Jamaat-Indicted

Bangladesh indicts Islamic leaders for war crimes By JULHAS ALAM Associated Press DHAKA, Bangladesh -- The chief of Bangladesh's largest Islamic party and one of his deputies were indicted Monday for alleged crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 independence war against Pakistan. A special tribunal set up by the government to deal with charges of crimes against humanity indicted Matiur Rahman Nizami, the chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, on 16 charges, including genocide and murder. Another tribunal indicted Abdul Quader Molla, a deputy of Nizami, for his alleged involvement in crimes against humanity. Nizami's trial will begin July 1, while Molla's starts June 20. If convicted, they could face the death penalty. Bangladesh - with help from India - won independence from Pakistan in 1971 after a nine-month war. Bangladesh says Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed some 3 million people, raped about 200,000 women and forced millions to flee their homes during the war. Jamaat-e-Islami openly campaigned against breaking away from Pakistan during the war, and several party leaders now stand accused of collaborating with the Pakistani army in committing atrocities. Nizami and Molla, who have been in jail since last year, are among five top Jamaat-e-Islami leaders and one former party chief accused of crimes against humanity. The former party chief, Ghulam Azam, also is in jail awaiting his trial, which begins June 5. Two other people, including a current member of Parliament, face similar charges. A three-judge panel headed by Justice Nizamul Huq indicted Nizami after prosecutors said he was responsible for the deaths of many academics, journalists and doctors just two days before Pakistan's army surrendered on Dec. 16, 1971. Nizami has been accused of masterminding the abductions and systematic killings of people sensing an imminent defeat. At the time of the war, Nizami was president of Islami Chhatra Sangha, then the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami. He also served as a Cabinet minister from 2001 to 2006 under then-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who now heads the main opposition party. Separately, another tribunal indicted Molla, one of the assistant secretaries general of the party, on six charges, including genocide and conspiracy. He was widely believed to be behind the killings of many villagers near the capital, Dhaka, in 1971. Jamaat-e-Islami - a key partner in Zia's former government and now the chief ally of her Bangladesh Nationalist Party - says the charges are politically motivated. Authorities deny the claim. Zia, the longtime political rival of current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has called the tribunal a farce. Hasina, in turn, has urged Zia to stop backing those who she says stood against the nation's quest for independence and allegedly aided Pakistan's army in committing serious crimes. International human rights groups have called on the government to ensure that the tribunal is free and impartial. New York-based Human Rights Watch has called for changes to the tribunal, including allowing the accused to question its impartiality, which current law prohibits. Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/28/2820628/bangladesh-indicts-islamic-leaders.html#storylink=cpy

Sea Victory

Bangladesh wins sea claim battle with Myanmar March 14, 2012 09:41 PM By Julhas Alam

(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb) DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP): Bangladesh's foreign ministry said Wednesday that the U.N.'s International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea has recognized the South Asian nation's claims to a full 200-mile (320-kilometer) Exclusive Economic Zone in the Bay of Bengal. The verdict issued Wednesday in Hamburg, Germany, settled a long-standing dispute between Bangladesh and neighboring Myanmar. Bangladesh, angry over Myanmar's claim of rights to the disputed sea area, filed the case with the tribunal in 2009. Myanmar had claimed that its maritime boundary with Bangladesh cut directly across the Bangladesh coastline, severely limiting Bangladesh's maritime jurisdiction to a narrow wedge of sea extending about 130 miles (200 kilometers). Myanmar, which shares a 170-mile (275-kilometer) of land border with Bangladesh, also claimed that the tribunal lacked jurisdiction to award continental shelf rights beyond 200 miles (321 kilometers) from either state's coast. But the tribunal rejected both of these arguments. "The judgment is final and without appeal," Bangladesh's foreign ministry said in a statement. The verdict is seen as an opportunity for energy-starved Bangladesh, which is seeking new sources of gas amid a forecast that its current reserves will run out by 2014-15. Last year, Bangladesh signed a production-sharing contract with U.S. energy giant ConocoPhillips to explore for gas in the virtually unexplored deep waters of the Bay of Bengal, but its area of exploration was limited because of the maritime dispute with Myanmar and India. In 2008, Myanmar escorted South Korean gas exploration company Daewoo International Corp. into waters also claimed by Bangladesh. Both countries deployed their navies and ended the standoff with top-level diplomacy. A similar case is pending with the tribunal over disputed waters with India. The verdict of that case is expected in 2014. (The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

Enclaves-Nowhere Land

India, Bangladesh to help people stuck in enclaves

Posted: Sep 05, 2011 1:05 PM Updated: Sep 05, 2011 5:35 PM

By JULHAS ALAM and RAVI NESSMAN

Associated Press


DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) - The village of Votbari is a tiny island of India surrounded by a sea of Bangladesh.

A victim of absurd map drawing during the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent, the enclave has been all but abandoned by both nations. It has no paved roads, electricity, hospital or schools. Its destitute residents get no aid from either side. Years of regional tensions have kept it in limbo.

"There is nobody to look after us," resident Jober Ali said. "We have no country ... I do not have any identity. I am nowhere."

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan's Singh's visit to Dhaka starting Tuesday could end the suffering for tens of thousands of people trapped in dozens of such enclaves on both sides of the border.

With India's ties with rival Pakistan to the northwest frozen in enmity, it has turned its attention toward smoothing out its bumpy relationship with its northeastern neighbor.

The two nations are expected to tackle tensions over water resources, trade barriers and transit links. They also plan to resolve disputes over their 4,096-kilometer (2,545-mile) border - and with it, the enclave conundrum.

There are 111 Indian enclaves inside Bangladesh and 51 Bangladeshi ones inside India, with a combined population of 51,000, according to a recent survey jointly conducted by the two governments.

The residents of the enclaves have been compared to stateless people, without any of the services offered in either country and no one to take responsibility for them.

"We've lived here for decades. But nobody bothered about us. We are human beings, they do not keep that in mind," Ali said in an interview conducted over a borrowed cell phone from Votbari.

Bangladeshis living in enclaves surrounded by India suffer a similar fate.

Ali, 58, has no land for farming, no education and no hopes of a permanent job. His family of 13 squeezes into a single straw hut because they have no extra land to build another home. He supports them with irregular work as a day laborer.

The village of 3,000 has almost no infrastructure save for a few narrow, muddy roads - plied by bicycle rickshaws - that Bangladeshi authorities built for them as a humanitarian gesture.

Officially, Votbari residents are not allowed to leave their village and enter Bangladesh without a visa. But there is no fence and since they have never even been given Indian passports, Bangladeshi authorities look the other way and let them pass.

They do their shopping in Bangladesh, use Bangladeshi currency and rely on Bangladeshi hospitals in case of emergencies.

Asir Uddin, 60, said he often sneaks out of the village to find work as a day laborer.

"We cannot give our identity. We lie to people when someone asks where we're from," he said.

The situation is worse at the border of their own country, India, three-quarters of a mile (1.2 kilometers) away.

There, Ali said, Indian guards open fire at them if they try to cross. Human rights groups have accused Indian forces of routinely shooting those trying to enter illegally from Bangladesh.

While there are a smattering of similar enclaves scattered about Europe, central Asia and the Middle East, the Indo-Bangladesh ones are by far the most extensive, and the most convoluted, according to a 2002 paper by Brendan R. Whyte, of the University of Melbourne.

Some have small counter enclaves inside them, Whyte wrote. There is even one tiny Indian enclave inside a Bangladeshi enclave inside an Indian enclave inside Bangladesh.

According to popular legend, the enclaves were created when two chess-playing royals gambled away villages from their kingdoms. But Whyte and other historians say their creation is rooted in 18th Century fighting between the kingdom of Cooch Behar and the Mughal Empire. A treaty set boundaries, but some feudal lords in Mughal territory remained loyal to Cooch Behar and vice versa, leading to the enclaves.

When the subcontinent fell under British rule, this quirk didn't matter much. But when the region was partitioned between India and Pakistan at independence in 1947, the border kingdom of Cooch Behar joined India, leaving thousands of its now-Indian subjects trapped in East Pakistan and thousands of Pakistanis trapped in India.

After India helped Bangladesh secede from Pakistan in the 1971 war, the two nations developed close ties and signed a 1974 treaty that would have resolved the problem. But India never ratified the treaty and independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated in a 1975 military coup, torpedoing the plan and ushering in an era of icy relations.

New Delhi complained of millions of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and accused Dhaka of giving sanctuary to myriad insurgent groups leading violent rebellions against Indian rule in its northeastern states. Dhaka complained of its massive trade deficit with India and accused New Delhi of stealing its water.

Singh and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Rahman's daughter, have been working to fix this over the past two years.

Bangladesh cracked down on the Indian insurgents, a move that forced many of the groups to the negotiating table with India.

India offered Bangladesh a $1 billion loan, raised quotas on textile imports and appears ready to resolve the water dispute.

"There is a major shift in our relationship," Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai said Monday.

While India still has major border disagreements with Pakistan and China, it is hoping to resolve nearly all its issues with Bangladesh in time for Singh's two-day visit.

The plan entails each country absorbing the enclaves inside its territory and giving citizenship to the residents or allowing them to move to their home country, where they would be provided new homes, Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram told Parliament last month.

As Muslims, the villagers in Votbari feel closer to Bangladesh than Hindu-majority India, and many say they will stay right where they are.

"We are all united in wanting to be part of Bangladesh," Ali said. "We are Muslims. They are also Muslims. So they have feelings for us. They are like our brothers."

Nurul Amin, 26, who was forced to start driving a bicycle rickshaw at the age of 12 to support his family, hopes the deal will bring a brighter future for his two daughters, aged 5 and 3.

"I want to educate my two children. I don't want them to live a life like me," he said.

___

Nessman reported from New Delhi.

___

Follow Ravi Nessman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ravinessman

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

HRW-War Crimes

BOSTON.COM


Group urges Bangladesh on war crimes proceedings

By JULHAS ALAM
Associated Press

DHAKA, Bangladesh—An international rights group is urging Bangladesh to bring its proceedings related to alleged war crimes committed during the country's 1971 war for independence into compliance with international standards.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement Tuesday that the government needs to do more to make its efforts to try suspects accused of crimes against humanity during the war that gained Bangladesh independence from Pakistan internationally accepted.

The government set up a tribunal in March 2010 to prosecute those accused of collaborating with the Pakistani army in killings and other crimes during the war.

Human Rights Watch praised Bangladesh for recently amending a 1973 act outlining prosecution and punishment for people accused of genocide and other crimes under international law.

But the group said that more changes need to be made, including that an accused should be able to question the impartiality of the tribunal, which current law prohibits. It also said changes were needed regarding the enumeration of crimes to ensure that the definitions of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide conform with international standards.

"Bangladesh has promised to meet international standards in these trials, but it has some way to go to meet this commitment," Brad Adams, Human Rights Watch's Asia director, said in the statement.

The administration of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has arrested four top leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, the nation's largest Islamic party. The suspects face charges including genocide, murder, rape, torture, looting and arson related to the independence war.

Jamaat-e-Islami, which sided with Pakistan during the war, says the charges are politically motivated.

Bangladesh says Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed an estimated 3 million people, raped about 200,000 women and forced millions to flee their homes.

© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Manmohan Singh Visit

http://www.kansascity.com/2011/09/06/3123349/indias-pm-arrives-in-bangladesh.html

India, Bangladesh agreed to deeper cooperation
By JULHAS ALAM


Associated Press


DHAKA, Bangladesh _ Bangladesh and India agreed Tuesday to cooperate in trade and to resolve border disputes, but left river water sharing and transit issues for further discussions.

The two countries signed a number of agreements, including a protocol to deal with conservation of the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, and its endangered tigers. The two South Asian nations share the Sundarbans.

They also decided to demarcate disputed border areas and increase cooperation in the fields of fisheries and renewable energy.

The agreements came during a meeting of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Singh and Hasina are working to reach agreement on their disputed 2,545-mile (4,096-kilometer) border.

However, a hoped-for deal on sharing water from the River Teesta flowing between their countries was not signed because of last-minute objections from the Indian state of West Bengal.

This is an issue Bangladesh hoped to resolve during Singh's visit.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh asked for delays in dealing with transit questions.

"We want to go slow over the transit issues and take some more time as we need to solve the issue of sharing water of common rivers," a government official with the knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press.

But both the leaders were optimistic as Singh said the issue of common rivers "need not be sources of discord".

"We have decided to continue discussions to reach a mutually acceptable, fair and amicable arrangement for the sharing of the Teesta and Feni river waters," Singh said in his statement after the meeting with Hasina.

Hasina also reciprocated.

"During our discussions today we have been able to make considerable progress. I am happy to announce that we have moved closer to resolving long pending issues of common concern," Hasina said in her statement.

Singh is returning a visit by Hasina to India in January last year during which India granted Muslim-majority Bangladesh a $1 billion development loan and raised quotas on imports of textiles.

India helped Bangladesh secede from Pakistan in a 1971 war. However, relations soured after a 1975 military coup in Bangladesh when independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina's father, was assassinated and a new government took over.

The chief ministers of four Indian states bordering Bangladesh are accompanying Singh but Mamata Banerjee, the newly elected chief minister of West Bengal, canceled her trip over reported disputes with the central government over the water-sharing plan.

Posted on Tue, Sep. 06, 2011 01:27 AM

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/09/06/3123349/indias-pm-arrives-in-bangladesh.html#ixzz1XdZIiwUU

Shattered-Life Without Future

StarTribune.com

http://www.startribune.com/templates/Print_This_Story?sid=94693049

100,000 stranded 1 year after cyclone hit Bangladesh


By JULHAS ALAM , Associated Press

May 23, 2010

CHAKBARA, Bangladesh - Jahanara, a 30-year-old mother of two, stands in front of her thatched hut on a raised embankment.

"I always dream of going back home," she said, pointing to where her family once lived, an area still under water one year after Cyclone Aila battered this remote part of southwestern Bangladesh.

As tropical storms go, the cyclone on May 25 last year was not the deadliest. About 300 people died in Bangladesh and eastern India, fewer than the 3,500 killed when Cyclone Sidr hit Bangladesh in 2007. But the destruction of 430 miles (700 kilometers) of coastline has left an estimated 100,000 people stranded, unable to return to their flooded homes and fields.

"It came as a silent disaster," Stafan Priesner, a senior U.N. official in Bangladesh, said on a visit to the area last month. "In fact many of us could not understand what was going to happen here."

From a sea plane, hundreds of inundated homes could be seen across the region. Schools, markets, farms and shrimp ponds are all under water.

International aid groups have called for the immediate repair of the heavily damaged earthen embankments, which were built to prevent storm surges from flooding coastal communities. It is a daunting task for Bangladesh, an impoverished nation of 150 million people.

As time passes, Jahanara is losing hope. She and her husband no longer have any regular income. Their 12-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son have had to stop going to school. She worries the storm has taken away their chance for a better life.

"I wanted them to study and get jobs, but now they have no schools," she said. "We did not want to see a repeat of our lives, but what will we do? Life has become very uncertain, ours and theirs."

The family is among hundreds living on what remains of a 17-mile- (28-kilometer-) long embankment that was supposed to protect Chakbara, a seaside village of 4,000 people about 110 miles (175 kilometers) from the capital, Dhaka. Part of the embankment lies tumbled into their former homes.

While some survivors have left for major cities in search of work, Jahanara is among those who are sticking it out.

With the monsoon season approaching, officials expect the situation to worsen.

"This is the urgent need to rebuild the embankment, otherwise, all efforts will fail," said Diana Dalton, deputy country representative of the British Department for International Development. "I visited this place six months ago, but I don't see any change today."

In February, 18 aid agencies including Oxfam and Care expressed their concern over the slow pace of repairs.

In March, Stefan Frowein, the head of the European Union in Bangladesh, warned in a statement of catastrophic humanitarian consequences if coastal embankments were not fixed quickly.

The government says it is trying to repair the Chakbara embankment, but it needs funds. Authorities also are struggling to provide other assistance to survivors.

"We need financial and technical support from the donors for a long-term solution," said Dileep Kumar Das, a senior official with the government's Economic Relations Department. "I am happy that the donors are taking this issue very seriously."

The United Nations is reassessing the situation.

"We again call all our development partners to realize that Bangladesh needs external help," said Priesner, the resident representative of the U.N. Development Program.

"All the donors need to come together. It needs a coordinated effort."

Rohingya: Persecuted.

Addressing Rohingya crisis
By Samaha M Karim with Julhas Alam

FOOD and Disaster Management Minister Abdur Razzaque has said the government will take the Rohingya issue to international forum if the crisis is not resolved through bilateral negotiation with Myanmar.

“We are trying to resolve the issue bilaterally, but we won't hesitate to move to international bodies for a solution,” Razzaque told a discussion at National Press Club recently.

“We have done a lot for the Rohingya people over the years despite being a poor country, but we cannot afford it for an unlimited period,” he said.

The discussion on “Rohingya Crisis: Way Out for Bangladesh” was organised by the Centre for Education, Research and Advocacy (CERA), a Dhaka-based research and advocacy group, to highlight various aspects of decades-old crisis.

The academic nature of the discussion was focused on the origin of the crisis, its legal and humanitarian aspects, the possible role of local and international NGOs and the United Nations, options for diplomatic efforts in dealing with the crisis.

Less than 28,000 Rohingya Muslims live in two official camps run by the Food Ministry and UNHCR at Teknaf and Ukhia in Cox's Bazar, but there are 200, 000 others, some even say not less than 400,000, who are not recognised by Bangladesh as refugee. Some term them “economic migrants”, as they argue that many of the Rohingyas cross the border for better economic opportunities here in Bangladesh.

The documented Rohingya people in the camps get housing, food and healthcare in the official camps but the undocumented ones do not.

Local people say Rohingya people, who are not recognised as citizen by Myanmar, are causing many social obstacles in the coastal region.

On the other hand, human rights activists and international campaign groups demand the Bangladesh create bigger scopes for these persecuted people.

Referring to this complex context, the Food Minister said the government has no problem to document the rest, but it fears further influx from across the border where they allegedly face persecution by Myanmar's military junta.

The Food Minister also warned international NGOs for negative campaign against Bangladesh that they should be careful in the future before making any false and fabricated reports on so-called maltreatment of Rohingya people in Bangladesh.

Razzaque made the observation in the backdrop of recent campaigns by some groups that Bangladesh is cracking down on the Rohingya refugees.

“We want their support, but not any move that maligns our image abroad for something not actually happening here,” he said.

The minister argued that Bangladesh has done a lot since the 1970s when Rohingyas started coming here to flee the wraths of the Myanmar's government.

Muhammad Zamir, former Ambassador and Chief Information Commissioner, came down hard on the UNHCR for not making enough effort inside Myanmar to prevent Rohingya from crossing over to Bangladesh.

As a solution to the Rohingya setback he strongly insisted on a more proactive approach to be applied by the UNHCR and international organizations in supporting and rehabilitating Rohingyas.

Zamir said camps for Rohingyas could be set up by the UNHCR inside Myanmar territory and not in Bangladesh. He said the UNHCR should take the issue to the UNGA since Myanmar is a member state of the United Nations while there are scopes to raise the issue before ASEAN and OIC too since Myanmar is a member of ASEAN and Rohingyas are Muslims.

The former ambassador also said Bangladesh should put stricter measures in place along its border with Myanmar to prevent any further influx of Rohingya, while repatriation could be one of the major areas to deal with seriously.

'A more effective and meaningful border control mechanism should be enforced so that Rohingyas are stopped to cross over. Although it is a question of human rights, many countries have enforced a limit to the entrance of refugees,” Zamir said.

He said a proper registration system which would provide their identity with pictures and encrypted bar code could be introduced so that a more accurate number of the Rohingyas dispersed all over Bangladesh could be depicted.

Abu Murshed Chowdhury, a human rights activist from Cox's Bazar, said a huge presence of Rohingya people in Cox's Bazar and other parts of the Chittagong Hill Tract are putting extreme pressure on the resources.

“Local people are suffering a lot for their presence in huge number in the region,” he said. “They are causing deterioration of law and order in the region.”

Abu Naser Khan, Chairman of Paribesh Bachao Andolon, said Rohingyas are destroying hills and forests in Cox's Bazar and other nearby areas. “We need to deal with this very seriously to protect the special character of the region,” he said.

Dr Abu Jafar Shafiul Alam Bhuiyan of Mass Communication and Journalism at Dhaka University said the UN should work more vigorously for democratisation of Myanmar, otherwise, the situation may not remain under control regarding Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh.

He said the UN should take a proactive role shunning its current laid-back approach to resolve the issue.

CPB's Ruhin Hossain Prince said the government should look seriously into the allegations that a certain corner is using the Rohingyas for their political benefit.

He said extreme political elements are allegedly being injected to the Rohingyas taking the chance of frustration and desperation among them.

The participants suggested that a political resolution is also required and UN, International Organizations and NGOs vested in this issue should all unite to resolve this crisis upholding Bangladesh's security and sovereignty.

Representatives from some international agencies like Muslim Aid, UNHCR, IOM and the US Embassy also attended the occasion.


Julhas Alam is Correspondent of Associated Press and Samaha M Karim works with Law

http://www.thedailystar.net/law/2010/06/01/event.htm

Rohingya

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i4QB7kDGQP5vT-ry4awxo0Q4dSNAD9EDK68O3



Caption: n this photo taken Sunday, March 7, 2010, refugees look out of an unregistered refugees camp outside the official camp for registered Myanmarese refugees at Kutupalong near Cox's Bazar, a southern coastal district about 183 miles (296 kilometers) south of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Hundreds of thousands of members of the Rohingya ethnic group have fled to Bangladesh to escape persecution in neighboring Myanmar only find themselves trapped in a hellish international limbo. As Muslims, they were unwanted in Buddhist Myanmar. As foreigners, they are unwanted in Muslim Bangladesh. (AP Photo/Pavel Rahman)


Myanmar refugees face grim future in Bangladesh

By JULHAS ALAM (AP) – Mar 12, 2010


KUTUPALONG, Bangladesh — Dildar Begum has no country, no job, no food and is fast running out of hope.

Her husband is imprisoned in a Bangladeshi jail while she lives in a slum with her five children, reduced to begging for rice from her impoverished neighbors. Her family is starving, she said.

"I can't live this way. It's better if my kids and I die suddenly," the 25-year-old woman said.

Begum is one of the hundreds of thousands of members of the Rohingya ethnic group who have fled to Bangladesh to escape persecution in neighboring Myanmar — only to find themselves languishing in filthy slums or open-air camps where food and water are scarce and medical care nonexistent.

As Muslims, they were unwanted in Buddhist Myanmar. As foreigners, they are unwanted in Muslim Bangladesh.

In recent months, Bangladesh has cracked down on the group, arresting and repatriating many and stepping up security along the porous border to prevent more from arriving. At the same time, the government discouraged aid groups from giving most of those here food, fearing it would attract a huge new influx of refugees, a government official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

International rights groups have decried their fate and Bangladesh's refusal to grant the vast majority of them refugee status, which would give them access to nearby camps where they could receive a full aid package of food, shelter and education provided by international agencies.

Without that aid, the Rohingya face widespread starvation, activists said.

"A grave humanitarian crisis is looming," Chris Lewa of the Rohingya advocacy group The Arakan Project said last month.

Bangladesh has also been accused of carrying out arbitrary arrests of the Rohingya and forcing many back into Myanmar.

In Kutupalong, 185 miles (296 kilometers) south of the capital, Dhaka, the undocumented Rohingya live in a squalid shantytown, where malnourished, barefoot children defecate outside.

With no right to work, many survive by bribing forestry officials to turn the other way as they illegally cut down trees to sell as firewood, men in the village said.

"The forest is being destroyed by them," said A.F.M. Fazle Rabbi, a government official in charge of the area. "I am sure over next few years, you will find no trees here."

The 800,000 strong Rohingya are believed to have descended from seventh century Arab settlers whose state along what is now the Bangladesh-Myanmar border was conquered by the Burmese in 1784.

The Myanmar junta refuses to recognize them as citizens, and the group faces extortion, land confiscation, forced evictions, and restricted access to medical care and food, according to Human Rights Watch.

Thousands have fled to Malaysia and Thailand, which depend on migrant labor, or braved the sea to go as far as the Middle East for work.

Last year, the Thai navy intercepted boats carrying 1,000 Rohingya, detained and beat them and then forced them back to sea in vessels with no engines and little food or water, according to reports from human rights groups.

On Friday, Malaysian authorities said they picked up 93 Rohingya who said they had been at sea for 30 days in a crowded wooden boat after apparently being chased out of Thai waters.

"They said they were sailing aimlessly in the hope of finding a country that will accept them," said Zainuddin Mohamad Suki, an officer with the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency. The passengers were likely to be sent to a detention center, he said.

Most of the refugees, however, have fled on foot and by boat over the border to the nearby Cox's Bazar area in Bangladesh, where 28,000 are registered as refugees and restricted to official camps in Kutupalong and Naya Para.

The Kutupalong refugee camp is well-equipped with medical facilities, a computer learning center, volleyball courts and generators.

However, at least 200,000 other Rohingya here have not been given refugee status by Bangladesh and live under constant threat of being arrested or sent back home. Some work as day laborers or rickshaw pullers at Cox's Bazar.

Authorities fear that if they grant full rights to everyone, it will encourage even more Rohingya to come to Bangladesh, which is already overwhelmed with its own impoverished and malnourished population.

"We are a poor country, we cannot afford this for long," said Gias Uddin Ahmed, the chief administrator of the district.

Begum and her family fled with about 2,500 others seven months ago amid unrelenting attacks by their Buddhist neighbors, who eventually took their land in Myanmar's northwestern Rakhine state. They left at night and bribed Bangladeshi border guards to let them enter and travel to the shantytown near the refugee camp in Kutupalong.

Her husband, 35-year-old Jamir Hossain, found work as a day laborer in the shantytowns that have sprung up near the Kutupalong camp, but police arrested him last month in a roundup of undocumented Rohingya.

With no money, Begum begs for rice from nearby villages to feed her four sons and a daughter.

"It's now afternoon, but I haven't been able to give any food to my kids," she said.

M. Sakhawat Hossain, the police chief in Cox's Bazar, said Bangladeshi villagers have accused the Rohingya of a wave of robberies across the coastal region and pressured the government to take action.

In the ensuing crackdown, 136 undocumented Rohingya were in custody on charges of illegally entering Bangladesh or engaging in criminal activities, he said.

"What we did is for maintaining law and order over reported crimes," he said. "Should not we do that?"

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Conjoined Twins

Bangladeshi mom wants twins to stay in Australia


By JULHAS ALAM
Associated Press Writer
21 Nov., 2009

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) _ The mother who gave up conjoined Bangladeshi newborn twins for adoption said Saturday she is overjoyed the toddlers have been successfully separated and wants them to grow up in Australia.

"My babies are alive and doing well. It's the best news I've ever got in my life," a tearful Lovely Mollick told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from her home in Khulna district, 85 miles (137 kilometers) southwest of Dhaka.

The twins, who turn 3 next month, had been joined at the top of their heads and shared brain tissue and blood vessels. They were separated Tuesday after 25 hours of delicate surgery in a hospital in Melbourne, Australia's second largest city, and then underwent an additional six hours of reconstructive work.

The charity that brought Trishna and Krishna to Australia two years ago for the surgery, Children First Foundation, has said it will support the twins as they undergo further medical treatment in Australia for at least the next two years.

Trishna awoke from a medically induced coma Thursday and Krishna regained consciousness late Friday.

Their 23-year-old mother said she made the heartbreaking decision to give up her daughters to a Dhaka orphanage after giving birth by cesarean section because she could not properly care for their special needs.

While she and her factory worker husband, Kartik Mollick, 35, wanted to maintain a relationship with their daughters, both parents hoped the twins would be raised in Australia.

"I am from a poor family and am not able to take care of them," the mother said. "I want them to get a proper education and live a good life."

"I want them to maintain a relationship with me, no matter where they live, when they are grown up," she added. "They have come from my soul."

The girls' Australian legal guardian for the past two years, Moira Kelly, the charity's founder, said Saturday she has not considered adoption. "I haven't even thought about it," Kelly told reporters.

Adoptions could be stymied since Australia restricts the adoption of foreign children with medical problems that could burden its health care system.

Kelly said the prognosis that both sisters were neurologically sound "gives me shivers down my spine." The twins' cots will be pushed together so they could again touch, she said.

Krishna is expected to have a longer period of adjustment as the separation brought more changes to her body and brain's blood circulation. Both girls were in serious but stable condition.

Doctors had earlier said there was a 50-50 chance that one of the girls could suffer brain damage from the complicated separation.

Australian aid worker Danielle Noble first saw Trishna and Krishna in an orphanage when they were a month old, and contacted the Children First Foundation.

"I got to see the girls for the first time today since their separation and it's the most incredible feeling to think that three years ago, this was just a dream," the 27-year-old volunteer told reporters.

"Now they are going to have a fantastic life," she added.

The foundation raised almost 250,000 Australian dollars ($229,000) for the cost of caring for the twins in between numerous earlier surgeries to separate blood vessels connecting their brains. A mystery benefactor funded all hospital costs, Smith said.
___
Associated Press writer Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, contributed to this report.

Slapped and threatened!

UNICEF says physical punishment of children in Bangladeshi schools, homes is widespread

Oct 9, 2009

By JULHAS ALAM
Associated Press Writer

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) _ More than 90 percent of Bangladeshi children have at some point been physically punished in school and nearly three quarters of them face similar treatment at home, according to a report from the United Nations children's agency.
UNICEF representative to Dhaka, Carel de Rooy, said such punishment violates the rights of the children.
"Hitting or smacking children is a type of violence against children that goes against children's rights," Rooy said in a statement that accompanied the report's release Thursday.
But, on Friday, a parent and teacher both defended physically punishing children as an effective way of disciplining children.
Salina Chowdhury, a mother of two in the capital, Dhaka, said using physical punishment helps her teach her children when they misbehave.
Children often do not respond to encouraging words, Chowdhury told The Associated Press via telephone, adding, "in that case, one or two slaps work better."
Siddiqur Rahman, a teacher at a school for girls in the northern district of Mymensingh, said he often hits students with sticks, but only after counseling does not work.
"Punishing them physically often works," he said in a telephone interview.
The UNICEF report states 91 percent of children in Bangladesh's schools are subject to physical punishment, while 74 percent experience corporal punishment at home.
The agency surveyed 3,840 households both in urban and rural areas, interviewing the head of each household and at least one child per house between the ages of 9 and 18, the report said.
Some 87.6 percent of children face beatings with sticks or canes in schools with teachers most often hitting the palm of their hands. Other punishments include twisting ears or skin, pulling hair, slapping them or forcing them to kneel in class.
The survey said 53 percent of students reported that "many to most" of their classmates suffer physical punishment, with 23 percent stating that such punishment in schools takes place daily.
In case of physical punishment at home, more than 69 percent said they are slapped, and 99 percent said they face scolding or are threatened.
Some 60 million of Bangladesh's 150 million people are children, according to UNICEF.

Champion Rat Killer!

Bangladesh awards farmer who killed 83,000 rats, launches culling campaign to save crops


By JULHAS ALAM
Associated Press Writer
Sept. 30, 2009

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) _ Bangladesh on Wednesday awarded a farmer who killed more than 83,000 rats and launched a monthlong campaign nationwide to kill millions more, to protect crops and reduce the need for food imports.
Mokhairul Islam, 40, won a first prize of a color television for killing some 83,450 rats in the past nine months in Gazipur district near the South Asian country's capital, Dhaka. He collected their tails for proof.
"I am so happy to get this honor," Islam told The Associated Press after receiving a 14-inch television and a certificate amid cheers at an official ceremony packed with 500 farmers and officials. "I had no idea that the government gives prizes for this."
"This is an exciting moment. I will continue to kill them," he vowed.
Officials say the impoverished nation imports some 3 million tons of food annually, while the Ministry of Agriculture estimates that rodents annually destroy 1.5 million to 2 million tons of food.
"We can cut the import of food by at least half if we can succeed in this year's campaign," said Wais Kabir, executive chairman of the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council.
He asked everyone, especially farmers, to take on the killing mission as a sport. The government has said it will train mainly farmers and students for this year's campaign.
"Killing rats is not that easy, it needs training," Kabir said.
Islam said he mainly used poison to kill the rats at his poultry farm, and that the cull has paid off as the rodents now scavenged less.
"Previously I needed 33 sacks of poultry feed per week, now I need less than 30," he said.
Fakhrul Haque Akanda, a farmer from northern Bangladesh and the second-prize winner, killed some 37,450 rats mostly with traps, some he invented.
"These bloody rats are my enemy, they destroy my gardens," Akanda said.
"Please pray for me so that I can continue my mission, and teach and motivate others to join me," he told the audience before taking his prize, also a television.
Last year, the U.N. World Food Program launched a monthslong food aid project in the country's southeast after a plague of rats devoured rice crops.

INNOCENCE AT RISK

Bangladesh authorities investigate marriage between 13-year-old girl, 75-year-old man

By JULHAS ALAM
Associated Press Writer
Sept. 13, 2009

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) _ Authorities in southern Bangladesh are investigating whether a 13-year-old girl was forced to marry a 75-year-old man as a way to pay off her father's debt, local media reported Sunday.
Lokman Shikder loaned the girl's father, Azhar Bepari, 4,000 takas ($59) several months ago, but Bepari had trouble repaying it, the United News of Bangladesh news agency reported. Shikder recently gave Bepari the choice of immediately paying back the money plus interest or allowing him to marry his daughter in exchange for waiving the loan, it said.
Shikder, who was already married, is the father of four grown children and has a host of grandchildren, the news agency said.
Badrul Huq, a government official in Barisal district, said authorities were investigating and legal action would be taken against the father and husband if the marriage indeed took place, the report said. People under the age of 18 are not legally allowed to marry in Bangladesh.
Shikder's first wife also wants her husband punished because he married the girl without her permission, the report said. Men can marry up to four women in Bangladesh, but their wives must agree in writing to any new marriages.
Human rights groups say child marriage is rampant in rural Bangladesh, an impoverished nation of 150 million people where almost half of the population lives on less than $1 a day. They say the punishment for violations of child marriage laws is too mild _ one month in jail or a fine of 1,000 takas ($15), or both.
Rashida Akhter Shirin, a women's rights lawyer, said she would help the girl and her family if they want to file a court case against Shikder, the report said.
Officials could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Snakebite death

Bangladesh government says snakebites kill 6,000 Bangladeshis each year

By JULHAS ALAM
Associated Press Writer

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) _ Some 700,000 people in Bangladesh are bitten by snakes every year and up to 6,000 of those die, in part because of poor access to medical care, making snakebites the impoverished country's second leading cause of unnatural death, a ministry of health study has found.
Most of the incidents occur during the May to October rainy season when snakes are flushed out of their natural environment, Azizar Rahman, director in charge of the government's department of disease control, said Sunday while explaining the snakebite study's findings.
Drowning is the leading cause of unnatural death in Bangladesh, a delta nation that is crisscrossed by some 350 rivers. The country of 150 million people is also home to some 50 species of snake, including the king cobra and krait.
The study, which was conducted by eight local and international experts with funding from the government and the World Bank, found that 29 percent of snakebite victims are bitten while walking at night, 24 percent while working in the fields and 15 percent while they are sleeping.
It's difficult to spot the snakes in the dark in rural areas where electricity and street lights are rare. Almost half of all Bangladeshis live on less than $1 a day.
The study found only 3 percent of the victims are treated at hospitals or by registered doctors, while 86 percent seek treatment from untrained snake charmers or village healers.
Rahman said the study underlined the problem of snakebites.
"It's good that we have done it finally," he said. "Now it will be possible to work on reducing deaths."
He said the government is planning a massive campaign to train people how to treat snakebites.

Ethnic violence

Bangladesh arrests more than 70 in ethnic violence


By JULHAS ALAM
Associated Press
2010-02-24 04:26 PM


Bangladeshi security officials have arrested more than 70 people as part of a crackdown in a town where ethnic violence has left one person dead, a dozen wounded and several homes burned to the ground, police said Wednesday.

Bangladeshi troops and extra police were called in Tuesday to stop ethnic clashes between Bangalee settlers and an indigenous tribe involved in a decades-old land dispute in southeastern Khagrachhari town. All public gatherings were banned and a curfew was imposed in the area, which was once at the heart of a tribal insurgency.

Police said they had recovered the body of a Bangalee man who was shot in the head. A dozen people were wounded in the violence, and several homes on both sides were torched.

More than 70 people from both groups were arrested in overnight raids, a police official at Khagrachhari police station told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Ethnic tension in the region 110 miles (175 kilometers) southeast of the capital, Dhaka, is not new. Authorities resettled landless Bangalees there in the 1980s in a bid to end the tribal insurgency in the area, which borders Myanmar and India. The area was largely Buddhist before the settlers, who are mainly Muslim, arrived.

Tribal groups say many of their people have lost their land because of the settlement and faced brutal repression during years of military operations meant to quell the insurgency. The insurgents signed a peace treaty with the government in 1997, but tensions have continued.

Tuesday's unrest began when activists from the United People's Democratic Front _ which opposes the peace treaty _ blocked roads and waterways in the area to protest the deaths of two tribal people they say were killed last week by security officials during clashes with settlers.

The government has said it will investigate the deaths as well as a series of arsons that the tribal people blame on the settlers.

Bangladesh Garment

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/08/05/ap6743956.html

Associated Press

Bangladesh garment sector pinched by recession
By JULHAS ALAM , 08.05.09, 12:27 PM EDT

DHAKA, Bangladesh -- Bangladeshi entrepreneurs say the garment sector, a mainstay of the country's exports, has started feeling the pinch of the global economic crisis with about 25 factories shutting in the past two months.

In June the sector contracted 0.1 percent month-on-month after growing 9.6 percent in May, Abdus Salam Murshedy, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, told reporters late Tuesday.
Article Controls

He said prices for Bangladeshi garment products have fallen 20 to 25 percent in the global market and the situation is taking a "serious turn". About 25 factories were shut down over June and July.

"The buyers do not want to offer good rate anymore," he said as the entrepreneurs late Tuesday held a meeting with Members of Parliament in the capital, Dhaka, to discuss the crisis.

Impoverished Bangladesh annually earns $12 billion, or almost 75 percent of the country's annual export earning, from garments. The industry employs more than 2.4 million people, mostly women.

Bangladeshi entrepreneurs must also deal with competition from other exporters such as India and Vietnam.

"We are under tremendous pressure to keep us afloat," Murshedy said.

The World Bank in November said Bangladesh's garments industry might start feeling the impact of global recession in the May-June period.

Murshedy said the next three months till October would be the most challenging period for the industry as domestic issues including frequent power outages and a gas crisis are aggravating the situation.

The garment factories depend on privately owned, diesel-run generators to supply electricity because of power outages during this summer.

He demanded the government bring the entrepreneurs under a special stimulus package to support the sector at least until June 2010.

The entrepreneurs also said there has been no new investment this year in the sector and they see no chance in next few months.

"If there's no new investment, it will further stall the growth," said Annisul Huq, a garment manufacturer and president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

"We need urgent move by the government to offset the impact on the garment sector," he said.

The United States is the largest market of Bangladesh's garment product while Europe is the second largest destination. Bangladesh manufactures garment products for global brands like Banana Republic, Disney ( DIS - news - people ) or Gap ( GPS - news - people ).

The entrepreneurs said they are now focusing on Japan to create new market.

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

REPORTING DISASTER

Reporting (natural) disaster: Some stray points to talk about

By Julhas Alam

In our careers, we cover inevitabilities. Disaster -- natural or manmade – often confronts us, or we push ourselves into that to stay with victims.

Covering disaster as a reporter is not that easy. It involves physical and mental strength of a reporter since one needs to vigorously go through physical and mental adversaries to report the situation, the victims, the most vulnerable of the moment. We need to work under an air-tight deadline pressure. Adjustment of emotion is also often difficult to deal with in such a situation. Beyond personal capabilities of a journalist in case of covering a disaster, it also matters the financial and editorial capabilities of a particular media organization to better serve the victims when a disaster strikes. This is different from the hit-and-run journalism.

When ICRC means disaster it means both manmade and natural. The modern society is overwhelmed by the frequent occurrence of disasters and responding quickly to disaster situations from authorities’ end is vital. Media’s quick response is also crucial since it helps authorities, aid agencies and the people know what is happening on the ground. Accurate information is the key tool in such case.

But here this paper will mainly and briefly focus on media’s role in handling natural disasters in Bangladesh context. And I couldn’t ignore some of the points of widely-recognised yardsticks of standard journalism.

My senior colleague Farid Hossain will discuss practices, perhaps loopholes or lapses in the practices, in Bangladesh context in covering disasters. Feb. 25-26 mutiny in Bangladesh Rifles headquarters will come as a prominent topic for that part of the discussion. No doubt, BDR mutiny was an acid test for Bangladesh media, especially for the broadcast media. There are points in our mind to debate those things to correct our position.


BEYOND RELIEF: SHIFTING PARADIGM IS IMPORTANT

IT IS OFTEN NOTICED THAT BANGLADESH MEDIA IS TOO FOCUSED ON RELIEF ISSUES. SOME PERTINENT ISSUES ARE OVERLY IGNORED. Definitely, relief activity is a vital part of the disaster management operations. There’s no scope to ignore this very important element of the disaster management activity.

It would be better if media can focus on other areas too to benefit the people.

Pre-disaster briefing for media:

Media has a role to vigorously check if authorities are well-prepared to handle a pre-disaster situation for quick evacuation. Or if the volunteers are adequately equipped to warn the would-be victims.

Media needs to check: Are resources available in the hands of the authorities to minimize the loss of lives and properties?

As reporters who are interested to deal with disasters like cyclone and flood need to know what are the basic tools the volunteers need for evacuating and warning the people. .

We need to know which government departments are involved in the disaster management activities, what mandates they have etc.

We need to know how Bangladesh Red Crescent Society works, how ICRC is related.

We need to know how local resources can be used in the affected area to shelter the villagers.

We need to know details about the approaches of Bangladesh’s disaster management discourse---weaknesses and strength.

Post-disaster situation:

Who is the most important to media: Dead or Survivor?

This is a big question to any global or local aid agency, government authorities or any other party involved in any disaster situation. To media too.

Usually, in a disaster situation, the survivors are given the priority over dead in any healthcare system. However as the survivors have a right for healthcare assistance, the deceased have the right for proper identification and dignified disposal. But what should come first and how--that is also a very important matter to discuss. Nobody expects a mere disposal of dead would come first after a major natural disaster like tsunami or a devastating cyclone as many other urgent issues need to be fixed very quickly in such a situation.

About the survivors, the ICRC says: (In a disaster situation) The surviving community has to face physical, psychological, religious and cultural issues raised by the dead in the aftermath of every disaster.

BUT, there’s no way to ignore the matter of the dead people. It needs urgent attention from media since media reports let the authorities and “the people” know about the situation on the ground after a disaster. MEDIA CAN’T FORGET THE DEAD WHEN IT DEALS WITH A DISASTER.

ICRC, being the global actor in this case, uses the term “management of dead”. It means in a post disaster situation, the management of dead is comprised of three main spheres:

-Physical management of dead.
-Information management of dead
-Specific support to bereaved families and communities.

In this light of discussion media needs to check if all these phases are being maintained when aid agency people and the authorities deal with the dead after a disaster. In that case media should check if authorities

-Respect the dignity of the dead,
-Respect the bereaved, including their right to know the fate and whereabouts of their missing loved ones
-Identify the dead positively.
-Ensure dignified disposal of the dead in line with religious and cultural values of the affected community.

Through the whole process, media needs to scrutinize procedures in handling the dead:

-Recovery
-Transportation
-Storage
-Identification
-Disposal of dead


MEDIA is often infested with wrong ideas when dealing with disasters:

It is noticed that in a post-disaster situation media quickly projects that dead bodies are causing EPIDEMICS. But often local officials make such statements creating a wrong impression and giving wrong signal to the people, and when media uses those angles, authorities take wrong measures like quick mass burial without proper identification and religious or cultural practices. Depriving the dead of their rights to be properly identified, creates a psychological disaster to the surviving family members and relatives.

But the fact is that:

-Victims of natural disasters are normally killed by injury, drowning, or fire --- not by disease.
-At the time of death, victims are not likely to be sick with epidemic-causing infections (i.e., plague, cholera, typhoid, and anthrax).
-Most infectious organisms do not survive beyond 48 hours in a dead body. An exception is HIV, which has been found six days postmortem.



FORMULA: MASQ

SORRY… WE WERE HOAXED:
Iraqi PoW abuse pictures handed to us WERE fakes

It was the Daily Mirror’s front-page apology. Daily Mail, 15 May, 2004 (Reference: Journalism: Critical Issues. Edited by Stuart Allan). We can avoid such embarrassment

When we report any disaster, we need to be most careful to avoid such any apology to the readers or viewers. In a disaster situation it can be fatal for a media outlet in case of misreporting since the incessant drive to be first with the story, to scoop one’s rivals whatever the cost, can claim its usual casualty---the truth. It’s like miscarriage of the outlet’s credibility.

Objectivity in reporting disaster enhances the standards of journalism, and thus ensures people’s welfare.


What can we do in this case to maintain basics of reporting truthfully? Let’s follow a simple MASQ formula.

M= Maths
A=Angles
S=Spellings
Q=Quotes

It has a 3-P effect:
P= Performance of government authorities involved with the disaster situation
P=Performance of the aid/UN agencies
P=Performance of the community involved in the post-disaster recovery

MASQ+3-P= People’s welfare

But there’s another VERY important issue, which matters when we talk about media’s credibility, especially when it is related to any disaster situation. That is
use of ANONYMOUS SOURCE.

We see rampant use of anonymous source in our media here. But so far I know no newspapers in Bangladesh have any formal guideline for the use of anonymous source. Sources said… many critics say in most cases it actually should be the PARTICULAR REPORTER SAID…

There’s no way to ignore this phenomenon of the anonymous source, but it should be the LAST OPTION in any news reporting. And when it comes to disaster reporting we as reporters or editors should follow a certain guideline for this.

We can raise some points here:

AP maintains some basic guidelines when we use anonymous sources. That is when we use anonymous source, it means we have enough efforts to get the information from other sources but failed to confirm it except the only source who wants to stay anonymous.

Secondly, we consider if it is information or statement. If it is information and it is very very essential for the story, we will use it. If it is only statement/comment we DON’T use it. AGAIN, we try to ensure that we have made all possible efforts to confirm the information from other possible sources and there is no other way but to use the source’s information without naming the person.

Thirdly, we try to give the readers an indication about the rank or the type of the source I have pursued for the particular information. For example, we say a senior official with the Bureau of Disaster Management if we use information like 4500 People Dead in Tropical Cyclone SIDR and it is actually obtained from a top official of the bureau. We don’t simply say A SOURCE SAID.

If we talk to one such source, we don’t say OFFICIALS SAY. We simply say ONE OFFICIAL confirms/says. We also consider how important the information is for the public interest.

INTERVIEWING DISASTER VICTIMS

In a disaster situation, the matter of extra care should be in reporter’s mind when it comes to interviewing victims or surviving family members.

About interviewing victims, The Associated Press’s Special Correspondent George Esper once said: “We should frame our questions with respect and research. We must be sensitive but not timid.”

Most victims or the victims’ relatives face a wall of grief in the aftermath of a death or disaster. We the journalists can’t reduce their pain of the moment. They have the right to mourn, they have the right to stay their own, they have the right to cling to their very own grieving space. As reporters we overstep into their grieving space. Still we do that since we ultimately serve the people, help them stand up again. We want to tell the world their stories so the unaffected can come forward. So we need to handle them with care.

-When approaching a victim, we need to identify ourselves politely and clearly before asking them questions.
-We should allow the victims to say “no” to our requests. We can again retry, but with care and softness.
-We need to realize that we are violating the victim’s space and we may receive a harsh or emotional reaction at first. We should not react harshly in return.
-We should never ask “How do you feel?” or say “I understand how you feel.” Rather saying “My name is…” and “I am sorry for what happened”, then ask questions such as “Could you tell me about your relative’s life?” or “How did this occur?” or “What did you see when it occurred?”
-We need to treat each victim with dignity and respect.

TRAUMA is a fact for journalists involved in covering disasters: DON’T deny it


Again BDR mutiny is a good example for us who saw those decomposed bodies, and were overwhelmed by the emotional wave of the survivors and their family members. Personally, I could not sleep well for several nights. Many of my colleagues have reported that they could not eat well for days. Counting dead bodies after a ferry disaster is not that easy. When I covered Sidr and traveled from Patharghata, Barguna to Khulna touching Pirojpur, Jhalakathi, Barisla, Patuakhali, that was a terrible experience as we needed to report on the vast swath of the region so extensibly that it was difficult to stay afloat, both physically and mentally. Trauma and fatigue gripped us easily in such a situation. If it happens we need to speak up. Please don’t ignore this before you collapse. If we can’t manage we should talk to our colleagues and family. We may need to even visit doctors. If I can’t continue, bear the load I should tell my boss I CAN’T.


There are some points from a research: Let’s get some insights for disaster reporting (Note: This information has been taken from a Reuters story published on 30 June, 2006)

How do you get a humanitarian crisis into the headlines? And how can you convince editors to keep covering it? A 2006 study by U.S.-based media analysts CARMA International may provide a few pointers.

The survey of disaster reporting in newspapers in the United States, Australia and Europe found that it is not human suffering but Western self interest that dictates how disasters are covered in the press.

“The ultimate challenge for victims of disasters and those who wish to help is to capture and sustain media attention by using national economic and political self-interest as hook,” Tom Vesey, managing director of CARMA International, said in a statement.

The authors scrutinised the content of 64 daily and weekly newspapers from nine countries for coverage of Hurricane Katrina, the Asian tsunami, Bam and Kashmir earthquakes, Darfur and Hurricane Stan. Here are some of the key findings:

• Hurricane Katrina dominated with 50 percent of the coverage. The Indian Ocean tsunami came second with a quarter of the coverage, followed by Darfur with 15 percent, and Bam, Kashmir and Hurricane Stan making up the remaining 10 percent.

• There was no direct link between the number of people who died and the amount of coverage. The death tolls for Darfur and the tsunami were similar, but Darfur received much less coverage. The 2003 Bam earthquake in Iran attracted the same level of media coverage as Kashmir, even though 3.5 times more people died in Kashmir.

• The U.S. press provided the most coverage of humanitarian crises.

• Media reports on Katrina focused on the political and economic implications of the disaster ? only 27 percent looked at the suffering of the survivors.

• Some of the language used had racist overtones, including widespread reports of black groups raping and pillaging in New Orleans ? many of which turned out to be false.

• 40 percent of the tsunami coverage focused in Westerners affected, even though only 900 Westerners died compared with a total of 230,000 dead or missing.

• The German press gave three times more coverage to Katrina, in which no Germans died, than to the tsunami, in which they lost more lives than any other European country.

• Food shortages were mentioned far more than water shortages.

• In all the disasters except Bam, local government relief work was criticised.

• In some cases there was less coverage of crises involving celebrities than those without.


To prepare this briefing I have taken help from various publications and web sites. I need to mention about some of them here.

1. Guidelines for first responders on Management of Dead in major disasters in India. (ICRC publication)
2. Journalism: Critical Issues. Edited by Stuart Allan.(Open University Press publication, England)
3. Investigative Journalism: Context and Practices. Edited by Hugo de Burgh. (Routledge publication, London, UK)
4. Various publications of The Associated Press (AP)
5. Reuters resources


This paper was presented at a media workshop organized jointly by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) on July 24, 2009 at Rajendrapur. Some 40 journalists from various media houses took part in the workshop. Commonwealth Journalist Association’s International President Mr. Hassan Shahriar, The Associated Press (AP) Bureau Chief Mr. Farid Hossain, Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) President Mr Shamim Ahmad, ICRC’s Mission Head Mr. Finn Ruda and other local and regional officials of the ICRC also took part in the workshop as resource persons.

BDR Mutiny Trouble

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090228/ap_on_re_as/as_bangladesh_mutiny_70


More bodies found at Bangladesh mutiny site
By JULHAS ALAM,
Associated Press Writer

Sat Feb 28, 9:35 am ET

DHAKA, Bangladesh – Firefighters dug up 10 more bodies from mass graves at the headquarters of Bangladesh's border guards Saturday, raising the death toll to 76 in the force's two-day mutiny over low pay and other grievances, officials said.

Political allies, who met with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her home Saturday to discuss the uprising, called for national unity in a statement issued after the meeting.

Hasina, who took office in January, persuaded the guards to surrender Thursday with promises of an amnesty coupled with threats of military force.

But she said Friday there would be no amnesty for the killers, and her government gave border guards across the country 24 hours on Saturday to return to their posts or report to a local police station.

The mutineers had hurriedly dumped the bodies of dozens of senior officers into shallow graves and sewers at the headquarters compound in the capital, Dhaka. Among the dead was Maj. Gen. Shakil Ahmed, the commander of the Bangladesh Rifles border force. Dozens more officers were missing, and workers scoured the compound and nearby areas, including a pond, in an intense search for more victims.

"We think there are more bodies," said firefighter Sheikh Mohammad Shahjalal, adding that 10 bodies were dug up Saturday in two mass graves. They found at least one woman's body, which they believed was the commander's wife, he said.

The military postponed funerals for 33 officials until all bodies were found.

"To bury all the deceased with state honors, funeral prayers and burials scheduled for today have been postponed," the military said in a statement, adding that a new date would be announced later.

The bloodshed has raised new questions about stability in the poor South Asian nation and underlined the fragile relationship between Bangladesh's civilian leaders and the military, which has stepped in previously to quell what it considered dangerous political instability.

The country only returned to democracy after elections in late December 2008, nearly two years after an army-backed interim administration took over amid street protests demanding electoral reforms.

Hasina has a bitter history with the military. Her father was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country's independence leader and its first head of state, who was killed in a 1975 military coup along with his wife and three sons.

"It's a setback for Sheikh Hasina's new government. It's now a test for her how she handles the military," said Ataur Rahman, who teaches political science at Dhaka University.

"This tragic event will force her to divert her attention from consolidating democracy and boosting the economy to tackling the challenges of national security," he said.

The army chief, Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed, met Hasina late Friday and pledged his support.

"The military will stand by the government," Ahmed told reporters.

Following the border guards' surrender Thursday, search teams moved into the sprawling Bangladesh Rifles compound that houses the guards and many of their families and found the gruesome evidence of the killings.

One corner of the compound, nestled under the shade of coconut palms, held two mass graves where slain officers had been put into shallow holes and covered with dirt. Firefighters used crowbars to pry off manhole covers and recover more corpses from sewers.

The insurrection erupted from the guards' longtime frustrations that their pay hasn't kept pace with soldiers in the army — anger aggravated by the rise in food prices that has accompanied the global economic crisis. The guards earn about $100 a month. They also demanded better living conditions and allowances for their families.

The guards also didn't like the practice of appointing army officers to head the Bangladesh Rifles and were bitter over being excluded from U.N. peacekeeping missions, which bring additional pay.

___

Associated Press writers Farid Hossain and Parveen Ahmed contributed to this report.

BDR Mutiny

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090301/ap_on_re_as/as_bangladesh_mutiny


Bangladesh charges 1,000 border guards in mutiny

By JULHAS ALAM,
Associated Press Writer

Sun Mar 1, 2:39 pm ET

DHAKA, Bangladesh – More than 1,000 border guards were charged Sunday with murder and arson in a uprising that left at least 148 people dead or missing, most of them army officers whose bodies were hurriedly discarded by the mutineers.

The details of what the prime minister called "a planned massacre" emerged after the government withdrew its promise of amnesty and sought to repair its increasingly tense relations with the military.

One man, among just 33 officers known to have escaped from the two-day siege in the guards' headquarters, described the scene as "like doomsday for me."

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina met with military officials furious that she offered amnesty to the mutinous border guards to persuade them to surrender. The officers argued that lives could have been saved if Hasina had ordered an army assault on the guards' compound.

Hasina told Parliament she had asked for help from the FBI to investigate.

"We'll definitely unearth everything," she said.

The government announced that those directly responsible would not fall under the amnesty.

Firefighters have recovered 77 bodies, but at least 71 officers were still unaccounted for in the uprising at the Bangladesh Rifles border force headquarters in the capital, Dhaka. Teams searched for bodies buried in the compound or dumped in nearby sewers. Most of the missing were presumed dead, said Sheikh Mohammad Shajalal, a firefighter overseeing the search.

The insurrection has raised questions about the stability of Hasina's two-month-old government in the impoverished South Asian country, which has seen nearly two dozen successful and failed military coups in its 38-year history.

Hasina and the military have a long history of mutual mistrust. During Sunday's meeting, she tried to appease the army officials by referring to a 1975 military coup in which her father, Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was killed along with her mother and three brothers, according to a participant who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the discussion.

"Nobody knows better than me about the loss of dear ones in such a tragic incident," Hasina said, according to the participant.

The charges filed Sunday named six border guards and left more than 1,000 unnamed, according to police official Nobojyoti Khisa. Thousands of border guards were at the headquarters when the mutiny began Wednesday, out of a total force of 67,000.

Some questioned whether the border guards acted on their own.

Ruling party spokesman Syed Ashraful Islam said initial evidence suggested that the mutinous guards may have had outside assistance, but he did not elaborate.

Farukh Khan, a member of Hasina's Cabinet and a former army officer, told Parliament on Sunday that it was part of a "deep-rooted conspiracy" by people who wanted to destabilize the country.

He dismissed claims that the insurrection erupted over complaints of low pay.

By law, the border force's leadership is made up of army officers. Some mutineers said they waged the rebellion out of long-simmering resentment toward the officers, who receive higher pay and more perks.

Maj. Ishtiaq, part of the army leadership of the border force, told reporters that a border guard helped him escape the uprising.

"When the firing began he said, 'Sir, they will kill you, please come with me.' It was like doomsday for me. I then went with him to his residence amid shooting all around. He gave me his clothes to hide my identity," said Ishtiaq, who only uses one name.

"It was unbelievable when the killers rejoiced after killing the officers," he said.

Authorities announced a special tribunal would try the border guards, an apparent concession to soldiers who demanded prompt trials and punishment.

Meanwhile, hundreds of border guards reported back to their headquarters Sunday, after the Home Ministry gave them a 24-hour ultimatum to return to their posts, report to police stations or face disciplinary action.

Some who reported for work said they were on leave or off duty during the mutiny, while others said they fled the compound after the violence started.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard A. Boucher phoned Hasina on Sunday to offer Washington's support, according to a statement by the U.S. Embassy in Dhaka.

Bangladesh returned to democracy after elections in late December 2008, nearly two years after an army-backed interim government took over amid street protests demanding electoral reforms.

___

Associated Press writer Parveen Ahmed contributed to this report.

Cyclone horror

http://www.usatoday.com/news/topstories/2007-11-18-1903646804_x.htm

Bangladesh cyclone death toll tops 3,100


BARGUNA, Bangladesh (AP) — The death toll from Thursday's cyclone in Bangladesh is now more than 3,100, and officials say that number could reach 10,000 once rescuers get to outlying islands.

Rescuers are struggling to reach thousands of survivors, and relief items have been slow to reach many.

Survivors grieved and buried their loved ones Monday as they waited for aid to arrive.

The death toll from the Thursday cyclone reached 3,113 after reports finally reached Dhaka from storm-ravaged areas which had been largely cut off because of washed-out roads and downed telephone lines, said Lt. Col. Main Ullah Chowdhury, a spokesman of the army coordinating the relief and rescue work.

In Galachipa, a fishing village along the coast in Patuakhali district, Dhalan Mridha and his family had ignored the high cyclone alert issued by authorities.

"Nothing is going to happen. That was our first thought and we went to bed. Just before midnight the winds came like hundreds of demons. Our small hut was swept away like a piece of paper, and we all ran for shelter," said Mridha, a 45-year-old farm worker, weeping.

On the way to a shelter, Mridha was separated from his wife, mother and two children. The next morning he found their bodies stuck in a battered bush along the coast.

The coast abounded with such grim tales following Tropical Cyclone Sidr -- the worst cyclone to hit Bangladesh in a decade.

Many grieving families buried their loved ones in the same grave because no male member was available to dig them.

The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, the Islamic equivalent of the Red Cross, warned the toll could hit 10,000 once rescuers reach outlying islands.

The society's chairman, Mohammad Abdur Rob, said the estimate came from the assessments of thousands of volunteers involved in rescue operations across the battered region.

Helicopters airlifted food to hungry survivors Monday while rescuers struggled to reach remote areas.

The army helicopters carried mostly high-protein cookies supplied by the World Food Program, said Emamul Haque, a spokesman for the WFP office in Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, which is coordinating international relief efforts.

International aid organizations promised initial packages of $25 million during a meeting with Bangladesh agencies Monday, Haque said.

But relief items such as tents, rice and water have been slow to reach many. Government officials defended the relief efforts and expressed confidence that authorities are up to the task.

"We have enough food and water," said Shahidul Islam, the top official in Bagerhat, a battered district near the town of Barguna. "We are going to overcome the problem."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that several million dollars were available from the U.N.'s emergency response funds, depending on the need.

He expressed his "profound condolences to the people and government of Bangladesh for the many deaths and the destruction involved, and the full solidarity of the U.N. system at this time of crisis," the statement said.

The government said it has allocated $5.2 million in emergency aid for rebuilding houses.

Many foreign governments and international groups have also pledged to help.

The United States offered $2.1 million.

An American military medical team is already in Bangladesh and two U.S. naval ships, each carrying at least 20 helicopters, among tons of other supplies, will be made available if the Bangladesh government requests them, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement.

Other governments and organizations that pledged aid include the German government, which offered about $730,000, the European Union with $2.2 million, and the British government with $5 million. France pledged some $730,000, while the Philippines said it would send a medical team.

Every year, storms batter Bangladesh, a country of 150 million, often killing large numbers of people. The most deadly recent storm was a tornado that leveled 80 villages in northern Bangladesh in 1996, killing 621 people.

Only two people were killed in Bangladesh by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was spawned off Indonesia's Sumatra island by a magnitude-9 earthquake, hitting a dozen countries and killing at least 216,858, according to government and aid agency figures considered the most reliable in each country.

Hurricane Katrina, the most destructive natural disaster in U.S. history, killed 1,600 people across the Gulf Coast, destroyed or severely damaged more than 200,000 homes and made more than 800,000 people homeless overnight.
___
Associated Press writers Julhas Alam and Farid Hossain in Dhaka and Pavel Rahman in Barguna contributed to this report.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Garment protest

http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2006/05/bangladeshi_wor.html

Bangladeshi Workers Torch More Factories


Tuesday, May 23, 2006 3:22 PM EDT

The Associated Press
By JULHAS ALAM

SAVAR, Bangladesh (AP) _ Angry garment workers set fire to seven textile factories in and around the capital Tuesday after news that an employee shot in the back during recent protests over better pay and working conditions had died, officials and witnesses said.

The 20-year-old man, identified only as Rana, was one of about 100 people injured Monday when thousands of textile workers clashed with factory guards and security forces, police official Kamrul Islam said.

News of his death sparked more violence as thousands of textile workers took to the streets in Savar, an industrial zone near Dhaka, and the scene of Monday's clashes, witnesses said.

Mobs of angry workers, many of them armed with iron rods and sticks, set fire to at least seven factories in Savar and Dhaka, according to private TV channel ATN Bangla.

Dozens of people were injured as security forces swung batons to try to prevent the rampaging workers from smashing and burning passing vehicles, said Nazmul Huda, a local reporter in Savar. The protesters also blocked the roads with pieces of scrap metal, he said.

The protests spread to the capital, where workers blocked busy roads and ransacked several factories _ looting buildings and burning cars _ in an industrial area in downtown Dhaka. They also threw stones at police and firefighters who tried to control the situation, according to ATN Bangla.

The protests created huge traffic snarls in Dhaka, a city of 10 million people, and its neighboring areas.

On Monday, workers set fire to two factories and several buses in Savar during a protest to demand better pay and working conditions, police and witnesses said.

At least 100 people, including several police, were injured when factory guards and riot police intervened to disperse the protesters, witnesses said.

Rampaging workers also damaged several buses and cars after barricading a major highway to the capital, and ransacked dozens of smaller factories, police officer Jamiruddin Sheikh said.

The workers started demonstrating after authorities failed to meet their demands, which include higher wages and benefits, one day off per week and an end to forced overtime, said labor leader Belayet Hossain.

Workers are often forced to work seven days a week or late into the night to meet production deadlines, Hossain added.

"We have joined the protest as we are paid pittance for our hard work," said Kamal Hussain, a garment worker who was demonstrating with about 100 others in Uttara, just outside Dhaka.

A textile worker earns about $22 a month in Bangladesh. Hossain said they were seeking at least a 30 percent raise.

The rioting apparently started when authorities at some factories tried to stop their workers from joining the unscheduled protest.

Some workers also alleged that the protesters attacked their factories and beat them up for refusing to join in the demonstration, worker Lailee Begum said.

Textile factory owners, meanwhile, launched their own demonstration in downtown Dhaka to protest Monday's incident and demand better security for their factories.

The owners blamed a motivated section of workers for instigating the violence, and urged authorities to deploy the army at factories and investigate the attacks, according to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

Several factories that mostly make garments for export were shut down following the rioting, and extra police were deployed in the area.

Meanwhile, the government promised better security for the factories.

"The government will do whatever necessary for the protection of the garment industry," junior Interior Minister Lutfuzzaman Babar said after Tuesday's violence.

Bangladesh has about 2,500 garment factories employing about 1.8 million workers, mostly women.

The impoverished country earns about $6 billion annually from textile exports, mainly to the United States and Europe, according to Bangladesh's Export Promotion Bureau.

Last Updated May 23, 2006 3:49 PM