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Editorial

Eruption of violence didn't look grievance-centred

Find out behind-the-scenes players and take genuine worker representatives on board
31 July 2010, 18:00 PM
EDITORIAL
WE are appalled at the unprecedented violence which ravaged parts of the capital on Friday. On the face of it, it was garments workers who seemed to be protesting against the new wage structure announced earlier. However, the rampage into which the protest degenerated showed clearly that the protests were anything but grievance-centred. The mayhem that was conducted in Gulshan and Banani was clearly aimed at causing maximum damage. It is something that is unacceptable and reprehensible. What is equally outrageous is that the police were nowhere to be seen during the first outbreak of violence. And when they did appear on the scene it was with belated action that really was ineffectual. We repeat here our feeling that the mob violence, as it appears from the way in which destruction was wrought in Gulshan and Banani, on Friday was well-orchestrated, clearly pre-meditated and in the end a reprehensible and scandalous occurrence. It must now be for the authorities to find out those responsible for it. The identities of those responsible as also of those who incited them to such violence and what their motive was must be exposed. It should be obvious to everyone that there was a deliberate design behind the violence, one that clearly has far-reaching implications. A new worry arising out of the violence is the patent insecurity and overall danger it placed the diplomatic zone in nearby Baridhara into. Mercifully, the zone stayed untouched and unscathed. Even so, if violence can occur so close to a sensitive area, we as a nation will be duly and properly concerned. We also think that there was absolute police intelligence failure on Friday. The police were totally unaware or were unprepared to tackle such violence in Gulshan-Banani and in fact were focused on possible violence taking place in Mirpur, the hub of the city's garments structure. An investigation is called for here as well, for when there is intelligence failure it is not only property but lives as well that are in danger. We have quite a few instances of the repercussions of such intelligence failure in our history. Moving on to the substantive matter of the wage structure announced for the garments sector, we find it surprising and utterly unacceptable that garments' representatives for the talks on the wage structure were chosen by the government. The clear, natural course ought to have been for the workers to elect their own representatives, who then would have been adequately focused on the issue and would have helped work out a better deal for their compatriots. The outcome would then have been more realistic and therefore acceptable to all. Another point of worry about the deal struck on Thursday is that the new wages are scheduled to take effect in November. There is a strong presumption, one that we agree with, that this stipulation was deliberately put in as a way of depriving garments workers of their coming Eid bonus under the new deal. By doing that, an opportunity for goodwill that could have been generated between management and workers, for the bridges that could have been built to strengthen the readymade garments sector has been lost. That is our regret.

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