Author:
Publication: The Times of India
Date: July 12, 2001
Bangladesh's ex-military dictator
Hussain Mohammad Ershad on Thursday joined forces with a rightwing Muslim
spiritual leader committed to Islamic rule.
Ershad and Syed Mohammed Fazlul
Karim, leader of the religious group Islami Jatiya Oikkya Front (IJOF),
pledged in a written statement to "establish Islam at state level to...restore
permanent peace and freedom to the people."
At a crowded press conference, Karim
said it was "a sin" to have women in top leadership, though he added they
could "work as co-operators."
"The leadership of (Opposition leader)
Khaleda Zia and (outgoing) Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed is totally
unacceptable," he said.
Ershad, who heads the Jatiya Party,
made Islam the state religion when he was in power in the 1980s.
He said he agreed with Karim's views
on women in politics and added his wife -- an MP who leads the Jatiya Party
faction in Parliament -- would have to wear a veil.
Ershad, 72, took power in a bloodless
coup in 1981 and ruled for nine years until he was ousted in a 1990 mass
pro-democracy campaign.
Last year he took the Jatiya Party
into a four-party Opposition alliance led by Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist
Party (BNP), but later quit. Before joining the Opposition he was briefly
allied to ruling Awami League Party.
The IJOF has criticised the five-year
rule of Sheikh Hasina's Awami League government, saying "its overall action
proved it stood against Islam." (AFP)