Strike cripples Bangladesh

BANGLADESH: Bangladeshi police fired tear gas at protesters near the capital Dhaka Tuesday as a nationwide strike called by the main opposition party brought much of the country to a standstill.

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) activists attacked police as the strike shut schools, shops and brought crucial garment export shipments to a halt.

"BNP supporters threw bricks at police, injuring several officers. The bricks just kept raining down," said Alauddin Bhuiyan, district police chief of Narsingdi, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) outside of Dhaka.

"We fired tear gas and used baton charges to break up the protests," he said, adding that five BNP activists had been arrested.

Minor street battles between police, BNP and ruling Awami League activists were reported elsewhere.

The BNP is protesting against the eviction of its leader and former prime minister Khaleda Zia from her home two weeks ago, in a move they say was politically motivated.

On November 13, police entered Zia's house in Dhaka, forcing the 65-year-old widow of former military dictator Ziaur Rahman to flee.

Zia had lived in the home for nearly 40 years, but a string of court orders, culminating in a Supreme Court verdict on Monday, ruled her possession of the state-owned property was illegal.

The nationwide strike halted garment exports, which account for over 80 percent of Bangladesh's total exports, with no trucks arriving at the port city of Chittagong Tuesday, port secretary Farhad Uddin said.

Thousands of riot police were deployed Dhaka, with some sealing off the BNP headquarters to prevent party leaders from joining the protests.

Dozens of opposition BNP activists were arrested following arson attacks on cars and buses on the eve of the strike, deputy police commissioner Abdul Baten told AFP.

The BNP said more than 2,000 of its supporters had been arrested, in what BNP secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain called a police crackdown aimed at preventing "legitimate protest".

In a similar incident during her time as prime minister, from 2001 to 2006, Khaleda Zia cancelled a long-term lease on another, state-owned property that current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina lived in.

A struggle for power between the two women has dominated Bangladesh for decades.

Analysts say the highly charged events of the past couple of weeks could mark the start of a new round of confrontational politics, often played out in street violence, which has in the past hit Bangladesh's economy hard. Dhaka, Wednesday, AFP