ISLAMIST GROUP OVERACHIEVER AMONG POLITICAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DHAKA 000211

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT PASS TO SCA/PB

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/11/2018
TAGS: PGOV PINR PREL BG
SUBJECT: ISLAMIST GROUP OVERACHIEVER AMONG POLITICAL
PARTIES IN SIDR RELIEF


Classified By: CDA a.i. Geeta Pasi. Reason: 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary: A recent USG interagency visit to southern
Bangladesh to assess Cyclone Sidr damage found the Islamist
political party Jamaat-e-Islami as active in providing relief
as the two main secular parties of Bangladesh, if not more
so. Jamaat has a multifaceted relief program that involves
handing out cash grants and teaming up with Islamic
non-governmental organizations to distribute basic
necessities. However, the scope of Jamaat's assistance pales
in comparison to the government's relief program and targets
primarily its own supporters, suggesting that the party's
local appeal is unlikely to receive a significant boost from
the cyclone response. End Summary.


2. (C) Jamaat is the main Islamist political party in
Bangladesh. Its leaders say the party is committed to
democracy and renounces terrorism. They say the party's top
goal is the social and economic development of Bangladesh and
the reduction of poverty, but they also acknowledge their
ultimate goal is to introduce sharia law and to otherwise
give Islam a more central role in national life. In the 2001
parliamentary elections Jamaat won 8 percent of the vote and
entered a ruling coalition with the much larger Bangladesh
Nationalist Party (BNP) as junior partner. The Awami League,
the country's other major secular party and fierce rival of
the BNP, has been behind a recent nationwide campaign to
discredit Jamaat by accusing its leaders of war crimes during
the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.


3. (SBU) In cyclone-devastated Patuakhali district, an
assessment team of Department of Defense, Department of State
and U.S. Agency for International Development personnel was
told repeatedly that local popular support for Jamaat in the
region lags behind the BNP and Awami League. Additionally,
all of the parties lag well behind the government in
providing emergency relief, largely because of Emergency Rule
restrictions on their activities and the anti-corruption
campaign that has caused many political leaders to adopt a
low profile. Among a crowd of about 75 people at a rice shop
in Kalapara town, for example, only a handful said they had
received any assistance from political parties. As we
traveled through Patuakhali and Barguna districts in early
February we typically met only a few people receiving aid
from the parties. Wherever the team went, however, we met
people who were receiving rice and home-rebuilding grants
from the government that, while modest, far outstripped
anything offered by the parties.


4. (SBU) Still, the team found many examples of Jamaat
providing aid, sometimes using its own resources and other
times teaming up with other Islamic groups. Fakhruddin Khan
Raji, vice president of Jamaat in Patuakhali district, said
the party had distributed 350,000 taka (about USD 5,000) in
funds to Sidr victims in the district. The interagency team
witnessed 50,000 taka (about USD 714) handed out at a
Kalapara madrassa on February 3 to 40 people who were
accepting on behalf of local mosques damaged in the storm. At
the same event, about 300 people crowded the school courtyard
to receive household goods and clothing donated by the Kuwait
Joint Relief Committee. In neighboring Barguna district, a
Jamaat cadre in Amtali upazila (county) said the party
distributed old clothes and blankets to Sidr victims. The
cadre, Mowlana Mustafizur Rahman, said that immediately after
the storm Jamaat central headquarters in Dhaka sent 10,000
taka (about USD 142) that was distributed to 100 hard hit
families in Amtali; another 45,000 taka (about USD 643) was
distributed to 15 families who lost their homes. Jamaat also
distributed beef from four cows donated by two Islamist NGOs
-- the World Assembly of Muslim Youth and Masjid Mission --
and slaughtered during the Eid holiday in December, a month
after the cyclone. He also showed the team a room filled with
2,500 pairs of new shoes donated from the NGO Islamic Aid to
be distributed to madrassa students and others by Jamaat.


5. (C) At the Kalapara madrassa distribution event,
Fakhruddin showed himself to be a practiced orator and an
imposing figure -- tall, burly and sporting a full,
immaculately trimmed black-and-red beard. Standing on the
madrassa porch overlooking the courtyard in a finely tailored
punjabi and wearing a tall "tupi" white cap favored by the

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religious, he spoke forcefully and gestured emphatically as
he urged the aid recipients not to become dependent on relief
and to return to farming as soon as possible. The team had
not expected to meet such a charismatic politician in a rural
area considered to be a backwater.


6. (SBU) Fakhruddin told us Jamaat has 245 cadres and about
800 mid-level "workers" in Patuakhali district, which has
about 1.5 million people. The cadres donate 5 percent of
their income to Jamaat and devote 90 hours a month to party
work; the workers tithe 2.5 percent of their income and
recruit people to attend Jamaat events. In total, Jamaat has
about 35,000 members in the district who are encouraged to
donate money, work for the party and read Jamaat literature.
Jamaat's student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibbir, also has a
presence on local campuses; it claimed about 50 members out
of 1,000-plus students at Mojaharuddin Biswas Degree College
in Kalapara, where we met Fakhruddin. The team met several
teachers who were Jamaat members at the many schools and
madrassas we visited in the area, but Fakhruddin was
insistent that the party did not provide funding to the
institutions. Instead, he said, Jamaat provides an
Islamic-content syllabus to supplement the
government-approved syllabus at several Patuakhali madrassas.
(Note: When the team visited one of those schools in
Mithaganj, the Jamaat superintendent said the material was
not available, perhaps believing it would harm his efforts to
seek USG aid in repairing his cyclone-damaged madrassa. End
Note.)


7. (C) Comment: Although Jamaat officials claim their cyclone
assistance in Patuakhali and Barguna districts were targeted
at anyone in need regardless of party loyalty, the relief
distribution we viewed appeared to exclusively support the
party faithful and local mosques, a natural constituency for
the Islamist party. Given the modest amounts of assistance
offered by Jamaat and the narrow scope of recipients, it
appears unlikely that the cyclone relief will afford Jamaat
an opportunity to expand its popularity. At best, the relief
effort may strengthen its ties to existing supporters and to
a number of high-profile Islamist NGOs that teamed up with
the party to distribute aid.
Pasi