ConocoPhillips Deal

THE lack of debate in the Bangladesh intelligentsia about the recent deal with ConocoPhillips makes a case that we may be becoming a slave of the imperialist donor nations. WikiLeaks documents exposed some of Bangladesh’s clandestine collaboration with these countries, but the recent signing of the production sharing contract, i.e. the official document signed by the Bangladesh government with ConocoPhillips to award the US oil giant with two offshore blocks and the manner in which it was done tend to indicate that the government may be ready to carry out subservient policies in the open without any remorse; it was further evident in the silly way the politicians were defending it. Criticism was levelled at the recent awarding of two offshore blocks for oil-gas exploration to ConocoPhillips. The critics believe the signing of the contract is tantamount to allowing eighty per cent of the oil-gas resources to be exported out of the country by ConocoPhillips; in other words, Bangladesh would have to buy the resultant oil-gas production back from ConocoPhillips, which is absurd, since the oil-gas already belongs to the state of Bangladesh. These criticisms were refuted by an anonymous Petrobangla high-up who is also known to be a PSC expert according to a Daily Star report, published on the June 21 , titled ‘Govt share up to 80pc: Clarifies Petrobangla to refute critics’ claim: LNG export only if govt, private sector refuse to buy gas’. The anonymous Petrobangla official claims, as quoted in the report, ‘Petrobangla’s share will be a minimum of 55 per cent if ConocoPhillips produces gas of 75 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd), a very small quantity. Its share will go up close to 80 per cent if gas production hits 600 mmcfd ( equivalent to more than one fourth of the present gas supply).’ The Petrobangla official also goes on to claim that the deal is no secret and the PSC can be found on the Petrobangla website to see the proportion of shares that each party would receive; the web link to the PSC is also mentioned in the Daily Star report. It must be stated here that the PSC document on the website does not mention ConocoPhillips directly but it uses the word contractor, which, according to the PSC preamble, is referred to the company that signs the deal, which in this case is ConocoPhillips. Anybody who reads the PSC will say with a great deal of seriousness that the claims of the official are highly contradictory. The PSC in Article 15. 5.4 clearly states that Bangladesh can only get 20 per cent of the total marketable gas in the first ten years, which is also mentioned in a New Age article on June 12 , which in totality contradicts the claim of the Petrobangla official. The only mention of an 80 per cent share is in article 24.1 where it states that Petrobangla can buy up to 80 per cent of ConocoPhillips’ share with a fifteen per cent discount with respect to a negotiated price. The mention of 75 mmfcd and 600 mmfcd are stated under table 14.6 of the PSC, which has two distinct columns for Petrobangla share (in percentage) and ConocoPhillips’ share. But for those two cases the rows remain empty, since the shared amount for each party is subject to bidding (which also contravenes the claim by the official that all the proportion of shares by each party are laid out). But this table becomes irrelevant in the presence of the Article 15.5.4 mentioned earlier. To go even further, the PSC in Article 14.6 states that Petrobangla may receive its share of gas in the form of cash if mutually agreed between parties, and considering the level of complicity of present and past governments, selling of even the meagre share that we are supposed get from this deal is not an impossibility. This apprehension is further strengthened as the leaked diplomatic cables revealed how the US ambassador and the energy adviser were colluding to get the deal approved. The deal itself is a farce, but the intensity of public debate on this issue is limited to certain quarters; the critics that I have mentioned are mostly limited to intellectual groups such as the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports and a few other concerned citizens. If we were to look at our parliament, it never had a constructive debate and still does not. The politicians in the opposition are too busy fighting and calling strikes about issues that have little to do with the betterment of the general people, which is not strange because they promote the same policies as well and it was not too long ago when they opened coal mines for Asia Energy and consequent strikes led to their temporary closure. Even though most dailies portray that the two parties are fighting each other, in essence, if we were to look at their foreign and economic policies, they are nothing but two sides of the same coin. The lack of inquisitiveness is also illustrated in the Daily Star report that I have mentioned earlier, as the gist of the report suggests that a Petrobangla official clarifies the issue and refutes fears, but the reporter fails to ask where in the document those claimed provisions exist. Universities and research institutes barely made any noise about it which questions the level of intellectualism that is practiced. At the end of the day, looking at all this, we have to ask ourselves whether the institutions, may it be the parliament, the media or the education and research institutions, are actually representing the masses or just a few people. The prime minister goes on to ridicule the activists of the national committee, which seems to expose her intellectual bankruptcy in defending the deal. If the institutions that are supposed to represent the general public fail to do so, then we are promoting injustice and thus are sowing the seeds of a failed state.

Govt Needs To Make Sincere Efforts To Avart Confrontation

THE 15 th amendment to the constitution, which the ninth Jatiya Sangsad passed on Thursday, is bound to have long-term ramifications for politics in Bangladesh, insofar as ideologies, issues and policies are concerned. However, at the functional level, the controversy, and even conflict, is likely to centre the abolition of the provision of election-time non- party caretaker government. The repeal of the provision, pushed unilaterally by the Awami League, although it itself forced the provision upon the constitution in 1996 and despite significant support within the ruling alliance in particular and society in general for its retention for at least two more general elections, in line with the Supreme Court’s observation, has visibly put the government and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party- led opposition camp on a confrontational course. According to a report front-paged in New Age on Thursday, the leader of the opposition and BNP chairperson, Khaleda Zia, accused the AL-led government of pushing the country towards ‘indispensable confrontation’ and vowed ‘to launch a strong movement to protect the country and safeguard its interest.’ In other words, the battle line has been drawn between the two major political camps for an intense power struggle, with one seeking to perpetuate control over state power after its tenure ends in 2014 and the other seeking to return to it. With the caretaker issue highly likely to result in broader polarisation in society, the smaller left-leaning secular-democratic parties in the ruling alliance seem to find themselves on sticky patch. Certain provisions in the 15 th amendment, e.g. retention of Bismillah in the preamble and Islam as state religion, allowance of religion-based politics, imposition of Bengali identity on non-Bengali ethnic groups, run counter with the ideology and politics of these parties. Indeed, lawmakers of these parties recorded their objections to the amendment; however, in the end, they voted in its favour, apparently to save their membership of parliament. Article 70 (1) prohibits a member to vote in parliament against the political party that nominated him or her as a candidate in an election. Although having separate political identity, these leaders did, after all, contest in the December 2008 general elections with the election symbol of the ruling Awami League. While Awami League and Jatiya Party lawmakers upheld what they stand for when voting in favour of the amendment, the same cannot be said about the leaders of the left-leaning secular-democratic parties. The experience should make these leaders realise that sacrifice of principles is the ultimate price of political opportunism. It remains to be seen where these parties would stand when the push comes to the shove—whether they will give up their identity to remain partners in the undemocratic ruling coalition or stand up for their ideology and politics. Meanwhile, if the ruling and opposition camps remain rigid on their respective stance, confrontation will become inevitable and its fallout will be extensive, creating political uncertainties, causing social disorder, paralysing the economy, so on and so forth. Worryingly still, it could very well encourage ambitious apolitical forces to fish in troubled water. Needless to say, history will assign the blame for the dire consequences squarely on the Awami League; after all, its go- alone policy on such a matter of crucial national importance has complicated the situation in the first place. There is still time for the Awami League to redeem itself and such redemption can only come in the shape of sincere efforts to bring the opposition to the negotiation table for a peaceful resolution of the standoff.

Polls Must Be Held Under Caretaker Govt

The movement for the Caretaker Government system began in 1994. It was alleged by the opposition Awami League after the parliamentary by-polls at Mirpur and Magura that the then ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) was involved in vote rigging which proved that fair election under any party government was not possible. Mention may be made here that the people experienced the first vote rigging in the first general election of Bangladesh on March 7 , 1973 when the ruling Awami League (AL) rigged election. Worker's Party of Bangladesh President Rashed Khan Menon, MP, now partner of AL-led grand alliance government, Major (retd.) Abdul Jalil, Dr. Alim-Al Rajee, Engineer Abdur Rashid, Shahjahan Siraj and Mostaque Ahmed Chowdhury were defeated in that election, as reported in a Bengali daily dated June 12 , 2007.         Jamaat's brainchild    Jamaat-e-Islam was the first to advance the concept of non-party Caretaker Government (CG) which was the brainchild of Prof. Golam Azam for holding free and fair election. AL under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina enthusiastically took it up as their political issue. Former state minister for Foreign Affairs in AL cabinet Abul Hasan Chowdhury while addressing the plenary session of the ministerial conference on "Towards a Community of Democracy" in Warsaw held in 2000 , claimed that Sheikh Hasina's doctrine of Caretaker Government is being practised in Bangladesh, as reported in the media.    AL in league with Jamaat-e-Islam (JI) and Jatiya Party (JP) started a vigorous nationwide movement to establish the CG. Sheikh Hasina held series of meetings with Jamaat leaders Abbas Ali Khan, Moulana Motiur Rahman Nizami, Ali Ahsan Mujahid at her Dhanmondi residence at Road number 32. At that time Jamaat leaders were not war criminals. They enforced seventy days' hartal and 26 days' of blockade and non- cooperation movement during 1994-1996. Of them one 96 hours continuous hartal, two 72 hours and five 48 hours besides dawn to dusk hartal were enforced, as published in a Bengali daily on June 11 , 2011. News report said hartal damaged properties worth Tk. 250 crore per day in those days. People were harassed in many ways. Even a government official was stripped off on the road near the Curzon Hall of the Dhaka University.    Sir Ninian Stephens, former Governor General of Australia, was invited to resolve political issue in 1995. He held a series of meetings with political leaders both of ruling and opposition parties to democratise the country but with no effect.         15 killed, 600 injured    The AL boycotted the parliament and forced the BNP through reign of violence like blockade, hartal, gherao, destruction of properties both public and private, killing, burning of vehicles, agitation etc. to amend the Constitution for incorporating CG system. The Fifth parliament was dissolved and the BNP arranged for general election. The opposition parties boycotted election. The 6 th parliament was elected on February 15 , 1996 with only BNP which was said to be the farcical one-party polls. On the day countrywide hartal left 15 persons killed and 600 persons injured, as reported in a Bengali newspaper on June 11 , 2011. Then a parliament was formed where the 13 th amendment to the Constitution was passed for incorporating the provision of the CG system on the very line demanded by AL. So, the 'farcical' one-party polls had to be held to pass the CG bill.    The opposition continued their reign of violence. Some bureaucrats joined the 'Janatar Mancha' organised by AL. By doing this these bureaucrats turned the government officials and employees into servants of a political party.    AL won the first election held on June 12 , 1996 under the CG system but was defeated in polls of 2001. After the defeat AL had put strong and undue pressure on President Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed to cancel the election results and to hold fresh election. But Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed did not bow to their undue demand and pressure.    Kamal Hossain, T H Khan, Rafique-ul Haque, M Zahir, Mahmudul Islam, Amir-Ul Islam, Roklanuddin Mahmud and Ajmalul Hossain as amici curiae opined in favour of the CG system, but only M I Faruki spoke against it. The Supreme Court repealed the 13 th Amendment to the constitution that introduced the caretaker government but said the next two general elections could be held under unelected rulers.     Considering the present political hostility and mistrust among political parties polls under the CG system should continue as per observation of the Supreme Court that two more general elections be held under the CG system. Otherwise polls under the party government will cause a reign of violence for which the common people will have to suffer. Polls must be held under the CG system to avoid political turmoil.

Oil - Gas Deal Infuriates The Allience Partners Too

Bangladesh government's deal with the US oil giant ConocoPhillips has provoked a hostile reaction amongst the opposition as well as the partners of the Awami League- led grand alliance.    Bangladesh workers' Party and Jatiya samajtantrit Dal - grand alliance partners with representation in the parliament - have openly criticised the government deal with the US oil giant ConocoPhillips. The Communist Party of Bangladesh ( CPB), also a close ally of the Awami League, has been criticising the deal, describing it as against the national interest and that it would also endanger the country's energy security.    The government on June 16 signed the production sharing contract (PSC) with ConocoPhillips for oil and gas exploration and extraction in deep sea hydrocarbon blocks 10 and 11 amid protests from experts, civic forums, and political organizations. The agreement gives ConocoPhillips the right to explore two offshore blocks, which lie in disputed waters in the Bay of Bengal, was approved by the cabinet earlier this month.    ConocoPhillips will search for oil and gas only in undisputed areas in blocks 10 and 11 - some parts of which are claimed by both India and Myanmar.    Terming the deal "suicidal" for the country, National Committee on Protection of Oil, Gas and Ports, a left-leaning umbrella group launched a series of demonstrations and a half- day general strike on July 3.    Meanwhile, addressing a roundtable discussion last Monday, Bangladesh Workers Party president and lawmaker Rashed Khan Menon said the government would not be allowed to export oil, gas, and other mineral resources from the country. Menon, along with other political leaders in the grand alliance, urged the government to enact the Mineral Resources Export Prohibition Act 2010 that has already been placed as a bill in the parliament.    He said the bill which he placed in the parliament last year was nothing but a reflection of Sheikh Hasina's stance in 1998 in response to the suggestion of gas export from the Bibiyana field made on the premise that the country was supposedly floating on oil and gas.    Criticising the contract with the US company, Menon said in the Jatiya Sangsad last Saturday that the present prime minister once had opposed any export of gas and said no gas would be allowed to be exported without keeping an adequate reserve for the country for the next 50 years but now her own government has signed a deal which contains the provision for gas export by a foreign company.    Menon demanded that the government should make public the production-sharing contract signed with ConocoPhillips. He also demanded open discussion in the parliament on the deal and said it is not acceptable that only some government officials and advisers should know the details of such an important deal while the people, who are the owners of the country' s resources, are kept in the dark.    Reminding his fellow MPs that a minister of the BNP-Jamaat-led four-party alliance government was allegedly bribed by Canadian company Niko, he said, 'It is not unlikely that such corruption will be unearthed in the future in connection with the ConocoPhillips deal.'    The Workers Party president lambasted a state minister for terming a leader of the oil-gas protection committee a 'foreign agent' and said people know it very well who the real foreign agents are.    Addressing the roundtable on energy security of Bangladesh last Monday, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal president and lawmaker Hasanul Haq Inu urged the government to scrap the deal, which has a provision that will encourage ConocoPhillips to export 80 per cent of the gas it will extract from hydrocarbon blocks 10 and 11 in the form of liquefied natural gas.    'Otherwise, the power-starved people of the country will start a massive movement against it,' he warned.    Inu said Bangladesh is suffering from severe energy shortage and it is not acceptable to sign any deal that gives the contractor the scope to export the country's mineral resources.    Pointing at the Niko deal and other one-sided contracts made in the country's energy sector, lawmaker Amena Ahmad termed such contracts 'anti-state'.

Awami League Chooses To Be A Slave, Not Master, Of History

THE passage of the 15 th amendment to the constitution in parliament on Thursday marks a sad episode in the political history of Bangladesh. By pushing the amendment through, the ruling Awami League officially completed its deviation from the spirit of the liberation war and bracketed itself with all those that it has consistently castigated as forces opposed to the spirit of liberation. In the objective clause of the amendment bill, the law minister claimed that the legislative exercise is aimed at restoration of the essence of the 1972 constitution by reinstating certain provisions therein in respect of fundamental rights of the people, fundamental principles of state policy, etc. The claim cannot be any farther from truth, since the amendment approves functioning of political parties formed on the basis of religious faith, and retains ‘Bismillah’ in the preamble of the constitution and Islam as the state religion, which were not in the 1972 constitution and run counter with the secular-democratic spirit of the liberation war. Notably, these were inserted in the constitution by the regimes that the party has always projected as undemocratic. The chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on law, justice and parliamentary affairs in its report on the amendment bill termed the retention of Bismillah and Islam as the state religion and allowance of religion-based politics a ‘compromise…in the greater welfare of the people.’ He suggested, albeit not in so many words, that his ‘matured’ understanding of the ‘importance’ of religion in power politics over the past three decades or so. In other words, the ruling party, which dictated history when it presided over the country’s war of liberation, has now chosen to be a slave of history despite its numerical strength in parliament. The compromise regrettably has resulted in dichotomies on the basis of not only religion but also ethnicity, between Muslim and non-Muslims, Bengalis and non- Bengalis. The amended Article 6 ( 2) says the ‘people of Bangladesh shall be known as Bengalees’, essentially relegating the members of the non-Bengali ethnic minority communities, who have lived in this country for generations through centuries, to second-class citizens, just as retention of Islam as state religion has done people of other faiths. While Bangladesh is the country of Muslims and non- Muslims, Bengalis and non- Bengalis alike, its state has become primarily of the Bengali Muslims. The consolation clauses, so to speak, in this regard, i.e. Article 12 (b) that says the state shall not grant ‘political status in favour of any religion’ and Article 23 A that says the ‘State shall take steps to protect and develop the local culture and tradition of the tribes, minor races, ethnic sects and communities’, tend to highlight the contradiction on the one hand and the Awami League’s nationalistic chauvinism on the other. The religious and ethnic stratification, needless to say, would contribute to further deepening of the sense of insecurity of non-Muslims and non-Bengalis. The least said about the essential hypocrisy behind the retention of socialism as one of the fundamental principles of state policy the better. The Awami League has long ceased to be a party ideologically inclined to socialism, if it ever were, and pursued anti-people neo-liberal economic policies, prime concern of which is profit-making, not people’s welfare, let alone egalitarianism. By pushing the amendment through the parliament, the ruling party has not only deviated from the spirit of the liberation war, which was fought in the hope of establishing a state that would be politically a people’s republic, culturally secular-democratic and economically egalitarian, and betrayed the people but may also have committed a political suicide. After all, the party now stands bereft of even the moral right to claim itself to be committed to the spirit of the liberation war and at par with the pseudo-democratic and autocratic military regimes of the past. Simply put, the Awami League has ultimately joined the ranks of its political rival, whom it has called anti-liberation. As for scrapping the election-time non-party caretaker government provision, which the party forced upon the constitution in 1996 to pave its way to power, it only proves that the politics of the ruling class is about crude struggle for retention of or return to state power. Understandably, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party is now fighting for its retention. Under these circumstances, it also draws the battle line between the power-obsessed ruling class and the politically conscious and democratically oriented sections of society. The latter needs to realise that they need to win the battle for realisation of the values and ideals of the liberation war so many people sacrificed their lives for. They also need to realise that, to win the battle, they must strive to become the master of history, not its slave, as the Awami League and its allies have chosen to be.