A US-based Foreign Policy magazine has listed Bangladesh among the world’s ten most dangerous regions.
It also apprehended that conflict in these regions could even threaten global stability.
In its online version, the magazine on Dec 30 published a report titled ‘Next Year’s Wars– From Sochi to Sudan, 10 conflicts that will threaten global stability in 2014′.
In the report it mentioned about the possible ramification of conflict in Bangladesh on global stability.
In the list of disturbed nations and region, Bangladesh, Central African Republic, Honduras, Libya, and North Caucasus have been the new entrants in 2013. While the other five– Central Asia, Iraq, the Sahel, Sudan, and Syria/Lebanon had also found place in the list in 2012.
The magazine said, “The list illustrates the remarkable range of factors that can cause instability: organized crime in Central America; the stresses of the political competition around elections, as in Bangladesh; the threat of insurgency — in the North Caucasus or the dangers of regional spillover, as in Lebanon or the Sahel.”
“Then there are the perils of authoritarian rule and an overly securitized response to opposition: in Syria, of course, but also in Iraq and Russia’s North Caucasus. An alarming rise in communal or identity-based violence is likewise contributing to instability in Iraq, Syria, and CAR (and Myanmar and Sri Lanka, for that matter).”
Above all, it said, the list was prepared highlighting the deadly sudden conflict, underdevelopment and states’ inability to provide all their citizens with basic public goods; inequality; and divisive or predatory rule.
Stating that reducing the fragility of the most vulnerable countries would arguably be among the greatest “moral and political challenge of our era”, it said this would take time and would require commitment and resources. “Three things that, sadly, too often are lacking,” it added.
The report has dedicated a portion to Bangladesh. In it, the report said, “Bangladesh enters 2014 amid escalating political violence. Scores of people died and hundreds were injured in clashes between the opposition and security forces ahead of general elections scheduled for January, the former embracing a growing campaign of violent nationwide shutdowns, or hartals. The opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) has said it will boycott the elections, accusing the ruling Awami League (AL) of authoritarian rule and plans to rig the polls.”
The FP pointed out that a boycott would deepen the crisis and lead to more deadly violence.
It categorically stated that merely postponing polls — as some have suggested — without a roadmap for how to hold credible elections in the future is also not the solution.
“There is deep animosity between the heads of the AL and BNP, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, who have been swapping power since 1991. A phone call between them in October 2013 — reportedly their first conversation in over a decade — quickly deteriorated into barbs about each other’s mental health,” the report highlighted.
It said, the roots of Bangladeshi political polarization run deep. Over the past two years, a government-appointed tribunal has carried out profoundly flawed trials for war crimes committed during the country’s 1971 war of liberation from Pakistan.
“To date, everyone on trial is a Bangladeshi citizen. No one from the Pakistani military, the main force resisting the liberation of what was then East Pakistan, has been indicted. Making matters worse, the sentencing to death of six members of the BNP and Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami parties — for allegedly trying to sabotage the country’s formation — has inflated religious-versus-secular social divisions and spawned the radicalization of newer groups like Hefajat-e-Islam, the FP said in its report.
Suggesting the only way out is via credible elections and a stable, responsive government, the magazine said for that, Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia must overcome their mutual loathing and negotiate an inclusive roadmap.
“The risks are manifold. Since 1971, the military has attempted some 30 coups, about a fifth of them successful. In two, prime ministers were assassinated, including Sheikh Hasina’s father, Mujibur Rahman. Today, the military remains a risk,” it said.
Apart from political unrest, the magazine also highlighted potential radicalization of Rohingya refugees, human rights concerns, and Bangladesh’s complicated economic trajectory.
All these make for an explosive mix, it concluded.
Source: Bd news24
