The national executive director of international anti-corruption watchdog, Transparency International, yesterday came down hard on the military for what he called its actions against the public interest.
Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), said the government had been coddling sheep in wolves’ clothing, in reference to its relationship with the armed forces.
Using an expressive Bangla idiom that describes indulging an enemy as “raising a snake on milk and bananas,” Iftekharuzzaman warned against giving in to excessive demands by the military.
“The armed forces, raised up to defend the people, were instead encroaching on people’s land to build up their own infrastructure like cantonments and housing schemes,” he said at a press conference on illegal encroachment of agricultural and forest land.
Iftekharuzzaman said the country had given the military a “lamp of Aladdin,” which he clarified to mean unlimited licence to get whatever it desired.
This should now be stopped, he said.
The TIB executive director said the military was behaving like land grabbers.
The press conference, organised jointly by the Association for Land Reform and Development (ALRD), Ain o Shalish Kendra (ASK), Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), Bangladesh Adivasi Forum, Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA), Nijera Kori, Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (BAPA) and Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) at the Dhaka Reporter’s Unity hall in the capital.
According to the statement provided by the organisers, the government would be providing several thousands of acres of agricultural and forest land to the military by evicting the common people.
Some 1788.98 acres of forest land at Ramu in Cox’s Bazar district, 997 acres of land of the indigenous community at Ruma in Bandarban district, and 10,000 acres of agricultural land at Hatia Upazila in Noakhali have been given to the military.
The military is already taking possession of the land.
In addition, 1408.05 acres of arable land is under process of being allocated to the military in Chatmohor upazila in Pabna, the organisers said.
The organisers said thousands of people had suffered from the government decision, losing their livelihood and habitation in violation of Article 32 of the constitution.
Sultana Kamal, executive director of Ain O Salish Kendra, said the government, in giving in to demands for land from powerful quarters, was contradicting the requirements of democracy.
Rahima Begum, an inhabitant of South Hatia Upazila in Noakhali, said at the press conference that she felt utterly helpless after the military took over her land.
“We have nowhere to go. The government gave us the land to live on two years ago under the “Ashrayon” project and now the military is taking that piece of land away,” she said.
“Civil society is not against the development of the country. We too want to see the modernisation of the military, but not at the expense of anyone’s life or livelihood,” said Iftekharuzzaman.
He said the current situation is the result of not having a defence policy in Bangladesh.
“That is why the country has been giving them [the armed forces] whatever they wish,” he said.
He said it was an undemocratic practice that the national defence budget is never publicly disclosed.
Apart from land encroached upon by the military, the civil society groups mentioned a case of illegal land encroachment, involving influential people, at Gazipur.