
Why is Al-Queida in Nepal?
Dr. Richard L. Benkin writes from USA
This is the final of three articles by Dr. Richard L. Benkin on the potential threat of an Islamist takeover in Bangladesh.
In late 2001, the
US military expelled Al-Qaeda forces from Afghanistan and destroyed the
terror group’s infrastructure and base of operations. When they
fled to Pakistan’s tribal belt, Pakistani forces loyal to strongman
General Pervez Musharaf disrupted their comfortable network of hiding
places there. While Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization
responded in part by de-centralizing, the group still needed a safe
base of operations. But with Afghanistan crawling with coalition
forces, Pakistan no longer a safe haven, and the US in the Middle East
with its eyes, at least, on Islamist Iran where might that be?
As early as 2004, a US embassy official in Kathmandu commented, “Al-Qaeda's
nest in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been destroyed. The birds are
looking for a new home,” and suggested that Nepal might be that
home. The official’s muses were based in part on a growing state
of turmoil in the tiny nation, which he believed made Nepal an easy
mark for the Islamists. When King Gyanendra seized absolute power on February 1, 2005,
things got even worse. He said he took the action in order to
defeat Maoist rebels whose violent insurgency had already claimed over
13,000 victims, but his action sparked a year of street clashes
involving a plethora of different groups from human rights activists to
leftists seeking to replace the monarchy with a communist
dictatorship. With
continuous street violence and the government fighting to maintain its
power base, border control was non-existent, and the warnings of that
US official seemed prophetic. On April 20, 2006, the king ceded the powers he grabbed; but by
early 2006, the Indian intelligence service reported that Al-Qaeda
terrorists were operating in several Nepalese towns. “Faced with
grave internal crisis, Nepal provides the kind of environment that
suits a terrorist outfit like the Al-Qaeda.”
Now what is particularly interesting about Al-Qaeda
setting up house in Nepal is the fact that Nepal is 89 percent Hindu
and most of the rest of its people are Buddhist. This hardly
qualifies Nepal as the next Islamic republic. Moreover, Al-Qaeda
first made its name fighting communists, and its own fundamental Islam
is diametrically opposed to Maoism’s enforced atheism.
Nepal is only a way station; the alliance with the left only a
temporary marriage of convenience. Continuing the line from
Afghanistan through the mountains of Pakistan, then
terrorist-controlled Kashmir and across the Indian-Chinese frontier
into Nepal; leads to Al-Qaeda’s real, Shangri La: the world’s third
largest Muslim country, Bangladesh.
Bangladesh
is uncomfortably conducive to an Islamist takeover. The country
is a democracy, consistent with the wishes and traditions of its
people, but the Islamists intend to use the democratic process to
assume power and then destroy it. (This is nothing new.
Adolph Hitler set the example by declaring his totalitarian
terror-state after securing power by manipulating Germany’s democracy
in 1933.) National elections are scheduled for January and while
Bangladesh Ambassador to the United States, Shamsher M. Chowdhury, hews
the government line that “the Islamists are weak,” facts predict a far
different outcome.
The
current government correctly touts figures that demonostrate it has had
some success in fighting poverty, but figures also show that the
country remains one of the poorest in the world. More
importantly, massive sections of the electorate experience ongoing
lives of economic privation. Infrastructure is inconsistent at
best even in the capital, primitive in many cases; and the nation
always finds itself judged as the first or second most corrupt country
in the world by every international survey. That same combination
of crushing poverty and endemic corruption helped propel Hamas to power
through elections in the Palestinian territories. It has also
powered Islamist gains in North Africa (Muslim brotherhood) and
elsewhere in the Muslim world. On top of that, Bangladeshi
Islamists have something their counterparts did not. They already are
part of the government, and they have become major power brokers in
determining whether the ruling Bangladesh National Party (BNP) or its
rival Bangladesh Awami League (BAL) will form the next
government. With national elections looming, the BNP’s
unwillingness to alienate the Islamists has fueled many government
decisions, something that several unnamed and highly placed Bangladeshi
officials have admitted privately on several occasions. Large
portions of the population remain unsatisfied with the performance of
both major parties, and current BNP-BAL squabbling over the upcoming
elections is eroding popular support for the major parties
further. Day by day, the Islamist option becomes more attractive
to voters. The 2006 Palestinian elections provided Al-Qaeda and
their allies with a blueprint for a bloodless takeover. When
existing political blocs and the government are tainted with corruption
and ineffectiveness, the Islamist brand of religious fundamentalistm
seems pristine, as does its rhetoric. Palestinian voters,
for example, chose to ignore Hamas’s anti-peace platform, choosing
instead to grasp at what they hoped was a lifeline to save them from a
corrupt and chaotic regime. Of course, their lives are far worse
for that choice, and it can only be hoped that Bangladeshis will not
repeat their mistake.
But
Bangladesh Islamists do not even have to command the largest number of
votes. A strong showing could give them sufficient power to
demand a major portfolio—and given their stated aim of replacing
current Bangladeshi law with Sharia (Muslim law), it is not out
of the question that they would demand the Law Ministry in exchange for
their support. A Muslim with extensive knowledge of the law,
explained the real significance of such a move. Implementing Sharia,
he said, does not require changing the law itself. It can be done
administratively by instructing judges and prosecutors that no specific
law can be enforced without first making sure it does not conflict with
Sharia. The Law Minister can do that. What would
that mean for Bangladesh’s religious minorities, all but the most
orthodox Muslims, and independent women—even the Prime Minister and
opposition leader?
Events
in May further strengthen suspicions of an Islamist takeover. The
post-violence search by the press, government officials, and the
“Bangladeshi street” for conspiracies might be a common knee-jerk
reaction there; but there is some substance to what one official called
“a
vested quarter at home and abroad planned the ransacking of garment
industries to create an anarchic situation,” as reported in Weekly Blitz.
Bangladeshis seem afraid to say whom that “vested quarter” with bases
both in Bangladesh and abroad might that be. But only the
Islamists (including their allies in the ruling coalition) satisfy the
domestic/international criterion and have a history of using
violence in Bangladesh to promote their agenda. They are also the
only force—at home and abroad—that benefits from the recent violence.
Last year, Bangladesh experienced a wave of terror bombings by Islamists intended to force the nation to implement Sharia
(Muslim law) as the law of the land. Regardless of the rationale
or the perpetrators, continued violence works against the sitting
government and opens the door for a force that claims to have “the
answer” to emerge. Radical Islam has been posed as the answer
openly elsewhere and less openly in Bangladesh. At first, some
people wondered if the recent violence was the beginning of a takeover
by a foreign power, through a state of emergency, or by leftists.
With the sudden stop in the violence, it is clear that was not the
case. That drop, preceded by a sudden eruption, follows the same
pattern taken by last fall’s terror attacks, which have not been
repeated since. If social unrest and violence erupts
periodically from now until the January elections, it would be
foolhardy not to look for Islamist hands behind it. And the
violence might allow them to achieve their goals by manipulating voter
sentiment
An
Islamist power grab in Bangladesh, while a distinct possibility, is not
inevitable. The country has been holding elections judged fair by
international monitors, and its leaders have made it clear that they see
their nation’s interest as lying in cooperation with the United States
to defeat radical Islam. Radical Islam, moreover, is inconsistent
with the Bangladeshi people’s traditional faith. And it should
not be forgotten that Bangladesh has substantial religious minorities,
especially Hindu. A takeover by radical Islamists could provoke
Indian intervention to save that population, or (open or clandestine)
action by China concerned about Islamist support for their counterparts
who have been fighting a terror war in China’s western provinces.
Perhaps
the best chance of preventing foreign Islamists from taking over
Bangladesh comes from cooperation with the United States. Trade
concessions, security cooperation, aid and technology all can help
improve the lives of ordinary Bangladeshis and turn their daily
experience of their government into positive one. Unfortunately,
when Bangladeshi Home Minister Lutfuzzamen Babar visits the US in June,
American leaders are more likely to focus on his government’s human
rights violations and their policy of appeasing Islamists. One of
their top agenda items will be the admittedly false sedition charges
against Blitz editor, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury.
Several members of Congress have been following the case for months and
have previously expressed their concerns over this attack on press
freedom and the brutal mistreatment of this man. Even though the
government has had insufficient evidence to proceed against Choudhury
more than two and a half years after charging him with the capital
offense; it has squandered the goodwill it was starting to build with
the Americans, even getting caught lying to US lawmakers. The
only rationale for such counterproductive decisions is fear of Islamist
reaction.
The
Islamists have made their intentions clear in words and actions.
In country after country and now in Bangladesh, they have not scrupled
about sacrificing innocent victims to advance their platform.
History has shown that it is best to take them at their word, something
that Bangladeshis experienced first hand last year with their wanton
murder of innocents in a string of terrorist bombings. We know
that they have been buying influence over the public through their
network of madrassas (schools), key positions at the nation’s
universities, major media (print and broadcast), and attaining
positions of influence among government workers and the police.
All of it has been building toward an electoral surprise in January
that would spell the end of Bangladeshi freedoms. And if
all of that planning and manipulation was not enough, they now have
established themselves in Nepal from where they can slowly infiltrate
foreigners to stuff the ballot boxes, as we say in the United States,
and add their illicit vote count to the Islamists. In Muslim
countries like Azerbaijan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Jordan, and
elsewhere, Islamist shock troops have been invading to force the
populations to accept their twisted interpretation of a great
religion. From Afghanistan to Pakistan to Kashmir to Nepal, they
are slithering closer to Bangladesh where they can join their brothers
who have been mixing distortions of truth (media and madrassas)
with their specialty, terror. If they make gains in January,
expect their terrorist brethren to make their presence felt in
Bangladesh with the intention of subverting Bangladeshi democracy.
What
is Al-Queida doing in Nepal? Waiting for their chance to pounce
on democratic Bangladesh. Continued appeasement by the BNP and
the BAL’s virtual hands-off policy toward them are both helping the
Islamists realize their dream of taking the world’s seventh largest
country.