Uncertainty over Gen. Ershad future

By Our Special Correspondent

DHAKA, AUG. 26. A fresh uncertainty hangs on the fate of the former Bangladesh President and Opposition Jatiya Party chief, Gen. H.M. Ershad, with the High Court on Thursday awarding him five-year simple imprisonment and a fine of taka 5.5 crores and 70,800 in a graft charge which automatically invalidated his current Parliament membership.

Now a key leader of the Begum Khaleda Zia-led four- party Opposition alliance, Mr. Ershad's imprisonment and fine followed his appeal against a lower court verdict in 1993 sentencing him to seven years imprisonment. The High Court also ordered the confiscation of the controversial multi-storeyed ``Janata Tower'' in Dhaka along with the land and asked the former army Chief of Staff to immediately surrender himself before the authorities and undergo the sentence.

Mr. Ershad, who ruled Bangladesh for nearly nine years after he took over power from President Mr. Justice Abdus Sattar in 1982 in a bloodless coup, served six years in jail following his forced ouster in a popular mass movement in 1990. That movement was spearheaded by both the present Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, and the former Prime Minister and present main opposition leader, Begum Khaleda Zia. Gen. Ershad was released on bail soon after Sheikh Hasina's Awami League came to power in June, 1996 as the condemned dictator supported her Government and was highly critical of Begum Khaleda Zia. He, however, turned against Sheikh Hasina soon and joined hands with Begum Khaleda Zia, in leading an opposition combine to dislodge Sheikh Hasina from power.

Gen. Ershad soon turned an active Opposition leader with more than 30 MPs of his Jatiya Party, though almost half of his party MPs revolted against him and remained with the party secretary- general, Mr. Anwar Hossain Manjoo, who is the Communications Minister in the Sheikh Hasina's ``government of national consensus''.

For the last two years, the rightist and fundamentalist alliance of Begum Khaleda, Gen. Ershad, Mr. Golam Azam and Maulana Aziul Huq has been propagating that the Awami League is following the dictates of India and launched its one- point ``Oust-Hasina'' Movement. The movement has, however, remained unsuccessful as the Hasina Government entered the fifth and final year of its tenure without much problem.

The former general who chaired the military tribunal in Pakistan to try the Bengali military personnel for their participation in the Bangladesh's liberation war in 1971 has earned a corrupt image during his long tenure. The Begum Zia government had filed a dozen corruption cases against him and jailed him for nearly six years.

Eighteen others including his wife, Begum Raushan Ershad, also an MP, a former minister, Mr. Abdus Sattar, and a few other top officials were fined taka 10,000 each as associates in the offence of ``moral turpitude''.

The main charges in the case are that, while in power, Gen. Ershad had built the Janata Tower at a cost that was far beyond his lawful income. This is the first case where the High Court has convicted him upholding a lower court judgment though several other cases including corruption and murder charges were pending before the courts.

Meanwhile, Begum Khaleda Zia called on Gen. Ershad at his residence last night, for the first time after 1982, when her husband, President Gen. Ziaur Rahman, was assassinated in an abortive coup. Forgetting the past, the two decided to fight the next general election unitedly against the Awami League. Though the alliance kept silent on the court verdict, the decision was a broad indication that the opposition alliance is going to back Gen. Ershad in the coming `difficult' days.

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Section  : International
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