14

Aug

U.S. Behind Her Ouster, Says  Hasina

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Syed Khalique Ahmed

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New Delhi | Wednesday | 14 August 2024

The ousted president of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina Wajed has claimed that the US was behind her ouster.

She made these claims to some of her close political friends in New Delhi after she left Bangladesh and took refuge in New Delhi.

Hasina claimed that she could have continued in power had she agreed to the US demand to transfer St Martin Island.

She allegedly told her contacts that she wanted to share this with her countrymen before fleeing Bangladesh. However, she was not allowed by the Army. According to media reports, Army chief Waker-uz-Zaman asked her to leave the country within 45 minutes on August 5 when she asked to make an address to the nation.

Media Reports from Bangladesh say that students and youths in large numbers were on the march towards her official residence in Dhaka and it was difficult for the Army to stop them. Reports also say that the Army chief held a meeting with his junior commanders on the situation who refused to order firing on the protesters. This made the Bangladesh Army chief ask Hasina, who is related to him through his wife, to leave Bangladesh and take refuge in a neighbouring country.

 

Article at a Glance
Former Bangladesh President Sheikh Hasina Wajed has claimed that the US was involved in her ouster, alleging that she was asked to transfer St. Martin Island to the US.
Hasina, who has taken refuge in New Delhi, claims she could have remained in power had she agreed to the demand. However, she refused due to plans to create a Christian country from contiguous areas of India, Myanmar, and Bangladesh.
Hasina also had a dictatorial attitude, crushing the opposition, jailing leaders, and limiting media freedom. This, along with the US demand, led to her unpopularity and eventual removal from power.

 

In an earlier statement, she made in Bangladesh a few months ago, she had alleged that a “White Man” approached her and demanded that the island be transferred to the US for setting up its air base. The “White Man” allegedly told Hasina that she would not face problems in the national elections in January 2024 if she accepted the US demand.

US wanted to form a Christian country out of contiguous areas of India, Myanmar and Bangladesh: Hasina

However, she flatly refused to surrender to the US demand. At a public programme in Bangladesh soon after the January elections this year, she disclosed that she refused to accept the US wishes because the US planned to carve out a Christian country out of Christian majority areas from Bangladesh, Myanmar, and India that were contiguous to each other and had sizeable Christian population. She stated that it was on the same pattern that East Timor with 98 percent of Catholic Christians was carved out of Indonesia in 1999.

There may have been several reasons for Hasina to refuse the demand of the US. She may have been under pressure from China and India to not give the island to the US. While China would not like the US to set up its military base near its boundaries due to strategic reasons owing to intense political and military rivalry between the two powers, India would also not have agreed to Bangladesh allowing the US to establish its air base near the Northeastern states that face insurgency from Christians in Nagaland and other nearby states for several decades.

India alleges that Kuki-Zo tribal communities located in hilly areas of Manipur are getting regular supplies of arms and ammunition from their co-religionists in Myanmar and that is one of the reasons for the continuing violence in the border state. Manipur is located on the Myanmar border. If Hasina is to believe in her allegations that the US plans to form a Christian-majority country by carving out areas from Bangladesh, India, and Myanmar, then no Indian leader would be happy with Bangladesh handing over the strategic island to the US.

Dictatorial attitude of Hasina

While her refusal to accept the US demand could be one of the reasons for a foreign country to intervene in the internal affairs of Bangladesh that became the reason for her ouster, nobody can deny that she had become highly unpopular among the masses because of her dictatorial attitude about governance and did not tolerate dissent, the most important ingredient in a democracy.

She had crushed the Opposition leaders, hanged six top leaders of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami to death, put a large number of opposition figures behind bars for years together, curtailed media freedom, and allowed 30 per cent of reservation in government jobs for those who had taken part in the 1971 liberation war of Bangladesh most of whom were Awami League leaders and workers. 

There are also allegations of the “forced disappearance” of more than 600 opposition leaders, including many from the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and the extra-judicial execution of opposition party leaders and workers. The reservation was considered an appeasement to Awami League workers and their families who were all supporters of Hasina. The student community strongly opposed it because of unemployment. Moreover, if 30 per cent of the posts in the Army, police, and administration were filled with people belonging to one political party only, it would have been impossible to wrest the political power from the hands of Sheikh Hasina given the electoral malpractices during her regime in Bangladesh, particularly in 2014, 2019 and 2024. This all added to the anger of the people against the Hasina government and that precipitated the crisis for her.

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