Situation grim in Bangladesh: An Open Letter to Mohammad Yunus

First Post

3 days ago

On May 30, 2024, I published an article in Firstpost titled 'How Yunus's capitulation to foreign powers is wrecking Bangladesh's future'. In the article, I discussed how the 'student protests' that ultimately led to the ouster of Sheikh Hasina were orchestrated at the behest of US agencies working in tandem with Pakistan's ISI, and how Mohammad Yunus is able to protect neither the religious minorities nor the sovereignty of Bangladesh.
The Chief Advisor of the Government of Bangladesh took notice of my article, calling it 'highly controversial and propagandistic' and sought to provide a point-by-point rebuttal. While, I may humbly submit, the panicked and rushed-up nature of the response is little more than a slight admission of guilt, this further provides me an opportunity to delve deeper into the unholy nexus between the US Deep State, Pakistan's agencies and the Mohammad Yunus government. I gladly take up this opportunity to further explain how the Yunus government is working against the interests of the people of Bangladesh and undermining the values of democracy, free speech and free and fair elections.
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The Chief Advisor of the Government of Bangladesh, henceforth referred to as CAGoB for the sake of brevity, stated, 'The columnist went on to claim that the July-August movement in Bangladesh was not a genuine, grassroots uprising demanding justice, but rather a carefully orchestrated operation masterminded by the CIA, with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) acting as a willing collaborator. No evidence supports this claim, and on June 27, 2023, U.S. Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller explicitly rejected all such allegations regarding American intentions on Saint Martin's Island.'
The United States has denied any interference in the unrest in Bangladesh, with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre proudly announcing, 'So, we have had no involvement at all. Any reports or rumours that the United States government was involved in these events is simply, simply false. That is not true'. While I appreciate the sentiment, I am, at the same time, hard-pressed to find an instance where a nation creating civil and political unrest in a country would admit doing so on official platforms. By this benchmark, the United States, similarly, has had no role in the civil and political unrest in countries like Libya, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan either. One needs to go much further than the White House Press Secretary to try to find the skeletons in the closet.
Mike Benz, a US State Department official who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Communications and Information Technology from 2020 to 2021, explained that 'the US also sought to influence Bangladesh's political landscape, particularly in efforts to weaken Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government. He suggests that this was due to Bangladesh's growing economic and strategic partnership with China, which US policymakers viewed as a challenge to their regional influence.' According to leaked documents published by The Grayzone, US agencies, including the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), worked to 'destabilize Bangladesh's politics'.
He further explained how these strategies included recruiting activists, mobilising groups and using cultural and ethnic tensions to create divisions within society. One of the more unusual claims is that US taxpayer money was used to fund Bangladeshi rap music that was designed to promote anti-government sentiment. Benz suggested that these songs were strategically targeted at students and youth activists to encourage mass protests.
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The US interference in a nation's political and social system often comes in the garb of promoting 'democracy, inclusivity and freedom', but these words hold as much meaning in this context as the words 'democratic' and 'people's' in North Korea's official name, 'Democratic People's Republic of Korea'.
As per internal documents shared with Sunday Guardian, the plan to remove Sheikh Hasina as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh was set in motion in early 2019, and it became the latest victory for the US-based International Republican Institute (IRI). The Washington-based IRI's stated objective is to 'promote democracy through supporting democratic institutions, political parties, civil society, and electoral processes' and it serves as an implementing partner for USAID funded projects aimed at enhancing democratic governance. In March 2019, IRI, after receiving the grant for its activities from USAID and NED, started the process of execution of a program to bring about a regime change in Dhaka.
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Moreover, no discussion on the US interference in South Asia can be complete without mentioning the usual suspect, Pakistan. It is extremely curious that when Pakistan Army was committing genocide and mass rapes in Bangladesh, it was India that intervened and saved the life and liberty of the people, and today, a large section of misled and brainwashed youth in Bangladesh are rallying against India and supporting Pakistan, but that is a discussion for another time.
As per reports, the main architect behind the turmoil in Bangladesh that led to the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led government and left over 300 dead is believed to be the Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS), the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh. This organisation is believed to have deep connections with the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI and many of its cadres have also gone to Pakistan. There are reports that ISI members had joined the student movement by putting fake DPs of students and were engaged in instigating them on social media. The students of the Islami Chhatra Shibir got trapped in the clutches of ISI and the movement turned violent.
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There are also reports mentioning the influx of weaponry from Pakistan to Bangladesh to further inflame the unrest. And among those involved in the protests were also students of BRAC University in Dhaka, whose parent organisation, Bangladeshi NGO BRAC, is one of the world's largest non-profit set-ups. It has for long been funded by Soros's Open Society Foundations (OSF). OSF extended $10 million through BRAC in the name of helping displaced Rohingya people who had taken refuge in Bangladesh.
Coming to St. Martin Island, let's first understand its strategic importance and why the US has been eyeing it since the time of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman. St. Martin Island falls into Bangladesh's Exclusive Economic Zone, and a potential military base on this island would provide any country with oversight of the Bay of Bengal. An article titled 'Mujib Refused to Allow U.S. Base in Bay of Bengal,' published in the Organiser on September 25, 1971, revealed that the United States had been attempting to secure a strategic military foothold in the Bay of Bengal for a long time.
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This shows that the tale of the United States seeking a military base on that island is quite old. Therefore, when today, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina alleges that the United States has played a role in her ouster from power because she refused to allow the establishment of a US Air Force base on St Martin's Island, one does not need to be a Nobel laureate to connect the dots.
But yes, you need to be a Nobel laureate to convince people that the protests that instated you as the de-facto head of the state were 'a spontaneous outpouring of anger by students and ordinary citizens against Sheikh Hasina's brutal, authoritarian rule, which had suppressed democracy and led to widespread violence.'
Now, the question arises, why Muhammad Yunus? The answer is not that complicated. Yunus has been close to USAID and organisations like Ford Foundation for years, where Ford Foundation is already under the scanner of Indian investigating agencies for allegedly pumping up anti-India sentiment. Back in 2013, Yunus and USAID Administrator signed an MOU in a high-level ceremony to work in collaboration and, it was indeed very heartwarming to find out that the headquarters of Ford Foundation in New York has dedicated to Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus.
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It is also extremely interesting to note that the Chief Advisor to the Government of Bangladesh is calling Sheikh Hasina a dictator, but is imprisoning journalists, banning the opposition Awami League Party and perennially postponing elections. If that is not the textbook definition of fascism and dictatorship, then what is? More interestingly, the US agencies promoting 'democracy' and 'freedom of speech' are nowhere to be seen when opposition parties are being banned under anti-terrorism law and 640 journalists are being jailed within a few months.
And the less said about the state of religious minorities in Bangladesh, the better. Yunus did not facilitate the anti-Hindu riots but wasn't able to quell the chaos for a long time either. If you claim that after 2,200 attacks on the Hindu minority, you still 'acted decisively to contain communal unrest' in time, then I have nothing more to add on this. Also, as I mentioned in my column dated August 25, 2024, 'One has to be bafflingly ignorant to buy the story of job quotas and student protests for two broad reasons: One, Bangladesh's top court had already rolled back most of the controversial job quotas by July 20, a full 15 days before the Sheikh Hasina ouster. Second, why would a student protest categorically be hostile to the country's non-Muslim minorities? Soon enough, the cat was out of the bag. Rolling back the controversial job quotas did nothing to quell the protests; if anything, they were further intensified.'
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Even after refuting every single claim by the Chief Advisor of the Government of Bangladesh, I am still forced to admit that the most bizarre statement in that hasty reply to my article was: 'Omer Ghazi's article merely echoes the defeated Awami League's narrative, reflecting a well-coordinated campaign across social and international media to undermine Bangladesh and the interim government'. Well, the interim government, yes, but, Bangladesh, no. In fact, it is quite the contrary. India has always stood up for the people of Bangladesh and vice versa, and this equation goes back to the very conception of the state of Bangladesh.
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, India has always had a warm relation with its neighbouring country, something that India is still aiming for. However, India is alarmed by the anti-democratic nature of the interim government of Bangladesh and is closely monitoring the situation on ground. Through this open letter, I wish to make this humble appeal that if the Chief Advisor of the Government of Bangladesh is really meaning to work for the betterment of people of Bangladesh, he should stop fact-checking articles on the Internet and rather work on freeing the imprisoned journalists, imprisoning the radicals and rioters, lifting the ban from Awami League party and conducting free and fair elections without delay.
The writer takes special interest in history, culture and geopolitics. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost's views.