The non-commissioned officers of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) have revolted against their commanding officers of the Bangladesh Army. Officers from the regular army head the BDR under deputation. The revolt started at the Headquarters of the BDR yesterday. The officers used heavy artillery resulting in an unexpectedly high number of casualties within the force, as well as among the civilians. However, the exact number of casualties is not known.
The newly elected government in the country, including the Prime Minister and the Home Minister, intervened in the situation by holding series of discussions with the protesting BDR officers. Early in the morning of Thursday the rebel soldiers started surrendering their arms and ammunitions in presence of the Home Minister, Ms. Sahara Khatun, and this is still continuing.
The normal life of the general public in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, was seriously affected as a result of the incident. All academic, commercial, cultural and social programmes were suspended in the areas adjacent to the BDR Headquarters, which is situated amidst a highly populated part in the heart of the country’s capital.
This revolt, it appears, is the result of grievances which have existed over a long period of time and which have never been seriously addressed. The BDR officers are aggrieved that there has been serious forms of discrimination against them by the army officers who have been placed in control of the BDR. In terms of corruption, it is the top ranking officers who use their authority for their own enrichment and in recent months there had been instances in which family members of senior officers, including those of the Director General, have attempted to leave the country with large sums of money. It was only due to the intervention of the Customs officers that prevented the wife of the Director General from doing so.
Other grievances are that the BDR officers are poorly paid as opposed to the army officers on deputation in the BDR. Not only to they receive higher salaries they are also entitled to allowances and other perks while in service. The BDR officers face all the risk involved while guarding the borders and controlling smuggling, while the army officers who are stationed in their comfortable offices enjoy all the benefits.
It was at a time when the problems reached an unbearable point that this revolt has taken place. The background to the revolt is a change of government where the present regime won a landslide victory and now with the support of few minor parties enjoy 262 seats out of 300 assembly seats. This climate of political change seems to have provided the BDR an opportunity to launch their revolt for the purpose of improvement of their service conditions.
Under these circumstances the Government of Bangladesh has taken the wiser course of negotiating with the officers involved in the revolt. The Government should attempt to speedily resolve the problems with negotiations with the BDR officers, all political parties should be allowed to participate actively in the process of finding an acceptable solution to the problems, particularly the media should be provided with freedom to report on all issues relating to this matter. The civil society organisations need to make their interventions to bring about satisfactory solutions to all the problems and ensure that the situation does not degenerate into widespread violence.
