HARTALS - Troubled times ahead!

Hartals are a regular occurance in Bangladesh, it happens when the government feel like there is no other way

to disfuse a situaton other than making either just Dhaka or the whole country on complete lockdown, this includes placing a curfew to stop people traveling to certain areas at night.

But this one hartal was a little frightening, the hartal was placed for a few months on and off, it saw the deaths and injury of many people, the majority of the people who were getting killed were ordinary citizens with petrol bombs, so why did this happen?

The reason why such horrible events happened is because the two women who are on top of the food chain of Bangladesh politicians hated eachother, Hasina who is the Awami League leader was apparently not suppose to be in power, there were rumours that they had corrupted the voting system, this left the leader of the BNP Khaleda very angry, so Khaleda organised road blocks and hartals to cause problems for Hasina and her Awami league.

All around the city was fear, you didn't know where the next attack was going to be; buses full of people were targeted by random attacks of petrol bombs, now if you see the buses out here they are normally packed so full, they look like sardines in a tin; I

remember many when I was walking around Dhaka I could here some explosions going off now and again, when I walked from Gulshan 2 Circle back down towards Banani, an attack happened then which was frightening because if I had only been a minute behind I would of been caught up in the violence at the circle.

The expat community was unsure about the safety of the area, but whilst I was sitting in the BAGHA listening to other people conversations I just thought, they were not focusing the attacks on the foreign nationals here, but rather on their own people and who supported the other party.

Khaleda was blamed for the attacks to bring unstability to the country, attacks on politicians and the public, Khaleda was branded a 'terrorist' by Hasina; another insident that happened near the circle was the shooting of the politician from the Awami league, he was in his car when all for a sudden shots were fired into his car, not to kill him but to send a message to the Awami league, the politician crawled out of his car for safety after being shot in the legs, when no one was in the car they set it alight, that evening brought more unstability to the country.

For the next few months posters were put up around Dhaka, pictures of burnt people were their skin

was so black and scabby that you could not picture them as a human anymore, other pictures included people on fire; it was an unpleasant site to see but if it was to bring stability to the counry I am all for it.

One day most probably many lives were saved when a cricket game which Bangladesh won caused Khaleda to cancel the hartal and blockades for the day, just so people can celebrate the victory, it brought great joy, like a relief from the troubled violence that has brought Bangladesh to a standstill, the smiles on people faces, the children playing cricket in the local playing field, it was a fresh of breath air for the country, but the next day it was back again, more killing and more violence.

The blockades and curfews happened for a few months but in the end the hartal slowly died down, people were fed up being told to stay in all the time, eventually the people of Bangladesh including myself and the expat community slowly dwindled back into society which eventually brought the hartal to a halt, we didn't want to feel like prisoners in our own homes, it was causing an economical break down for the country so we basically all just carried on with our lives, the streets were full again and the restaurants were open for business.

Nowadays the hartals have been forgotten just like the others, but this was an experience for me, I have already been through many hartals but this one brought death in the most awful of ways; Khaleda will most probably have nothing against her even though she had many court cases against her, most of the time she never turned up for them and baracaded herself in her Gulshan office for weeks but one day she could be back to ruling the country.

I believe that Bangladesh needs a new start in the political system, for over a decade it has been a bitter competition between Khaleda and Hasina; Bangladesh needs a new, young, modern party that will bring the country forward in the future, because the way I see it right now, if these two old ladies are having a little dispute, it is not those two who pay for it but their people.