Several left-leaning political organisations, professional bodies and citizens on Saturday staged a protest rally in Chattogram against the government move to lease out different facilities of Chattogram port, including container terminals, to foreign companies.
The rally held at the city鈥檚 Agrabad intersection under the banner of Workers, students, professionals and citizens of Chattogram to save the port, called on port workers and employees to defy fear and take to the streets to resist the move.
Addressing the rally, Socialist Party of Bangladesh (Marxist) Chattogram district coordinator advocate Shafi Uddin Kabir Abid said that the attempt to compare Chattogram port with major foreign ports such as Singapore, Malaysia and Abu Dhabi was part of a conspiracy to justify the handover. The depth of water at Chattogram port is only nine metres, while in those ports it ranges from 17 to 25 metres. Those ports can handle 25 vessels at a time, whereas Chattogram can accommodate only five. So the comparison is misleading and intentional.
He said that even after 54 years of independence, the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) should be able to operate the port on its own. The port is a profitable institution, having earned Tk 2,500 crore in profit. Then why should it be handed over to foreigners in the name of increasing capacity? The port was closely linked with the country鈥檚 independence and sovereignty.
Presiding over the rally, Gonomukti Union president Raja Miah said that the move to hand over the New Mooring Container Terminal to Dubai-based DP World was first initiated by the ousted Awami League government led by fascist Sheikh Hasina. If her fascist regime has already fallen through a mass uprising, why is the present government continuing the same anti-national plan? The authorities must explain this.
Trade Union Centre president Khorshed Alam, Sramik-Karmachari Oikya Parishad (SKOP) joint coordinator Rizwanur Rahman, Port Nationalist Workers Party secretary Ibrahim Khokon, Democratic Students Council president Dhrubo Barua and Socialist Students Front city unit office secretary Laboni Akter also addressed the rally among others.
The rally expressed solidarity with the protest called by the Left Democratic Alliance and Anti-fascism Left Alliance in front of the shipping ministry in Dhaka on October 27, and with the hunger strike to be observed by SKOP in front of Chattogram Press Club on November 1.
