of the Daily Business Times in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.) Source: The New York Times (Dated: 10-Oct-1976)
Link:
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20713FB3C5
A1A7493C2A8178BD95F428785F9
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 30
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 31
People of Bangladesh vote for martial law regime NEV DELHI, Tuesday - President Ziaur (Zia) Rahman of Bangladesh has won overwhelming support for his martial law
rule and 19-point program to put the desperately poor and disaster-prone country firmly in its feet.
The support received in a referendum on Monday gives the military Government in Dacca acertain legitimacy which it
lacked since coming to office after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the popular Bengali leader.
General Zia won a nearly 99 percent vote of confidence as President.
Bangladesh citizens were asked to vote yes or no to General Zia
remaining as President. They were asked also to approve his 19-point program calling
for faith in democracy, nationalism and socialism.
General Zia‟s foreign policy was also endorsed. This is friendship based on equality with all countries “and especially to strengthen relations with the Moslem nations.”
The referendum technically only gives presidential powers to
General Zia until the general elections in December, 1978. But with the massive mandate, General Zia‟s term of office
could be extended.
The 41-year-old General has risen rapidly. He became Chief of Army Staff in August, 1975, the chief martial law administrator in charge of the military Government in November, 1976 and
President on April 21, 1977.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 32
General Zia sought the people’s verdict on taking charge as the
President of Bangladesh. While helping to consolidate his position at home, the
referendum will also help Bangladesh internationally. It may strengthen its case for more aid from the Carter Administration,
with its emphasis on human rights. Relations between Bangladesh and India, which surrounds
Bangladesh on all side except for its short border with Burma, have improved recently.
The two countries have had protracted discussion on the sharing of the water of the Ganges River which is dammed by India
near the Bangladesh border by the Farakka Barrage.
The talks have centred around how much water should be shared in the dry summer months between the two countries. No agreement has been reached yet.
General Zia has been friendlier with the Desai Government than
he was with Mrs. Gandhi whom he considered a special friend of Mujibur Rahman.
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald (Dated: 01-Jun-1977)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1301&dat=1977
0601&id=oqApAAAAIBAJ&sjid=fOYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=390
5,32465
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 33
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 34
Army Coup Attempt Is Thwarted by Bangladesh
Loyalist Troops DACCA, Bangladesh (AP) - Loyal Government troops Sunday crushed a predawn army rebellion clearly timed to coincide with the five-day siege of a hijacked Japanese jetliner at Dacca
airport. Officials reported scores of dead in the shortlived coup attempt.
In a brief speech broadcast by the state radio, Bangladesh leader Maj. Gen. Ziaur Rahman assured this military-ruled Asian
nation of 80 million that the rebellion had been put down.
Rahman, who is both President and chief martial-law administrator, accused “selfish quarters” of trying to exploit his Government‟s preoccupation with the airport siege.
Five heavily armed members of the ultra-leftist Japanese Red
Army forced a Japan Airlines Jetliner to land in Dacca Wednesday.
Bangladesh Government negotiator secured release of more than 100 hostages in exchange for a ransom of $6 million and
release of six prisoners from Japanese jails. The plane, still carrying more than 30 hostages took off late Sunday, headed toward the Middle East or Africa.
Officials said the rebellion erupted before dawn and was
confined to this capital city and the airport three miles away. Witnesses said, the rebels executed at least four military officers
at the airport during brief uprising. The witnesses said, the men were gunned down at dawn outside an airport hangar.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 35
There was no immediate indication of how many rebels were
involved in the coup or how Rahman planned to deal with them. Authorities said, the uprising began with 90 minutes of intense
automatic weapons fire at the airport and in downtown Dacca.
The rebels, calling themselves members of a “people‟s army”, briefly seized Bangladesh radio facilities and broadcast an announcement that “an armed revolution” was under way led by
the armed forces, students, peasants and workers.
About 2.5 hours after the rebel broadcast, state radio officials announced the station had been recaptured by troops loyal to Rahman.
As gunfire swirled around the already tense airport, senior
Government officials and foreign diplomat huddled in the control tower, the command past for negotiations with the hijackers.
Foreign Ministry officials in Tokyo quoted Japanese diplomats
in Dacca as saying the hijackers were told of the uprising. The revolt erupted shortly after the hijackers released 60
hostages in exchange for the ransom of cash and freed “comrades.” After the Government regained control, the
hijackers freed a second group of more than 40 hostages in exchange for permission to leave Dacca for an undisclosed destination.
The diplomats said, an aide to the chief Bangladesh negotiator
Vice Air Marshal Abdul Gaffar Mahmoud was among those killed in the rebellion. Airport sources said, Mahmoud, the deputy chief marshal-law administrator, was not hurt, but this
could not be confirmed.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 36
Military rebellion has marred the brief history of Bangladesh,
which won independence from Pakistan six years ago in the Indian-Pakistan war.
The first President and Prime Minister, Sheik Mujibur Rahman, was killed in a coup by pro-Pakistani officers in August 1975.
Rahman was replaced by a martial law administrator, Khondakar Mushtaque Ahmed, who was overthrown three months later, a left wing coup in November, 1975 brought Ziaur
Rahman to power as martial law administrator.
Rahman assumed the presidency in April of this year and one month later won overwhelming support in a referendum for a 19 point program designed to ease the nation‟s massive economic
and social problems.
The Government has been able to accomplish little in the face of widespread poverty and unemployment and a population that grows at a rate of about l0000 a day despite official attempts to
popularize birth control.
By PAUL CHUTCOW
Source: The Lewiston Daily Sun (Dated: 01-Oct-1977)
Link:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1928&dat=19771001
&id=I74gAAAAIBAJ&sjid=uGkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1708,2192
50
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 37
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 38
Bangladesh chief facing tests
DACCA, Bangladesh (AP) - Maj. Gen. Ziaur Rahman, elected
President of Bangladesh by a landslide vote over the weekend,
now faces what many observers say will be six months of tricky
political maneuvering.
With more than 98 percent of the voting centers reporting, the
42-year-old martial law administrator and commander of the
armed forces had 15.6 million votes to 4.5 for his chief
opponent, retired Gen. Mohammad Ataul Ghani Osmani. Eight
other candidates received only minor support.
Slightly more than half of the 38.5 million eligible voters cast
ballots Saturday in the country‟s first direct presidential
elections. The balloting appeared to go smoothly with no
reports of violence, though the opposition claimed rigging and
irregularities. About 1,000 supporters flocked to the presidential
palace Sunday shouting „„Zia zindabad!” up with Zia and
presented flowers.
Zia told newsmen, the elections had moved Bangladesh several
years ahead politically and described the balloting as “the fairest
possible.” He stressed economic betterment as the major task
ahead and said the “law and order situation will further
improve.”
Zia promised during the campaign he would abolish remaining
martial law decrees and said parliamentary elections would be
held in December. Until then, he has said, he will govern with a
cabinet and the existing Government machinery.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 39
The question remains whether Zia‟s six-party Nationalist Front
coalition, which includes the conservative, pro-Pakistan
Moslem League and the pro-Peking National Awami Party, will
stick together and whether the battered opposition or elements
in the always volatile army will allow him the remainder of the
year to consolidate his power base.
Zia is expected to retain his neutral stance toward the major
powers, leaning somewhat to the United States and the West
and toward fellow Moslem nations in the Middle East. His most
urgent foreign policy task will be talks with neighboring Burma
about repatriation of Moslems who have fled that
predominantly Buddhist nation.
A Red Cross official was quoted by a West German radio
station Sunday as saying 200,000 Burmese Moslems have
streamed into Bangladesh in recent weeks and many face
starvation and disease in overcrowded refugee camps.
David Bedford told the station in Baden-Baden the
“overwhelming majority” of the refugees are children under 12.
“Cholera has already broken out”, he said. “Each day children
are dying”
The Rangoon Government claims, they are illegal aliens and
Bangladesh currently is burdened with keeping them alive in the
border camps.
Opposing Zia in the elections was Osmani’s Democratic United
Alliance, which included his own small Janata Party and the
Awami League the main force in Bangladesh politics during the
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 40
days of Sheik Mujibur Rahman who led the fight for nationhood
and was killed in an August, 1975 military coup.
Source: The Spokesman Review (Dated: 05-Jun-1978)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=1978
0605&id=0zFOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=3u0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=4704
,2382775
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 41
Bangladesh’s Soft-Spoken but Strict President Maj.
Gen. Ziaur Rahman
DACCA, Bangladesh - One hot, sultry evening two years ago,
shortly after he had taken over as the military ruler of
Bangladesh, Maj. Gen. Ziaur Rahman was sitting in the living
room of his white-stone bungalow here explaining the country‟s
international relations. When a reporter raised the possibility of
a regional alliance in Southern Asia, General Zia paused for a
moment and said, “Well I had never quite thought of that
before.” He then took out a little notebook and wrote down the
idea, promising to consider it.
Whether or not the gesture was sincere, it was typical of the
style of the 42-year-old general, a soft-spoken thoughtful man
who projects a quiet humility that belies the stern
authoritarianism of his martial law regime.
“We have so much to learn in Bangladesh,” General Zia is fond
of saying, “because our problems are so great.”
New Mandate, New Opportunity
Now, with a new five-year mandate from his overwhelming
victory in the presidential election Saturday - a victory that the
opposition says was won only by widespread rigging - General
Zia has a new opportunity to tackle the problems.
Hard-working and apparently incorruptible in his personal life,
the General presents something of a quandary to Western
diplomats and the many development experts who have been
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 42
drawn to Bangladesh by the fact that it has some of the world‟s
worst problems and most pressing needs.
A strict and sometimes ruthless military man who apparently
remained unfazed, for instance, by the secret trial and execution
of at least 200 soldiers who plotted to overthrow him last
October, General Zia is obviously no democrat in the Western
style. And yet the representatives of the liberal democracies
here mostly welcome him as the best thing that has happened to
the country since it broke away from Pakistan in a bloody civil
war six and a half years ago.
“He has put vigor into the Government”, said a European expert
in birth control, which many regard as Bangladesh‟s most
urgent need. “Things are steadily getting better in Bangladesh
as they have been ever since the day that he took over.”
General Zia was army chief of staff when he came to power in
1975, three months after the assassination of Sheik Mujibur
Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh. Immediately, in sharp
contrast of the flamboyant and lackadaisical Sheik Mujib, the
General began getting politics out of the civil service and
streamlining state industries. Inflation went down, food
production went up.
He began proclaiming unpopular truths, such as, “Population
control must be our nation‟s no. 1 priority,” and “Bangladesh
must feed itself and stop depending on the world for help.”
The General, a dapper man with a rigid military bearing and the
habit of wearing sunglasses even on cloudy days, also
apparently grew comfortable in the job of running the country.
As generals have done all over the world after military
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 43
takeovers, he used to say that he was “not a politician but a
soldier” and insist that he was eager to get back to the barracks.
But he does not talk that way anymore. And in the last year,
since he assumed by executive order the title of President, the
Government statements have been referring to him as
“President” rather than “General.”
Although he still lives in the military camp just outside Dacca,
with his wife and their two young sons, he now almost
invariably appears in civilian clothes, rather than the trim
camouflage uniform that used to be his trademark.
General Zia, who was born in the northwestern city of Bogra on
Jan 19, 1938, joined the army at 17, when his land was still part
of Pakistan.
Animosity With Mujib
In the late 1960‟s he grew increasingly sympathetic with
Bengali nationalism and in March, 1971, after the West
Pakistani crackdown on civilians here, it was Ziaur Rahman,
then a regimental commander in the port city of Chittagong,
who declared the Independence of Bangladesh.
In the same radio broadcast, he also indicated that he was to be
President of the new country and though he soon yielded that
role to Sheik Mujib, his ambitious self-appointment was not
forgotten, causing a bitter animosity between the two men.
In the war that followed the independence declaration, Ziaur
Rahman then a lieutenant colonel, commanded a brigade that
came to be known as the “Z Force.” He acquired a reputation
for bravery and for the icy calm with which he now approaches
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 44
Bangladesh‟s appalling problems, as well as the continuing
intrigues within its highly politicized, 50,000-man army.
In the election campaign that just ended, one popular slogan
was “General Zia symbolizes national stability.” Clearly he
does. But as one of his closest civilian advisers said the other
day, “For Bangladesh, stability is just the starting point. Even
after he has achieved that, the task ahead for Zia is enormous.”
By WILLIAM BORDERS (Special to The New York Times)
Source: The New York Times (Dated: 07-Jun-78)
Link:http://sphotos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-
prn2/q71/s720x720/1175404_163565843832714_1205489004_
n.jpg
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 45
BD‡ivwcqvb we‡klÁ wRqv m¤ú‡K© e‡jb, ÒwZwb miKv‡ii g‡a¨ cÖvYkw³i mÂvi
K‡i‡Qb, hv evsjv‡`‡k GLb me‡P‡q †ewk Ri‚wi| †hw`b †_‡K wZwb miKv‡ii
`vwqZ¡ MÖnY K‡i‡Qb, evsjv‡`‡k †mw`b †_‡KB µgvš^‡q DbœwZ mvab n‡‛Q|Ó
†kL gywR‡ei Zyjbvq †Rbv‡ij wRqvi cÖkvmb G‡Kev‡iB wfbœiƒc wQj| ivó«cwZ
wRqv wmwfj mvwf©m †_‡K ivRbxwZ‡K `~‡i miv‡bvi c`‡¶c †bb Avi ivó«xq wk‡í
k„“Ljv wdwi‡q Av‡bb| Zuvi Avg‡j gy`«vùxwZ A‡bK wb‡P †b‡g Av‡m Avi Lv`¨
Drcv`b †e‡o hvq| wZwb †NvlYv †`b, ÒRb¥ wbqš¿Y Avgv‡`i me‡P‡q cÖ_g
AMÖvwaKvi Ges evsjv‡`k‡K Lv‡`¨i e¨vcv‡i ¯qsm¤ú~Y©Zv AR©b Ki‡Z n‡e,
we‡k¦i Kv‡Q mvnvh¨ PvIqv eÜ Ki‡Z n‡e|Ó
gywR‡ei mv‡_ Ø›Ø
†Rbv‡ij wRqv 1938 mv‡ji 19‡k Rvbyqvix e¸ov †Rjvq Rb¥MÖnY K‡ib| wZwb
17 eQi eq‡m cvwK¯—v‡bi mvgwiK evwnbx‡Z †hvM`vb K‡ib| 1960 mv‡ji
†k‡li w`‡K wZwb evOvwj RvZxqZvev‡`i wek¦v‡m mnvb yf~wZkxj n‡q c‡ob| 1971
mv‡ji gvP© gv‡m cwðg cvwK¯—v‡bi mvgwiK evwnbx hLb G‡`‡ki wbixn RbM‡Yi
Dci AvµgY Pvjvq, ZLb wRqvDi ingvb PÆMÖvg †_‡K ¯^vaxbZvi †NvlYv †`b|
H †eZvi †NvlYvq wRqvDi ingvb †`kevmx‡K Rvbvb, wZwbB GLb bZyb †`‡ki
ivó«cwZ| hw`I wZwb kxNÖB H f~wgKv †kL gywR‡ei AbyK~‡j †Q‡o †`b, cieZx©‡Z
Zvui G ¯^-wb‡qvM‡K A‡b‡KB g‡b iv‡Lb hv wRqv I †kL gywR‡ei g‡a¨ wZ³
k΂Zvi KviY n‡q `vuovq| ¯^vaxbZv hy× PjvKvjxb ZrKvjxb †gRi wRqvi Aaxb¯’
we«‡M‡Wi bvg †`qv nq Ò†RW †dvm©Ó| wZwb mvnwmKZv Avi w¯’iZvi Rb¨ cÖPÛ
cÖksmbxq †nvb| cieZx©‡Z †Rbv‡ij wRqvi wbe©vPbx cÖPviYvi RbwcÖq †kvMvb wQj
ÒwRqv RvZxq w¯’wZkxjZvi cÖZxK|Ó Zvui Lye Kv‡Qi GKRb †emvgwiK Dc‡`óv
e‡jb, Òevsjv‡`‡ki w¯’wZkxjZv gvÎ ïi‚ Ges wRqvi mvg‡b GL‡bv A‡bK KvR|Ó
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 46
Bangladesh Elected To Security Council
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. General Assembly
elected Bangladesh as the nonpermanent Asian member of the
Security Council on Friday. Japan trailing on two previous
ballots withdrew from the race.
The other four nonpermanent members elected were Portugal,
Jamaica, Zambia and Norway. Five of the nonpermanent seats
on the council are filled each year. The terms run for two years
and begin Jan. 1.
The five permanent members of the council - the United States,
China, the Soviet Union, Britain and France - have veto power
over the council's actions. It handles matters involving world
peace and security and can impose economic and diplomatic
sanctions on nations.
The remaining nonpermanent members are Nigeria, Kuwait,
Gabon, Bolivia and Venezuela.
Portugal won over Malta on a fourth ballot to fill the seat
assigned to western Euoropean and related countries.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 47
Source: Toledo Blade (Dated: 10-Nov-1978)
Link:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&dat=19781110
&id=3BBPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=fAIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6969,390
6092
wbivcË cwil‡` m`m¨ wn‡m‡e evsjv‡`k wbe©vwPZ
MZ ïµevi RvwZms‡Ni mvaviY cwil` evsjv‡`k‡K Gwkqvi g‡a¨ wbivcËv
cwil‡`i A¯’vqx m`m¨ wn‡m‡e wbe©vwPZ K‡i‡Q| `yB †fv‡U wcwQ‡q _vKv Rvcvb
wb‡R‡`i‡K Gi Av‡M wbe©vPb n‡Z cÖZ¨vnvi K‡i †bq|
Ab¨vb¨ PviwU A¯’vqx m`m¨ nj: cZ©yMvj, RvgvBKv, Rvw¤qv Ges biI‡q| `yÕeQi
†gqv`x G m`m¨c‡`i Kvh©µg 1 Rvbyqvix †_‡K Kvh©Ki n‡e| cÖwZ eQi wbivcËv
cwil‡`i A¯’vqx cvuPwU m`m¨ c` wbe©vP‡bi gva¨‡g c~iY Kiv nq|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 48
Democracy makes a comeback: Elections in
Bangladesh end 3 years martial law
DACCA - (Special) - After several hiccups, the stage is set for
the 40 million voters of Bangladesh to elect a Parliament next
Sunday.
The announcement of firm date - apart from generating a
euphoria that democracy is coming back to a country under
martial law for three and a half years - had caused a temporary
political deadlock threatening the whole constitutional future.
President Major-General Ziaur Rahman had said last November
that the elections would be held Jan. 27. At once the major
political parties reacted sharply by saying that they would
boycott them.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 49
They laid down demands to be met before holding the election.
They said there could be no free and fair election under martial
law. That and all the accompany “black laws” must be lifted
They wanted, too, the release of all political prisoners freedom
of the press and restoration of the 1972 constitution through the
repeal of the controversial Fourth Amendment to ensure a
parliamentary form of Government. Unless all these demands
were fulfilled, they said, the poll would mean public and private
funds being wasted electing a rubberstamp Parliament.
Made Concessions
This threat put Zia‟s Government into an uncomfortable
situation. Without the participation of the major opposition
parties, the future Parliament would have no semblance of
democracy.
Happily the acrimony subsided. After a month-long talks,
during which the Government twice shifted the election date
and made some political cconcessions, the parties agreed to take
part.
First, Zia repealed the Political Parties Regulations (PPR)
letting parties function freely and openly without prior
Government permission more than 10,000 political prisoners
were released.
To meet the demand for a free press, the Government amended
the Printing and Publication Act (1973) and announced that a
press council would be set up soon. And by proclamation it
repealed “some undemocratic provisions of the constitution.”
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 50
The opposition parties were assured that the new Parliament
would be “sovereign” with powers to enact laws, amend the
constitution, approve the national budget and even impeach or
remove the President.
It was spelt out that an MP enjoying majority support in
Parliament would be made Prime Minister and that the
President would have no power to vote any bill passed in
Parliament.
Martial Law to be lifted
Martial law, Zia assured, would be lifted as soon as the new
Parliament goes into session. It cannot be lifted before the
election, the Government argues, because it is currently the
main source of law in the country and without it there would be
a legal vacuum. But some provisions interfering directly with
political activities and fundamental rights have been suspended.
Controversy remains over the form of Government. Should the
country emerge as a French-style presidential democracy or a
British - Pioneered parliamentary system?
Most politicians would prefer a parliamentary form, but the
main thrust in Zia‟s approach seems aimed a compromise
formula between the presidential and parliamentary forms of
Government.
To most Bangladeshi, the question is much less important than
whether any Government, whatever its political form, can get
them out of their perennial economic problems.
More than 2,000 candidates from 30 political parties are
contesting 300 seats. Only half a dozen parties with
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 51
organizations at grass-root level could field candidate at all or
most of the constituencies.
A tough opponent
Zia’s own party - the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) a
political conglomerate created after the last presidential
election, has fielded candidate for all seats. Most of the BNP
candidate with insignificant political backgrounds are banking
on Zia’s personal popularity and charisma.
The Awami League of the late President Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman is fielding candidates in all the constituencies with
good organization, it is a formidable opponent to the BNP.
Other parties with candidates for most seats are the breakaway
faction of the Awami League (Mizan Group), the Jatiyo
Samajtantrik Dal (JSD), the United Peoples Party (UPP), the
National Awami Party (NAP-Zahidi), the leftist Samyabadi Dal
of Md. Toaha and the rightist Bangladesh Muslim League.
Those minor parties with strong pockets of organization also
have a good prospect of returning some of their leaders and
some independents may also win.
On the basis of past electoral experiences and because voters
are influenced more by the economic factors, political observers
believe the BNP could get a two-third majority.
Stability in the prices of rice and other essential commodities
means political stability for Zia’s Government. Thanks to the
last three years harvests have been good.
Bangladesh is learning democracy the hard way.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 52
Source: The Montreal Gazette (Dated: 14-Feb-1979)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=1979
0214&id=6ZQuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=a6EFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6945
,686529
MYZ‡š¿i cÖZ¨veZ©b: wbe©vP‡bi gva¨‡g wZb eQ‡ii mvgwiK kvm‡bi
mgvwß
ivó«cwZ wRqvDi ingvb MZ b‡f¤i gv‡m †NvlYv †`b †h, wbe©vPb AbywôZ n‡e
Rvbyqvwi gv‡mi 27 Zvwi‡L| wKš‘ we‡ivax`j wbev©P‡bi c~e©kZ© wnmv‡e wKQy `vwe
†ck K‡i| Zvi GKwU n‡jv, wbe©vP‡bi Av‡M mKj Kv‡jv AvBb evwZj| Zv‡`i
Ab¨vb¨ `vwei g‡a¨ wQj mKj ivR‣bwZK ew›`‡`i gyw³, msev`c‡Îi ¯^vaxbZv,
1972 mv‡ji msweav‡b cÖZ¨veZ©b|
wbe©vP‡bi Rb¨ mg‡SvZv
wRqv g‡b K‡ib, cÖavb we‡ivax `j Qvov msm` MYZvwš¿K n‡e bv| †mBRb¨
GKgvm e¨vcx Av‡jvPbv Avi `yBevi wbe©vP‡bi ZvwiL wcQv‡bvi ci we‡ivax `‡ji
`vwe Abyhvqx mg‡SvZv wm×vš— †bb| G‡Z we‡ivax `j¸‡jv wbe©vP‡b AskMÖn‡Y
ivwR nq|
cÖ_‡gB wRqv we‡ivax `j¸‡jv‡K miKv‡ii AbygwZ Qvov ivR‣bwZK Kg©KvÊ
Pvjv‡bvi AbygwZ †`b Ges `k nvRvi ivR‣bwZK e›`xi gyw³ cÖ vb K‡ib|
miKvi gy`«Y I cÖKvkbv AvBb (1973) Gi ms‡kvab K‡i Ges kxNÖB msev`
KvDwÝj ¯’vcb Kivi †NvlYv †`q|
we‡ivax `j‡K Avk¦vm †`qv nq †h, bZyb msm` mve©‡f․g n‡e| msm‡`i AvBb
wewae×, msweavb ms‡kvab, RvZxq ev‡RU Aby‡gv`b GgbwK ivó«cwZi wei‚‡×
Awf‡hvM Avbv Ges ivó«cwZ‡K AcmviY Kivi ¶gZv bZyb msm`‡K cÖ`vb Kiv
n‡e|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 53
GB Avk¦vm cÖ vb Kiv nq †h, msm‡` msL¨vMwiô mg_©‡bi †cÖw¶‡Z †h‡Kvb msm`
m`m¨ †`‡ki cÖavbgš¿x wbhy³ n‡eb Avi ivó«cwZ msm‡` cvk nIqv †Kv‡bv wej
evwZj Ki‡Z cvi‡eb bv|
wRqv bZyb msm‡`i Awa‡ekb ïi‚ n‡jB mvgwiK kvmb mgvwßi Avk¦vm cÖ vb
K‡ib| GB wbe©vP‡b wRqvDi ingv‡bi evsjv‡`k RvZxqZvev`x `j, cÖqvZ †kL
gywReyi ingv‡bi AvIqvgx jxM, AvIqvgx jx‡Mi wgRvb MÖ‚c, RvZxq mgvRZvwš¿K
`j, BDbvB‡UW wccjm cvwU©, b¨vkbvj AvIqvgx cvwU©, mvg¨ev`x `j Ges
evsjv‡`k gymwjg jxM mn Av‡iv A‡bK ivR‣bwZK `j Ges ¯^Zš¿ cÖv_©xiv Ask
wb‡e|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 54
Rahman leads in Bangladesh vote DACCA, Bangladesh (UPI) - The party of President Ziaur Rahman appeared headed for an overwhelming victory in
parliamentary elections Sunday that will mean the end of more than three years of martial law rule in one of the world‟s poorest
nations. Maj. Gen. Zia‟s Bangladesh Nationalist Party won 18 of the
first 23 seats in which winner‟s were declared in unofficial results reported by the Election Commission.
His party led in 80 other constituencies out of 103 that furnished partial results. Vote counting proceeded slowly and
final unofficial results were not expected until Tuesday.
Ten of Zia‟s party members elected to the 300 seat Parliament were Cabinet members.
The party in closest contention with Zia‟s ticket, a faction of the Awami League, led in 27 of 200 constituencies
Voting was peaceful in most places although police reported scattered violent incidents in several towns, including two
suburbs of the capital.
The Government said they could not set up polling booths in two areas bordering India‟s West Bengal state because armed civilians had crossed the border into Bangladesh and refused to
leave the designated voting sites. No further details on the incident were available.
The short election campaign leading up to the voting was peaceful and generally dull.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 55
“The mood of the voters is very cautious,” Rounaq Jahan, a
professor of political science at Dacca University, said after casting her vote Sunday morning. “It‟s not that people are apathetic, just cautious.”
Source: Bangor Daily News (Dated: 19-Feb-1979)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2457&dat=1979
0219&id=_AE1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=RU8KAAAAIBAJ&pg=249
6,1185902
RbM‡Yi †fv‡U GwM‡q wRqvDi ingvb
ivó«cwZ wRqvDi ingv‡bi RvZxqZvev`x `j iweev‡i msm`xq wbe©vP‡b AcÖwZ‡iva¨
weR‡qi c‡_| GB weR‡qi gva¨‡g MZ wZb eQ‡ii AwaK mg‡qi mvgwiK kvm‡bi
mgvwß n‡e| AvswkK djvd‡ji wfwˇZ weGbwc 103 wU Avm‡bi g‡a¨ 80 wU‡Z
GwM‡q Av‡Q |
†ewkifvM RvqMvq †fvU MÖnY kvwš—c~Y©fv‡e †kl n‡q‡Q| miKvwi g‡Z, fvi‡Zi
cwðg evsjv A½iv‡R¨i mxgvbv cvk¦©eZ©x `yB GjvKvq †fvU‡K›`« ¯’vcb Kiv m¤¢e
nqwb| wKQy mk¯¿ †emvgwiK bvMwiK evsjv‡`‡k cÖ‡ek K‡i wba©vwiZ †fvU †K‡›`«i
¯’vb `Lj K‡i Ae¯’vb MÖnY K‡i|
XvKv wek¦we`¨vj‡qi ivó«weÁv‡bi Aa¨vcK iIbK Rvnvb e‡jb, Ò†fvUviiv LyeB
mZK©| †fvUviiv D`vmxb bq, ïayB mZK©|Ó
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 56
Rahman wins in Bangladesh DACCA, Bangladesh (UPI) - The army general who ruled Bangladesh for more than three years under martial law today
led his party to overwhelming wins in the national elections, giving them control of the Parliament that will restore civilian
rule. Nearly complete voter results showed President Ziaur Rahman,
leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, emerged an easy victory in the impoverished nation‟s second parliamentary
elections since achieving independence in 1971 and the first parliamentary poll since 1973.
The 330-seat Parliament is due to be installed in the last week of March - the first session of an elected legislature since
January 1975. With winners declared in 266 of the 300 seats at stake, Zia‟s BNP had won 186 seats.
A distant second was a faction of the leftist Awami League that gained 34 seats. Other parties and independents split the rest.
Source: Rome News-Tribune (Dated: 19-Feb-1979)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=348&dat=19790
219&id=uustAAAAIBAJ&sjid=BjMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3202,2
591159
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 57
evsjv‡`‡ki wbe©vP‡b weRqx wRqvDi ingvb
MZ wZb eQ‡iiI AwaK mg‡qi mvgwiK kvm‡Ki `j, evsjv‡`k RvZxqZvev`x `j
RvZxq wbe©vP‡b AcÖwa‡iva¨ weR‡qi gva¨‡g msm‡`i wbqš¿Y †c‡Z hv‡‛Q Avi Zv
†`‡k †emvgwiK kvmb wdwi‡q Avb‡e| GB wbe©vPb †`‡ki ¯^vaxbZv cieZ©x wØZxq
msm`xq wbe©vPb Ges 1973 mv‡ji c‡i cÖ_g msm`xq wbe©vPb|
1975 mv‡ji Rvbyqvwii ci 330 Avmb wewkó GB msm‡`i cÖ_g Awa‡ekb ïi‚
n‡e 1979 mv‡ji gv‡P©i †kl mßv‡n| weGbwc GB wbe©vP‡b G ch©š— †NvwlZ 266
Avm‡bi djvd‡j 186 wU Avm‡b weRq jvf K‡i| wØZxq wbKUZg cÖwZØ›Øx `j
AvIqvgx jx‡Mi Avmb msL¨v GLb ch©š— 34| Ab¨vb¨ `j I ¯^Zš¿ cÖv_xiv evwK
Avmb fvMvfvwM K‡i Rqjvf K‡i‡Q|
UxKv: cÖK…Zc‡¶ weGbwc GB wbe©vP‡b 300 Avm‡bi g‡a¨ 207 wU Avm‡b Rqjvf
K‡i| cieZ©x‡Z 20 Rb weRqx ¯^Zš¿ msm` m`‡m¨i g‡a¨ 10 Rb weGbwc‡Z
†hvM`vb K‡i| msiw¶Z gwnjv Avm‡bi 30 wU Avm‡bi g‡a¨ 30 wU Avm‡bB
msL¨vMwiôZvi Rb¨ weGbwci g‡bvbxZ cÖv_x©iv wbe©vwPZ nb|
m~Î: evsjv‡`k wbe©vPb Kwgkb|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 58
Bangladesh President wants foreign investment
DACCA, Bangladesh (UPI) - President Ziaur Rahman said
yesterday the clear-cut results of parliamentary elections - his
party won more than two-thirds of the seats - will bring stability
and foreign investment to Bangladesh.
Zia, who has ruled the desperately poor country under martial
law since he took power in an army coup in November, 1975,
has called the election a watershed in Bangladesh‟s return to
democratic Government.
Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party captured 203 of 296 seats. A
faction of the leftist Awami League, which won 40 seats, came
in a distant second. Other parties and independents won 53 seats
and four others had not yet been decided.
Thirty seats in the 330-member Parliament were not up for
election but had been reserved for women. By virtue of its
majority, the BNP will fill all of those.
“The election and the normal democratic process will surely
bring a lot more stability and confidence in the people and it
will enhance the progress of our country”, Zia told foreign
reporters at a news conference.
“Now with this election and the democratic process fully
restored, more and more foreign private investment should
come into this country,” he said.
Foreign investors steered clear of Bangladesh after a series of
coups following the assassination of President Sheik Mujibur
Rahman in August, 1975.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 59
Zia repeated his pledge yesterday to convene Parliament within
a month and to end martial law a week later. He refused to say,
however, whether he will retire from the army, which he heads.
The President said his Government would continue its emphasis
on agriculture, which provides the livelihood of 90 percent of
the 85 million undernourished people of Bangladesh. Zia said a
family planning program and education would be other top
priorities of the Government.
Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, became independent in
December, 1971 after a bloody war in which millions of people
were killed. It was called an “international basket case” at its
birth by foreign diplomats, some of whom argued that the
situation was so desperate that it was useless to help the
country.
But international help did come and despite an average gross
national product of less than $100 per year, Bangladesh has
stayed afloat with more than $5 billion in foreign aid since
independence.
Source: The Montreal Gazette (Dated: 20-Feb-1979)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=1979
0220&id=j4Y1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=56EFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3548,
2947604
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 60
evsjv‡`‡ki ivó«cwZi •e‡`wkK wewb‡qvM cÖvwßi cÖZ¨vkv
ivó«cwZ wRqvDi ingvb Rvbvb †h, Zvui `j msm`xq wbe©vP‡b `yB Z…Zxqvsk Avm‡b
Rqjvf K‡i‡Q| †`k GLb w¯’wZkxj n‡e Ges Zv‡Z Av‡iv we‡`wk wewb‡qvM
Avm‡e| ivó«cwZ wRqv we‡`kx mvsevw`K‡`i GK msev` m‡¤§j‡b Rvbvb, ÒGB
wbe©vPb †`‡k MYZš¿ wdwi‡q G‡b‡Q| G‡Z K‡i †`k w¯’wZkxj n‡e Ges RbM‡Yi
Av¯’v I †`‡ki Dbœqb †e‡o hv‡e|Ó
wZwb Av‡iv e‡jb, ÒGB wbe©vP‡b MYZš¿ wd‡i Avmvq A‡bK we‡`kx cÖvB‡fU
wewb‡qvMKvix G‡`‡k Avm‡e|Ó ivó«cwZ Rvbvb, Zuvi miKvi K…wlKv‡R ¸iZ¡ cÖ vb
Ki‡e| cwievi cwiKíbv I wk¶vLvZ Zvui miKv‡ii Kv‡Q cÖavb AMÖvwaKvi cv‡e|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 61
Bangladesh Raises Food Output, Halving Its
Imports Over 5 years
DACCA, Bangladesh, Feb. 23 - Despite marginal success in
controlling its population growth, Bangladesh has cut its foreign
food-aid requirements in half during the last five years and
Government leaders are talking optimistically about acheiving
self-sufficiency in food by 1985.
Most experts on foreign aid have been skeptical about whether
Bangladesh would ever to be able to grow enough grain to feed
its population, which has increased to about 85 million and has
an annual growth rate of 2.4 percent.
Many of the aid experts have also said, however, that huge
production gains are possible as the use of fertilizer increases.
President Ziaur Rahman, in an explanation of why the
governing Bangladesh Nationalist Party won a two-thirds
majority in last weekend's parliamentary elections, said: "our
people are better fed and happier than they have been before."
‘What Is Needed Is Organization’
"A few years ago, people doubted that we could ever double
food production," President Zia said. "It"s not something
impossible. What is needed is organization."
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 62
Some foreign food experts have said that large donations of
gran from developed nations, mostly the United States, Canada
and Australia, have become major deterrents to increases in
domestic production. If these grain donation were replaced by
roughly tha same amounts of fertilizer, local farmers could
produce nearly four times the amount of grain donated, the
foreign ecperts have argued.
Under agriculture policies instituted in 1975, domestic grain
production has steadily increased and imporst have decreased.
The record crop of last year, estimated at 13.4 million tons of
rice and a few other crops, amounted to an increase of 13
percent over 1977.
But even the record 1978 crop amounted to only 88 percent of
Bangladesh's food needs. About 1.85 million tons of food,
particularly wheat, was imported.
Beacause of generally favorable weather for the fourth straight
year, food imports this year were expected to be reduced urther
to 1.4 million tons.
Beacause of unchecked population growth, however, half the
nation's families are still malnourished, according to American
estimates. Still, starvation and its accompanying social unrest
have diminished considerably.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 63
Less than 15 percent of the nearly 70 million Bengali who live
in rural areas have received the grain rations that the
Government has supplied from foreign food donations. The
bulk of the imported food has been sold well below market
prices to urban dwellers, including civil servants and soldiers
who are relatively well-off.
One result of these urban rations has been a depression of the
price of domestically grown grain, which has in turn caused a
reduction of incentives for farmers to grow more grain.
Meanwhile, neither domestic production nor imports have kept
pace with the demands of local farmers for fertilizer. Nearly
two-thirds of Bengali farmers use chemical fertilizers, but the
amount of fertilizers used has been lower here then anywhere in
Asia. Grain yields for Bangladesh have been among Asia's
lowest. Fertilizer application has been estimated at about one-
sixth the amount required for optimum yields.
By JAMES P. STERBA
Source: The New York Times (Dated: 26-Feb-1979)
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t34.0-
12/10540387_1472110903031235_650612546_n.jpg?oh=68bae4521
17a9185630d9562e8d03452&oe=53BFCD0B&__gda__=140506340
3_4d1a92cb7aa295ff8a109a1431533be4
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 64
evsjv‡`‡k Lv`¨ Drcv`b evo‡Q, 5 eQ‡i Avg`vwb K‡g‡Q A‡a©K
RbmsL¨v mgm¨v mgvav‡b mxwgZ mvdj¨ †c‡jI MZ cvuP eQ‡i evsjv‡`k we‡`k
†_‡K Lv`¨ mvnvh¨ I Avg`vwb Kwg‡q G‡b‡Q A‡a©‡Ki gZ| Avi 1985 mv‡ji
g‡a¨ evsjv‡`k‡K Lv‡`¨ ¯^qsm¤ú~Y©Zv AR©‡bi Rb¨ miKvi `…pc«wZÁ| evsjv‡`k
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•e‡`wkK mvnvh¨ welqK we‡klÁiv mw›`nvb wQ‡jb| Z_vwc, Zv‡`i fvl¨ wQj †h
mvi e¨envi e…w×i gva¨‡g AwaK Lv`¨ Drcv`b m¤¢e|
MZ mßv‡n AbywôZ RvZxq msm` wbe©vP‡b †Kb weGbwc Rqx n‡q‡Q Zvi e¨vL¨v
†cÖwm‡W›U wRqvDi ingvb Gfv‡e w`‡q‡Qb, ÒAvgv‡`i RbMY Av‡Mi †_‡K
fv‡jvfv‡e †L‡q †eu‡P Av‡Q Ges myLx Av‡Q|Ó wZwb Av‡iv e‡jb, ÒK‡qK eQi
Av‡M A‡b‡KiB m‡›`n wQj †h, Avgiv Lv`¨ Drcv`b wظY Ki‡Z cvi‡ev wKbv,
GUv Am¤¢e wKQy bv, Avgv‡`i `iKvi msMwVZKiY|Ó
A‡bK Lv`¨ we‡klÁ g‡b K‡ib ‡h, Av‡gwiKv, KvbvWv, A‡÷«wjqv †_‡K Avmv
wekvj Lv`¨ mvnvh¨ †`kR Drcv`b e…wׇZ cÖwZeÜKZv wQj| GB mvnvh¨ hw`
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†ewk Lv`¨ Drcv`b Ki‡Z cvi‡Zv|
K…wlbxwZi Aax‡b, Lv`¨ Drcv`b µgvMZ †e‡o‡Q Ges Avg`vwb K‡g‡Q| MZ eQ‡i
†iKW© cwigvY 13.4 wgwjqb Ub Pvj Ges Ab¨vb¨ km¨ Drcvw`Z n‡q‡Q hv 1977
mv‡ji Zyjbvq 13 kZvsk e…w×; hw`I Gi d‡j 88 kZvsk evsjv‡`wk‡`i Lv`¨
Pvwn`v c~iY n‡q‡Q| cÖvq 1.85 wgwjqb Ub Lv`¨, we‡kl K‡i Mg, Avg`vwb Kiv
n‡q‡Q| Avkv Kiv n‡‛Q, GeQi 1.4 wgwjqb Ub Lv`¨ Avg`vwb Kg‡e| hw`I
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 65
µgvMZ RbmsL¨v e…w×i Kvi‡Y GL‡bv A‡bK gvbyl cywónxbZvq fyM‡Q, Lv‡`¨i
Afv‡e fyM‡Q| Zv‡`i Rb¨ we‡`kx mvnvh¨B fimv|
Gw`‡K, ¯’vbxq K…lK‡`i mvi Pvwn`vi mv‡_ Zvj †gjv‡Z cvi‡Qbv †`kxq Drcv`b
wKsev Avg`vwb| evOvwj K…lKiv †hB cwigvY ivmvqwbK mvi e¨envi K‡i Gwkqvq
Zv me©wbgœ|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 66
Leaders call for peace in Indo-China KUALA LUMPUR, Friday - Bangladesh and Malaysia expressed concern yesterday over the disturbed situation in
Indo-China and its adverse effects on peace and stability in South-East Asia.
A joint communique issued at the end of a three-day visit by the Bangladesh President, General Ziaur Rahman, said he and the
Malaysian Prime Minister, Datuk Hussein Onn, also stressed the need for nil foreign troops to withdraw from the areas of
conflict in Indo-China. The two leaders, in their three-hour talks, discussed yesterday
the fighting in Kampuchea between Vietnam-backed Government forces and the guerillas loyal to the ousted Prime
Minister, Mr. Pol Pot and hostility between China and Vietnam which are due to hold peace talks this weekend.
The communique said withdrawal of all foreign troops from Indo-China would restore peace in the region and avoid
escalation of the conflict. General Zia praised the ASEAN nations for the progress the
group had made in efforts to enhance regional co-operational and stability.
(Reuter)
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald (Dated: 14-Apr-1979)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1301&dat=1979
0414&id=of5jAAAAIBAJ&sjid=oeYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=938,4
089108
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 67
B‡›`v-Px‡b kvwš— ’vc‡b †bZv‡`i AvnŸvb
evsjv‡`k I gvjqwkqv MZKvj B‡›`v-Px‡bi g‡a¨ D™¢~Z cwiw¯’wZ Ges `w¶Y-c~e©
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evsjv‡`‡ki †cÖwm‡W›U †Rbv‡ij wRqvDi ingv‡bi wZb w`‡bi mdi †k‡l Rvwi
Kiv GK †h․_ Bk‡Znv‡i wZwb Ges gvjqwkqvi cÖavbgš¿x `vZyK †nv‡mb Ab e‡jb
†h, B‡›`v-Px‡bi msNvZc~Y© GjvKv †_‡K we‡`wk •mb¨ DwV‡q wb‡Z †Rvi cÖ‡qvRb|
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†Mwijv‡`i g‡a¨ Pjv hy× Av‡jvPbv wb‡q we¯ —vwiZ Av‡jvPbv K‡ib| Bk‡Znv‡i
ejv nq, B‡›`v-Pxb †_‡K mg¯— we‡`wk •mb¨ cÖZ¨vnvi Kiv n‡j †mB me A‡j
kvwš— cybtcÖwZwôZ n‡e| †Rbv‡ij wRqv AvÂwjK mn‡hvwMZvg~jK Kvh©¶gZv I
¯’vwqZ¡ evov‡Z Avwmqv‡bi cÖ‡Póvi cÖksmv K‡ib|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 68
India, Bangladesh confer
NEW DELHI - Indian Prime Minister Morarji R Desai and
President Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh announced a series of
agreements Wednesday that are expected to strengthen the ties
between the two countries, whose relations in the past have
been less than happy despite India‟s key role in the neighboring
states separation from Pakistan in 1971. The war for
independence in Pakistan‟s former province of East Bengal, in
which Indian military intervention assured victory for the
rebels, had been over for only a few months when sensitive
Bangladeshis began to assert that they were being “exploited”
by their powerful benefactors.
A principal complaint concerned the high prices charged for
Indian goods, which enjoyed a near monopoly in Bangladesh
markets following the expulsion of Pakistan. Officials in Dacca
charged that India was making excessive use of irrigation water
from rivers flowing into Bangladesh from Indian territory to the
disadvantage of Bangladeshi farmers. India was annoyed in turn
by an inflow of members of religious minorities who alleged
that they had suffered persecution in overwhelmingly Moslem
Bangladesh and by the use of Bangladesh border regions as a
sanctuary by frontier tribesmen who were rebelling against
Indian rule. A low point was reached when the Indian high
commissioner - equivalent to an ambassador -was shot in the
shoulder by a Bangladeshi terrorist in November of 1975.
Meetings to mend the tattered relationship followed but visible
improvement began only with an official visit to New Delhi by
Rahman in December of 1977.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 69
Source: Bangor Daily News (Dated: 19-Apr-1979)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2457&dat=1979
0419&id=nvs0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=E08KAAAAIBAJ&pg=1105,
1603327
fviZ-evsjv‡`k Kbdv‡iÝ
evsjv‡`‡ki †cÖwm‡W›U wRqvDi ingvb Ges fviZxq cÖavbgš¿x †gviviRx Avi
†`kvB eyaevi `yB †`‡ki m¤úK© †Rvi`vi Ki‡Z GK wmwiR Pyw³ mv¶‡ii †NvlYv
w`‡q‡Qb, hv 1971 mv‡ji ¯^vaxbZv hy‡×i fvi‡Zi ¸i‚Z¡c~Y© f~wgKv _vKv m‡Ë¡I
cieZ©x eQi¸‡jv‡Z `yB †`‡ki g‡a¨ weivRgvb Am‡š—vlc~Y© Ae¯’vi Aemvb
NUv‡e| †h hy‡×i ga¨ w`‡q c~e© cvwK¯—vb ¯^vaxbZv jvf K‡i Zv‡Z fviZxq
†mbvevwnbx we‡`«vnx‡`i ¯^vaxbZv jv‡f h‡_ó mnvqZv K‡i| wKš‘ ¯^vaxbZv jv‡fi
K‡qK gv‡mi g‡a¨ evsjv‡`‡ki RbMY mvnvh¨Kvix evwnbxi Øviv †kvwlZ n‡‛Q e‡j
cÖKvk cvq| hvi g‡a¨ GKwU Awf‡hvM n‡jv fviZxq c‡Y¨i D‛Pg~j¨, hv evsjv‡`wk
evRv‡i GK‡PwUqv AvwacZ¨ wQj| Av‡iKwU Awf‡hvM wQj †h, fviZ Pvlvev‡`i
Rb¨ fviZ †_‡K evsjv‡`‡k cÖevwnZ b`x¸‡jv †_‡K AwZwi³ cvwb e¨envi Ki‡Q
hv evsjv‡`‡ki Pvlx‡`i Rb¨ Amyweavi KviY| Aciw`‡K, fviZ evsjv‡`‡ki Dci
Amš‘ó wQj wKQz Kvi‡Y| cÖ_gZ, evsjv‡`wk msL¨vjNy‡`i AZ¨vPvwiZ n‡q fvi‡Z
Ae¯’vb †bqv; wØZxqZ, evsjv‡`‡ki mxgvš—eZ©x GjvKv‡K fviZxq kvm‡bi
wei‚×vPviYKvix DcRvZxq‡`i Avkªq¯’j wn‡m‡e e¨envi Kiv| 1975 mv‡ji
b‡f¤i gv‡m evsjv‡`wk mš¿vmx Øviv fviZxq nvBKwgkbvi ¸wjwe× nIqv Av‡iv
GKwU KviY wQj| wKš‘ `yB †`‡ki m¤ú‡K©i `…k¨gvb DbœwZ ïi‚ n‡q‡Q 1977
mv‡ji wW‡m¤‡i wRqvDi ingv‡bi GKwU miKvwi md‡ii ga¨ w`‡q|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 70
India, Bangladesh to Improve Ties
New Delhi, India - Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai and
President Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh announced a series of
agreements Wednesday that are expected to strengthen the ties
between the two countries.
A joint commission will meet, probably next month, on the
issue of fair allocation of irrigation water from several rivers in
the Ganges system that flow from India into Bangladesh.
Talks will also be held on boundary disputes.
Source: New York Times (Dated: April 19, 1979)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=1979
0419&id=XVMaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=oSkEAAAAIBAJ&pg=555
4,4773016
fviZ-evsjv‡`k m¤úK© DbœwZi w`‡K
eyaevi fviZxq c«avbgš¿x †gviviRx †`kvB I evsjv‡`‡ki ivó«cwZ wRqvDi ingvb
wKQy Pyw³i †NvlYv †`b| Gi d‡j `yB †`‡ki g‡a¨ m¤úK © †Rvi`vi n‡e e‡j Avkv
Kiv n‡‛Q|
AvMvgx gv‡m GKwU †h․_ Kwgkb mfv nevi m¤¢vebv i‡q‡Q| †h․_ mfvq fvi‡Zi
M½v †_‡K Avmv cvwb hv evsjv‡`‡ki wewfbœ b`x‡Z cÖevwnZ nq Zvi b¨vh¨ †mP
cÖevn eivÏ wel‡q Av‡jvPbv n‡e|
GQvovI mxgvbv we‡iva wb‡qI Av‡jvPbv n‡e|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 71
India vows to halt Bangladesh exodus
NEW DELHI - (AP) - India will drive back refugees from
Bangladesh, Prime Minister Morarji Desai told his Parliament
yesterday, adding that whether they are left in the wilderness or
in cities is not India‟s concern.
“It is certainly not possible for this country to go on absorbing
an indefinite number who come from Bangladesh”, Home
Minister H. M. Patel said. He said Indian paramilitary forces
“pushed back 23,904 illegal infiltrators” from Bangladesh in the
past year.
Bangladesh is facing a major food crisis due to a short grain
crop and a United Nations official said last week that he
expected thousands of starvation deaths if emergency grain aid
was not received.
Although Desai said he would bar further refugees, he said his
Government was taking all steps to ensure the protection of
religious “minorities in Bangladesh.”
Thousands of Buddhist and Hindu refugees fled into eastern
India last year alleging religious persecution by the Moslem
majority in Bangladesh. Desai discussed the issue with
Bangladesh President Ziaur Rahman during a visit to Dacca last
month and said he was assured the persecution would stop.
An estimated 10 million refugees crossed into India during the
1971 war with Pakistan which resulted in the birth of
Bangladesh. Thousands stayed behind after the war ended.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 72
Meanwhile in New Delhi, former Indian Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi led tens of thousands of supporters in a protest march
against the Government.
Gandhi, 61, faces special court proceedings on charges arising
from her 21 months of self-declared emergency rule before her
Government fell.
Source: The Montreal Gazette (Dated: 17-May-1979)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=1979
0517&id=KZkuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VaEFAAAAIBAJ&pg=407
9,653463
evsjv‡`‡ki kiYv_©x‡`i i‚L‡Z fviZ …pcÖwZÁ
cÖavbgš¿x †gviviRx †`kvB fvi‡Zi msm‡` e‡j‡Qb †h, evsjv‡`wk wekvj
kiYv_©x‡`i RvqMv w`‡Z fviZ m¶g bq Ges Zv‡`i †diZ cvVv‡bv n‡e|
¯^ivó«gš¿x GBPGg c¨v‡Uj Rvbvb, Zvi Avav mvgwiK evwnbx MZ eQi 23,904
Rb‡K evsjv‡`‡k †diZ cvwV‡q‡Q| Gw`‡K, evsjv‡`‡k Pig Lv`¨ msKU weivR
Ki‡Q| RvwZms‡Ni GK cÖwZwbwa Rvwb‡q‡Qb, `ª‚Z mvnvh¨ cvVv‡bv bv n‡j Lv`¨
msK‡U g…Z¨y nvRv‡ii gZ n‡e| Gw`‡K †`kvB Av‡iv e‡jb, ÒmsL¨vjNy‡`i myi¶v
wbwðZ Kiv n‡e|Ó nvRvi nvRvi †e․× I wn›`y ag©xq wbcxo‡bi wkKvi n‡q MZ
eQi fvi‡Z Avkªq †bq| †`kvB Zvi XvKv md‡ii mgq GB wel‡q †cÖwm‡W›U
wRqvDi ingv‡bi mv‡_ K_v e‡jb| wRqvDi ingvb Zvu‡K GB g‡g© Avk¦¯ — K‡ib
†h, wZwb GB e¨vcv‡i cÖ‡qvRbxq c`‡¶c M«nY Ki‡eb| 1971 G evsjv‡`‡ki
¯^vaxbZv hy‡×i mgq AvbygvwbK 1 †KvwU kiYv_©x fvi‡Z Avkªq †bq Ges mnmªvwaK
†mLv‡b †_‡K hvq|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 73
Drought Threatens Bangladesh Famine
DACCA, Bangladesh (UPI) - Bangladesh is experiencing one of
its worst droughts of this century, prompting fears this
impoverished nation will suffer another famine.
Acutely aware that food is a political issue in the country once
described by former U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger as
an economic “basket case.” The Government staunchly denies
there will be a famine this year. But President Ziaur Rahman
and Government Ministers have been touring hardest hit
northern areas to assure villagers they won’t starve included in
the tours are prayers to Allah for rain.
“Oh, Allah, the most beneficent and merciful, pardon our sins
and give us rain”, the President implored on a recent trip to
northern Bangladesh.
“Amen”, came the resounding roar from some 40,000 people at
the rally.
Two major crops have been severely damaged and a third faces
a similar fate if rain does not come soon, agricultural experts
report.
In an effort to head off a general famine, the Government has
sent envoys to world capitals to procure grains.
The United States has assured Bangladesh of total support if an
emergency arises in addition to its previous commitment of
500,000 tons of food grains.
China has provided another 50,000 tons, the European
Economic Community provided 200,000 tons. Burma offered
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 74
up to 600,000 tons and Canada and Australia promised
additional supplies.
Food Minister Abdul Momen Khan reported that 2 million tons
of the estimated 22 million tons of supplemental grains needed
were available and said the nation had enough food for three
months in warehouses.
Opposition political groups say the drought already has brought
famine-like conditions to sections of this nation of 86 million
people. They cite steadily rising food prices, which they say are
due to shortages and charge the Government has only a 15-day
supply of food in storage.
The leading opposition party, the Awami League, which was in
power when 27,000 people died in a 1974 famine, charges the
Government is trying to cover up the enormity of the current
situation.
Rain has been one-third of normal in the past eight months.
Monsoon rains normally come in July.
Source: The Hour (Dated: 13-Jun-1979)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1916&dat=1979
0613&id=PY80AAAAIBAJ&sjid=-
G0FAAAAIBAJ&pg=1291,2118181
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 75
Livi Kvi‡Y ywf©‡¶i ûgwK‡Z evsjv‡`k
evsjv‡`k kZvãxi fqven Livi mgq cvi Ki‡Q| Avk¼v n‡‛Q, GwU Av‡iKwU
`ywf©‡¶i KviY n‡Z cv‡i| Av‡gwiKvi †m‡µUvwi †nbix wKwmÄvi GK`v
evsjv‡`k‡K ÔZjvwenxb SzwoÕ e‡jwQ‡jb| G‡`‡k Lv`¨ †h GKwU ¯úk©KvZi
ivR‣bwZK Bmy¨ †m wel‡q we‡klfv‡e m‡PZb evsjv`‡k miKvi Aek¨ G eQi
`ywf©‡¶i AvksKv `„pfv‡e cÖZ¨vL¨vb K‡i‡Q| Z‡e †cÖwm‡W›U wRqvDi ingvb Ges
gš¿xcwil`MY Livi e¨vcK wkKvi DËiv‡j mdi K‡i‡Qb| G md‡i e¨vcK
†`vqv I †gvbvRvZ Kiv n‡q‡Q| †cÖwm‡W›U †gvbvRv‡Z e‡jb, Ò†n Avjvn, A‡kl
`qv I Ki‚Yvi Avavi, Avgv‡`i ¸bvn gvd K‡iv Ges e…wó `vIÓ| ¸i‚M¤¢xi
eR«bv‡`i gZ ÒAvgxbÓ †f‡m Av‡m Av‡kcv‡ki 40,000 gvby‡li gvS †_‡K| K…wl
we‡klÁ‡`i wi‡cvU© Abyhvqx, `yÕwU dmj ¸i‚Zi fv‡e ¶wZM«¯’ n‡q‡Q Ges kxN«B
e…wó bv n‡j Z…ZxqwUI Abyiƒc Ae¯’vi wkKvi n‡e| `ywf©¶ cwiw¯’wZi AvMvg e¨e¯’v
wn‡m‡e miKvi wewfbœ iv‡ó« Lv`¨ msi¶‡Yi Rb¨ `~Z cvwV‡qwQ‡jb| hy³ivó«
evsjv‡`k‡K Zv‡`i c~‡e©i avh© Kiv 5,00,000 Ub Lv`¨ k‡m¨i D‡aŸ© mvnvh¨
cÖ v‡b Avk¦¯— K‡i‡Q| Pxb 50,000 Ub, BD‡ivcxq A_©‣bwZK KwgDwbwU
2,00,000 Ub, evg©v 6,00,000 Ub Lv`¨ cÖ`vb K‡i‡Q Ges KvbvWv I A‡÷«wjqv
AwZwi³ mieiv‡ni cÖwZkÖ‚wZ w`‡q‡Q| Lv`¨gš¿x Avãyj †gv‡bg Lvb GK wi‡cv‡U©
e‡jb, AvbygvwbK 22 wgwjqb U‡bi 2 wgwjqb Ub Lv`¨ gRy` wQj Ges Zv RvwZi
wZb gv‡mi Rb¨ h‡_ó| we‡ivax`j e‡j‡Q †h, Liv BwZg‡a¨B `ywf©‡¶i gZ
cwiw¯’wZi m…wó K‡i‡Q| Zviv e‡jb, Lv`¨ msK‡Ui Kvi‡YB `«e¨g~j¨ e…w× cv‡‛Q
Ges Zviv miKvi‡K P¨v‡jÄ K‡i †h, ¸`v‡g gvÎ 15 w`‡bi Lv`¨ gRy` Av‡Q|
cÖavb we‡ivax`j AvIqvgx jxM ¶gZvq _vKvKv‡j 1974 mv‡ji `ywf©‡¶ 27 nvRvi
gvbyl gviv hvq| miKvi cwiw¯’wZi e¨vcKZv XvKvi †Póv Ki‡Q e‡j gš—e¨ Zv‡`i|
Gevi mvaviY gvÎvi GK-Z…Zxqvsk e…wó n‡q‡Q gvÎ; †g․mygx e„wó mvaviYZ
RyjvB‡Z ïi‚ nq|
UxKv: †nbix wKwmÄvi evsjv‡`k‡K Zjvwenxb Szwo bv‡g AwfwnZ K‡ib| wZwb
1974 mv‡ji 27 A‡±vei †_‡K 30 A‡±vei evsjv‡`k mdi K‡ib|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 76
Man of Integrity,
Bangladesh Ills Tackled: Leader’s Efforts Praised
DACCA, Bangladesh (UPI) - President Ziaur Rahman has declared war on the cataclysmic problems that led Henry Kissinger to dub Bangladesh an “international basket case.”
Zia, as he is known in South Asia, has warned his cabinet of a
“revolution to better the lot of the common man” in Bangladesh. Zia this month called on his Bangladesh National Party to enact
legislation that would change the nation‟s “colonial system of administration radically to a people-oriented” one. Earlier he
told his cabinet to “be prepared to make sacrifices.” Although Zia did not detail his plans for change, his impressive
track record in tackling Bangladesh problems indicates he means business.
Widely regarded as a man of quiet integrity, the 44-year-old President has taken first steps - self-help reform programs - to
break Bangladesh‟s begging bowl. Although a record $1.3 billion in foreign aid is expected to pour
into South Asia‟s poorest nation in 1979, Government projects in food for work, education, collective farms, family planning
and women‟s rights have begun to erode what one foreign economist called the “psychology of dependence.”
Zia accomplished this year what most thought impossible: He
kept the nation‟s 90 million people from famine in a drought
year.
Exactly five years ago, nearly 50,000 Bangladeshi‟s died in a
drought not nearly so severe. Political observers now marvel
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 77
that the same combination of political neglect, poverty, bad
water and land management and general lack of foresight did
not produce a similar disaster in 1979.
“Quite frankly we are mighty impressed,” said one western
diplomat. Zia did much of the overseas shopping himself for 2.2
million tons of food grain (200,000 tons from the United States)
imported to meet the food production shortfall. Defying skeptics
among international donors who thought he would never be able
to get the food into the stomachs of the nation‟s poor, Zia
worked 20 hours a day to double the capacity of Bangladesh‟s
two ports to move 16,000 tons of food per day. To unclog the
distribution system, he cut out a battery of corrupt middlemen
to effectively stave off starvation in a record shortfall year.
This year the usual devastating floods did not follow the
drought. Instead there was record 18 percent inflation,
astronomical unemployment, a brain drain to the Middle East
power cuts that crippled industry and a stubbornly growing
population.
The drought caused food prices to soar and left 30 to 40 percent
of the nation‟s population -more than half of it rural but landless
- without work.
Those who are young and trained left for the Middle East and
salaries they can live on. The foreign remittances they generate
are a boon but the brain drain has resulted in break downs and
chronic disrepair of strategic equipment such as power plants.
The population, still steeped in the belief that bigger families
mean more prosperity, is booming, adding 50,000 hungry
mouths every three months.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 78
Inheritance laws have divided the land into small plots that
make agricultural reforms impossible and crop shortages
continue even when the rain is good.
And the bottom has fallen out of the market for jute, the
nation‟s biggest cash crop, so women burn it to cook their
meals.
Many observers believe Zia, a wily politician, will survive the
discontent these problems generate to carry his revolution to
success.
He has effectively decimated his opposition, leaving it
politically impotent.
But Bangladesh was weaned on violence and Governments
have come and gone unexpectedly.
“Stability is new to us,” said one Bangladeshi political scientist.
“If we come to trust it, we fear we will lose it.”
By SUZANNE F. GREEN Source: Spokane Daily Chronicle (Dated: 29-Oct-1979)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1338&dat=1979
1029&id=rNRWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=N_kDAAAAIBAJ&pg=43
83,3972847
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 79
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we¯ —vwiZ e‡jbwb, Z_vwc, Zuvi c~‡e©i Dbœqbg~jK Kv‡Ri avivevwnKZv †`‡L ejv
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e¨vcKfv‡e mgv`„Z I mZZvi ¸Y m¤úbœ GKRb 44 eQi eq¯‥ †cÖwm‡W›U †`‡ki
Dbœq‡bi cÖ_g c`‡¶c wn‡m‡e wf¶ve„wË eÜ K‡i ¯^wbf©i nevi cš’v MÖnY
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wbf©ikxj| Zv‡`i cvVv‡bv †iwg‡UÝ A_©bxwZi Rb¨ Avkxe©v` ¯^iƒc|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 80
Bangladesh Unveils Farm Plan Dacca, Bangladesh - President Ziaur Rahman unveiled a 5-year agriculture plan Sunday aimed at doubling food production in
Bangladesh, one of the world‟s poorest countries. He told a nationwide radio and television audience that the agriculture
“revolution” will be launched next month and focus on creating a network of irrigation facilities throughout the country. A major goal, the President said, is to turn Bangladesh into a food-
exporting nation.
Source: The Milwaukee Sentinel (Dated: 19-Nov-1979)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1368&dat=1979
1119&id=z4BQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=BhIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5488
,3607632
evsjv‡`k K…wl wec‡ei Avkv e¨³ Kij
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n‡e, hvi j¶¨ n‡e evsjv‡`k‡K Lv`¨ ißvwbKvix †`‡k cwiYZ Kiv|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 81
Bangladesh’s President In Britain
LONDON (AP) – Bangladesh President Ziaur Rahman arrived
Monday for a four-day visit, the first state visit to Britain by a
Bangladesh head of Government since that country‟s
independence in 1971.
Rahman was met at Heathrow Airport by British Foreign
Secretary Lord Carrington and a crowd of more than 200
cheering supporters.
His visit will include talks with Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher and an audience with Queen Elizabeth II. The visit is
designed to strengthen political and economic ties with Britain.
Source: Sarasota Herald Tribune (Dated: 17-June-1980)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=1980
0617&id=nJwcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=3WcEAAAAIBAJ&pg=342
2,304536
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evsjv‡`‡ki g‡a¨ ivR‣bwZK Ges A_©‣bwZK eÜb my`…p n‡e e‡j Avkv Kiv n‡‛Q|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 82
Ziaur predicts oil wealth
TOKYO, Thursday (Reuter) - There are strong indications that
Bangladesh has both on and off-shore oil resources and may in
time become an exporter, its President, Mr. Ziaur Rahman said
here today.
He told reporters Bangladesh had large amounts of gas and oil
resources which it was unable to develop.
He hoped for both technical and financial assistance from Japan
to develop these.
President Ziaur, here for yesterday‟s memorial service for the
Japanese Prime Minister, Mr. Ohira, said the discovery of oil in
Bangladesh “is not a dream”.
Seismic studies were being carried out throughout the country,
he added.
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald (Dated: July 11, 1980)
Link:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1301&dat=19800711
&id=oAxiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6-
YDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6913,3109201
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 83
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†cÖwm‡W›U wRqvDi ingvb AvR e‡j‡Qb †h, evsjv‡`‡k R‡j Ges ¯’‡j †Z‡ji
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†Zj ißvwbKvix wn‡m‡e cwiwPwZ jvf Ki‡e|
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Av‡iv e‡jb †h, evsjv‡`‡k †Z‡ji Drm cÖvwß †Kvb wbQK ¯^cœ bq| Gi Rb¨
cÖ‡qvRbxq cix¶v-wbix¶v Pj‡Q e‡j wZwb Rvbvb|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 84
U.S. promises Bangladesh aid
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh
says the United States has agreed to provide “all possible help”
in an ambitious five-year plan to improve the South Asian
country‟s economy.
Overall, Rahman said in an interview, Bangladesh will need
more than $2 billion in international financial support this year
as it undertakes its program to double food production and
improve water supplies. “President Carter has assured me of all
possible help in this five-year plan.” Rahman told reporters at
his embassy after he talked with Carter at the White House.
Source: The Tuscaloosa News (Dated: 30-Aug-1980)
Link:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&dat=19800830
&id=ajsjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0Z4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=3005,78756
41
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c«K‡íi Dbœq‡bi Rb¨ GeQi evsjv‡`‡ki `yB wewjq‡bi †ewk Avš—R©vwZK
mvnv‡h¨i c«‡qvRb|
†nvqvBU nvD‡R Avjvc †k‡l evsjv‡`wk `~Zvev‡m wRqv mvsevw`K‡`i Av‡iv e‡jb,
Ò†c«wm‡W›U KvU©vi Zvu‡K GB cvuP eQi †gqv`x cwiKíbvq me ai‡bi mnvqZv
†`qvi e¨vcv‡i wbðqZv w`‡q‡Qb|Ó
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 85
Chinese aid pledge
PEKING, Thursday. - President Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh
left for home today after a four-day official visit to China
during which the two countries signed economic assistance and
civil aviation agreements.
The President, who had nearly seven hours of talks with
Chairman Hua Guofeng, was seen off at Peking Airport by the
Vice-Premier, Chen Muhua and the Foreign Minister, Mr.
Huang Hua.
Informed sources said, the economic assistance agreement was
for 50 million yuan (about $30 million).
A military team was expected to go to Bangladesh next month
for further talks.
Chairman Hua was qouted as having described President Ziaur's
visit as “very successful.”
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald (Dated: 25-July-1980)
Link:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1301&dat=19800725
&id=rgxiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6-
YDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5630,7995210
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 86
evsjv‡`k‡K Px‡bi mnvqZv Kivi A½xKvi
†cÖwm‡W›U wRqvDi ingvb Px‡b Pviw`‡bi miKvwi mdi †k‡l AvR wbR †`‡ki
D‡Ï‡k¨ iIbv n‡q‡Qb| G md‡i `yB †`‡ki g‡a¨ A_©‣bwZK mnvqZv Ges
†emvgwiK wegvb PjvPj welqK Pzw³ mv¶wiZ nq|
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civóªgš¿x ûqvs ûqv|
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evsjv‡`k mdi Kivi K_v i‡q‡Q|
†cÖwm‡W›U wRqvi GB mdi‡K †Pqvig¨vb ûqv ÒAwZ mdjÓ wn‡m‡e AvL¨vwqZ
K‡i‡Qb|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 87
Bangladeshi Leader Tireless in Pep Talks to People
CHANDPUR, Bangladesh - As he does three or four times
every week, President Ziaur Rahman recently flew to villages and country towns in Bangladesh to exhort cheering crowds to produce more food and have fewer children.
In this river port, the 43-year-old President walked into crowds
waiting for helicopter, he shook hands. He visited schools
where adults and children were learning to read, he
congratulated women who had joined village militia forces. He
appealed for greater voluntary efforts to develop what is
considered the poorest large country in Asia.
For many of the President‟s urban-based critics, this sort of
evangelistic nationalism is a waste of time. They say it is
calculated only to build up the President and his political
organization.
Mr. Zia does not deny that he is trying through his trips to
strengthen party organization at the grass root, but he defends
his travels and cheerleading approach as essential if progress is
to be made in this country of 90 million people.
Need for Village Self-Reliance
“To mobilize people, to motivate them for action is the most
important thing, I can do,” President Zia said as his helicopter
flew over glistening patches of yellow jute and green rice, he
explained that the theme of his countryside sermons was always
the same: the need for self-reliance in the villages.
“Every village must be given a voice in social and economic
decisions and we must work to convert people in man-power,”
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 88
he said. The President‟s energy level is very high. He has
walked as much as 12 miles between villages. He has spent
hours digging canals with villagers.
“He only needs three or four hours of sleep a night and he
nearly drives us mad,” said one aide who explained that after a
day‟s tour of a village, the President returns to Dacca, the
capital, where he usually works until 2 or 3 a.m. dictating
reports, reviewing projects and tending to administrative details.
“He thinks everybody is like he is”, said the aide.
So far Mr. Zia says, he has taken his campaign for “a peaceful
revolution that has four points” to 10,000 of the 68,000 villages.
Plan to Double Food Production
The first point, he said, is a national commitment to double food
production in five years through expanded irrigation,
introduction of high-yield varieties and cultivation of all
available land. The second point is to encourage a mass literacy
campaign involving hundreds of thousands of volunteers. The
third is family planning and population control. The fourth is
the establishment of volunteer militia forces that can be used for
both politics and development work.
In the dry season, President Zia laid greater stress on increasing
food production and in his village appearances he urged country
people to build canals so that fields that lay fallow in dry
periods could become productive year round.
As a result 250 canals were started and 176 were completed, all
with the use of volunteer labor and 600,000 acres were
converted to year-round cultivation.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 89
“Next year”, said the President, “we have approved village
proposals for 700 additional canals which would irrigate one-
and-a-half million acres.”
Among foreign diplomats and the legion of experts working for
international and voluntary agencies, the canal program has won
high marks.
‘Suspicious of One-Man Shows’
“To tell you the truth”, said a Western diplomat, “I was very
skeptical when the President started going out to the
countryside, I am basically suspicious of one man shows. But
you have to hand it to him, he is making things work.”
On his visit here, the President repeatedly referred to canal-
building but most of the emphasis was on the literacy program
and population control.
“We are just beginning to stress family planning”, he told a
visitor. “Until now we have not been too forceful. We had to
deal with the problem of religious conservatism but now we
have won over the religious leaders through patient discussions.
On such a campaign it is better to move slowly and cautiously
and lay the groundwork for a program that will be completely
voluntary and successful. The women are keen now and we are
moving a big way.”
By far the most controversial part of the program is the village
militia forces. Some of Mr. Zia‟s increasingly isolates
opponents have questioned whether these mostly young people
have been organized for development work or to help the
President‟s Bangladesh National Party.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 90
Tailoring Speech or Audience
In light of the President‟s visits, such confusion is
understandable. At several stops he addressed nonpartisan
crowds and there he emphasized development.
Other gatherings were of local party workers who have taken
over village Government. The masses of unemployed youths,
some of them quite rough, have joined the party and in some
place they are said to be bullying the opposition.
It has been a problem for any party however, whether to absorb
these elements or leave them for the opposition.
President Zia sees no ambiguity in simultaneously rallying
support for party and nation-building. He explained that
Bangladesh was politically undeveloped not having had a
chance to build administrative structure like other post-colonial
countries.
“We have always been ruled a province, first by British India
and then by Pakistan”, he has said. “Our independence is only
nine years old.”
His party is only two years old and it is a hodgepodge of people
with no clear ideological contours beyond the popularity of the
President. Its members include former Maoists and former
advocates of continued union with Pakistan.
Desire of Security and Stability
According to some of his confidants, Mr. Zia is eager that a
party be forged that will outlast him and provide security and
stability of development. It is in furtherance of this objective,
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 91
say the confidants, that the President has gone to the
countryside to establish his base. “If the countryside develops,
the country will automatically develop,” said the President
during his helicopter interview.
As a result of such statements, Mr. Zia‟s major opposition in
now centered among the urban elite, including intellectuals,
Government workers and labor leaders. But this opposition is
dwarfed by the high esteem that is demonstrated every few days
when the President enters a village.
Some of Mr. Zia‟s critics say the campaign in the countryside
underscores his need for adulation. They say he seems intent on
building a personality cult and establishing one-man rule. This
is disputed by his supporter, who point out that he travels
without much security or pomp.
The verdict of several diplomats here is that for the moment
President Zia has not been corrupted by power. “He seems to be
going out, first of all, to genuinely encourage development and
mass participation,” said a Western diplomat. “His secondary
motive appears to be to build political institutions that will
survive after he is gone.
“And finally, he seems to be exploiting the outpourings of
popular support, using them as a shield against the opposition
parties and against the opportunists in his own party who might
like to see him leave.”
By MCHAEL T. KAUFMAN
Source: The New York Times (Dated: 28-Jul-1980)
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 92
Link:http://sphotos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-
prn2/q71/s720x720/1175404_163565843832714_1205489004_
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 93
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 94
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 95
†ewki fvM K~UbxwZK‡`i AwfgZ n‡jv wRqvDi ingvb ¶gZv Øviv `yb©xwZMÖ¯’ bb|
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e¨envi Ki‡Qb|Ó
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 96
Oil price cut urged for poor countries UNITED NATIONS, Tuesday - President Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh proposed to the General Assembly today a 10-point
programme to lighten the economic burden of the poorest countries, including a 50% cut in the price they must pay for
imported oil. Addressing the special session on the global economic crisis, he
also called for a start on regional economic co-operation in South Asia, where he said there had been no serious efforts in
that direction so far. Without a massive transfer of resources, it was unlikely that
many of the countries in the southern hemisphere would be able to break out of their vicious cycle of poverty, he said.
Mr. Rahman proposed:
A campaign to inform public opinion in the more affluent northern hemisphere of the need for a new international
economic order. Developed countries, both free market and communist, should
double aid to the least developed countries immediately, providing this in grants.
The organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) should provide a 50% reduction in the price of oil for the least
developed countries.
An international consortium should be established to develop the poorest countries energy resources.
Opec should invest part of its assets in poorer developing countries. There should be a massive transfer of resources from
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 97
north to south through taxation on international trade and arms
expenditure. Source: The Glasgow Herald (Dated: 27-Aug-1980)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=1980
0827&id=VPM9AAAAIBAJ&sjid=9UgMAAAAIBAJ&pg=33
13,4740224
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 98
Where to Look for Aid: New Ideas for Third World
UNITED NATIONS,
N.Y. Aug. 28 – Maj.
Gen. Ziaur Rahman, the
President of
Bangladesh, has been
uttering hereby at the
United Nations
bargaining session
between rich and poor.
Unlike most spokesmen
here for developing
countries, General Zia does not think that the task of aiding the
poor is exclusively a Western affair.
He wants the oil-producing countries to help by having the price
of crude for the poorest importers. He even thinks the Soviet
bloc should pitch in by doubling its foreign aid which is limited.
“Somebody has got to say this first,” he said in an interview in
his hotel suite. “So we say it, where lie the surpluses? They lie
with OPEC, the Socialist countries and the West. All these three
groups should share the effort of developing the least
developed.”
With his trim pepper-and-sal: mustache, brown pin-striped suit
and brown-striped white shirt, the 44-years-old President looks
very much like a man who could still lead his troop on a forced
march.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 99
Took Power in 1975
He took power in Bangladesh in 1975 after the assassination of
its founder, Sheik Mujibur Rahman, three years and several
purges later a referendum confirmed General Zia, as he is
known, as President for another five years, at least.
“How long should a general stay in power?”, he was asked. He
waged an admonishing finger at his questioner and said with a
smile, “I was a military man; I am not a military man now.” But
even when he talks of domestic affairs, his vocabulary is
sprinkled with military verbs.
“We have mobilized the people to work on a voluntary basis to
bring the whole country under irrigation,” he said. There are
“massive volunteers” brought to here, he added, digging canals
and ditches and small building dams. “We plan to double food
production in five or six years,” he also says with assurance,
“we will be self-sufficient.”
His country of 90 million has one of the world‟s highest rates of
population growth gain, adding another 2.5 million people to
the total each year. As a result the President has started a drive
to limit births.
“We‟re hitting at the villages where 90 percent of the people
live”, he says. General Zia is ambitious. Elsewhere in Asia,
except in China, family planning programs have succeeded in
cities but failed in the countryside because medical and other
urban-based workers will not stay there.
The President is relying on an army of aides from his
Bangladesh National Party to carry the contraceptive message
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 100
and the means. “There is tremendous enthusiasm among the
people”, he insists.
His third great concern is teaching the four in five who are
illiterate how to read and write. “We have mobilized the whole
nation,” he said, “launched this program for literacy. People are
teaching on a voluntary basis.”
Frank About His Motives
Some students of Bangladeshi politics have suggested that the
General‟s volunteers are at least as interested in enhancing his
reputation and building this party as they are in the people‟s
welfare. He shrugged, “When I go anywhere, I‟m a political
man,” he said, “I‟m mobilizing for my party, you use volunteers
to win votes.”
This frankness disappears when he talks of the Soviet
intervention in Afghanistan. Bangladesh has been a leader at the
United Nations in condemning the move and urging Moscow to
withdraw its troops. But General Zia is on his guard over what
the next step should be. “The efforts have to be continued,” he
said. “You should be doing a lot more, he added, alluding to the
United States. Just what the United States should do he will not
say.
By BERNARD D. NOSSITER
Source: The New York Times (Dated: 29-Aug-1980)
Link: http://sphotos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-
prn2/q71/s720x720/1186215_163573167165315_1633304759_
n.jpg
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 101
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Avcbv‡`i Kivi Av‡iv A‡bK wKQy Av‡Q|Ó
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 102
French Agree to Help Build Nuclear Plant in
Bangladesh
Paris, Aug. 29 (Reuters) - France and Bangladesh signed an
agreement today under which the French will provide
technological and financial assistance for the construction of a
nuclear power plant in northern Bangladesh.
The agreement was concluded after talks between President
Valery Giscard d‟Estaing and the President of Banladesh, Maj.
Gen. Ziaur Rahman, who was here on a visit. The nuclear
power station, the country‟s first, is to be built at Roopur. The
Dacca Government, which also hopes to construct a research
reactor, has signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.
Bangladesh hopes to raise $400 million from France and other
Western nations to finance the power plant.
Source: The New York Times (Dated: 30-August-1980)
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t34.0-
12/10529421_1472111066364552_1044420078_n.jpg?oh=d3fbecad5
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549dc040fde21c20216b408ad27a8cb4
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 103
Islamic leaders meet
DACCA, Bangladesh (AP) – President Ziaur Rahman left for
Morocco today to attend and Islamic summit committee
meeting that he said plans to drum up support for taking
Jerusalem from Israel and placing it under Arab control.
Zia told reporters the committee, which begins work Friday in
the Moroccan capital of Rabat, would discuss measures “to
mobilize world support for the return of the holy city to Arab
and Islamic sovereignty.” The three-member summit committee
includes Rahman, King Hassan II of Morocco and President
Ahmed Sekou Toure of Guinea.
Source: Lawrence Journal (Dated: 6-Nov-1980)
Link:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=19801106
&id=q7pfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=YecFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5331,1153
752
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 104
Bangladesh Outlaws The Dowry
DACCA, Bangladesh (AP) - Parliament has passed a law
outlawing “the giving, taking (or) abetting the giving of a
dowry,” a custom that has bought financial ruin to many parents
in this impoverished country.
The custom of giving a dowry, a financial award from the
bride's family to the bridegroom, dates back thousands of years.
Demands of prospective bridegrooms include money, jewelary,
a new car, a house, a refrigerator and a television set.
In recent years, there have been more than 250 murders and
many cases of wife abuse and divorce by husbands dissatisfied
with the dowries paid them.
Source: The Argus Press (Dated: 15-Dec-1980)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1988&dat=1980
1215&id=DVEiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=3awFAAAAIBAJ&pg=373
6,3926377
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 105
Bangladesh making headway
DACCA (WP) - Bangladesh, once described by Henry
Kissinger as „an international basket case‟, celebrated its 10th
anniversary last month with its cheerleader President
proclaiming that his poor and densely populated land will
produce enough food to meet its needs by 1987.
“We've got to do it. It's our survival”, said President Ziaur
Rahman, 45, who sometimes appears to be trying to raise his
country up by the sheer force of his persuasion. The anniversary
marked the declaration of independence from Pakistan by East
Bengal, which is now Bangladesh.
Surprisingly, many international experts here also believe
Bangladesh can achieve self-sufficiency in food - if not by Zia's
optimistic timetable, then soon after. Yet in many ways,
Bangladeshis hard is it is trying with a massive, worldwide aid
program that has poured in more than $10 billion, assistance
since 1971, remains a basket case of sorts.
It remains one of the world‟s poorest countries, with at average
annual per capita income of less than $100. Anyone who makes
more than $ 1,000 a year is considered middle class. With 90
million people closely packed on 55,598 square miles, it is one
of the most densely populated countries.
Even if Zia's most optimistic projections for food production
and population control come true by 1985, Bangladesh's
millions would get no more than an extra half ounce of grain
each day. The increase would provide only 70 percent of what
international experts believe is the minimum daily food require-
ment.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 106
“What we are talking about is less than a handful of grain in a
day per person. „That‟s what we are worrying about,” said an
international aid expert. Nonetheless, there is a feeling among
many experts here that Bangladesh may turn the corner. It has
the reputation of trying harder than almost any other poor
country to break out of the poverty cycle.
“Lots of things don‟t go well but lots of things succeed,
particularly those that Zia focuses attention on,” said one
experienced moving, he said, “because of development imput.”
The changes are noticed by businessmen, diplomats and
international aid workers who have been coming to this country
for years. One businessman said conditions appear to have
improved since his last visit six months ago.
“People who come back after five or six years don‟t believe it,”
said one aid official. “It‟s come from a point where people were
starving in the streets and they were doing body counts in
Dacca to where people don‟t starve to death, even when there is
a drought as in 1979. “Aid”, a diplomat said, “has changed from
relief to development.” Moreover, in its 10 years as country,
Bangladesh seems to have developed a real lens of unity. The
new feeling of guarded optimism about Bangladesh‟s future
stems almost entirely from the leadership of Zia, a retire army
general who took over a military government in 1976 and
transformed it in civilian rule.
He restored fundamental rights, free political prisoners and in
1978 won a whopping 77 percent margin in a presidential
election that outside observers said was free and fair.
Zia runs a one man show, concentrating the Government on
rural development aimed t helping the 90 percent of the
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 107
population who live in villages. His program appears to
strengthen his political base among the villagers, while the
increasing inflation has his popularity among the small but
influential urban middle class.
His goals for the country are to decrease illiteracy, which stands
at more than 80 percent; gain self-sufficiency in food by
increasing production from the present 13.1 million toils of
grain a year to 20 million tons by 1985, with a guaranteed
production of 18 million tons in years with bad wealth and a
doubling of the crop in seven or eight years; control
Bangladesh‟s burgeoning birth rate, which threatens to
overwhelm all the recent advances in development.
Nonetheless, in an interview recently, one dinner in the
presidential palace after he welcomed Guinean President
Ahmed Seko Toure on a state visit, Zia appeared optimistic that
Bangladesh could weather the population crisis through
increased food production and sharp cuts in the birth rate. “We
will hold the population at 100 million and the fall back”, he
said confidently.
His Planning Minister Fasihuddin Mahtab sounded more
realistic when he said: “The economy is in such a state that
unless we make a major breakthrough in the next five years, we
are finished. With 80 percent of the people below the poverty
line, we are bare floating. It is survival. The alternative is yearly
famine.”
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 108
By Stuart Auerbach
Source: Arab News (Dated : 8-April-1981)
http://www.zialibrary.com/index.php/speechs/bangladesh-
president-ziaur-rahman-considered-forceful-leader-of-the-third-
world
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 109
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 110
Asians eye a thin alliance
The seven nations of Southern Asia, which account for one-fifth
of the world‟s population, have taken the first halting steps
towards over coming decades of hostilities and achieving
regional co-operation.
While internal tensions in a far-off corner of the world
ordinarily would be of little concern elsewhere, Southern Asia
has found itself in recent years swept into the East-West
superpower rivalry, with the Soviet invasion on Afghanistan
and moves by both sides to expand militarily into the Indian
Ocean.
The effort here to bury mutual suspicions enough to form a
cooperative front to deal with major regional issues was only
partly successful. The differences are still so great that the
foreign secretaries of the seven countries could not agree to
move the talks up to the next level of officialdom, the Foreign
Ministers and instead decided simply to meet again within six
months.
While these are far less than Bangladesh President Ziaur
Rahman had in mind when he proposed a meeting on regional
co-operation; diplomatic observers here said they appear to be a
good starting point for nations that are so close geographically
but so far apart in mutual confidence.
“Considering the mistrust among the countries in the region, the
most significant thing is that the meeting took place at all,” said
a high-ranking Southern Asian diplomat.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 111
The meeting was held, in fact, because neither of the two most
powerful countries in the area - India and Pakistan - wanted to
bear the onus of refusing to come even though they both had
serious, although different, reservations about a regional
grouping.
The idea was suggested last May by President Rahman, who
called for a summit conference of the seven Southern Asian
nations - Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal,
Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
India, the major power of the region, feared that the other
nations would use a regional grouping to gang up on it and
break its hold on such vital matters as trade with its neighbors,
control of Ganges River waters that flow through Bangladesh
and the development of hydro-electric power with Nepal.
Pakistan, the most hesitant of the seven, feared the opposite that
the creation of a regional organization would allow India to
increase its domination over the area. Pakistan long has resented
the big brother attitude it feels India takes towards it and the rest
of the area.
Complicating the scene, the Sri Lankan Government, while
playing host to the meeting, has begun looking eastward
towards the developing Asian countries such as Singapore
rather than north-west towards the Southern Asian subcontinent.
President Jaye Wardene of Sri Lanka makes no secret of his
dislike for the Indian Prime Minister, Mrs. Gandhi, who
publicly deplored his country‟s stripping former Sri Lankan
Prime Minister Sirimava Bandaranalke of her right to vote and
take part in politics.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 112
A common concern of the seven countries is that they sit in the
middle of a major area of East-West confrontation.
The region is bordered by Afghanistan, now occupied by 85,000
Soviet troops and the Indian Ocean, which the United States
considers vital for the protection of key oil lanes from the
Persian Gulf to Western Europe and Japan. U.S. and Western
European naval vessels patrolling the ocean have drawn a
corresponding fleet from the Soviet Union, which is
establishing bases on the ocean‟s northern fringes.
The new position of prominence in world power politics and the
Soviet invasion of a neighboring State have aroused fears
among nations of Southern Asia but the effect has been to
worsen tensions among them rather than pulling the region
closer to gather.
Pakistan, for instance, appears likely to become a Western-
armed front line State against further Soviet advances from
Afghanistan a move opposed by India, which is Moscow‟s best
friend in the non-communist world and the only country in the
region not to condemn its invasion of Afghanistan in December
1979.
Even without those external undercurrents, the differences
between Southern Asian nations run deep.
The key forces revolve around India‟s predominant place in the
region as the largest, most heavily armed and technically
proficient nation in Southern Asia and the continuing tensions
between it and Pakistan. The two nations have fought three wars
since they were carved from British India almost 34 years ago
and they now appear headed for a nuclear arms race.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 113
There also are many differences between India and her smaller
neighbors. They range from India‟s desire to control Bhutan‟s
foreign policy and an attempt to keep Nepali-made Coco-Cola
from India to the knotty problem with Bangladesh over water
rights.
They have led to such strains that Bangladesh public pressure
forced the Government to stop negotiations for the sale of
natural gas to India that could have been beneficial to both
sides. This animosity toward New Delhi holds true despite the
aid India gave in securing Bangladesh‟s independence from
Pakistan - help that is resented these days in Dacca.
To avoid breaking up any regional grouping before it was even
formed, the foreign secretaries yielded to India‟s insistence that
“bilateral” and “contentious‟ issues be avoided. Furthermore, all
decisions are to be unanimous - thus assuring that India cannot
be outvoted by its smaller neighbors.
The lack of confidence among the seven regional neighbors is
reflected in many simple ways.
It took, for example, overnight trips for many diplomats to
reach here because there are direct flights between Colombo
and only two other South Asian capitals - Mali in the Maldives
and Katmandu, Nepal.
Similarly, it is much easier for any of the seven capitals to
communicate with Europe and the U.S. than with each other.
Messages between India and Pakistan regularly are routed via
London or the U.S. and there are no direct telex lines between
Dacca and New Delhi.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 114
Washington Post.
Source: The Age (Dated: 07-May-1981)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1300&dat=1981
0507&id=DTRVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=w5QDAAAAIBAJ&pg=55
20,3325595
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 115
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 116
Bangladesh President Assassinated NEW DELHI, India (AP) - Troops led by a major general assassinated Bangladesh President Ziaur Rahman in the port of
Chittagong Saturday and announced they took over the Government, broke relations with India and had navy support.
But officials in Dacca said they were in charge, declared a state of emergency and curfew and told the rebels to surrender.
The United News of India reported that two aides and six bodyguards were killed with the Bangladesh President, that
there were heavy clashes between loyalist and rebel troops in the Chittagong area and that Indian border police were on alert on the Tripura state frontier on the east side of Bangladesh to
prevent a possible influx of refugees.
Loyalist troops were reported patrolling the streets in Dacca, the Bangladesh capital 140 miles to the northwest where Zia had run the Government since November 1975. There were reports
the curfew in Dacca extended to other cities as well as the capital which was said to be nearly paralyzed with shops and
markets closed and traffic halted. According to news, diplomatic and official reports of Dacca
Radio, the 45-year-old Zia - as Ziaur was called on second reference in this part of the world - was slain about 4:30 a.m. -
6:30 p.m. EDT Friday - in the Government guest house at Chittagong. Travellers arriving in India from Chittagong said heavy firing around the guest house lasted about two hours.
The leader of the coup Maj. Gen. Abul Manzur, the commander
of the 24th division in Chittagong, one of five infantry division headquarters, broadcast over the radio in Chittagong that he had formed a revolutionary council to run the Government. He said
he had fired the chief of staff, Lt. Gen. H. M. Ershad and eight other army generals. He also said the 1972 friendship treaty
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 117
with India was abrogated and claimed the Bangladesh navy,
headquartered at Chittagong had joined the revolt. But Ershad called on Manzur to “surrender immediately” and
said all other military units in Bangladesh remained loyal to the authorities in Dacca.
Vice President Abdus Sattar took control in Dacca, declared an “internal emergency” and slapped
near-martial law restrictions on the impoverished South Asian nation of
90 million, Dacca Radio reported. As acting President, Sattar quickly
suspended all civil rights under 12 articles of the constitution, forbade
people to seek redress to the order through the courts and banned all meetings and public gatherings. He
also announced a 40-day period of mourning.
Sattar announced that Bangladesh would continue to honor all
international treaties and commitments. Relations with India, Bangladesh‟s giant neighbor and ally in Bangladesh‟s l971 war
of independence from Pakistan, soured during Zia‟s five-year tenure with disputes over territory and sharing the waters of the Ganges River.
Source: Herald-Journal (Dated: 30-May-1981)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1876&dat=1981
0530&id=IIUsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=u80EAAAAIBAJ&pg=6862,
6549208
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 118
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 119
Bangladesh Poor Lose A ‘Champion’
WASHINGTON (UPI) - The poor of Bangladesh lost a
champion with the assassination of President Ziaur Rahman,
U.S. officials said yesterday. “He cared deeply about the
practical problems of his people,” said an official who asked not
to be identified. “He was absolutely devoted to his people
“Bangladesh is losing a figure who has provided the nation‟s
first stable, progressive leadership. A demoted Army general
and other assassins killed Ziaur and eight aides in their sleep at
a Government guest house in Bangladesh yesterday. In Dacca,
the capital of Bangladesh, Vice President Abdus Sattar, 75, took
over the Government, declared emergency rule and called upon
the rebels to surrender. There were no reports of fighting. The
assassinations occurred in Chittagong, a restive eastern province
where Ziaur was paying an unannounced visit to inspect an
agricultural reform program.
The rebels seized provincial radio station, announced formation
of a “revolutionary council” and said they would break a
friendship treaty between Indian and Bangladesh signed in
1972. Government-run Dacca Radio described the rebels as a
mixture of Government soldiers and left-wing guerrillas led by
Gen. Manzur Ahmed, who had recently been removed as chief-
of-staff and sent to a desk job in Chittagong.
U.S. Government officials who had met Ziaur Rahman or were
familiar with his programs said they were stunned and saddened
by his death and concerned for the impoverished people of the
10-years-old nation. Ziaur, commonly known as Zia, was
described as a builder and a tireless worker who sought a better
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 120
life for all his people. “He was an extraordinary man”, an
official said, “He had a burning commitment to development.
He involved himself to an extraordinary degree in questions of
social justice, economic betterment.”
Ziaur was praised for bringing a large degree of economic and
political stability to the nation of 90 million people. “While it
was not perhaps a total democracy, nonetheless the direction
was clear and he was certainly committed to democracy,” one
source said. “He was widely popular himself, particularly in the
rural areas, to which he devoted so much effort in
developmental terms.”
Ziaur focused on improving agricultural conditions in
Bangladesh, expanding the use of fertilizers, pesticide and
quality of seeds, source said, he was particularly interested in
irrigation and instituted a nationwide program of canal building.
Source: The Pittsburgh Press (Dated: 30-May-1981)
Link:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19810530
&id=Z-
YhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=HmMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5837,6499048
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 121
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 122
Zia Promoted Progress for Bangladesh
NEW DELHI, India (AP) - President Ziaur Rahman of
Bangladesh, assassinated yesterday in an attempted coup, was a
45-year-old war hero who took power after a series of coups
following the war of independence from Pakistan and brought
some stability to one of the poorest countries on earth.
On March 27, 1971, Zia, then a major in the Pakistan army,
went on the radio to announce the independence of East
Pakistan, separated by more than 1,100 miles from West
Pakistan on the other side of India.
India declared war on Pakistan on Dec. 3, 1971 and Zia led
guerilla forces and fought alongside Indian army troops. The
allied forces defeated Pakistan on Dec. 16 and the new nation of
Bangladesh emerged on the same day under Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman.
Zia, a slightly built, dapper army officer, was promoted to
deputy chief to army staff. The sheikh was overthrown and
killed in an army coup in August 1975. After another coup and
counter-coup, Zia established himself as army chief at 39 and
then as chief martial law administrator of Bangladesh.
Zia proclaimed himself president in April 1977 and
immediately began urging his people to work harder, produce
more and help the struggling nation ravaged by the war and
natural disasters. A month later, he gained electoral legitimacy
when nearly 99 percent of votes polled in a nationwide
referendum endorsed his programs.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 123
In 1978, Zia won another popular mandate for his leadership of
the troubled nation when he swept to victory in a presidential
election by defeating his opposition rival, Gen. M.A.G Osmani,
a former army colleague.
Zia also organized a new political party, the Bangladesh
National Party, which won a thwo-thirds majority in 1979
parliamentary elections.
He crushed two mutinies by rebels in the armed forces and
brought a measure of stability to the South Asian country of 90
million located off the Bay of Bengal. Bangladesh is, after
Indonesia, the largest Moslem country in the world.
Western Nations and international banks poured in funds in
response to Zia‟s appeals to boost Bangladesh, ravaged by
natural disasters like floods, cyclones, famines, epidemics and
assailed by economic and social problems endemic to all poor
countries.
In domestic politics, Zia was regarded by many as an honest
shrewd leader. He flew by helicopter to the remotest parts of the
country, meeting villagers and giving a push to development
projectssuch as voluntary canal-building to irrigate vast tracts of
land.
In foreign policy, Bangladesh became a leading spokesman for
the so-called nonaligned movement. Zia condemned the Soviet
intervention in Afghanistan and Vietnam‟s intervention in
Cambodia. However, relations with India, Bangladesh‟s giant
neighbor and ally in the war of independence, soured during his
tenure with disputes over territory and sharing the waters of the
Ganges River.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 124
Zia was born on Jan. 19, 1936, in the northern city of Bogra in
East Bengal, then part of British India. His father was a
government scientific officer.
He joined the Pakistan army in 1953 and was commissioned in
1955. Until 1964, he worked for a time in army intelligence and
distinguished himself in action during the 1965 Indo-Pakistan
war as the only Bengali Commander.
He became an instructor at a military academy in West Pakistan
before joining the Eighth East Bengal regiment at Chittagong in
1970. The following year, civil war erupted between West
Pakistani troops and East Pakistanis who demanded greater
autonomy.
Zia quit his army job, joined the rebels and made the historic
broadcast declaring independence. He commanded the first
brigade of the new nation of Bangladesh, known as the “Z
Force.”
Zia lived simply with his wife, Begum Khaleda and their two
young sons in a small bungalow instead of at the sprawling
presidential palace occupied by his predecessors.
Zia frequently traveled abroad and described his political ideas
as “absolute faith and trust in almighty Allah (god), democracy,
nationalism and socialism and the ensuring of economic and
social justice.”
Source: The Palm Beach Post (Dated: May 31, 1981)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1964&dat=1981
0531&id=8McyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4cwFAAAAIBAJ&pg=480
6%2C2231203
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 125
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 126
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mgvRZš¿ A_©vr A_©‣bwZK I mvgvwRK mywePviÓ |
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 127
Assassination ominous for Bangladesh
The weekend assassination of the Bangladesh President,
General Ziaur Rahman, has obvious implications for the
country‟s stability and is ominous for Bangladesh‟s relations
with its giant neighbor, India.
President Ziaur, 45 was killed by mutinous army troops while
on a visit to the city of Chittagong. His murder is reported to
have been part of an attempted military coup led by Major-
General Manzur Ahmed, commander of the armed forces in
south-east Bangladesh where Chittagong lies.
It is not clear how much support the rebels have among the
country‟s 90 million people, its 65,000-man army, the 30,000
strong para-military Bangladesh Rifles, the 36,000-members
armed police reserve on the much smaller navy and air force.
Nor is it clear how big an area they control.
Since the assassination took place early on Saturday morning,
Bangladesh has been virtually cut off from the outside world.
The main sources of information about what is happening inside
the country are the Government‟s radio in the capital Dacca, the
rebel radio in Chittagong and intelligence reports from India
which almost completely encircles Bangladesh.
The Government, now led by 75-year-old acting President
Abdus Sattar and the rebels have been making conflicting
claims about the situation. The former assert that the bulk of the
armed forces remain loyal while the latter say the uprising
which began in two army divisions in Chittagong has spread to
several army barracks in Dacca, in central Bangladesh, Jessore
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 128
and Rajshahi in the west and Bogra in the north-central part of
the country.
India has placed its border security forces guarding the 2966
kilometre frontier with Bangladesh on maximum alert and is
taking a grim view of developments. Even the Government in
Dacca has publicly admitted that “a grave emergency has arisen
threatening the security of the county by internal disturbance.”
In an obvious attempt to reassure India, it has said that all
treaties entered into by the slain President with foreign countries
would be honored.
The rebel Chittagong radio, however, announced the abrogation
of the 1972 Indo-Bangladesh Treaty of Friendship. Indian
reports describe General Manzur, the leader of the coup attempt,
as ambitious officer in his forties with strong anti-Indian views.
The general has been named leader of a revolutionary council.
He is known to be a powerful and influential figure. He was a
former Chief of General Staff and served at one time in the
Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi.
He was, until recently, a close associate of General Ziaur‟s and
both men fought together in the 1971 rebellion against
Pakistan‟s armed forces to turn what was then Pakistan‟s
eastern wing and its poorest province into the new Islamic
nation of Bangladesh. Observers believe General Manzur turned
against President Ziaur for several reasons apart from ambition
for power. All of them seem to reflect a belief that the Ziaur
Government was not firm enough in its dealings with India,
which has become more assertive towards its smaller neighbors
in South Asia since Mrs. Gandhi became Prime Minister again
early last year.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 129
Observers say General Manzur was critical of General Ziaur
and his supporters in the army and Government for failing to
take effective action in crushing armed insurgent groups in the
jungles of Chittagong hill tracts.
There are more than 16 non-Bengali, non-Moslem tribes with a
total population of 550,000 living in the area. In the past 18
months there have been several serious clashes between militant
tribalists and Bengali settlers. (Bengalis form the overwhelming
majority of Bangladesh‟s people.)
It has been alleged that India has secretly trained and armed
some of the four guerilla groups operating in the Chittagong
region, including the Shanti Bahini and the Kaderia Bahini. The
declared aim of these groups is to preserve the identity and
autonomy of the Buddhist hill tribes. There have also been
sharp foreign policy differences and strains between Bangladesh
and India in the past 18 months, especially over how to share
the waters of the Ganges and other rivers that flow from India
through Bangladesh into the Bay of Bengal, providing vital
supplies of water and hydro-electric power to both countries.
The most recent clash was a couple of weeks ago when India
sent some of its armed forces to occupy and island disputed
with Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal. This touched off a wave
of anti-Indian feeling with opposition parties demanding that
the Ziaur Government take tough action if necessary to maintain
the Bangladesh claim.
Observers say that underlying General Manzur‟s move to wrest
power from the present Government is feeling that India is
deliberately trying to undermine order in Bangladesh by
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 130
encouraging opposition political parties and that General Ziaur
was not prepared to halt this trend.
They point out that a fortnight ago Mrs. Hasina Wazed,
daughter of the first Bangladesh President and founder of the
nation , Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who was killed with other
members of his family in an army coup in August 1975,
returned home to head the country‟s main Awami League
opposition party after six years in self-exile in India.
In emotional speeches to millions of Bangladeshi, she has been
vowing to avenge the assassination of her father and realize his
policies. These included close ties with both India - which
intervened decisively in the 1971 civil war in East Pakistan on
the side of the Bengali nationalists and the Soviet Union. In a
direct challenge to the army she has demanded that her father‟s
assassins be brought to trial, saying that they were occupying
“high post” in General Ziaur‟s regime.
The political opposition in Bangladesh is split into various
factions and to a considerable extent discredited. But even
before his death on Saturday, floods, soaring prices,
dissatisfaction of the urban middle class and the small educated
elite (who saw their lifestyle whittled away by 15 percent
inflation in 1980), the rise of lawlessness, unrest and an abortive
revolt in the army, strikes, outbursts of political violence and
widespread disorders in jails had put General Ziaur‟s system of
Government under heavy strain.
There is a doubly sad irony in the fact that he was murdered in
Chittagong for he placed great stress on economic development
projects designed to benefit the rural poor and he was visiting
the city at the weekend to inspect one of the projects.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 131
The radio station at Chittagong was also the place where Ziaur,
then a young officer in the Pakistan army proclaimed
Bangladesh‟s independence in 1971. By the time it came Ziaur
held the rank of deputy commander- in-chief of the army.
He was catapulted to political power nearly six years ago by a
group of young officers after a series of coups and counter-
coups between August and November 1975 after the overthrow
of Sheik Mujibur. Starting as martial law administrator, he took
the country through a referendum and two elections to a
parliamentary form of Government but effective power
remained in his hands. He took over when Bangladesh seemed
to be on the verge to political chaos and economic ruin. But he
managed to restore comparative stability.
He also launched a vigorous though controversial village
development drive in one of the world‟s poorest countries
where 80 percent of the people live below the poverty line. In
an effort to motivate a largely illiterate and rural population, he
travelled extensively, often on foot, to all parts of Bangladesh.
Starting from a dismally backward base, he went some way
toward rebuilding an economy shattered by colonial
exploitation, Pakistan civil Government neglect, civil war and
the mismanagement of the socialist style regime led by Sheik
Mujibur. He looked primarily to Islamic States and advanced
non-communist industrial nations, including Australia, for
economic aid, but they failed to provide as much as he hoped
for.
Stocky, outwardly reserved and very much a professional
soldier he wages a partially successful war against the
corruption that had corroded Sheik Mujibur‟s credibility. Few
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 132
questioned his personal honesty, until his death he lived with
his wife and two children in the same modest apartment he
occupied during his army days. But the task he faced as ruler of
Bangladesh was an enormously difficult, if not impossible, one.
His main vehicle for maintaining political support was the
Bangladesh Nationalist Party – a loosely knit hastily organized
movement whose main focal point was President Ziaur. Now
that he has gone, there are grave doubts that it will hold
together.
But the most serious worry is the army – General Ziaur‟s
ultimate prop. If it is deeply divided it could lead quickly to
civil war. And that in turn could trigger Indian military
intervention. India regards Bangladesh as a buffer State against
China.
Source: The Age (Dated: 01-Jun-1981)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1300&dat=1981
0601&id=AMhYAAAAIBAJ&sjid=WZQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4
289,114406
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 133
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†bZ…Z¡ w`‡Z 6 eQ‡ii †¯^‛Qv wbe©vmb †k‡l †`‡k wd‡i‡Qb|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 134
Bangladesh halts rebellion; 50 die CALCUTTA. India - The Bangladesh Government says it has crushed an attempted coup by army officers who assassinated
President Ziaur Rahman two days ago.
Indian news agencies reported hard fighting with at least 50 people killed between rebel troops led by Maj. Gen. Abul Manzur and forces loyal to the Government in Chittagong,
Bangladesh‟s second largest city and major seaport.
The Government‟s Radio Dacca said the rebels fled early today and the Government regained full control of Chittagong.
The broadcast announced a reward of 500,000 takas - $30,300 - for the capture of Manzur. Two Indian news agencies reported
that the rebel leader had been captured but there was no confirmation of the reports.
Manzur, the commander of the Bangladesh army‟s 24th Division in Chittagong, apparently failed to rally other military
units to his cause despite repeated radio appeals for their support. It appeared that the rebellion was confined to the port city of 1 million people 140 miles southeast of Dacca, the
capital.
The United News of India said the rebels took over the Chittagong army base, the local radio station and two strategic bridges leading to the city. But the navy commander, Rear
Adm. Mahmood Ali Khan, said his forces were loyal to the Government and were in “complete control” of the Chittagong
naval base and other port facilities, Radio Dacca reported. The rebels assassinated the 45-year-old President and eight
aides at 4:30 a.m. Saturday during a visit to Chittagong. Initial
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 135
reports said they were shot, but a later report said the rebels
blew up Government House and the presidential party with it. Vice President Abdus Sattar became acting President. He and
the army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. H.M. Ershad, gave the rebels three surrender deadlines Sunday and Monday. They said the
third one, at 6 a.m. (7 p.m. EDT), was the final one and the United News of India reported two columns of troops loyal to the Government were advancing on Chittagong.
President Ziaur or Zia as he was called in Bangladesh, was the
army deputy chief of staff when President Mujibur Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh, was assassinated with his wife and three sons by a group of pro-Pakistani army officers on Aug. 15,
1975.
Ten days later Zia was named chief of staff and three months later, after two more coups in five days, he became the Government strongman as deputy martial law administrator
under President Abu Sadat Mohammad Sayem, the former chief justice of the Supreme Court.
Sayem named Zia chief martial law administrator a year later and on April 21, 1977, resigned and nominated him as his
successor. He was confirmed by a nationwide referendum the next month. In the four years since, he crushed two rebellions in
the armed forces. Bangladesh, on the eastern side of the Indian subcontinent, is
one of the poorest and most densely populated countries in the world, with a population of 90 million in an area of 55,000
square miles, slightly smaller than Wisconsin. It was the eastern part of Bengal Province in British India and
became East Pakistan when India was partitioned in August 1947 because more than 80 percent of the populations were
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 136
Moslems. With the help of the Indian army, it won its
independence from Pakistan in a two-week war in December 1971.
By SANTOSH BASAK (Associated Press Writer)
Source: The Telegraph (Dated: 01-Jun-1981)
Link:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2209&dat=19810601
&id=C6srAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PP0FAAAAIBAJ&pg=5758,2410
52
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wb‡qwQj|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 137
wKš‘ †b․evwnbxi KgvÛvi gvngy` Avjx e‡j‡Qb Zvi miKv‡ii cÖwZ c~Y© mg_©b
i‡q‡Q Ges cwiw¯’wZ miKv‡ii wbqš¿‡YB Av‡Q| we‡`ªvnxiv kwbevi mKv‡j 45
eQi eqmx †cÖwm‡W›U‡K Zuvi 8 Rb MvW©mn nZ¨v K‡i| Dc-ivóªcwZ Avãym mvËvi
fvicÖvß †cÖwm‡W›U wn‡m‡e `vwqZ¡ MÖnY K‡ib| wZwb Ges †`kwUi Avwg©i wPd ÷vd
GBP Gg Gikv` we‡`ªvnx‡`i AvZ¥mgc©‡Yi Rb¨ wZb `dv mgq †eu‡a †`b| Gi
g‡a¨ AvZ¥mgc©Y bv Kivq miKv‡ii evwnbx PÆMÖv‡g AvµgY K‡i|
15 AvMó, 1975 mv‡j c~e©eZ©x †cÖwm‡W›U gywReyi ingvb hLb wbnZ nb ZLb
wRqvDi ingvb wQ‡jb †WcywU wPd Ad Avwg© ÷vd| Gi `kw`b c‡i wRqv Avwg©
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ZLb †cÖwm‡W›U wQ‡jb wePvicwZ Avey mvB` †gvnv¤§` mv‡qg| mv‡qg wb‡R
c`Z¨vM K‡i wRqv‡K cÖavb mvgwiK cÖkvmK wb‡qvM †`b 21 GwcÖj, 1977
Zvwi‡L| Gi c‡i wRqv RvZxq MY‡fv‡Ui gva¨‡g Zuvi Ae¯’vb wbwðZ K‡ib|
cieZ©x Pvi eQ‡i wZwb mk¯¿evwnbx‡Z Aš—Z `ywU Kz¨ Gi cÖ‡Póv‡K e¨_© K‡i †`b|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 138
Bangladesh crisis: troops ring Dacca
Bangladesh troops today ringed Dacca after the assassination of President Ziaur Rahman by rebel army officers.
The Government feared an attack from rebel troops who
yesterday seized the southern port city of Chittagong where President Ziaur was assassinated. Tension in the capital heightened today after Radio Dacca went off the air as acting
President Abdus Sattar was addressing the nation.
The radio became silent when Mr. Sattar was informing his countrymen that the Government was making an effort to bring back the body of President Ziaur. Bangladesh Radio, monitored
in Calcutta, said rebels led by Major-General Manzur Ahmad, 40, who allegedly assassinated President Ziaur, had declined a
request by the Dacca authorities for the return of his body. The Government today twice extended an ultimatum to the
rebel officers and troops in Chittagong to surrender or face final drastic action. It has now set the deadline at 10 a.m. (Melbourne
time) tomorrow. At least 50 members of the Bangladesh police were killed in
clashes yesterday with rebel troops in Chittagong, the Press Trust of India reported today.
PTI quoted reports reaching the Indian border town of Agartala as saying there had also been desertions from Bangladesh‟s 24th
Army Division in Chittagong commanded by rebel officers.
Mrs. Hasina Wazed, daughter of Bangladesh‟s first President, Sheik Mujibur Rahman, was arrested last night, PTI said.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 139
Army troops loyal to the Government have cordoned off Dacca
to stop the marching rebel military forces from getting control of the capital, diplomatic reports here said.
Source: The Age (Dated: 01-Jun-1981)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1300&dat=1981
0601&id=AMhYAAAAIBAJ&sjid=WZQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1
416,3564
msK‡U evsjv‡`kt AvZw¼Z XvKv
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c‡o‡Q XvKv| wec_Mvgx †mbviv evsjv‡`‡ki `w¶Y GjvKv PÆM«vg `Lj K‡i
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24Zg wWwfk‡bi wKQz m`m¨ we‡`ªvnx‡`i c¶ Z¨vM K‡i‡Q| GKB m~‡Îi eivZ
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 140
Bangladesh assassins told to surrender
CALCUTTA, India (AP) - Bangladesh authorities in Dacca
threatened yesterday to attack the army rebels who assassinated
President Ziaur Rahman if they do not surrender. The insurgents
reportedly hold Chittagong, the second largest city and base of
the naval headquarters in the young, impoverished nation.
Two columns of loyalist army troops were advancing toward
Chittagong to enforce ultimatum to the rebels, United News of
India said. The agency quoted reports from Dacca, the capital of
Bangladesh. Passengers on a flight from Dacca to Calcutta, 150
miles to the south-west, said they had seen troops moving along
the roads toward Chittagong.
The insurgent chief warned his followers last night over
Chittagong radio after the governments‟s deadline passed that
the rebels had any plans to capitulate.
Radio Dacca reported that the navy commander, Rear Adm.
Mahmood Ali Khan, arrived in Dacca from Chittagong
yesterday. It quoted him as saying the navy was loyal to the
central government and was in “complete control” of the
Chittagong naval base and other port facilities.
The rebels reportedly were threatening to execute pro-
Government army officers held at the army base in Chittagong,
140 miles south-east of Dacca, where they killed the president
early Saturday.
Various broadcasts from government stations and Chittagong
radio, held b the rebel-proclaimed “Revolutionary Council”, left
an unclear picture of the strength of the insurgency.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 141
Dacca Radio said life was normal elsewhere in the country.
The Revolutionary Council ordered all transportation halted in
the country and declared a curfew in major cities, Chittagong
Radio said yesterday. Available information indicated the
insurgents would only be able to enforce the order in parts of
Chittagong.
There was no clear word on how much of the sprawling seaport
of 1 million people was held by the rebels. They are led by Maj.
Gen. Abul Manzur, commander of the 24th division in
Chittagong, one of five infantry division headquarters.
United News of India said the rebels held the Chittagong
military base and two strategic bridges leading to the city.
The 45-year-old Zia, as he is called in Bangladesh, and eight
aides were killed at 4:30 a.m. Saturday at the government house
in Chittagong. Radio reports said they were shot, but a reported
who arrived in Dacca last night was told the rebels blew the
building up.
Zia took power in November 1975 after a series of army coups
following the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first
president of Bangladesh after its war of independence from
Pakistan in 1971.
Hours after the assassination, Manzur announced in a broadcast
that he had fired the army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. H.M. Arshad,
and eight other army generals and taken over the government.
The rebel leader also announced that a 1972 friendship treaty
with India was abrogated. But in Dacca, acting president
AbdusSattar said Bangladesh would continue to honor all
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 142
treaties and commitments. Relations with India, Bangladesh‟s
giant neighbor and ally in the revolt against Pakistan, soured
during Zia‟s tenure with disputes over territory and sharing the
waters of the Ganges River.
The rebel-held Chittagong radio came on the air occasionally
through the day with requests for military units in various parts
of the country to join in the revolt. One broadcast said the
Revolutionary Council was asking troops at Comilla, 60 miles
southeast of Dacca, to “keep vigil over the enemy forces.”
Sattar and army chief of staff Arshad, in frequent broadcasts
over the official Dacca radio station, demanded the rebels
surrender and ordered that they be disarmed.
Dacca radio said Sattar, in his capacity as supreme commander
of the armed forces, ordered the army chief to take “stern
action” against the rebels, whom he described as “misguided
army men.”
He told radio listeners that efforts to obtain Zia‟s body through
Red Cross channels had failed.
Thousands of people attended a memorial service, help despite
heavy rain, at the Dacca stadium for the dead president, Dacca
radio said. After prayers for Zia, a devout Moslem as is most of
the South Asian nation‟s 90 million population, mourners made
a procession to the Parliament House, the radio said.
UNI reported that Mrs. Hasina Sheikh Wazed, the daughter of
Bangladesh‟s first president and the new head of Bangladesh‟s
main opposition group, was arrested Saturday when she tried to
cross the border to India from Bangladesh. The agency quoted
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 143
reports from “across the border” and it was presumed that
Bangladesh border guards who made the arrest informed their
Indian counterparts.
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Dated: Jun 1, 1981)
Link:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=DM9RAAAAIBAJ&sji
d=-%20%2020DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5488%2C18935&dq
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 144
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 145
Setback for Bangladesh
For five years prior to his assassination, President Ziaur
Rahman or Zia as he was known to the world at large, brought a
measure of stability and democracy to one of the most troubled
regions of the globe. His death was a cruel setback for
Bangladesh and it could bring renewed ferment to the volatile
Indian subcontinent.
As in most attempted rebellions, news from the center of action
is sparse and sometimes contradictory. Apparently the majority
of the Bangladesh armed forces remain loyal to the Government
and the coup leader General Abul Manzur has been arrested.
Under the best scenario, the rebellion would be quelled and
Zia‟s policies would be continued by his successor, Vice
President Abdus Sattar. Gen. Manzur had announced the end of
a 1972 friendship treaty with India and large international
problems will almost surely follow should the rebels finally
succeed or keep the country in turmoil.
Although India had helped Bangladesh secede from Pakistan,
Zia and the Indian Government were not always on the best of
terms. Nevertheless, with the skill that had make him a
respected moderating influence among Third World leaders, Zia
managed to maintain peaceful relations with both India and
Pakistan. Zia did not run a model democracy by Western
standards but his was not a notably repressive Government,
either. He proclaimed himself President in 1977 but later won
two popular elections by large majorities. His apparently honest
administration persuaded Western nations, including the United
States, to provide it with generous economic assistance. At this
point there probably is nothing that Washington can or should
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 146
do about the uprising, but if U.S. moral support counts for
anything in that corner of the Third World, it ought to go to
Zia‟s legitimate successors.
Source: The Palm Beach Post (Dated: 02-Jun-1981)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1964&dat=1981
0602&id=gf8sAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Vs0FAAAAIBAJ&pg=3593,
330997
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 147
Bangladesh chief buried in Dacca as millions
mourn
(Solders lower the coffin of slain Bangladesh President Ziaur
Rahman into a Dacca grave.)
DACCA (AP) - President Ziaur Rahman was buried at an emotion-charged ceremony Tuesday after the major general who launched the coup in which the Bangladesh leader was
assassinated was himself killed under mysterious circumstances.
Dacca Radio at first reported that Mej. Gen. Abul Manzur was killed by angry village guards who were returning him to Chittagong scene of the coup attempt about 225 kilometers
southeast of Dacca. He had been captured while fleeing in a jeep toward Burma.
However, a later report said Manzur was killed in a gun battle between his captors and a gang trying to abduct him.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 148
About 100 other people were reported slain in clashes between
Government and rebel forces and the Government ordered an army tribunal to identify and find the killers of the late President.
Dacca Radio said that after the killers were found a field court-
martial would be formed to try them. Zia as he was known to his countrymen was buried near the
new Parliament, the symbol of Bangladesh democracy, following Islamic prayers by more than one million of his
countrymen. Zia, a hero of Bangladesh‟s war of independence from Pakistan
who himself seized power in a coup before restoring multi-party democracy, became the country‟s first popularly elected
President in 1978. His unvarnished wooden coffin, draped in the national colors of
red and green and festooned with flowers, was carried from a truck by soldiers in berets and camouflage fatigues and lowered
into a grave in a plot of land slated to become a national park. Six howitzers fired a 21-gun salute.
Zia was assassinated with seven aides Saturday in the port of Chittagong by troops led by Manzur.
Manzur coup was put down Monday and the United News of India in Calcutta quoted reports from Chittagong as saying
about 100 people were killed in clashes between Government troops and rebel forces in different parts of the port city and
other areas near the frontiers with India and Burma. Zia‟s body was transported back to the capital Monday and at
least one person was killed during the night as thousands of mourners pressed around and into the old Parliament building
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 149
where the body lay in state. The crowd became violent about
midnight Monday night. “We failed to maintain order”, said Sultan Ahmed Chowdhury,
the deputy speaker of Parliament said. “The military took over at one point some people were about to carry away the coffin.
They demanded to see the body. Source: Ottawa Citizen (Dated: 02-Jun-1981)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2194&dat=1981
0602&id=U6MyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ze4FAAAAIBAJ&pg=267
1,1231713
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 150
Bangladesh pays an emotional farewell to its
murdered leader
DACCA, Bangladesh (UPI) - Nearly two million citizens gave an emotional farewell to assassinated President Ziaur Rahman today, hours after the official media announced the major
general who led a coup attempt had been executed by loyalist soldiers.
“Agitated soldiers shot Gen. Manzur (Ahmed) dead” as they escorted him and his family from the tiny hill village of
Fatichari to the port city of Chittagong Monday night, official Bangladesh Radio said.
Manzur was captured by angry villagers at Fatichari, 40 miles southeast of Chittagong, as he attempted to flee to India with his
wife and three children. His capture came hours after his three-day rebellion collapsed Monday and the Government put a
$30,000 price on his head. There was no word on the whereabouts of his family or of other
rebel military officers who joined the attempted putsch. In Dacca, nearly half the capital‟s 4 million residents bid an emotional farewell to the beloved Gen. Zia, who was gunned
down by the rebels in Chittagong early Saturday morning.
The late President, in a glass topped coffin but covered by a sheet because his face was shattered by the first burst of the assassins‟ sten gun that nearly cut him in half, was borne to his
grave-facing Crescent Lake on a military gun carrigage. Those lining the route wept openly.
“We are all crying - not many of us but all of us - so there is nothing to be ashamed of,” said one officer in his military honor
guard.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 151
“Our country will never find another man like him, it will never find another man who could pull Bangladesh back onto its feet to face the world,” he said.
During the Janaza, the chanting of the Moslem last rites for the
departed soul, a crowd extending beyond the horizon turned as one toward Mecca and sobbed the mournful prayer. As the procession moved toward the lake, people climbed trees to toss
flowers upon the bier. A sea of people formed in Dacca immediately after the President‟s bullet--riddled-body was
placed on the steps of Parliament House Monday and the mourners‟ lines stretched for more than a mile through the dusty streets.
“I heartily liked him,” said Rashid Mollah, a tiny man who like
the rest of the crowd walked barefoot with his sandals in his hands as a sign of respect.
Source: The Bulletin (Dated: 02-Jun-1981)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1243&dat=1981
0602&id=J7VYAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Q_cDAAAAIBAJ&pg=530
3,5155465
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 152
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 153
Blow in Fourth World
The assassination of President Ziaur Rahman is yet another
tragedy for Bangladesh, a South Asian land so beset with
problems it often is termed one of the world‟s “basket case”
countries. Of course, the 45-year old President Zia (the
Bangladesh grammatical name form on second reference) could
at best be termed a benevolent dictator. He came to power in
this Wisconsin-sized country of 87 million persons in 1975 after
a series of coups and countercoups that followed the
assassination of the immensely popular first President, Mujibur
Rahman. Although it was Mr. Zia who first proclaimed
Bangladesh‟s independence from Pakistan in 1971. Be then had
to stand aside for Mr. Mujib, a folk-hero to his people.
But what distinguished Mr. Zia was his clear vision for
improving life in his heavily-Muslim country. Early on he
uttered statements unpopular in the world‟s eighth most
populous country, such a “Population control must be our
nation‟s no. 1 priority” and “Bangladesh must feed itself and
stop depending on the world for help.” Last year he enunciated
and took to the villages a four-point “peaceful revolution.” It
called for doubling food production in five years; a mass
literacy campaign, family planning and population control and
the establishment of a volunteer militia for both police and
development work.
Even if the present rebellion which brought Mr. Zia‟s death is
quelled, which it apparently has been, Bangladesh obviously is
in for many more and times. The best eulogy one can pay Mr.
Zia is to suggest that Bangladesh‟s future welfare well may
depend upon whether his successors have as broad and outlook
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 154
as his about what this most desperately poverty-stricken of
countries has to do.
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Dated: 02-Jun-1981)
Link:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19810602
&id=Dc9RAAAAIBAJ&sjid=-
20DAAAAIBAJ&pg=4520,193840
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 155
17 Plotters Face Court Martial In Aborted Coup in
Bangladesh
DACCA, Bangladesh (AP) - A military court will try 17 army officers on charges of complicity in the aborted coup in which President Ziaur Rahman was assassinated, Government officials
announced. Three other officers, including the coup leader, Maj. Gen. Abul Mansur, were killed by enraged village guards after
their arrest, the officials said. A number of deputies in Parliament indicated concern, meanwhile, that the military might step in to end the multi-party democratic system Zia
forged.
“Democracy must be protected, power must be transferred peacefully through ballot not bullet,” Prime Minister Shah Azizur Rahman told the deputies. He called for “massive
national unity” as a weapon to crush any “adventurism.”
Bangladesh has a history of military-led coups. Zia, as Ziaur was known here, came to the fore through a series of power plays but in recent years moved his impoverished nation of
some 90 million towards democracy. The 45 year old President was killed by rebel army officers
early Saturday in the southern port of Chittagong. The plotters were arrested Monday. Although emergency decrees
suspending most citizen rights remained in effect, this capital city of some 3.5 million returned to normal after a massive outpouring of grief at Zia‟s funeral Tuesday and sonic
uncertainty about the immediate transition period.
The country is now led by acting President Abdus Sattar, an aging man of 75. According to the constitution, a presidential election must be called within the next six months.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 156
The parliamentary makeup remains unchanged, with Zia‟s
Bangladesh Nationalist Party dominating the dozen other political parties. It holds 250 of the 330 seats. Well informed observers note that the danger of another military coup could
come if the political parties - many of them fractured internally - should fail to reach a working census and allow the country to
drift. But today‟s special parliamentary session saw only unity among
pro-Government as well as opposition leaders in their praise of Zia and a revulsion over what one member called “the politics
of killing.” Some members also called for an end to the emergency decrees and a parliamentary inquiry into the rebellion. One theory is that the coup was the work of a highly
ambitious officer who may have quarreled with Zia shortly before the killing or had long nursed a real or imagined
grievance. The Government has yet to give a formal account of the incident
By DENES D. GRAY
Source: The Hour (Dated: 03-Jun-1981)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1916&dat=1981
0603&id=TCdJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=fAYNAAAAIBAJ&pg=132
0,368047
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 157
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 158
Zia murder paves way for more Bangladesh
bloodshed
LONDON – For an “international basket-case” as Henry
Kissinger once called it, Bangladesh is surprisingly handy at
self-mutilation. This time, it may have managed to cut its own
throat.
The bloody murder of President Ziaur Rahman by one of his
own senior officers in Chittagong last Saturday did not bring the
conspirator, Major-General Manzur Ahmed, to power. It has not
even plunged the nation into civil war – yet. But it was a
disheartening reversion to type in a nation where politics in both
frivolous and deadly.
Deadly, because the Bangladeshis play for keeps. The nation
gained its independence from Pakistan in 1971 amid vast
slaughter and every change of leadership since then (including
three coups in 1975 alone) has been accompanied by further
welters of blood.
Privileged elite
Yet it is frivolous too because most of the killing is merely to
decide which member of a privileged military elite is to preside
over this perpetual emergency disguised as a nation.
Manzur Ahmed‟s mutiny was just one more act of naked
personal ambition in an officer corps where loyalty has never
been an outstanding characteristic but it is also a tragedy of
Bangladesh, not that the late President Ziaur Rahman was a
saint - if he had been, he would have died years ago. President
Zia survived because he was tough enough, for example, to
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 159
execute about 600 air force mutineers after an attempted coup in
1977.
But Bangladesh under Zia‟s direction, though as always within
measureable distance of famine, managed to widen the margin
of safety slightly. And for six year, he more or less kept the
peace as well. The two achievements are linked because hunger
is a very political subject.
Latter-day disciples of that grimmest of all economists, the 18th
century British doom-sayer Thomas Robert Malthus, wait
almost impatiently for Bangladeshi to demonstrate the truth of
his doctrine that population always outruns resources in the end,
resulting in famine.
With birth control techniques administered by Governments
undermining (or at least postponing) Malthus‟s predictions
about runaway population growth almost everywhere in the
Third World, Bangladesh, which already stands so close to the
brink of disaster, attracts an almost ghoulish interest.
Bangladesh in not only likely to be the first county since 19th-
century Ireland to demonstrate the relevance of Malthus‟s
calculations about population and famine. It is also the country
most likely to show us what the political and social
consequences of that kind of catastrophe would be.
In the 20th century, they are not likely to be pretty.
Much of Bangladesh is an immensely fertile river delta where
you can raise three crops a year if your land is not devastated by
the frequent floods or cyclone, but it is not enough, there are
already 90 million Bangladeshis trying to earn a living, all but
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 160
two percent of them from agriculture in a country no bigger
than England.
Totally landless
Forty percent of the populations are totally landless, and yet the
average land-holding is still less than two acres. Two thirds of
the present population is already severely under-nourished, are
there will be at least half as many again by the end of the
century. Even with much good luck and massive foreign aid,
only steady responsible Government in Dacca can stop this
unbalanced equation between people and land from toppling
sooner or later into mass famine.
What Malthus could not foresee, however, is that in the 20th
century, with its widespread political awareness and its widely
available techniques for mass mobilization and revolution, such
a disaster cannot even approach – much less occur without the
most drastic political consequences. Almost every member of
Bangladesh‟s tiny elite of privileged and educated people now
shares the perception that the country faces the possibility of
cataclysmic social revolution.
Indeed, no illegal revolutionary group, the National Socialist
party, has a line rather reminiscent of the Khmer Rouge‟s about
the need to exterminate “class enemies”. In some versions, this
category includes almost everybody in Bangladesh who read
write except themselves.
This is not some obscure fringe group. Its military wing, the
People‟s Revolutionary Army, has heavily infiltrated the
enlisted ranks of the army and air force and nearly gained power
in one of the 1975 coups. It tried again in 1977 and 230 troop
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 161
died in the fighting to suppress it. Nor is this the only such
group in Bangladesh.
However understandable their grievances, the ghastly
consequence of fanatics like this gaining power has been amply
demonstrated in Cambodia. Yet Cambodia had the advantage of
being a lightly populated land; hardly anybody ever went
hungry there before the war and the Khmer Rouge.
In Bangladesh, on the other hand, any breakdown in the
administrative machinery for getting at least some food to the
very poorest - corrupt and inefficient though it is - would
condemn many millions to starvation.
That is not what faces Bangladesh right now. For Manzur
Ahmed was simply another general on the make. But the man
he has murdered was the only leader Bangladesh has produced
who was able to impose order in that anarchic country and even
to achieve a bit of development.
If Bangladesh now returns to the chaos from which Ziaur
Rahman rescued it in 1975, sooner or later an immense
catastrophe is almost inevitable.
Source: The Montreal Gazette (Dated: 04-Jun-1981)
Linkhttp://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19810
604&id=IRUyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=yaQFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6636,
1354534
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 162
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 163
Democracy, Economy Appear In Danger After
Bangladesh President’s Death Analysis
DACCA, Bangladesh (AP) - The outlook appears bleak for the
survival of democracy and the improvement of the economy in
this impoverished nation of 90 million following the
assassination of President Ziaur Rahman.
The expressed hope of the country‟s top civilian leaders is that
Bangladesh will hold on to a democratic system, built up in
recent years by Zia slain by rebel army officers May 30 in an
aborted coup.
The fear is that nobody of sufficient stature will emerge to
replace Zia as he was known here, that the 50 odd political
parties will expend more energy fighting one another than
trying to keep the country on constitutional rails and that the
military will step in to impose another authoritarian regime.
The fear of intervention by armed force hangs over the 330-
member Parliament although it is only referred to indirectly.
The Minister of information, Shamsul Huda Chowdhury, said in
an interview, “Everyone in Parliament is agreed that power
should be captured by ballots, not bullets or planned chaos”
Bangladesh is certainly one country which cannot afford a crisis
of any kind. The margins between an adequate existence and
abject poverty at times between life and death are just too small.
Western diplomats and international aid officials – who
invariably praise Zia‟s efforts, are now gauging how negative
the impact of his loss will be on such vital projects as
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 164
population control, greater food production and village self-
Government.
“There are some competent officials here but you won‟t have
the needed dynamic push that Zia gave to things”, said one well
informed Western diplomat, “Zia made development a
household word.”
Those predicting trouble certainly have the decade-old history
of military coups, failed plots and political assassinations the
father of Bangladesh independence from Pakistan. Sheik
Mujibur Rahman, was killed by army officers and Zia himself
survived half a dozen earlier attempts to topple him from power.
But Prime Minister Shah Azizur Rahman, in an interview with
The Associated Press, said that democracy had taken quick and
deep root in Bangladesh, even within the military. He pointed to
the peaceful transition of power amid the national trauma of
Zia‟s killing as a signpost to future stability.
The Prime Minister expressed hope that some leader will “rise
to the occasion” and become strong candidates in presidential
elections which, by the constitution, must be held within the
next six months.
There is in fact no natural successor to Zia or anyone of major
stature on the political scene. The acting President, Justice Abul
Sattar, 75, has already said he would not seek election because
of his failing health. Little is known about the current power
shifts within the military or whether the army could produce a
national leader from its ranks.
The key political parties are also not in the best of shape.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 165
The ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party formed by Zia three
years ago from a number of disparate factions admits to
organizational problems. The Awami League, the strongest
opposition party, has the best organization in the countryside
and in the world of one diplomat “a good capacity for mounting
demonstrations”. But it too is plagued by internal strife and lack
of charismatic helmsmen.
Western diplomats and other informed sources say that any
political drift would not only increase the chance of military
intervention but multiply odds that the country will be
overwhelmed by its economic and social problems.
Source: Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Dated: 07-Jun-1981)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=1981
0607&id=970qAAAAIBAJ&sjid=92cEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6637,
2579101
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 166
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 167
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 168
Without Zia, Less Chance for the ‘Peaceful
Revolution’
DACCA, Bangladesh - If the population of the entire world
were squeezed into the continental United States, that land
would be about as densely populated as Bangladesh is now.
That is the kind of illustration prized by the legions of aid and
development experts who for years have been drawn to this
country because its demographic statistics are so appalling.
The life expectancy at birth is 47 years. Eighty percent of
children below the age of five are undernourished. Seventy
percent of the entire population is anemic. Only one person in
five can read. And, despite improvements in agricultural
efficiency and the enormous quantities of foreign aid, the
average per capita consumption of rice, the dietary staple, is less
today than it was 20 years ago. It is easy to feel hopeless about
Bangladesh and many people do. But in the past few years there
have been some small signs that things were getting a bit better
and hopes that they would get better still.
Last weekend, when President Ziaur Rahman was killed in a
hail of bullets during an attempted army coup d'etat, a good
many of those hopes died with him. There were at least two
reasons why. His death at the age of 45 plunged the nation into
a crisis that no one could quite see the end of and political
instability can scarcely be good for development efforts.
Moreover, since he seized power in 1975, President Zia had
become one of Asia's most effective heads of Government. His
regime was beginning to make progress, though it was very
much a one-man show and much of what he did went against
the traditions of this ancient land. Whoever eventually succeeds
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 169
him, whether a general or civilian politician, seems unlikely to
follow the same course.
Birth control is clearly the country's most important need, since
by the year 2000, Bangladesh will have half the population of
the United States living in a land smaller than Wisconsin. Sheik
Mujibur Rahman, the founder of the country (who also died by
assassination nearly six years ago), used to say, when pressed
on the subject, “We Moslems love our children. If there are
many of them, Allah will provide”. That is the traditional view.
By contrast, President Zia, a tough and often ruthless former
general who took power a few months after Sheik Mujib was
killed, repeatedly referred to the population explosion as ''our
number one national problem.'' He gave a military-style impetus
to the drive to solve it, cutting through Government inertia in
providing birth control means to the villages where most of the
people live. There were signs that the approach was beginning
to work. ''This is the first time that the leader of a developing
country and an Islamic country has put himself totally behind
population control programs,'' Health Minister M. A. Matin said
optimistically a year ago.
President Zia's commitment to birth control was part of what he
called a “peaceful revolution” for Bangladesh. Other points
included a literacy campaign and an almost certainly overly
optimistic plan to double food production over five years with
expanded irrigation of the land and the introduction of higher
yield seed varieties.
Tirelessly hopping around this green marshy country in a
helicopter and spending as much as 20 days a month outside
Dacca, he sold the message personally and it had some effect. ''I
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 170
remember Zia came here one day last year and he talked about
irrigation canals,'' a farmer in Julal, a village 30 miles north of
the capital, recalled last week. “But it wasn't just talk. A canal
actually got built and now it irrigates that plot of land right there
and we can have an extra crop in the dry season. No leader ever
did that before. Zia will be missed very much in Julal. We are
very sad.”
In a part of the world where political leaders are often venal or
lethargic, there are not many figures like President Zia. In the
period of electioneering that is about to begin leading up to a
presidential election that under the Constitution is supposed to
be held within the next six months, some new national saviour
may emerge. But it is far easier to imagine a return to the
slippery political intrigues which center on the capital or to a
new round of murderous army plots and takeovers.
At the center of the Government now is a vacuum and no one
can say who will come along to fill it. On the civilian side,
neither President Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party nor the
opposition Awami League (Sheik Mujib's party) has an obvious
presidential candidate and both are badly factionalized. As for
the 65,000-man army, it too is beset by bitterness and rivalry
that date back to the war of 1971 in which Bangladesh, backed
by India, won its independence from western Pakistan. In the
long round of eulogies last week, much was made of what
former Chief Justice Abdus Sattar, the ailing, 75-year-old acting
President, called “the democratic heritage left to us by our
beloved martyred leader”. Critics said that President Zia's was a
flawed democracy and the Government was certainly autocratic.
But the orderliness of the transition last week may have been an
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 171
indication that the political institutions he built over recent years
had more solidity than the pessimists thought.
Still, a period of serious instability with a deadening effect on
development activities seems inevitable. It had already started
last week with late night meetings, hints, posturing and
horsetrading in the Parliament, the ministries and the officers'
quarters of military garrisons all over the country.
''Will Bangladesh make it?'' people in the West sometimes ask,
as if it were a patient hovering between life and death in some
intensive care ward. The answer is, of course. The country is
not going to disappear and 92 million Bangladeshis, soon to be
100 million, will still be here, whenever anyone cares to look,
and still hungry. At times, the signs for them will be a bit better.
At other times, they will be a bit worse. Last week they seemed
very much worse indeed.
By WILLIAM BORDERS
Source: The New York Times (Dated: 07-Jun-1981)
Link:http://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/07/weekinreview/witho
ut-zia-less-chance-for-the-peaceful-revolution-william-
borders.html
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 172
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 173
Outlook bleak for Bangladesh
DACCA, Bangladesh (AP) - The outlook appears bleak for the
survival of democracy and the improvement the economy in this impoverished nation of 90 million following the assassination of President Ziaur Rahman. The expressed hope of the
country‟s top civilian leaders is that Bangladesh will hold on to a democratic system built up in recent years by Zia, slain by
rebel army officers May 30 in an aborted coup. The fear is that nobody of sufficient stature will emerge to
replace Zia, as he was known here, that the 50 odd political parties will expend more energy fighting one another than
trying to keep the country on constitutional rails and that the military will step in to impose another authoritarian regime.
The fear of intervention by armed force hangs over the 330-member Parliament, although it is only referred to indirectly.
The Minister of information, Shamsul Huda Chowdhury, said in an interview, “Everyone in Parliament is agreed that power should be captured by ballots, not bullets or planned chaos”.
Bangladesh is certainly one country which cannot afford a crisis of any kind. The margins between an adequate existence and
abject poverty, at times between life and death, are just too small. Western diplomats and international aid officials - who
invariably praise Zia‟s efforts - are now gauging how negative the impact of his loss will be on such vital projects as population control, greater food production and village cell
Government.
“There are some competent officials here, but you won’t have the needed dynamic push that Zia gave to things,” said one well-informed Western diplomat. “Zia made development a
household word”. Those predicting trouble certainly have the
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 174
decade-old history or Bangladesh on their side. It is a history of
military coups, failed plots and political assassinations. The father of Bangladesh independence from Pakistan, Sheik Mujibur Rahman, was killed by army officers and Zia himself
survived half a dozen earlier attempts to topple him from power.
But Prime Minister Shah Azizur Rahman, in an interview with The Associated Press, said that democracy had taken quick and deep root in Bangladesh, even within the military. He pointed to
the peaceful transition of power amid the national trauma of Zia‟s killing as a signpost to future stability. The Prime Minister
expressed hope that some leaders will “rise to the occasion” and become strong candidates in presidential elections which, by the constitution, must be held within the next six months.
There is in fact no natural successor to Zia or anyone of major
stature on the political scene. The acting President, Justice Abul Sattar, 75, has already said he would not seek election because of his failing health. Little is known about the current power
shifts within the military or whether the army could produce a national leader from its ranks.
Source: Gadsden Times (Dated: 07-Jun-1981)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1891&dat=1981
0607&id=26wfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=j9YEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2598,
790949
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 175
(Soldiers lower the coffin containing the body of former
Bangladesh President Ziaur Rahman Tuesday during the funeral services in the capital city of Dacca.)
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my‡hv‡M AviI GKwU mvgwiK n¯—‡¶c N‡U hv‡e|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 176
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mvËvi (75) BwZg‡a¨B Rvwb‡q‡Qb †h, Zvi fMœ kvixwiK Ae¯’v we‡ePbvq †i‡L
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Avm‡e wKbv †m e¨vcv‡iI h‡_ó m‡›`n Av‡Q|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 177
Political office in Asia a gamble with death
NEW DELHI, Sunday - The assassination of Bangladesh‟s
President, General Ziaur Rahman, is another proof of the
increasingly high cost of political office in Asia
In the past three years, four political leaders have been killed or
executed - Prime Ministers Amin and Taraki in Afghanistan,
Mr. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged in Pakistan and now
President Ziaur Rahman has been assassinated in Bangladesh.
A little earlier, Mr. Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh‟s founding
President had been killed, besides the top leadership dozens of
lesser politicians have been either murdered or executed in
turbulent South and South-West Asia.
Because of the uncertainties and obvious dangers of a political
career many of the talented and educated are keeping out of
politics.
The result: The developing world, with its millions of illiterate
and under-nourished people, those who are in the greatest need
of guidance, opportunities and leadership, are not getting it.
Many political leaders do not seem to mind the uncertainties of
holding office because the position gives them so much. A great
gulf yawns between leaders and the people in most developing
countries and a standardized life style has emerged for Third
World leaders.
This includes a luxurious presidential palace, the latest cars
from the West, servants, bodyguards and substantial financial
rewards. It is a life which is a long, long way from the humble
village and it is well worth a gamble even if the stakes are high.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 178
An increasing role for the military in politics goes hand in hand
with the tendency to solve political conflict by assassination; be
it in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma or Afghanistan.
In India it is the police and paramilitary forces which are
increasingly being used to further political ends.
In societies where the average man struggles from meal to meal,
a uniform and a gun are immense prestige symbols. It gives him
respectability and power. Joining the military is the quickest
passport to the ranks of the elite.
Some armies, like in Bangladesh are non-professional in that
they have had little experience or war or modern combat.
Like Latin American armies, the military in Bangladesh has
been more occupied in playing political games than in fighting
wars or developing the military machine along modern
technological lines.
The Bangladesh Army is, moreover, highly politicized, with
loyalty to colonels and generals based on ideological grounds.
The officer in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan is as much
a politician as he is a serving officer.
Because the military is itself politicized, it does not need
politicians for a popular base. But in Bangladesh in the
immediate post-assassination period sections of the army may
ally with political parties in order to give the impression of
mass support.
The new political pattern could see regiments and brigades split
along party lines. AP-Reuter reports: The Bangladesh
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 179
Government yesterday announced a three-man judicial
commission to investigate the assassination of President Ziaur.
A military tribunal was set up earlier to identify those involved
in the killing of President Ziaur and several bodyguards during
a raid on his guest house in the southern port city of Chittagong.
But opposition MPs also called for a civilian judicial
investigation of the assassination and for an inquiry into the
killing of General Abdul Manzur, named as leader of abortive
armed rebellion in which the President died.
From RANJAN GUPTA
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald (Dated: 08-Jun-1981)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1301&dat=1981
0608&id=KIZWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=n-
YDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3519,2502839
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 180
Rxeb g„Zz¨i Ryqv †Ljvq wcó Gwkqvi ivR‣bwZK A½b
evsjv‡`‡ki †cÖwm‡W›U wRqvDi ingv‡bi nZ¨vKvÊ Gwkqvi ivR‣bwZK A½b KZUv
SzuwKc~Y© n‡q D‡V‡Q Zvi GKwU cÖvgvwYK NUbv|
MZ wZb eQ‡i AvdMvwb¯’v‡b cÖavbgš¿x Avwgb Ges ZvivwKi nZ¨vKvÛ, cvwK¯—v‡bi
fy‡Ævi duvwm Avi me©‡kl wRqvDi ingv‡bi nZ¨vi NUbv DwØMœ cwiw¯’wZ •Zwi
K‡i‡Q| Gi †ek wKQyw`b Av‡M evsjv‡`‡ki †kL gywReyi ingvbI nZ¨vi wkKvi
n‡q‡Qb| GQvovI D‛P ch©v‡qi Av‡iv WRb Lv‡bK ivR‣bwZK †bZvi nZ¨v wKsev
dvuwmi NUbv `w¶Y Ges `w¶Y-cwðg Gwkqvq Amnbkxj Ae¯’vi m…wó K‡i‡Q|
wk¶vi Av‡jv Ges cwiPh©v ewÂZ Dbœqbkxj †`‡ki jvL jvL gvbyl †hvM¨ †bZ…Z¡,
Abykvmb wKsev my‡hv‡Mi †KvbUvB cv‡‛Q bv| cvwK¯—vb, evsjv‡`k, evg©v wKsev
AvdMvwb¯’v‡b RvZxq ivRbxwZ‡Z †mbvevwnbxi f~wgKv D‡jL‡hvM¨fv‡e e„w×
†c‡q‡Q Ges nZ¨v ivR‣bwZK msNvZ mgvav‡bi Dcvq wn‡m‡e cÖwZwôZ n‡‛Q|
Gw`‡K evsjv‡`k miKvi †cÖwm‡W›U wRqv nZ¨vi Z`‡š—i Rb¨ wZb m`‡m¨i
wePvwiK Kwgkb MVb K‡i‡Q| Gi Av‡MB RwoZ‡`i Ly u‡R †ei Ki‡Z GKwU
wgwjUvwi U«vBeybvj MVb Kiv n‡q‡Q| wKš‘ we‡ivax `‡ji msm` m`m¨iv wRqv
nZ¨vi wePv‡i wmwfwjqvb RywWwkqvj Z`š— Ges †mB mv‡_ wRqv nZ¨vi mv‡_ RwoZ
we‡`«vnx `‡ji †bZv †Rbv‡ij Aveyj gÄyi nZ¨vi Z`‡š—iI `vwe Rvwb‡q‡Q|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 181
Everyone Loses In Bangladesh Coup Attempt
If there are worse places than Bangladesh these days, much
credit goes to Ziaur Rahman. From his rise to power in 1975
until his assassination last weekend, General Zia instilled new
motivation in the New England-sized nation of 92 million
people to produce more food and fewer children. His murder by
army rivals raised fears in Dacca of another period of political
instability and bloodshed like the one that occurred after the
army overthrew Sheik Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh's first
President, in 1975.
There are no obvious successors to General Zia. One possibility,
Maj. Gen. Mohammed Abdul Manzur, led the plot against the
President and was himself killed after his arrest. According to
the Government, he and two other conspirators died in an
exchange of gunfire between their guards and a group of
''agitated armed people'' who tried to seize the detainees.
Seventeen other officers remained in custody and were to be
tried by a military court. The plot collapsed two days after
rebels shot President Zia in a guest house in Chittagong,
Bangladesh's second largest city and main port. General
Manzur, the local army commander, appealed to other units to
join the uprising but in vain. Like General Zia a hero of
Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence, General Manzur
chafed at his transfer to Chittagong in 1977 and was apparently
even more incensed at the President's plans to make him head of
the army staff college, a noncommand post.
Although President Zia reinstituted elections in 1978, whoever
succeeds him will have to be acceptable to the army. Acting
President Abdus Sattar, 75, said poor health would keep him
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 182
from running in elections which are to be held within six
months. Hasina Wazed, the daughter of Sheik Mujib and head
of the opposition Awami League Party, recently returned to a
tumultuous popular welcome after six years in India. But at 32,
she is too young to be President.
Source: Gainesville Sun (Dated: 08-Jun-1981)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1320&dat=1981
0608&id=JD1WAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2OkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=618
2,1570513
evsjv‡`‡k nZ¨vKvÊ mevi Rb¨ civRq
1975 mv‡j ¶gZvq AwawôZ wRqv Zvui g…Z¨yi AvM ch©š— evsjv‡`‡ki 9.2 †KvwU
gvbyl‡K Lv‡`¨ ¯^qs m¤ú~Y©Zv AR©b Ges cwievi cwiKíbv‡Z Aby‡cÖiYv hywM‡q
hvw‛Q‡jb| Zvui nZ¨v evsjv‡`‡k bZyb K‡i ivR‣bwZK Pig Aw¯’wZkxjZv‡K D‡¯‥
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†bZv †gRi †Rbv‡ij gÄyi Ges Zvi `yB mn‡hvMx miKv‡ii nv‡Z †MÖdZv‡ii ci
e›`yKhy‡× wbnZ nq| Av‡iv 17 Rb Awdmvi‡K Kv÷wW‡Z ivLv n‡q‡Q Ges
mvgwiK wePv‡ii gy‡LvgywL Kiv n‡e| wRqv nZ¨vi ci PÆMÖv‡gi Avwg© KgvÛvi gÄyi
Ab¨vb¨ Avwg© BDwbU‡K Zvi mv‡_ GKvZ¥Zv cÖKv‡ki AvnŸvb Rvbv‡jI Zv e¨_©
n‡q‡Q| 1978 mv‡ji wbe©vP‡bi gva¨‡g wRqv MYZš¿ cybi‚×vi K‡iwQ‡jb Ges
whwb Zuvi Avm‡b em‡e Avwg©‡`i Kv‡Q Zv‡K MÖnY‡hvM¨ n‡Z n‡e| fvicÖvß
†cÖwm‡W›U Avãym mvËvi (75) Zvi fMœ ¯^v‡¯’¨i Rb¨ Avmbœ wbe©vP‡b Ask wb‡eb bv
e‡j Rvwb‡q‡Qb| ZvQvov, 32 eQi eqmx nvwmbv Iqv‡R` †cÖwm‡W›U c‡`i Rb¨
A‡bK Zi‚Y|
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 183
When Rahman died, Bangladesh’s hope dies, too
DACCA, Bangladesh - It has been two and a half months since
President Ziaur Rahman was killed in an abortive coup d'etat,
yet he is still the dominant political
force in Bangladesh.
In the streets, Rahman‟s face stares out
from posters that proclaim: “Long live
President Zia.”
In Government offices, cabinet
Ministers and army generals pint to his
portrait and invoke his name repeatedly
in conversations about the country‟s
future.
In an opulent sitting room at the
presidential palace, acting President
Abdus Sattar talks of fulfilling Zia‟s
dreams for the country.
“I want to do the same things Zia did”, Sattar said in a recent
interview.
But if Zia‟s continued influence reflects just how strong and
personal his rule was, it is also a measure of the political
vacuum created by his departure.
Uncertainty and apprehension color virtually everyone‟s view
of the future. There is even doubt about an election to choose
Zia‟s successor.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 184
Leading opposition parties have demanded that the election be
put off until November, party to dissipate the force of Zia‟s
martyrdom.
But they have also set other conditions, including revision of
the electoral rolls and an end to the state of emergency declared
on Zia‟s death.
The Government, controlled by Zia‟s Bangladesh National
Party, has advanced the election to Oct. 15 less than a month
beyond the scheduled date of Sept. 21, but has refused to any
further or accede to other demands.
Nonetheless, some opposition leaders have threatened to
boycott the election or disrupt the campaign if at least some of
their demands are not met.
If there is violence - and political violence is common in
Bangladesh - the army could step in, although senior officers
have vowed the will not.
What worried Bangladeshis most about the future is there
appears to be no one in any of the 50 registered political parties
capable of filling void left by Zia‟s death.
During his five and a half years at the helm, Zia managed to
cope with what many believed was an impossible task.
When he came to power, Zia was the fourth head of state in as
many months. But he calmed the political turmoil and set the
country on a path of tentative but perceptible progress.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 185
He seemed to be literally willing the country forward. The
quickest way to draw his anger was to suggest that any of the
many problems was beyond solution.
He became an evangelist for family planning and food
production in a country that is hopelessly overpopulated and
underfed.
Zia‟s gains were small against the yardstick of his country‟s
problems. Still, he gave Bangladesh stability and direction and a
sense of cautious optimism about the future.
The bullets that killed him killed optimism, too. The exposed
the fragility of his gains and set the country adrift.
Among Zia‟s potential successors, the clear favorite is acting
President Sattar, 75, who is emerging as a compromise
candidate of the Bangladesh National Party. But Sattar, a retired
high court judge, is in poor health and his political experience is
limited. Factions have already developed within the party and
observers wonder how long he can contain then.
Although he brushes off questions about his health - “A minor
blood pressure problem,” he says - other people insist the
problem is more serious. His daily schedule includes lengthy
rest periods.
Even within the party, he is viewed as an interim leader.
Among the opposition figures, the most prominent is Hasina
Wajed, 34, daughter of Sheik Mujibur Rahman, who led
Bangladesh into independence, was its first President and, like
Zia, was assassinated. But she has no more political experience
than Sattar.
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 186
Another prospect, Khandaker Mostaque, 62, the leader of an 18-
party united front, was recently disqualified because of
conviction for corruption.
One of the few other candidates of any stature is M.S.G.
Osmany, 63, who commanded the Bangladesh forces in the
struggle for independence. He is not backed by any party, but
by a citizen‟s committee.
Many opposition parties appear to be more interested in
dismantling Zia‟s constitutional system than in confronting the
nation‟s problems.
They argue that the presidential form of Government
concentrates too much power in the hands of one person and
they advocate switching to a parliamentary system.
But no matter what form democracy takes, it is likely to remain
susceptible to the winds of violence that have plagued the
political process since the country‟s birth.
Los Angeles Times
Source: Gainesville Sun (Dated: 19-Aug-1981)
Link:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=1981
0819&id=skIwAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7aQFAAAAIBAJ&pg=997,3
968831
President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 187
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President Ziaur Rahman: The Statesman 188
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