DHAKA, March 10 (Xinhuanet) -- Both major political parties in Bangladesh have been equally active in using nation-wide hartals (destructive strike) as a means of protest, costing the country a staggering three to four percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually during the 1990s.

    This was revealed on Thursday in a report entitled "Beyond Hartals: Toward Democratic Dialogue in Bangladesh" launched here by resident mission of United Nations Development Program (UNDP) at a press briefing.

    The UNDP on the occasion also urge the ruling party and oppositions parties in the country to start dialogues instead of continuing the confrontational politics.

    The analysis of the data on hartals shows that between 1947 and2002 an estimated 1,172 hartals were observed in Bangladesh, while611 of them took place from 1995 to 2002 since the advent of democracy in the country, according to the report prepared by 11 Bangladeshi authors.

    Hartals were first used in South Asia in colonial period to overthrow occupying powers. "Historically the hartal culture has respectable roots in Ghandi's civil disobedience against colonialism", said the UNDP Resident Representative Jorgen Lissnerhere, adding but Bangladeshis are now masters in their own home, where a parliament and a relatively free media exist to express their ideas.

    When a nation-wide hartal is called by one of the major partiesin recent years, Bangladesh is forced to shut down. Markets and places of work stayed closed, transportation stay off the roads, and education institutions are also obstructed, then ordinary civilians are always hit hardest during hartals, said the report.

    On the international stage, the nation suffers from an image ofinstability as hartals frequently cause missed shipments and lost orders.

    In a globalized economy with fierce competition for investment capital and jobs, no country can afford continuous confrontationalpolitics, Lissner said.

    Nowadays, just under half of Bangladesh's people live below thepoverty line, said Lissner, adding if Bangladesh could end the hartal culture thus save the economic and social losses due to hartals, the nation could yield a development leap and aspire to match the outstanding progress being made by other countries in Asia.

    In contrast to the hartals based on unity of the whole nation against colonialism before the independence of the country, the hartals in recent years if called based on partisan reasons, always lost support by majority, thus led to "threatening", which means civilians were forced to carry out hartal, said chairperson of a private school Scholastica Yasmeen Morshed on Thursday at thebriefing.

    She also criticized the current trend to involve students into hartals, saying "students and children should not be made part of political activities of any kind."

    To gauge public opinion about the vicious spiral of "hartal culture" in this country, over 3,000 people from all walks of lifewere polled, and the results of the survey contained in the reportshows 95 percent of the surveyed believed that hartals damage the economy and society due to hampered business activies, lack of access to health and education facilities, damage to property and public building, as well as loss of income.

    The UNDP-sponsored report also makes some recommendations for moving "beyond the culture of hartal" and helping democracy to grow.It suggests reform of Parliament as well as the electoral andpolitical party systems by introducing measures like "opposition days/hours in Parliament" and ensuring the independence of the speaker. It also recommends that the government establish basic watchdog agencies such as the ombudsman, a human rights commissionand an effective anti-corruption commission.

    Finding effective alternative means of voicing opposition through normal channels like parliament is the key to stop the vicious circle to "over use" hartal in the country, said the report. Enditem