Country is burning

We are being asked this question over and over again by our friends and family. Are you safe there?
The answer is YES, so far we are. Is tomorrow going to be the same? And this time, the answer is: WE DON'T KNOW YET.


The fight for the future of Bangladesh is playing out in the streets. For a month, masses of moderate activists have camped at a Dhaka intersection demanding harsh punishment for those accused of crimes during the 1971 independence war from Pakistan. Meanwhile, the hardline Islamic opposition party that wants to install Shariah law have been attacking government buildings and setting fire to trains in a rampage that — along with a crackdown by security forces — has killed scores of  people. The party, Jamaat-e-islami, says the government is using a war crimes tribunal to decimate the party leadership, and claims it is in a fight for its very existence.


The protests for and against Jamaat, the main Islamist party in the country have convulsed Bangladeshi politics. It shows that the wounds of the bloody 1971 liberation war have still not healed. Most of estimates I have read internally estimate that three million people were killed and thousands of women were raped. Before the war, Bangladesh was East Pakistan, separated from the rest of that country by a wide expanse of India. The war pitted Bangladeshi separatists against Pakistani soldiers and local collaborators, who were known then as the Razakar Bahini. I will go deeper into the history in a latter post.

But for now, I am quoting from Jamaat's "To Do" List (from a message posted on Jamaat-Shibir's propaganda Facebook page)


1.      All train tracks have to uprooted at this moment.
2.      All launch terminals and bus terminals have to be disabled.
3.      Dhaka has to be isolated from all districts.
4.      All police stations have to be surrounded.
5.      The 'agent/traitor' media outlets have to be attacked.
6.      Images of the police's brutal firing and shooting have to published in the world media.
7.      All the embassies in the world have to be surrounded and resistance have to be built.
8.      Dhaka has to be besieged.
9.   The houses of all Ministers and MP's have to be burnt.

This is pretty disturbing , but so far, there has not been any violence directed toward foreigners, and we hope it stay the same. But everything else is getting affected and the country seems like is about to come to a halt.