Local Bangladeshi Community Divided

The Bangladeshi community in Queens has been divided politically after recent terrorist attacks in their homeland.
Immigrant members of Awami League, the leading opposition party in Bangladesh, held several meetings in Jackson Heights and in Brooklyn and the Bronx over the last few weeks to condemn a January 27 grenade attack that killed a former finance minister and an August 2004 assassination attempt on the country’s former prime minister and Awami leader.
Awami immigrants blamed the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), the governing political party, for not aggressively investigating the two attacks.
“Not one person has been arrested,” said Syed M. Ullah, a former editor of Probashi, a now-defunct New York City Bangladeshi newspaper. “There is not a single report of a single person being interrogated as a suspect.”
Ullah, who helped organize some of the meetings, blamed the attack and a string of others on Islamist Fundamentalists in Bangladesh, who, he said, have metastasized under the BNP’s governing coalition.
In response to the meetings, pro-BNP immigrants held a press conference two weeks ago in Astoria, urging the city’s Bangladesh community to hold off judgment until an investigation, assisted by the FBI, could be conducted.
“To say that the government didn’t do enough is almost foolish,” said Abdul Shamrat, the press conference organizer and an MTA software engineer. While condemning the attacks, Shamrat joined by Giash Ahmed, a well-known Bangladeshi leader who has run for state office in Jackson Heights, said Awami spun the attacks for its political advantage. “We thought it was important to explain to immigrants living under the wrong impression,” Shamrat said.
Though most Bangladeshi living in the city do not get involved in local politics, immigrant leaders said they maintain strong interest in their homeland’s happenings. Most who live in the city fought for independence from Pakistan in 1971 and then lived through coups and military dictatorships.
In 1991 the country’s military dictator, General Hussein Ershad, was arrested, and new elections were held. Since then BNP and Awami League have competed for government control. Both sides have suspected the other of election rigging and assassination attempts.
The parties have butted heads over domestic and foreign issues. Awami, the party that led to Bangladesh’s independence, is secular and supports relations with India. BNP, which won control of the government in 2001 elections, is conservative. Though BNP is not an Islamic party, its partner in its governing coalition, Jamaat-e-Islami, a pro-Pakistan party, is. Awami members believe Jamaat-e-Islami’s influence has prevented an adequate investigation of the recent attacks.
Support for BNP and Awami parties among immigrants is relatively even, according to community leaders.
“Most of us have their closest dearest ones still back home,” Shamrat said, explaining his fellow immigrants’ attachment to Bangladeshi politics. “The situation that prevails back home matters. If the law is not good, if it is in the hands of the bad government, then there is reason to worry.”
James Fanelli is a freelance writer.