The Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) is Bangladesh’s main military intelligence agency. Presently headed by Major General Golam Mohammed, its two bureau chiefs, Brigadier General A. T. M. Amin and Brigadier General Fazlul Bari, are two of the most powerful movers-and-shakers of this current military regime. Army Chief General Moeen U. Ahmed often uses them as to do his actual fieldwork, such as the abduction and torture of possible dissenters, the coercion of businessmen to provide donations that will be used to fund Moeen’s upcoming political aspirations, the dismantling and launching of political parties to suit the military establishment’s current needs of the moment, and the suppression of any unrest fomenting amongst our general population due to the increasing inefficiency displayed by this regime to meet some of the fundamental demands of governance, such as keeping food prices stable and getting enough fertilizers to our farmers on time.
The recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on the torture of CNN reporter Tasneem Khalil at the hands of the DGFI laid bare the grisly network of torture and forced interrogation that has been constructed to hold up this military government. The entire testimony is chilling, and as Mr. Khalil reveals how during the periods when he was tortured, he was driven to the residence of Mahfuz Anam, his boss and editor of the Daily Star, and negotiations took place about when and under what terms Mr. Khalil would be released. This provides a disturbing indication of how the two worlds, one urbane and polished that exists in the drawing-rooms of our Gulshan and Banani mansions, and the other of dank and dark torture rooms in the DGFI Headquarters where Mr. Khalil was tortured, beaten mercilessly, and made to sign false statements, are working together hand-in-hand to have brought our country to its current sorry state.
We have also seen the open manipulation of BNP, and the suffering inflicted upon Begum Khaleda Zia and Khandokar Delwar Hossain for refusing to toe the army line. As long as this last bastion of resistance to military rule does not crumble, or is subverted in some way, there will be no letup of pressure on these two leaders and their followers.
So what are we to do with this government organization that is working ceaselessly to thwart the will of our populace? Once constitutional governance is restored, some house-cleaning needs to be done, and officers involved with torture need to be fired and put in trial in civilian courts. But moreover, structural changes need to be brought to the DGFI itself to ensure that in future situations, the agency plays a more honorable role.
The military is the government’s least accountable part. The DGFI is again the military’s least accountable part. It thus operates in a virtual limbo to which transparency and accountability are very difficult to achieve. The DGFI is the primary intelligence organization that handles both domestic and international affairs, intelligence and counter-intelligence, for our country. This mandate of counter-intelligence is what gives the DGFI the mandate and the excuse it needs to meddle with our country’s political process, much like the ISI does in Pakistan. The role of DGFI needs to be split into two agencies. An agency needs to be created directly under the Prime Minister’s Office, under civilian control. This service should, of course, be open to meritorious officers of the armed forces, as long as they resign their commissions before serving in this agency, and this agency should take the lead role for all external intelligence.
This, however, will only be a partial solution to creating a DGFI which can fit in with an envisioned society where rule of law and human rights are paramount. Given the role of our military forces, it is necessary that they be allowed significant counter-intelligence capabilities. What will be needed is significant oversight by the Judge Advocate General, a culture of greater adherence to civilian values and priorities, and the complete disappearance of extra-judicial killings and torture from all spheres of statehood, both military and civilian, meaning the police.
Changes also need to be made in how civilian control is exerted over the armed forces in Bangladesh. It is time that control over our forces was given back to our Ministry of Defense from the Armed Forces Division of the Prime Minister’s Office. It is also time that a democratically-elected Prime Minister feels confident enough to appoint a Minister of Defense, someone who can drive home to our generals that they too, are public servants, and they had also better start working hard to earn the generous allocation of budgetary resources given to them each year.
Anyone who read the details of Tasneem Khalil’s torture can not fail to be moved by the torture inflicted on this brave young man. It is our duty to do our utmost to ensure that not a single man or woman has to undergo a similar hellish experience, and emerge with similar traumas and scars.
February 16, 2008 at 7:34 pm
DGFI, if it doesnt already, needs to understand the nature of the global media system and take a smarter approach to it. I dont mean establishing and human rights wing to it, i mean they need to know how information travels and be more self aware of how their own dignity is lowered when they abuse people AND when they abuse people who know how to plug into the global opinion highway.
The man miliband was around dhaka last week, and diplomatically addressed the HR issue (as white govt will always do) as being somewhat less yuck now than when it was earlier.
I dont think about them (spooks) much, but the kind of people who think that an honest days living can be earnt by spying on people should be treated like freaks. This is my own opinion, but i also know that Bangladesh plays host to a great many foreign agents who refuse to leave the people alone and unmeddled with. I cant square this circle. HR doesnt work. something else is needed please.
the dignity of the whole country needs to be considered as paramount. individualistic HR concepts cant be paramount. It sounds good for some reason, because we dont like pain or for others to go through it.
DGFI need to relieve the sorrows of the people, not add to them. Knowing what calculus they use is the first step. Its not and will never be the specific language of virtue that comes out of HR (the heirs of Kant apparently). Theres a lot of people in this world who say they are about rights. I really wish our people would not shy away from the vernacular concepts of abad quaida, prestige, izzet, shunam etc. it would be practically beneficial and altogether more inspiring and less alienating. you know im not into brutality and this is more than a question of taste right?
February 16, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Ah, I see Jyoti Bhai’s comments have been picked up, as I thought they would be.
You’re right, the dignity of the whole country needs to be preserved. But I don’t see anyone offering a better strategy than to respect the HR of every individual whom they encounter, thus automatically ensuring that everyone’s HR is upheld.
I know and believe you’re not into brutality.
February 17, 2008 at 5:34 am
Bhai Fug, I assume you read my comments in UV. So you’d have also read that I did say that the idea that the society should be based on a notion of justice that is grounded in utility or rights is a relatively new thin human history, having been conceived of in the past 400 years in western Europe. You’d have seen that I wrote about the Islamic civilisation having a different set of emphasis. I’m sure you’re aware of those emphasis. Things that you mention - aadab, quaida, izzat, shunam, maan - perhaps our society should be based on these more than rights. I don’t, however, see anyone making a compelling case for those things that make me switch from rights and liberties.
February 17, 2008 at 2:47 pm
It’s very depressing for us that, major intel agency of Bangladesh DGFI from now on will be pronounced along with ISI. Because Tasneem Khalil’s matter has been flashed in international arena more than Bangladesh.
February 17, 2008 at 3:12 pm
jyoti ninja, i do love you. ashen ektu maramari kori! im totally schitzoid yknow, i livein a place where its vogue to appeal to certain higher liberal values in order not to get totally crushed, but find the idea of transplanting a fruit from a different intellectual tradition in the east … like eating bacon.
sotacit, what if i were to tell you about maqasid based development?
February 17, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Please do, Fugstar. I’d love to get some knowledge about these issues.
February 18, 2008 at 3:04 am
Maramari?!?!? Maaf koira dan bhai - I feel like singing ‘vikka chai na memsaab, kutta ta shamlan’.
Seriously though, we are all chutneyfied people. Who’s to say where the intellectual tradition of east stops and west begins? I’m all yours if you can make a compelling case that will make me junk rights for shunam.
—
Tacit, sorry we’ve come pretty far from the point of the post, which is a very serious one. What should we do about DGFI when democracy returns? I posed a similar question in Rumi bhai’s UV post about the 1980s. How, if at all, did we demilitarise after 1990? It’s a genuine question, not a rhetorical one.
February 18, 2008 at 8:53 am
Jyoti bhai, we’re faced with all these problems that no one took care of between 1991-2006 because they lay dormant, but are really coming back to haunt us. One of course, is DGFI. It’s an unfortunate thing to comment on, but I don’t understand why our military planners try aping the Pakistani military by default, in everything they do, from the way the DGFI has been set up to parallel ISI, to even granting out the DOHS land parcels.
The first step of demilitarisation needs to be the abolition of the Armed Forces Division in our country, enabling the Ministry of Defense, and appointing a Minister of Defense. If our state keeps treating the military as if they are special, of course they’ll believe so themselves.
February 18, 2008 at 9:16 am
aador niye maramari.
I dont need to explain to you why destroying someones dignity or good name, without certainty, is a wrong thing (and im not talking about fake airs that people wear and reproduce). You inately know it, its common sense to you, its a no brainer, its in your behaviour. deshis are perfectly capable of talking straight and without recourse to HR if they so choose.
its been written down in the books of practical ethics over centuries but there is this rather big hole in time and also in scholars taking responsibility and interest in the matter.
noones asking folks to junk rights, but to be able to discern the other values out their and recognise that our people, other than a few, will take to HR like an orthodox jew would take to pork scratchings.
February 19, 2008 at 5:45 am
Bhai Fug, we’re dealing with people who spy on others for a living. We may wish that they’d behave in good manner, but I’d not have much hope for it.
Tacit, we need to look at other countries that have successfully demilitarised. Any idea?
February 19, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Actually Jyoti bhai, I think Sri Lanka can be a great example for us. It has a society moderately similar in social values, embroiled in military conflict, but still in continuous civilian control.
February 19, 2008 at 8:34 pm
indonesia seems to have transitioned nicely. + they wear lungis.
but then from the little ive gleaned, they had a funky erm.. deeni intelligensia and a military rulership that actually acheived some gains in building national capacity.
jyoti bhai, can you be more specific on what start and endpoint youd like?
March 9, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Md. Tawfiq’s extrajudicial arrest and torture by DGFI is another incident of serious human rights violations like the one of Journalist Tasneem Khalil in Bangladesh. Md. Tawfiq, a director of Bangladesh telegraph and Telephone Board, was called by DGFI on March 4th (Tuesday) around 10 PM to see them in their Dhaka cantonment headquarters. As a law abiding citizen, he went there and for the next 4 days, there was no information on him from the DGFI as I was informed by an authenticated source. Not even his wife or family was informed of his location or condition which is a blatant violation of Bangladesh Constitution. On the 7th March, he was produced before the chief metropolitan magistrate by Ramna police station. He was shown arrest under Article 54 (suspicious activity) and was said that he was arrested from his residence on the same day. That is to say that his illegal custody by DGFI for nearly four days where he was tortured severely was kept secret from the court. His wife, in a press release yesterday, mentioned that she saw signs of torture in the uncovered areas of his body when she saw him in the court and asked the President and the chief advisor of the caretaker government of Bangladesh to save the life of her husband ((Janakantha, Inqilab, March 8). A fabricated false report was published in some Bangladesh newspapers on the 8th March (Janakantha, Inqilab, March
alleging that Tawfiq was involved in illegal VOIP business in Bangladesh. The report is full of inconsistencies, doesn’t hold any truth, and the allegations falls apart even at the tiniest scrutiny. It appears that Md. Tawfiq is the victim of some vested interest group in BTTB and Caretaker Government who took the advantage of current lawless situation in Bangladesh to realize some big plan in the telecom sector of Bangladesh.
The eye raising questions are:
1. If he was arrested by Ramna police on Thursday and was produced before the court next day, when did the joint forces interrogated him to find all the information that was published against him?
2. If the allegations published by the joint forces were true, why he wasn’t charged by any one of them?
3. Why he was picked up by DGFI and tortured, apparently in the same way as Tasneem Khalil without any judicial procedure?
4. Why the police shown him arrest four days after he was detained by DGFI on no apparent allegation against him (Article 54 is just suspicious activity and is bailable).
4. Who is responsible for his illegal custody and torture by DGFI?
It appears that Bangladesh has become a country of torture under the present caretaker government where no law and human right exists as mentioned in the chilling testimony of Human Right Watch Journalist Tasneem Khalil (http://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/bangladesh0208/) who was kidnapped and tortured by the DGFI people in the same way as Tawfiq. The people in power, mainly, the DGFI are working with impunity like the Gestapo to pick up anyone at their will, torture, and then fabricated anything against them without any judicial processes involved.
Brad Adams, Asia Director of Human Rights Watch, in his letter to Chief Advisor Fakhruddin Ahmed (http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/08/01/bangla16556.htm) urged that Bangladesh has obligation under international law to stop torture and to make the protection of human rights as much of a priority as its fight against corruption. Adams emphasized that the caretaker government should discipline or prosecute, as appropriate, members of the security forces, including the DGFI, the army and paramilitary forces such as the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), police and other government officials, regardless of rank, who have been responsible for arbitrary arrests and torture or other mistreatment of persons in detention.
I earnestly, request all concerned to put forward this news in you blog and save the life of Tawfiq and thousands of other innocent people who doesn’t have any one to stand for them.
June 30, 2008 at 6:58 am
…”So what are we to do with this government organization that is working ceaselessly to thwart the will of our populace? Once constitutional governance is restored, some house-cleaning needs to be done, and officers involved with torture need to be fired and put in trial in civilian courts. But moreover, structural changes need to be brought to the DGFI itself to ensure that in future situations, the agency plays a more honorable role.” …
UTOPIA?
June 30, 2008 at 9:34 am
Perhaps.
But the first step towards solving a problem is recognizing it.