Dacca Threatened by Fascists of the Koran

By François Hauter
Le Figaro

Wednesday 21 September 2005

Bangladesh: A month after "Operation Purple," organized by Muslim extremists who exploded 459 bombs in a half hour, Dacca is threatened by fascists of the Koran. Could Bangladesh, the third largest Muslim country in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan, tip over into a religious radicalism that is completely foreign to it? For six years, Islamist radicals have exploded hundreds of bombs month after month. The campaign of terror culminated last month with the simultaneous explosion of 459 bombs on August 17.

It's a methodical job of undermining - slow, and tenacious - that has lasted since March 1999. The bombs primarily killed Muslims. They targeted cinemas, theaters, women's competitive sports events, government organizations that defend women's rights, as well as intellectuals, artists, and liberals. In short, all the country's secular and progressive forces.

The Islamist extremists represent only 5% of the 125 million Muslims of Bangladesh (which counts 140 million inhabitants). Among these die-hards, there are five to ten thousand ready for anything, summarily embroiled in violence. Financed by the Wahabites of Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, these fascists of the Koran kill their fellow citizens in the name of Allah. They've decided to impose a universal Muslim law, a sharia about which they themselves are much divided. The only common ground among their diverse little groups is the idea of constructing their deadly utopia on chaos, of using all modern means (cell phones, Internet, media) to destroy modernity. Today, they are no longer embarrassed about defying the government.

And how! On August 17, these ultras suddenly put Bangladesh under terrorism specialists' spotlights. That day, between 11 AM and 11:30 a.m., they exploded 459 low-intensity bombs in 63 of the country's 64 districts. Their targets? The prime minister's office, the central bank, the airport, the capital's main police station, big hotels, the country's administrative offices ... "it was a test to see whether everything in their organization was working properly," explains Masud, a local journalist who has devoted long investigations to these groups.

The test was evidentiary. On August 18, Interior Minister Mr. Babar confessed that his services hadn't seen anything coming. The bombs had mobilized more than 2000 terrorists in the country, without the secret's being exposed. The operation was characterized by an absolute precision: the attacks, which were not intended to kill, caused two deaths (children who opened the bags) and a hundred wounded only, while tracts of the Jamaatul Mujahedin Bangladesh (JMB) were laid down near the debris.

In those tracts, the JMB's "armies of Allah" explained that "with the exception of Allah, no one has the right to enact laws," and that this "Operation Purple" ordered the Dacca government to "have the courage to defy Bush and Blair" and to decree sharia in Bangladesh. In the face of this challenge that ridiculed it, the Bangladeshi government demonstrated a remarkable passivity. It allowed Islamist organizations to march against the arrest of JMB members. A minister described the 459 bombs as "squibs." Two hundred and fifty people were arrested, fifty questioned, and finally about fifteen hapless bag-holders were held behind bars. From August 20 on, the fundamentalist party Jamaat-i-islami, which is to the JMB what Sinn Fein is to the IRA in Northern Ireland, blamed Mossad and the Indian secret services. Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, whose party (BNP) only stays in power thanks to the support of Jamaat's Islamists, waited three weeks before pronouncing a very wooly speech.

Last week, the United States proposed the FBI's intervention, and under the force of this electroshock the police suddenly woke up. They promised a 15,000-dollar reward for the arrest of Shayek Abdur Rahman, JMB leader, and for that of Bangla Bhai, the leader of JMJB (Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh), another radical Islamist group. As if by magic, the forces of order then discovered caches of arms and materials to make other bombs ...

In the foreign chancelleries of Dacca, the government's inaction stupefied: "The government pretends not to understand that this is a military operation, not yet intended to kill, but to demonstrate that anyone could be the next target," worries one European Union diplomat. Another adds: "These groups have demonstrated that the government does not control the country! Obsessed with their business, surrounded by lobbyists, these politicians don't think about anything but continuing to collect their salaries, that is, about staying in power."

Consequently, a month after this wave of attacks unprecedented in the history of terrorism, questions are mounting. Why doesn't this moderate Muslim democracy respond against the growth in power of terrorist fundamentalism? Who ordered these attacks? Did they act alone, or are they already associated with al-Qaeda elements? Did they want to get the attention of those famous Islamic terrorist groups by demonstrating their own "know-how" this way?

Could the country tip over? In many respects, the Bangladesh of 2005 reminds one of Iran before the Islamic Revolution of 1979. In Dacca today, intellectuals display their incredulity and their pessimism and don't know how to act any more. "For the most part, they are liberals in favor of secularism," explains Father Sirajul Islam, the author of the Encyclopedia Bangladia, "but they violently reject United States' policy towards the Muslim world and worry about the rapprochement between Delhi and Washington."

The Islamists capitalize on these universally shared sentiments. "India is the Hindus' country and the Hindus are the Muslims' enemies!" they thunder at their poorly educated, even illiterate, troops before concluding: "Islam is our only shield against India - which wants to invade us!"

With millions of unemployed, they offer little jobs, nourishing their people's resentments through hate-filled sermons. "The more frustrated you are, the more ideological you are," observes Alim Khan, a Dacca intellectual. "The Jamaat is the best organized political party and the only one with any integrity," adds a European diplomat. Dr. Shanag Husne Jahan, an archeologist at the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, observes: "I've just returned to my country after ten years of absence. When I left, people ridiculed those who went to mosque. That's finished. Fundamentalism has progressed a great deal."

Twenty years ago, radical Islamists had neither social grip, nor economic power, nor political importance (they sided with Pakistan during the war of Independence). Today, they've got the upper hand. They reign over powerful banks (the Islamic Bank is the first in the country), diversified companies and 350 NGOs that assure them 150 million Euros of annual income. [1] Thanks to these resources, they manage between 8,000 and 15,000 madrassas, Koranic schools in which between 150 and 2,000 students are enrolled. So many holding tanks for mobilizing crowds of sympathizers.

Above all, they are active participants in power since 2001. It was thanks to the support of the Jamaat and three other little Islamist parties that the BNP was able to put together a majority. This "king-maker" position gives the Islamists privileged access to upper-level bureaucracy. The Minister of Social Affairs, Ali Ahsan Mujahid, is an Islamist: he controls the behavior of the 16,000 NGOs present in the country. Through parties, youth movements, schools, and charitable institutions - all linked - the Islamists manipulate a significant percentage of society's rejects. The most violent feel strong and invulnerable enough to defy a government paralyzed by its compromises. "The country is at a point from which the situation can only get worse; Bangladesh's weaknesses have become fissures; we fear more serious attacks," prophesizes an Anglo-Saxon diplomat.

Footnote

[1] Source: Human Development Research Center.

Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.