Protesters in Dhaka climbed atop a large statue of 1971 independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who was killed in a military coup four years later in 1975, and began hitting at the head with an axe, just as his daughter Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country, escaping the possible fate of her father.
Bangladesh has been engulfed by protests and violence that began last month after student groups demanded the scrapping of a controversial quota system in government jobs. That escalated into a campaign to seek the ouster of Hasina, who won a fourth straight term in January in an election boycotted by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which later called the elections a sham. However, foreign observers, including those from the US, Canada, Russia, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and the Arab Parliament, have termed the just-concluded general elections in Bangladesh as free, fair, and peaceful. But a US state department official said the elections were not free or fair.
Bangladesh Army has announced it will form an interim government.
Many will see a US hand behind the coup as Hasina had troubled relations with the US for the past few years. Just two months ago, after she had returned to power, Hasina made shocking claims that a White country was hatching a conspiracy against her.
Months after winning elections and securing a fifth straight term for her government, Hasina claimed in May that she was offered a hassle-free re-election in the January 7 polls if she allowed a foreign country to build an air base inside the country. “If I allowed a certain country to build an air base in Bangladesh, then I would have had no problem,” Daily Star Bangladesh had quoted Hasina as saying.
She, however, did not name the country that had made the offer to her but emphasised that the “offer came from a White man”. “It may appear that it is aimed at only one country, but it is not. I know where else they intend to go,” she said, adding that this is why her Awami League party-led govt is always in trouble. “There will be more trouble. But don’t worry about it,” she said.
When asked about her response to the offer, the PM said she made the same reply as she did in 2001 when the US offered to sell the country’s gas to India. “I’ve clearly said that I’m the daughter of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. . . we won our Liberation War, I don’t want to come to power by renting part of the country or handing it over to some other country and I don’t need power,” she said. The premier said she would only stay in office if the people wanted.
Hasina said she was fighting a battle everywhere, both at home and abroad, and the “conspiracies are still on” to carve a new country out of Bangladesh. “Like East Timor…they will carve out a Christian country, taking parts of Bangladesh (Chattogram) and Myanmar with a base in the Bay of Bengal,” Hasina said without giving details. She said conspiracies were being hatched to topple her govt and that she might have to face the same consequences her father…, Daily Star had reported.
Hasina’s troubled relations with the US
Many thought Hasina was talking of the US because she has had troubled relations with it for quite some time. The US, the biggest buyer of Bangladesh’s exports, had become more vocal in its calls for a free and fair election, imposing visa curbs on members of Hasina’s ruling party and law enforcement officials in September.
“The US applied so much pressure on Bangladesh for free and fair elections, through both carrots and sticks, and for so long, yet to no avail,” Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Washington-based Wilson Centre, had told Bloomberg in January. “Consequently, there is a possibility that the administration could respond post-election with harsher steps.” Those measures could be “punitive actions in the space that would hurt Bangladesh the most,” which is trade, he added.
Two months ago, the US imposed sanctions on a former Bangladesh army chief, General (Retd) Aziz Ahmed, over his alleged involvement in corruption, claiming his actions have contributed to the undermining of country’s democratic institutions and the people’s faith in public institutions and processes.
Last year in November, there were reports in Dhaka that politicians from the ruling party allegedly threatened the US Ambassador Peter Haas regarding his perceived interference in the elections. However, the State Minister denied these allegations, asserting confidence in the country’s ability to provide adequate security for foreign guests like the ambassador.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson had claimed that US ambassador to Bangladesh and a high-ranking representative of the local opposition discussed plans to organise mass anti-government protests in the country during the meeting. The spokesperson said the action of the US ambassador to Bangladesh could be seen as nothing less than gross interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state on the part of “Washington and its satellites”. Washington accused Moscow of making ” deliberate mischaracterisation” of its foreign policy. (ET)
