The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is writing to you today to call for greater UN intervention to address the atrocious situation of human rights and concomitant corruption, failed governance and defective judicial institutions in Bangladesh, and to request that you consider assigning a special representative to the country on your behalf. The reasons are as follows.
In a series of letters to the UN Human Rights Council, High Commissioner for Human Rights and some special rapporteurs, we have described in detail how the government of Bangladesh, despite its pretensions to the contrary, has failed in virtually every respect to meet its international human rights treaty obligations and fulfil its repeated promises both to the UN and to its own people. Above all, it has failed to separate the lower judiciary from the executive, thereby denying the possibility of effective redress for any human rights abuses by the police, military and paramilitaries in Bangladesh, and has failed to criminalise torture in accordance with the UN Convention against Torture and Other, Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which it is a party. It has also failed to address the unparalleled level of corruption that is eroding every aspect of public and private life in the country, despite the surface appearance of a law and institution to address it, and has failed to introduce a national human rights institution in accordance with the UN-endorsed Paris Principles, despite years of assurances that it was imminent, which if nothing else ensured it a flow of funding and training from outside sources (AHRC-OL-44-2006).
The government of Bangladesh has also pursued an open policy of extrajudicial killing and lawlessness, ostensibly in order to combat lawlessness, through the creation of special anti-crime paramilitary units. In a separate letter to the UN Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations we have described how the existence of personnel of these units in past, present and future UN missions abroad may seriously jeopardise the credibility of the United Nations (AHRC-OL-50-2006). We have requested that his department review the role of Bangladeshi peacekeepers in forthcoming operations, until such a time as these special units are disbanded and victims of abuses in Bangladesh are given legitimate, not fraudulent, opportunities for redress.
These are just a few of the obstacles to the enjoyment of human rights and human dignity in Bangladesh. So why has the country not been made the subject of greater international scrutiny?
We believe that the answer to that question lies in the illusion of democracy which today bedevils much of Asia, including Bangladesh. This illusion–created by the ritual performance of elections, existence of political parties and some independent media outlets–hides a malfunctioning judiciary and judicial process; the placing of law and order before the rule of law; the exaggeration of the threats of criminal and terrorist elements from outside of law enforcement agencies and deliberate undermining of the effective functioning of these agencies; and, the use of the poor as political slaves. All of these characteristics can be found in every facet of public life in Bangladesh, where most judges are a part of the executive, where the threat of criminality has been used as a pretext to set up death squads, and where the capacity of the police to investigate real crime has been destroyed, thereby ensuring that the criminal elements in positions of authority are free from any possible repercussions. It is also a place where political patronage and influence reaches into every corner and every life: whether or not a person is targeted by the police or their henchmen, whether or not a criminal investigation occurs, whether or not a person is appointed public prosecutor–all depend upon the country’s political paddle wheel, which brings one major party or the other into power through empty rhetoric and guarantees of favours for its supporters.
Bangladesh is, as you know, a country of immense poverty. It is also a place of immense impunity: the result of the failed institutions described above and government policies to protect members of the elite who instead rely upon their own power bases for protection. However, the connection between these two conditions is rarely made explicit. While poverty is established as a global and regional problem, its relationship with impunity is not properly identified. The tendency has been to treat impunity as a problem of some importance, but not as the key to unlock the reasons for economic deprivation. So UN organisations together with other international bodies and bilateral agencies go into countries like Bangladesh with generic solutions to poverty based on economic and social reform, which avoid hard questions about the legal and political structures that engender poverty, corruption and human rights abuse. The solutions fail because they are dependant upon defective institutions: in fact, institutions that have been rendered deliberately defective by national authorities that retain the appearance of being cooperative while undermining every possible outcome through the systemic spread of impunity. Money is poured into institutions from which it drains out of innumerable holes long before reaching its intended recipients. Meanwhile, the country remains saddled with a primitive police force, a cardboard cut-out version of a lower judiciary, and dangerous, self-interested politicians.
Undoubtedly, Bangladesh deserves and needs active UN intervention, just as it looks forward to active involvement in the UN. However, the AHRC is concerned that at this time the relationships between UN agencies and Bangladesh, whether the Human Rights Council, Department of Peacekeeping Operations or humanitarian agencies in the country, have not been properly informed by a well-researched and overarching strategy This creates a false impression about the actual conditions in the country and causes unnecessary wastage of resources.
Therefore, the Asian Human Rights Commission suggests that you appoint a special representative or envoy on Bangladesh. We believe that the need for such a person to study Bangladesh and inform UN agencies through your office on progress towards change there is at least as great as the need for your appointees to Cambodia and the country’s neighbour, Myanmar. We strongly feel that were you to make this appointment it would have a considerable effect on the government of Bangladesh that may cause it to speed up many promised reforms, and would also greatly encourage human rights defenders and social change-makers there to continue their work with renewed vigour in the hope of seeing a lasting difference, rather than more of the same.
We understand that the decision to appoint a special envoy is not made lightly; however, we also are not suggesting it lightly. It is only after sustained and serious work on the situation of human rights in Bangladesh that we are making this suggestion to you. We trust that you will give it the serious consideration that it deserves, and look forward to your much-needed intervention.
Yours sincerely
Basil Fernando
Executive Director
Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong
