The Coup in Bangladesh

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ASCENDANCY

And when the British and the old Unionist leaders are no longer prepared to defend his ascendancy over the Catholics, the protestant worker will hardly turn to the NILP. Instead he will turn to the leaders of the petty bourgeois revolt within Unionism, the Paisleys and the Craigs. The only basis for principled unity with the protestants is an anti-imperialist one.

That the protestant working class is a considerable distance from an anti-imperialist position is very clear. On 22nd August Glen Barr (whose trade union credentials are impeccable) led a delegation of loyalists to protest to the Minister of State, Orme, at excessive policing of loyalist areas.

What really upsets "trade unionist" Barr and his loyalists is that even on a temporary basis the policing has reduced the number of catholics who are fleeing their homes, consequently reducing the number of houses that are becoming vacant for protestants without homes, or wishing to move into a more respectable area.

Ang policy: to homes In South-east olics were driven from were first given to protestant old age pensioners, then other 'needy cases'. And finally protestants from all over the Province were invited to apply. Needless to say, the prestige of an organisation that could offer a centrally heated flat for £1.50 a week rose considerably. On the White Abbey estate the number of catholics fell from 8,000 to 3,000 and is still falling. The Stella Maris catholic primary school on the edge di Rathcoo had 1,000 pupiis in 1969. It will begin its new term with only 190.

In the South the coalition government, fearful that the British army might pull out and that loyalist pogroms would engulf them in civil war, arrested Provisional leader David O'Connell in the hope that this would drive the IRA to abanThe coalition government is finding that the nightmare it feared has come to pass. The economic recession is already driving the southern working class into revolt and the government is having to face them with the northern conflict still unresolved. Its weakness is underlined by its acceptance of the trade union demand for indexation, a 1% rise in wages for every 1% rise in inflation. The employers urged the governemnt to reject this demand. But it felt too weak to do SO.

COALITION

Now the coalition is drifting apart as Fine Gael members call for a wage freeze while the Labour Party would prefer, like the British Labour government, the cowardly fiction of "fining employers" '. In this situation the conditions are increasingly fertile for advancing the demand for a sliding scale of wages drawn up by trade union committees.

Not only are attempts to challenge British policy being made in Dublin. The old historic allies of Ulster Unionism, the British army and the Tory Party show reluctance to follow Rees' strategy and trust the guardianship of imperialist interests to lan Paisley and the Convention leaders.

So, having toppled one reforming unionist government after another, the Paisleyites find that the road to power is being checked by Unionism's old allies who would keep the North East under direct Westminster administration rather than tolerate a plebian takeover. The ceasefire has served both the Provisionals' need to replenish as well as Rees' need to create the conditions for the legal fiction of a Convention debate and report. Only the SDLP took it seriously and got nothing for its pains. Rees and the British government have manoeuvred themselves into exactly the position they wanted. Like the Asquith administration in 1912 they hoped to hide their connivance by allowing themselves to be pres ented with what they actually ordered: a loyalist declaration of independence.

Ahmed The military coup in Bangladesh involving the assassination of the President, Sheikh Muhjib, and the installation of his former minister of commerce, Moshtaq Ahmed, follows a period of intensifying famine and economic crisis.

The world economic crisis penetrates the economy of Bangladesh, as with all underdeveloped countries, in the form of increased import prices of industrial goods due to inflation in the Western industrial capitalist countries. Bangladesh is dependent on imports for nearly all industrial goods as well as basic food and grain items.

In addition, earnings from the main export, jute, have been falling. This stems from a fall-off in demand (due to the overall slump in world production) as well as from increased competition from cheaper synthetic fibres. So only 25% of Bangladesh's import costs are met by exports.

This means that over 80% of "foreign"aid" received by the coun try is immediately transmitted back Secondly, the virulently antithe donors to cover payments deficit.

The chronic state of the economy in Bangladesh also owes a lot to the long period of exploitation by the bourgeoisie of West Pakistan from 1948 up to the war of indep endence in 1971 when East Pakistar broke away to become Bangladesh.

In 1948 at the period of partition of India into India and Pakistan, East Pakistan produced virtually all the export earnings for the country as a whole, and was comparatively fertile agriculturally compared with West Pakistan.

By 1970 however the regional income of East Pakistan was 25% below that of West Pakistan. The bourgeoisie of West Pakistan had used the East as a protected market for high priced, badly produced goods from their factories sold at prices well above value, thereby transferring wealth from East to West.

ROOTS

The roots of the present political crisis also go back to the war of independence itself. Sheikh Muhjib, representing the weak bourgeoisie of East Pakistan, refused until the very last moment to break from the West - despite the suppression of the democratic constituent assembly by Bhutto and Yaya Khan in Karachi following the sweeping victory for Muhjib's Awami League Party in the 1970 elections.

When the question of the fight for independence became inevitable, Bangladesh was militarily totally unprepared. Muhjib had made no preparations despite pressure from the masses.

Meanwhile the Maoists, slavishly following Chinese foreign policy -which was for a 'united' Pakistan as a buffer against India - denounced the struggle for Bangladesh as "an imperialist plot". The result was an early victory for the West Pakistan military, supported by world imperialism, and the indep endence of Bangladesh was evenworld capitalist crisis. It can on be carried out by the worki class and peasantry united under revolutionary leadership. The Mu jib regime had nothing in comm with this.

UNREST Under pressure from growi mass unrest as famine and econon crisis worsened, the Muhjib regin moved to the right. The loc elections of November 1973 pro uced a popular backlash to Muhjil Awami League party from whir the traditionalist Moslem Leag benefitted. This precipitated t jailing by Muhjib of all effecti opposition leaders, the overturni of the democratic constitution December 14th 1972, and installation of a one party state.

The culmination of this proce was the abolition last month press freedom in which 18 Bangladesh's 22 daily newspape were banned and the remaind placed under government manag ment.

The assassination of Muhji carried out by young army office motivated mainly it seems by fac ional struggles within the milita and frustration of the increasir corruption of the regime, in I way offers any political alternati to the masses. This can be seen the way in which his success Ahmed and his backers are rumma ing around to try and find son basis to legitimise their takeover.

The return to Moslem trad ionalism emphasised in the fu few days after the coup has zo noticeably cooled off lest it produ a hostile reaction from India. The have been no signs of any maj changes in the economic policy the regime though politically seems that Muhjib's flirtations wil the Kremlin will be halted a there are signs of a more friend attitude from Karachi.

None of this in any way solv the starvation problems facing tl masses of Bangladesh for whom tl only way forward consists in ti building of a revolutionary par on the basis of a programme socialist nationalisation of land ar 1971 Liberation torces SOCIALIST PRESS