Current Affairs
DIRTY PICTURE
The governments led by Hasina and Khaleda have failed to take concerted measures to ensure the betterment of workers. Photo: Star File
Ordinary Bangladeshis are remarkably magnanimous. Otherwise the political parties would have faced trouble while breaching their electoral promises. But the culture of breaching promises does not bring good for the people and country. The recent suspension of GSP facilities by the US is a glaring example of the disastrous consequences that the culture of breaching promises brings. The Obama administration did not suddenly suspend the GSP facilities for Bangladesh. The Bangladesh government has had around 23 years to take measures to retain the GSP facilities. And it is indeed interesting to note that the measures which were supposed to take by the Bangladesh government would have benefited not the US but its own workers working in the garment industries.
Back in 1990, the American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organisations filed a writ petition seeking withdrawal of GSP facilities for Bangladesh. Bangladesh had moved to negotiate to retain the GSP facilities. In return, the labour organisation had put some conditions asking Bangladesh to take measures to ensure rights of workers engaged in garment industries, increase of their wages, set up school and recreation centre at each factory etc.
Bangladesh government promised to gradually meet the conditions, after which the labour organisations withdrew their petitions.
None of the conditions was absurd. The Bangladesh government should have willingly taken measures to meet the conditions as all of them were aimed at giving benefits to workers who are also citizens of Bangladesh. The measures did not provide benefit to any foreign citizen. But unfortunately, the government could not deliver on the promises. So, after 17 years, the labour organisation filed another petition in 2007 seeking withdrawal of GSP facilities for Bangladesh. Bangladesh was again given some more time. But again it failed. And the collapse of Rana Plaza in April this year which killed more than 1000 garment workers has contributed a lot to the suspension of the GSP.
The suspension has damaged Bangladesh's image abroad. Finance Minister AMA Muhith and many other experts have said that the negative impact of the withdrawal might spread to other sectors and “there lie our apprehensions and fears”.
The suspension has exposed another dirty picture of Bangladeshi politics. The politics of trading blame is nothing new in the country. But what is shameful is the manner in which top politicians do not hesitate to trade blame even in a crisis moment. They do not know how to stand together for a national cause. On June 29, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Opposition Leader Khaleda Zia shrugged off their own responsibilities in retaining the facility and put the onus on each other.
Showing a copy of an article written earlier in the year by Khaleda in a US daily, Hasina said it was the BNP chairperson who had appealed to the US administration through the write-up to cancel GSP facilities for Bangladesh.
Khaleda, however, denied having written the article and accused the government of trying to blame the opposition for the failures of the government.
She also called upon US President Barack Obama to withdraw the decision on revoking GSP facilities. “It was the murder of Aminul and the Rana Plaza collapse that ushered in the decision of the GSP suspension. I would like to urge the government not to shift the blame for its failures onto others. Stop such propaganda at this critical stage,” Khaleda said.
Hasina, on the other hand, claimed that it was her government that had persistently succeeded in keeping the GSP facilities amidst repeated notices served by the US administration.
But the truth is, neither Hasina nor Khaleda can avoid the responsibility for the suspension of the GSP facilities as they have been running the country in turn for the last 23 years. The governments led by Hasina and Khaleda have failed to take concerted measures to ensure the betterment of workers.
However, the way PM Hasina blamed her rival Khaleda for the suspension has only reminded us of a funny culture in Bangladeshi politics: whenever a government faces trouble in the international arena, it blames the opposition to conceal its failure.
The way Hasina blamed Khaleda indicates the US has responded to Khaleda's write up published in the little known newspaper Washington Times and suspended the GSP facilities for Bangladesh for that perticular reason. If so, then Khaleda Zia being the opposition leader is much more powerful than Prime Minister Hasina!
The same thing had happened earlier when Khaleda was PM and Hasina was the opposition leader between 2001-2006. When the European Parliament had passed resolution criticising Khaleda-government's failure to uphold human rights and the political rights of the opposition, opposition leader Hasina and her party were blamed for it. As if Hasina was powerful enough to dictate the European Parliament.
Interestingly, this dirty blame game makes both Hasina and Khaleda, depending on who is in the opposition, leaders of a stature who can make the US and European Union do something.
The writer is Senior Reporter, The Daily Star.
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