The recovery of a stupendous amount of ill-gotten wealth from top government officials enjoying unchecked power and privileges underscores the truth of Acton's observation across space and time.

The leaders of BNP and AL, and their relatives, appointees and assorted henchmen, are guilty of unprecedented plundering of national wealth and betrayal of public trust. These are not petty criminals; they constitute the Bangladeshi mafia who have brought shame and disgrace to a nation born after the sacrifices of millions.

Bangladesh is at a momentous crossroads now. Without a governmental infrastructure of checks and balances, that transcends the superficial trappings of democracy, there will be more looting and lawlessness, and there will be no end to the sufferings of the majority of the population.

How can checks and balances be introduced into a system so ridden with nepotism, greed and lust for power? Three suggestions, out of many, follow:

First, the caretaker government has to deliver on what it has promised: it must ruthlessly root out corruption. It must prioritise its effort by starting at the leadership of both BNP and AL, as it is currently doing, going down perhaps by three levels of hierarchy to keep the situation manageable, and sparing no one if found guilty.

In spite of the mistakes it has made, for example, turning leaders into martyrs even if for a short while, it still has the upper hand in steering the country toward the right direction because of the overall support of the people.

Only when the Bangladeshis see that exemplary punishment has been meted out to those who betrayed and defrauded them, and turned the country into their personal fiefdoms, can their confidence be regained. Besides, nothing can convince minions and functionaries to straighten out their acts faster than evidence of tough justice.

Second, accountability of public officials has to become an ever-present reality. The most important instrument for realising this is a free and fearless media. It is the media that can help ensure that the government conducts its business transparently, and that any wrong-doing will be relentlessly pursued and exposed. This can exact a toll. Reporters may mysteriously "vanish," or be compromised by their personal failings.

They may languish in jails or lose their livelihood. But that is the nature of their job, and as long as there is a core group of media professionals who remain focused on the truth a nation is unlikely to go awry.

Third, religion must not be misused for political ends. Most Bangladeshis are religious by instinct, but they wisely choose not to wear religion on their sleeves. The minority of the clergy who think that they are the custodians of people's spirituality live in a fool's paradise. The only way to undermine their authority is not to be swayed by their extremist rhetoric but to follow a middle path, as the Quran and other holy texts advise.

In decrying the rise of the military-industrial complex, American president Dwight D. Eisenhower once said in 1953: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children ..."

Eisenhower got only half the story right. As Bangladeshis watch in horror the daily revelations of the plundering of the nation's wealth by the likes of Tarique and Arafat Rahman, Lutfuzzaman Babar, Osman Gani, Sheikh Selim and others, we realise that it is not only the arms merchants who snatch food from the mouths of hungry infants and poor peasants but also immoral and unscrupulous politicians, public officials and godfathers.

Babar's crores, in the final sense, came at the expense of millions of poor families throughout Bangladesh struggling to eke out a living on uncertain and paltry incomes. Clear-cutting of old-growth forest in places like the Hill Tracts and the Sundarban Delta that yielded Gani his crores surely came at the expense of millions of farmers who lost their homes and livelihood to surging rivers.

And the wealth of Tarique and Arafat Rahman? How many helpless Bangladeshis did it come at the expense of? It beggars the imagination.

Checks and balances achieved through sound institutional practices, aided by an ever-vigilant press and an informed citizenry not swayed by emotion or dogma but by reason -- if these and similar traits seep into the collective consciousness of Bangladeshis, perhaps the long national nightmare will indeed soon be over.

Hassan Zillur Rahman is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.