Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar's Rohingya in the news

The region that contains Bangladesh, Nepal, and the western portion of Myanmar does not pretend to be influential in today's world. But news from these countries has filtered out this past week and is worth noting.


Nepal is a mountainous country where the Himalaya mountains have formed from the Indian tectonic plate pushing into the Eurasian plate. Bangladesh is nearly all a low level delta from rivers running from the Himalayas to the ocean. The Western region of Myanmar is non-descript, mainly low level hills. Graphic from rochester.edu

Nepal suffered a major earthquake and a set of aftershocks, killing nearly 8000 of its citizens. With steep terrain, and limited infrastructure, it is a stiff blow to the country's prospects in the near term.


While a disaster, it may be one that nonetheless pulls its citizens together. Soldiers, citizens, and the government are all working with the same goal of recovering from this major setback. Photo from www.travelweek.ca

The Rohingya of Myanmar are a Muslim minority in an otherwise Buddhist Myanmar. This ethnic group has little power, faces an indifferent, if not hostile government, and neighbors thus are allowed to act aggressively toward these people. The Rohingya number nearly 1 million, are mainly agrarian, have their own language, and isolated by modern borders from other Muslim populations, namely Bangladesh.

In an article two years ago from the Christian Science Monitor, we read that some Buddhists in Bangladesh are leaving that country and being resettled in Rohingya land. Another element of harassment and oppression of the Rohingya. The Myanmar government and Buddhist leaders contend that the Rohingya are relatively new to the region and have no long-standing claim on the land. The long running strife is messy, violent, and oppressive with diminished opportunities for education and growth within the Rohingya community. While primarily a reflection of mismatched borders and intertwined populations with Bangladesh, the issue as found elsewhere is how minority populations are protected by law and treated equally. When Myanmar and Bangladesh both struggle with poverty and a mixed record of governance, the festering continues.


Border guards in Bangladesh refuse entry to Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in November 2012. Teatree was moved and sobered by the pain on this man's face, frustrated no doubt in his attempts to find refuge for his family. Photo from ipsnews.ndet

In the past few days, both impoverished Bangladeshi and Rohingya have taken to the seas looking for refuge. Malaysia and other destination countries are not keen to take them in, and so another cauldron of suffering and displacement simmers.


The enclave of Rohingya's is shown outlined in red. One can imagine a long and perilous voyage by sea along the hostile coast of Myanmar, with the hope that Malaysia, a fellow Muslim country, might take them in. In the past weeks, Thailand, long a first stop for refugees, cracked down on the activity, forcing other boat people to travel further southeast to Malaysia or Indonesia. They have not been welcomed in either country. An article from Australia's Broadcasting Company (ABC) has further details.

And then perhaps most ominously, there is recent violence in Bangladesh with a specific theme. Three bloggers expressing criticism of aspects of Islam have been killed since the first of the year. A CNN article reports on the latest, "Ananta Bijoy Das, 32, was killed Tuesday morning as he left his home on his way to work at a bank, police in the northeastern Bangladeshi city of Sylhet said.

Four masked men attacked him, hacking him to death with cleavers and machetes, said Sylhet Metropolitan Police Commissioner Kamrul Ahsan. The men then ran away. Because of the time of the morning when the attack happened, there were few witnesses. But police say they are following up on interviewing the few people who saw the incident.

"It's one after another after another," said Imran Sarker, who heads the Blogger and Online Activists Network in Bangladesh. "It's the same scenario again and again. It's very troubling."

Das' death was at least the third this year of someone who'd posted pieces online critical of Islam. In each case, the attacks were carried out publicly on city streets. In March, Washiqur Rahman, 27, was hacked to death by two men with knives and meat cleavers just outside his house as he headed to work at a travel agency in the capital, Dhaka.

In February, a Bangladesh-born American blogger, Avijit Roy, was similarly killed with machetes and knives as he walked back from a book fair in Dhaka.

The three victims are hardly the only ones who have paid a steep price for their views. In the last two years, several bloggers have died, either murdered or under mysterious circumstances. In 2014, Reporters Without Borders reported that a group calling itself Defenders of Islam in Bangladesh had published a "hit list" of writers it saw as opposing Islam. "They listed 84 bloggers, mostly secularists. They listed 84 of them," said blogger Asif Mohiuddin, whose name was on the list. "Nine of them are already killed and many of the [others] were attacked."

The killings highlight the ignorance and intolerance sheltered within Islam's followers, not just the jihadists, and the question again becomes, what are "normal" Muslims to do.


There are no doubt many Muslims who deplore the killings of these activists, and take a step of resistance by, in this case, publicly mourning one of the victims. Photo from Agence France-Presse

But the young, righteous, and violent Islamists are unrepentent. And the future for tolerance in yet another Muslim country is now shaken.

The Bangladesh tragedy

By now, most people are familiar with the collapse over two weeks ago of an shoddily and overbuilt garment factory in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh.

Bangladesh - a country of 150 million primarily Muslim people, that emerged from a 1971 war of secession from Pakistan.

Bangladesh is a low lying country at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. It is subject to regular flooding from three major river emptying into the Bay, and at danger of typhoons and hurricanes driving water back into the land. Any rise in the ocean levels would be an immediate concern of this country, unlike The Netherlands with its substantial investment in dikes, seawalls, and drainage contingencies.

As CNN described it just this morning, "More than two weeks after a factory collapsed in Bangladesh, trapping workers in a mangled concrete heap, the death toll has surpassed 900.

Authorities pulled more bodies from the rubble, bringing the number of people killed to 912 , officials said Thursday.

The Rana Plaza building - only three floors of the 8-story building were legal ...

Rescue workers saved more than 2,400 people in the aftermath of the collapse, but have focused on using heavy machinery to uncover bodies buried beneath the ruins. The building, which housed five factories full of garment workers, caved in, burying hundreds of people in a heap of concrete. It is the South Asian nation's deadliest industrial disaster. ..."

The building collapse and loss of life has brought up a number of questions - typically focused on who to blame. In order of immediacy:
#1 the owners of the factories in the building who did not heed the Bangladesh authorities warnings to evacuate the structure due to ever widening cracks
#2 the construction standards and inspection frequencies
#3 the original construction company, but also the ones responsible for adding additional floors that were beyond the original design and permits
#4 the western companies who purchased clothing manufactured at the factories. They are blamed for a vague coercion of the actual manufacturers in demanding very cheap prices or they will take their business elsewhere in the world.

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The garment manufacturing industry in Bangladesh has been growing at a fast pace for nearly two decades, providing millions with a lift out of absolute poverty. According the the CNN article, "Bangladesh's $20 billion garment industry accounts for 77% of the country's exports." However, industrial safety standards for buildings and working conditions for workers have not kept pace among the nearly 5000 factories in the sector.

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A haunting embrace photographed by a Bangladeshi reporter has gone around the world - emphasizing the tragedy of this situation.

While the debate over who is to blame is the immediate one, the real question is whether actual changes will occur in building codes, in penalties for those who violate codes, and a more rigorous system of, and capability in, inspections and warnings. These address items 1, 2, and 3. Who will be willing to pay for such improvements will be the focus of item 4. Global trade can grow economies, but responsibilities within long global supply chains remain murky, and need to be forcefully addressed by both governments and industries.

Two final points:

#1 This particular tragedy is only one of a string of garment factory accidents - several fatal - and in fact another occurred just today, May 8 when a fire in a garment factory building killed eight workers. The challenge in Bangladesh is large, and one suspects equally challenging in a number of developing countries that have offered low wage/cost alternatives to companies at the far end of the logistics - Western clothing retailers.

#2 Inexplicably, days after the Dhaka building collapse, deadly riots occurred - not with the focus on improving working and building standards however - but by Islamists seeking to pressure the government to impose stricter tenets of Sharia law.

As the New York Times wrote on May 6, "Violence erupted across Bangladesh on Monday as Islamist fundamentalists demanding passage of an anti-blasphemy law clashed with security forces, leaving a trail of property damage and at least 22 people dead after a second day of unrest.

The skirmishes began Sunday when thousands of Islamic activists staged a march on Dhaka, the capital, followed by speeches and a mass demonstration. The authorities say several hundred shops were vandalized, and local television channels showed fires in the central part of the city. Later, when protesters refused to leave, security officers unleashed tear gas and fired rubber bullets to drive them out of the capital.

The confrontations escalated on Monday, as a major clash occurred about 15 miles outside the capital in the district of Narayanganj ... Bangladeshi news media reported that three security officers were beaten to death while a dozen other people were killed, including protesters shot by the police. Traffic was halted for at least eight hours on one of the country’s most important highways, connecting Dhaka with the southern port of Chittagong.

The angry faces, once again, of aimless, religious-oriented mobs, spurred on by Islamic fundamentalist clerics. While the NY Times reported 22 deaths, others report at least 37 deaths from the mayhem.

For nearly two weeks, Bangladesh’s feuding political parties and Islamic movements have essentially called a truce as the country reeled from the collapse of the Rana Plaza building ... Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had called on Islamic hard-liners to postpone their planned march — described as Siege Dhaka by supporters on social media — but they refused. The march was organized by Hefajat-e-Islam, a group of Islamic hard-liners who have called for Bangladesh’s Constitution to be drastically amended with a 13-point program that would ban intermingling between men and women and punish by execution Bangladeshi bloggers accused of blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad."

Police and the mob ...

Wounded police being attended to by their colleagues

Here are the 13 demands of the Islamist group leader, Hefajat-e Islam Bangladesh ameer Shah Ahmad Shafi:

1. Restore the phrase ‘Complete faith and trust in the Almighty Allah’ in the constitution and repeal all the laws contrary to the holy Quran and Sunnah.

2. Pass a law in parliament keeping a provision of the maximum punishment of death sentence to prevent defaming Allah, Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) and Islam and smear campaigns against Muslims.

3. Take measures for stringent punishment against self-declared atheists and bloggers, led the so-called Shahbagh movement, and anti-Islamists who made derogatory remarks against the Prophet.

4. Stop infiltration of all alien-culture, including shamelessness in the name of individual’s freedom of expression, anti-social activities, adultery, free mixing of male and female, and candle lighting.

5. Make Islamic education mandatory from primary to higher secondary levels canceling the anti-Islamic women policy and anti-religion education policy.

6. Officially declare Qadianis (Ahmadiyyas) as non-Muslim and stop their propaganda and all conspiratorial ill-moves.

7. Stop setting up sculptures at intersections, schools, colleges and universities across the country.

8. Lift restriction on saying prayers in all mosques across the country, including Baitul Mukarram National Mosque, without any hassle and remove obstacles to carrying out religious activities.

9. Stop evil efforts to spread hatred in the mind of young generation regarding Islam through the misrepresentation of religious dresses and cultures in the media.

10. Stop anti-Islam activities by NGOs across the country, including in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and evil attempts of Christian missionaries for conversion.

11. Stop attacks, mass killing, oppression and indiscriminate shooting on Alem-Ulama, devout followers of the Prophet and towhidi janata (revolutionary people).

12. Stop threatening teachers and students of Qawmi madrasas, Islamic scholars, imams and khatibs and conspiracies against them.

13. Free immediately all the arrested Islamic scholars, madrasa students and towhidi janata and withdraw all false cases filed against them, compensate the victims and bring the assailants to justice.

Teatree muses how appropriate it would have been for these Islamic purists to have added a #14 - something along the line of "strengthen our building codes, fully fund our inspectors, stiffen our penalties for those who violate workplace safety standards, etc."

Bangladesh - 32 years later

This week, the country of Bangladesh was back in the news. A top Bangladeshi court ruled earlier in the week that a leader of the country's largest Islamist party was guilty of war crimes during the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. According to an account in USA Today, March 1, Delwar Hossain Sayedee - one of the top leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's largest Islamic party - was sentenced to death "for mass killings, rape and atrocities committed during the bloody nine-month war. ... Protesters clashed with police for a second day Friday as the death toll rose to at least 44.

Sayadee, unique because of his striking red beard, becomes the latest political leader that is also been found guilty of war crimes.

The article continues, "Passions have boiled over in recent weeks as tribunals have tried suspects on accusations they committed crimes during the country's war for independence from Pakistan. Bangladesh says as many as 3 million people were killed and 200,000 women raped by Pakistani troops and local collaborators during the fighting. Sayedee, a teacher at an Islamic seminary school when he allegedly committed the crimes, is the third defendant to be convicted of war crimes by the special tribunal set up in 2010. His lawyer Abdur Razzak rejected the verdict as politically motivated. He said his client will appeal to the country's Supreme Court."

Jamaat-e-Islami, a major political party in Bangladesh has called out its members to create violent protests on behalf of Sayedee. (Teatree wonders, whether this is a call for justice to be done, or simply to reject justice that has been done?)

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On the other hand, this photo from AlJazeera, shows the rejoicing of many other Bangladeshi's with the verdict, with the opinion that finally, after decades of neglect, some justice is being accomplished.

That's the story - it highlights a number of issues. One is certainly the history of Bangladesh, which was once part of Pakistan, which itself was partitioned in the aftermath of World War II from India.

The name Bangladesh means "Country of Bengal" in the official Bengali language, and it faces the Bay of Bengal to its south. Bangladesh has a population of 147 million, it is an extremely low lying country that endures typhoons, seasonal flooding, and is at risk from any rise of ocean elevation.

Once known as East Pakistan, it broke free from Pakistan in 1971 ... As Wikipedia puts it, " Due to political exclusion, ethnic and linguistic discrimination and economic neglect by the politically dominant western wing, popular agitation grew and gave rise to a secular cultural nationalist movement, leading to the declaration of independence and Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. In the aftermath of war and independence, the new state endured poverty, famine, political turmoil and military coups. The restoration of democracy in 1991 has been followed by relative calm and economic progress."

In this apparently old map, Ceylon, at the tip of India, is now called Sri Lanka, and Burma is now called Myanmar

Another issue is the court itself. Called the International Crimes Tribunal, one Bangladeshi newspaper describes it as "a domestic body with no international oversight, was created by the government in 2010 and has been tainted by allegations it is politically motivated." So the question becomes, indeed, is this justice served or retribution - one would think that setting up such a body headed into the murky world of war crimes would want a larger international network of legal support behind it. The absence of which allows, as we are seeing, protests regarding its legitimacy. A total of 11 top opposition figures — nine from the Jamaat party and two from the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) — stand accused of war crimes.

As the article notes, "Both Jamaat and the BNP have called the cases “politically motivated and farcical”. International rights groups have questioned the proceedings and found loopholes in the war crime laws."

The third issue, is of course, the nature of the crimes themselves. As a UK Guardian newspaper article notes, "Much of the mistrust is rooted in Bangladesh's tumultuous past. Bangladesh declared independence from Pakistan in 1971. The Pakistani army fought and lost a brutal nine-month war with Bengali fighters and Indian forces that had intervened. Hundreds of thousands of civilians died, many of them at the hands of Islamist militia groups who wanted the country to remain part of Pakistan. .. Full article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/23/protest-death-penalty-bangladesh.)

Bangladesh has its own images of the cost of freedom, and the price war brings.

More specifically, according to an article at Forbes Magazine, "Many academics state that the first time rape was consciously applied as a weapon of war was during the Bangladesh War of Independence." Between 200,000 and 400,000 rapes occurred, as can be read about in the article - http://www.forbes.com/sites/worldviews/2012/05/21/1971-rapes-bangladesh-cannot-hide-history/

This photo shows a commemoration connected with the violence committed towards women during the 1971 war with Pakistan. A blog posting on the subject can be found at http://anushayspoint.com/2012/07/17/i-am-the-war-heroine-speaking-a-special-series-on-women-bangladeshs-war-of-independence/

So, one can hope that Bangladesh is truly coming to grips with its past - a good place to start from, even if decades later.