Interim govt must amend Constitution in rapport with parties

The Interim government was urged on Saturday to prepare a constitutional framework for restoration of democracy with elections under an unanimous system of elections under a caretaker government.

Making this call at a roundtable on expectation from the Interim Government, leaders of the Jatiya Rashtrachinta Parishad, an organisation of political scientists, said nothing can be done by keeping the Constitution intact.

Some of the political scientists suggested that the present Constitution should be scrapped to frame a new one, others said the experience with scrapping a Constitution was not rosy in the past and instead the present one must be amended to keep the unanimous part including the 12th and 13th amendments by deleting the remaining amendments. This could be done through the promulgation of Amendment Ordinances in consultation with the political parties, to be passed in the next Parliament to be elected.

Emotions ran high as the speakers spoke on the supreme sacrifices made by students and people plus the sufferings the people went allthrough the 17 years of misrule that saw abduction, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial and targeted killings.

Perpetrators of the crimes that included sabotaging the democratic fabric of the society through destruction of all institutions including the executive, the legislature, the judiciary and the electoral system plus unbriddled corruption that plagued the economy and its pillars like the banking system and the share market and plunder of hundreds of billions of dollars should be given exemplary punishment, they said.

Prof. Abdul Latif Masum, president of Rashtrachinta Parishad, presided over the roundtable while its general secretary Prof. 

Dilroushan Jinnat Ara Nazneen made an introductory statement. 

Prof. Nazneen said the people of Bangladesh looked forward to a society free from exploitation. Welcoming the victory of the student movement she said, all misdeeds of the authoritarian regime should be brought to justice and the system of election under caretaker government restored.

The function was also addressed by ABM Niazuddin, Ziaul Kabir Suman, Abdur Rahman, Dr. Mizanur Rahman, Kazi Mahbubur Rahman, Syed Jahangir Alam, Mayor of Dinajpur, Fakhrul Islam of Islamic University, Zakir Hossain of Asian University, Tarek Fazal, RU, Ziaul Hasan, security analyst, Prof. Shafiqul Islam, Chittagong University, Mostafa Kamal Majumder former editor of The New Nation, Khuda Baksh Chowdhury, former Inpector Genetal of Police, and Motahar Hossain, former secretary to the govertment. 

In his presidential speech Prof. Abdul Latif Masum said the August 5 revolution was achieved at the cost of a sea of blood. He lamented that in last 50 years the people of bangladesh moved from crisis to crisis as politicians have not succeeded to master art of steering clear of crises by making consessions and adjusting to changes and required the military to intervene at all junctures beginning in 1958. On all occasions since then situations for military intervention were created by politicians. Nationalists or Islamists were no less responsible, he said.

The autocratic forces used the techinques of banking on religion to win over the people and then resorted to killings to subdue them. 

He said that there was no constituonal basis of the present interim government which is actually a revolutionary government under a constitutional facade. President Shahabuddin Ahmed procured a legal opinion from the Supreme Court in favour of forming this interim government.

To steer clear of the crisis, the last government need to be constitionally disbanded. Then there is the need for national unity. This homogenous nation has been divided time and again politically jeopardising its sovereignty. President Ziaur Rahman a military man with foresight succeeded to unite the people through the promotion of Bangladeshi nationalism. This unity should be cultivated by promoting a discrimination-free society, he added.