Assurances of safety and security

In the current war against terrorism, a standard practice among western countries is to fall into a failsafe mode to protect their citizens at the first sniff of a threat of terror. This includes operating all of their institutions, all modes of transport and other vulnerable areas in a maximum state of security within the country. Citizens are advised or even warned about travelling to countries considered vulnerable; some countries even issue bans on travelling to places that they consider risky. The US State department routinely publishes in its travel advisory a list of countries where citizens should exercise caution or even defer from visiting. Safety is so paramount that United Nations agencies and other international organisations take cue from US advisories on travel and restrict travels of their staff to countries considered unsafe.   

We may not like it, but Bangladesh has often been viewed by the foreign media as vulnerable to militancy. It started in 2002 when an article in the formerly published Far Eastern Economic Review accused Bangladesh of harbouring "fundamentalism, religious intolerance, militant Muslim groups with links to international terrorist groups". Although much of the contention in the article was based more on speculation than on documented facts, it first drew the attention of people to the potential of a  rise of religious militancy in Bangladesh. However, despite attempts by the then BNP-led government to debunk the hypothesis, more incidents in 2005, with synchronised bombing in 64 districts, and rise of a self-declared zealot (Bangla Bhai) in North Bengal with his band of jihadists, made Bangladesh even more of a target for western media interest. 

The self-declared jihadist and his band were later arrested, tried and hanged, but his actions proved the apprehension of foreign media about the potential for similar groups to thrive and operate in Bangladesh. In recent years, we may not have had the kind of militant activities that Bangla Bhai had once spawned, but in the last few years, our law enforcing agencies apprehended many individuals suspected of ties with cross-border militant organisations. They may not have unleashed a militant activity of the scale in Pakistan or India, but their existence and strong ties with other organisations did not go unnoticed in foreign media.   

The latest concern of our western partners is obviously not based on past media speculations of the potential threat of terrorism in Bangladesh, but rather on what has been happening in the country in the last six months. Four Bangladeshi citizens were brutally murdered, two in open public view, because they espoused a secular society and politics. None of these murder cases have been solved. Close on the heels of these tragic events came the killing of two foreign nationals in two separate cities in broad daylight. 

If I were a businessman operating in a city, the first sign for me to halt business operations is when I find the local goon(s) threatening the safety of my employees while I don't get any protection from law enforcement agencies. The situation gets worse for me when I hear that the goon is going around threatening others as well. In this context, will it be too shocking for us to find a country preventing its nationals to visit Bangladesh because it finds the country not secure enough?

Arguments have been put forward and are being bandied around that crimes happen in all parts of the world, even in the most secure cities. If people were to abandon travelling to a country because murders are reported, not many countries would have foreign citizens visiting them. The main problem with such arguments, however, is that in most countries, along with crimes there are adequate and very capable preventive mechanisms in place. People in most major cities of the world can move around safely because they have reliable and demonstrably efficient law enforcement forces to protect them. They can trust these forces. 

Our Home Minister and the Foreign Ministry have been trying relentlessly to assure foreign embassies in the country that their citizens will be accorded the highest level of security. They may be told that the recent killings are not linked to any militant organisation, and that Bangladesh will not tolerate the presence of any form of militancy in the country. All of this may be true, but how do we guarantee that similar killings will not happen in the next few weeks or months? How can we assure our development partners that the murder of four of our own nationals and the killing of two foreigners are not linked?

To be honest, no one in any country can guarantee that a murder will never occur in a particular place; even the most sophisticated or highly skilled law enforcement agency cannot do it. But what a skilful and adept law enforcement agency can guarantee is that no murder will go unpunished. It will secure the apprehension of anyone who commits such crimes and ensure that they are duly convicted. Our assurances will continue to sound empty unless the killers of the four bloggers and the two innocent foreign citizens are apprehended and demonstrably punished. Until then, the trust deficit between us and our foreign partners will remain a serious challenge. 

The writer is a political analyst and commentator.