So the exiling of Khaleda Zia seems to be on its way. And it is likely that Sheikh Hasina will be unable to return. The minus-2 plan seems just about near to completion. This is going to have to be a quick, disjointed post - cause I have finals right now. [But Shamshir, you say, your posts are always disjointed! True, true. I hear you.]

1. I have cautioned about the need for due process - even as far back as the beginning of the SOE government, when a lot of people were unreservedly cheering their every move under the doctrine of necessity [see the Daily Star from that time]. I could harp on it again - but that would be no fun, and I would be adding nothing new to the discussion. I have to say, though, that it’s good to see more people talking about due process. Whatever the next few days/months/years hold for us, these conversations are important to have in our communities. It suffices to say that I suspect many of the people shedding tears for due process would not be so averse to the way things are happening had the results not been so adverse to their political preferences. But people can hopefully see beyond that. The bigger proplem may be elsewhere. Note that due process is an empty phrase without an understanding of what it means, and why it should mean what it does. After all, it is possible that fair-weather pundits (and adda-fiers such as myself) think that only that much process is due as we would like there to be…  Our considerations of due process require a deeper and broader analysis that I have seen. Perhaps I will get a chance to write on this more extensively this summer.

2. There’s a view that’s out there that says that because these politicians committed crimes, they have to be tried. I agree -in ideal moral circumstance they would have to be tried, and punishment received would be well-deserved in many well-documented cases. But that being said, I am not so sure that given the circumstances, exile is really such a bad option. It’s a low-cost option. On the one hand it avoids bloodshed. On the other, the uncertainties of a trial whose results could not be anything but political.  This last point probably requires some elaboration. How could they avoid politicizing the trial process? The judges have leanings. May be then, they should change the judges, you say - but how could that be achieved without laying the government open to charges of politicizing the trial by selecting their own judges? Besides, when Barrister XYZ goes up against some government prosecutor, I know who my money is going to be on… The system is totally messed up. It’s like OJ Simpson’s lawyers going up against the LA district attorney.

Prosecutors in the US face this kind of issue all the time. There’s costs to going to the system. One solution to the dilemma - and it has its critics, for very good reasons - is allowing prosecutors to cut plea bargains. If the SOE planners really cared deeply about the rule of law, and they were clever about things (and there the jury still is out on both questions, though we do have strong indications…) that’s what they’d do. They’d structure exile as a plea bargain: “You are exiled - it’s the punishment that the state and you have agreed upon for your admitted involvement in this, this and this. In return for your admission - and recognizing the constraints of our system - we’ve mutually agreed upon exile as punishment.” What you are getting out of it is two things. One, admission  of guilt - and admission of guilt that’s worth a lot more than half of the stuff that comes out of confessions in remand, which really is a euphemism for torture. And you more importantly, at least you are getting at least a semblance of transparency.  They way things stand right now, we can speculate why the SOE government is doing things the way that they are. But the SOE government was clear why it was coming in in the first place - because the system had been thrown so out of whack that an intervention was necessary and proper. But if the justification is really what it is, then it should be no problem for the SOE to say that it would have liked a trial, but a trial is impossible in the out-of-whack system (note the distinction here - the justification is not the circumstances, but the system itself which was the raison d’etre of the SOE government in the first place), and thus the most legal, most transparent way, most efficacious means available to them is a plea-bargain that involves exile. The SOE must realize that it can only maintain trust and a semblance of legitimacy when the populace feels that there’s some objective standard - rather than subjective ad hoc claims - that they can hold the SOE government accountable to.

3. I see people have pointed out that Mannan Bhuiyan and others in the BNP leadership are not making enough noise about the exile given what they owe to the party. It seems to me that they’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

4. It will be interesting to see what Sheikh Hasina does in the next few days. The question that she should be asking herself really is “What would my father do now?” Even Bangabandhu’s worst detractors and his assassins could never deny his personal fearlessness. I think Bangabandhu, faced with similar circumstances, would walk back to Bangladesh if necessary. But Bangabandhu could - even in the ebb of his popularity – always count on people rising up and sacrificing themselves to receive him if he did. Can Sheikh Hasina count on the same kind of support, and the same kind of moral authority?