LOBBYING for various special interests has become an inherent component of the modern-day political system. Bangladesh does not suffer from a want of political lobbyists, either, but the lobbyists invariably work to protect the interests of the rich.

For instance, a long tussle between Bangladeshi flag vessel owners and local commission agents of foreign shipping companies ended on April 28, with the cabinet, rightly, upholding the interests of the local companies. The cabinet thwarted a shipping ministry bid to repeal/amend the Bangladesh Flag Vessels Protection Ordinance, 1982 to safeguard the interest of foreign companies at the cost of their local counterparts.

The ordinance says that Bangladeshi flag vessels are to be given priority over foreign vessels for carriage of outgoing cargo. Only in the case of non-availability of a local flagship on a given route can a foreign vessel load, that too after procuring a waiver certificate from the government authorities confirming that local flag vessels are unable to spare additional carrying capacity.

The victory of “national interest”, however, did not come easily. The owners of local vessels did hectic lobbying with some influential members in the cabinet of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.

At least one minister and an adviser to the prime minister enjoying the privileges and status of a minister, along with some others outside the government, reportedly have direct or indirect interests involved in promoting foreign-vessel owning companies.

The story began long ago. The shipping ministry had granted a general waiver in violation of the law to foreign shipping companies a few years ago, thanks to vested groups in and outside the state machinery. Subsequently, a local company challenged the waiver in the High Court in 1999 and it won the case. The issue eventually went to the Supreme Court.

The SC, on Feb 8 this year, upheld the HC verdict, in other words, the Bangladesh Flag Vessels Protection Ordinance, which stipulates that to carry sea- borne cargo, the foreign feeder vessels require a waiver certifying that there are no Bangladeshi vessels with spare capacity servicing the same route waiting at the port at that point of time.

But desperate to serve the local agents of the foreign companies, the shipping ministry issued, on April 9, a circular granting preference to five foreign companies in obtaining up to 60 per cent of container cargo.

When a section of the media took up the issue, the local agents of the foreign companies, who are politically influential in the ruling coterie as well, changed strategy. They first took steps to repeal, and then to amend, the ordinance itself that stands in the ways of their interests.

But the local ship owning companies, pretty rich and politically influential as well, successfully lobbied with some ministers who have no financial interests particularly in this sector. As a result, the ministers representing the interests of commission agents in the cabinet lost the battle.

Now, for how the poor have no lobby. The government recently withdrew some safety measures it took for low-income people, around 100,000 daily, who use motor launches to move from one place to another.

The authorities recently announced that a few dozens of identified ‘completely unfit’ passenger launches would no longer be allowed to operate. The decision, which actually needed to be enforced long ago, came after a series of accidents. Some 350 people have been killed in five major accidents on the waterways across the country this year, while the last two accidents in the Buriganga and Meghna claimed some 200 lives on April 21.

The worst ferry accident in recent times, which took place in May 2002 in the Meghna, left 467 men, women and children dead. An official estimate says that nearly 5,500 people have died in some 250 ferry accidents since 1976.

After the Meghna accident in 2000, some 40 passenger launches were identified by the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) as completely unfit for river routes. Media reports say that of the 2,100 launches registered with BIWTA, only 800 had renewed their fitness certificates last year. But all of them were plying on the accident-prone river routes in collusion with some BIWTA, officials.

The decision to preventing the “completely unfit” vessels from plying was, therefore, a welcome one. But the government eventually failed to stick to the decision, thanks to strong lobbying by influential political quarters in and outside the administration.

At least one minister and another person known for his strong connection with prime minister’s family, who have a direct interest in the sector, mounted tremendous pressure on the authorities to withdraw the decision.

The poor launch passengers did not have any minister or any other politically influential people in or outside the government to do counter-lobbying against the vested interests. The result was obvious.

The government eventually gave in on April 26.

THAT the world had changed post 9/11 became a global cliche within hours of that day’s catastrophe. What made the reiteration bewildering, in a way cliches seldom are, was that nobody really knew just how and in what way. Two wars later, it now seems clear.

But why does the war on Iraq seem even worse than the war on Afghanistan? The attack on Afghanistan may be explicable as part of a compulsive American retaliatory response to the attack on the Twin Towers. The attack on Iraq, however, appears in the light of a mercantile, calculated use of the ambit America appropriated for itself in the post-9/11 declaration of a global war on terrorism. Both wars horrify with the characteristic of dehumanised obliteration by bombardment. But the second sickens because, beyond the callousness of ‘collateral damage’ inflicted from the safety technology allowed the coalition’s warmongers, is the moral and intellectual dishonesty of the professed cause for instituting regime change in Iraq.

In the weeks between 9/11 and the attack on Afghanistan, the western media familiarized the world with the orientations and vocabulary of the premises of a new kind of war. In the months between the allied victory in Kabul and the attack on Iraq, that same media subtly introduced the world to distortions and misapplications of those premises.

Just what does the irruption into Afghanistan signify? First of all, it is true that Afghanistan had been racked by civil war for decades; and that the primitive writ of the Taliban was sustained by the gun. It is also true that this same Taliban regime, with the comparative stability it had brought, was a regime corporate America could comfortably try to do business with. It is also true that the Talibans’ affording sanctuary to Osama bin Laden gave America its casus belli as far as missile attacks were concerned even before the terrorist destruction of the Twin Towers. But the magnitude of that terrorist happening effected a quantitative shift. The trauma and panic provided a psychological climate in which the Bush administration acquired a carte Blanche for global operations in pursuit of Al Qaeda or the eradication of the perceived terrorist haven.

In the case of Iraq, though, conflict pre-dates the Osama motive. Almost 13 years ago, Saddam had invaded Kuwait. With memories of the Iraq-Iran conflict yet to be overlaid, he was forcing military conflict with another country. It was an occupied country that the coalition’s troops liberated from Iraq in the first Gulf War of 1991. America abided by UN formalities, though the coalition acted with “considerable autonomy”. Kuwait was validly seen as liberated and its existing ruling family reinstated.

But there was a deeper American animus against Iraq itself. This showed in the conduct of relations with the defeated state. In the years of uneasy peace after the first Gulf War, the deliberate emasculation and humiliation of Iraq was evident. Evident also was the encouragement by the US-British axis of initiatives to overthrow the Saddam administration or eliminate the dictator. Nobody really availed of the invitation and opportunity to oust him.

Was the hold of a man who had led his nation into an annihilating trap of defeat and punishment really that strong? Or was it that ridding themselves of their indigenous dictator at Anglo-American behest with Anglo-American support for Anglo- American stooges was something that seemed even less palatable to the Iraqis? They were never really asked, so they have never really answered.

In a slow slide from the UN armistice after 1991, and in the perspective of the post-Taliban post-9/11 context, America was able to change the focus on Iraq. From war reparations, sanctions, and the prevention of the redevelopment of Iraq’s military strength (which had been perceived as a regional threat till it was smashed in 1991) emphasis shifted to the threat from the Iraqi potential to deploy weapons of mass destruction, and concealed stores of chemical and biological weapons that terrorists could use.

A pacifist will never be able to endorse recourse to war. But a pacifist can see the rationale advanced by crusading militants in the case of the assault on Afghanistan and the installation of a government there. On the other hand, nothing can prove that Iraq has been liberated rather than invaded and that the right of the Iraqis to manage their own political affairs and wage their own democratic struggle has not been pre-empted.

That the coalition derives its authority from the force and terror of armed troops is as plain as the original dependence of the routed Baathist power on force and terror. What democratic freedom of choice is visible in the Iraqi people’s compliance with plans for administering their invaded land? In the Iraqi context, Messrs Bush and Blair sound like any martial despots whitewashing their regimes and their caretakers in the ‘guided’ transition to true democracy.

Purporting to bring democracy and freedom to the Iraqi people, and gift-wrapping the presentation in a confetti of bombs, the American and British governments made a mockery of those values. If the international media and its public goes along with the mislabelling of what is taking place in Iraq, those actually seeking democracy will need more than a new political vocabulary. If a doctrine that has rehabilitated war remains the gospel of the new millennium, the democratic-minded will no longer be able to look for continuing inspiration and guidance to those two great historical role-models at Westminster and Capitol Hill. The lesson they are currently offering is that democracy is practised at home; abroad it is verbal camouflage for the rampaging neo-colonialist in today’s unipolar world. America is showing itself as corrupted by absolute power, Britain as a sycophant of that power.

THE new-look Pakistan team has got newer and four changes were made from the squad that was chosen for Sharjah Cup and did well enough to win the tournament in a canter. On the face of it, this goes against the conventional wisdom of changing a winning squad.

I agree with Rashid Latif who has complained mildly that it might have been better to have worked with the same bunch of players who went to Sharjah. It is a good idea to rotate the players but not the squad. The sooner that we arrive at some sort of stability the better. I don’t think that Misbah-ul-Haq or Naved Latif of Rana Naveed-ul-Hasan did anything wrong to warrant being dropped. Mohammad Zahid, of course, did not play at all.

If there is a need for stability, there is also a need for consistency in selection. There is no need for stirring the pot constantly.

The election of Shoaib Akhtar seems to have stirred a hornet’s nest. There is no doubt that the cricket public was deeply disappointed that he failed to prove a match-winner in the World Cup. Indeed he proved to be a resounding flop.

But it not entirely Shoaib’s fault that so much hype was created around him. He is a bit of a showman and a loud-mouth but there is no doubt that he is a damn good fast bowler and we do not have so many riches that we can afford to dump him.

I see no objection to his selection. There is the perception that he is inclined to be a bit of a loose cannon. But one hopes that he has enough good sense to realize that he cannot be a law unto himself. A player has to understand that discipline is a matter of adjusting to a team regimen and it is in the interest of the players that discipline is imposed. The idea is to get the players to perform better.

Cricket at the highest level requires peak fitness. I don’t believe in ‘curfews’ and other forms of conformity but I believe that when a player boards the team bus to go to the ground, he must be fit.

There is something sad about the way players like Wasim Akram, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Saeed Anwar and Waqar Younis have been dumped, though they have been given a post-dated cheque, the promise that they will be considered if they perform well in domestic cricket. At the same time, every player, however great, has to ultimately call it a day.

I read an interview of Hanif Mohammad recently in which he recalls, with some bitterness, the unceremonious way he was removed from the team. Hanif had been the bed-rock of the Pakistan team. He had led Pakistan on the tour of England in 1967 and had scored a magnificent century at Lord’s. In show business parlance that tour should have been his final curtain-call. It would have been a grand finale to a distinguished career. But he stuck around.

It’s a tough decision. A good poker player quits when he is ahead. But that is something tangible. A sportsman does not know that his best days are behind him. It is true of all games and also true of cricket. We need to set a tradition of honouring players who have served the country with such distinction.

Cricket has become an industry and there are some jobs available for ex-cricketers. But a player must first of all decide to answer that final curtain-call.

South Africa made short work of Bangladesh and Bangladesh came perilously close to being bowled out twice in one day. Dave Whatmore is going to be the new Bangladesh coach and whether he can turn around the fortunes of Bangladesh remains to be seen.

In the meanwhile, the West Indies are feeling the full fury of a seemingly invincible Australian team. The decision of Brian Lara to field first after winning the toss at Bridgetown remains a mystery as much as his state of health which too is shrouded in mystery.

Steve Waugh is not a demonstrative man and he did not betray any emotions when Lara decided to put the Australians in. Lesser men would have hurled their cap in the air and yelled “whoopie.” Australia went on to make 605 with Ricky Ponting scoring his third successive hundred and to rub salt in the wounds, Waugh weighed in with a century of his own.

The sacking of Carl Hooper was a mistake. I have always felt that Lara is not captain material. He is too much of an individualist and the West Indies are a difficult team. It is a young team and needed a father-figure as Frank Worrell and Clive Lloyd had been. The West Indies have always been a difficult team to beat at home but either it has gone to seed or the Australians are a powerhouse much in the way that the United States is the world’s sole superpower.

Sooner or later the ICC will have to come up with a system that divides the Test playing countries into two divisions with a promotion/relegation mechanism. There is now too much disparity in the relative strength of the Test teams with Australia at one end and Bangladesh at the other.

Some formula will have to be devised to decide which team belongs in which group. That seems to me to be the only way that Test cricket can be kept alive.

I will withhold comment, for the time being, on the efforts being made to revive cricketing ties between Pakistan and India. I don’t much favour the idea of playing at ‘neutral’ venues. It is not the venue that seems to be a problem. The Indian government insists on making it a political issue.