The army displays unusual restraint in the face of political turmoil
A stable democracy seems to be finally receiving more than a fighting chance in historically turbulent Bangladesh. The rising chaos, the intensifying anti-government movement and persistent corruption charges against Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and her cabinet colleagues have created a voluble cocktail of political uncertainty in the country. All in all, a perfect pretext for the boys in uniform to step in. But contrary to earlier trends, the bait has been resisted.
The signs of the dawning of a new political era in Bangladesh have been some time in the making. Just days after he was appointed the new army chief last year, Lt-General Abu Saleh Moha-mmad Nasim urged his officers and troops to remain loyal to the political leadership and help consolidate the fledgling democracy.
In a country where the military has held power for 15 of its 24 years of independence, his remarks ought to have been taken seriously. Yet independent analysts, politicians, and foreign diplomats largely ignored his maiden speech with prominent newspapers giving it scant coverage.
The lukewarm reaction was perhaps due to scepticism based on the lessons of recent history. Bangladesh has seen military leaders taking advantage of popular grievances against pervasive corruption, growing lawlessness and the politicians’ apparent failure to make things work. The military has repeatedly seized power promising to right the wrongs. But surprisingly, today라이브 바카라 ‘chastened army’ is proving to be deeply reluctant to take advantage of the current volatile situation. Commentators, military leaders and diplomats point to a number of factors, both external and internal, that contribute to the army라이브 바카라 disinclination to take over the reins of power.
"They are psychologically too weak to think of yet another intervention," says Talugdar Maniruzzaman, professor of political science at Dhaka University and author of Military Withdrawal from Politics: A Comparative Study. "They are now trying to recover from the terrible damage to their reputation inflicted by the misrule of General H.M. Ershad." Indeed, the army was thoroughly disgraced during the nine-year rule of General Ershad, who was overthrown by a popular uprising in 1990. Public anger against him was so intense that in his last days of office thousands of demonstrators took to the streets, threatening to overrun the military barracks, Ershad라이브 바카라 main power base.
The fate of the last two coup leaders, General Ziaur Rahman and General Ershad, deters politically ambitious officers. General Ziaur Rahman was assassinated by renegade army officers in 1981, while General Ershad is serving a 13-year jail sentence for corruption and abuse of power.
The chances of military meddling in civilian affairs have been further curtailed by a brutal purge of the armed forces by Khaleda Zia. Since coming to power through a clean election four-and a-half-years ago, Begum Zia라이브 바카라 government has sacked at least 20 senior officers—mostly generals and brigadiers—suspected of being trouble-makers and Ershad sympa-thisers. The army top brass appears to have heeded the lesson.
According to Borhanuddin Ahmed, author of Generals in Pakistan and Bangladesh, there are also lucrative carrots for the military: "They still remain pampered in this poor country, enjoying the second highest allocation of the national budget." According to Ahmed, the opportunity to make money serving in the UN라이브 바카라 peacekeeping forces also deflects army attention from domestic political chaos.
Experts believe that another crucial reason for the military라이브 바카라 restraint is the external factor. "You always need a foreign backer to sustain a military takeover, but that라이브 바카라 missing since the collapse of the Soviet Union," says Major General Abdul Lalif, intelligence chief under General Ershad. This is especially true for Bangladesh, a country chronically dependent on foreign aid. The wave of democratisation now sweeping the globe, according to Professor Maniruzza-man, is also proving a major deterrent to military intervention.
"In the current international order," says Peter Fowler, British High Commissioner in Bangladesh, "there라이브 바카라 no way that the donors would be inclined to support a military takeover." And that라이브 바카라 good news for the troubled nation. in Dhaka