Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 11: The deposed Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina has blamed the United States for plotting for her ouster and assured her supporters in the Awami League party that she would return to the country soon expressing pains at the targeted attacks on her party colleagues.
Ms Hasina had prepared a speech to address the nation, special the protesters, before resigning but had to quit the top job in a huff and flee the country in a hurry. The speech was never delivered as the protesters reached her doorstep and the country’s top security officers advised her to leave at the earliest.
Now in India, the 76-year-old has spoken to her close associates about the undelivered speech. In the letter, Sheikh Hasina has accused the US for plotting a regime change in the country and would have said this in her speech if she got a chance. Her rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), however, has refuted the charge and called her allegations against the US “irresponsible remarks.”
“I resigned so that I did not have to see the procession of dead bodies. They wanted to come to power over the dead bodies of students, but I did not allow it. I resigned from premiership. I could have remained in power if I had surrendered the sovereignty of Saint Martin Island and allowed America to hold sway over the Bay of Bengal. I beseech to the people of my land, please do not be manipulated by radicals,” her undelivered speech said.
The Saint Martin Island has an area of just three square kilometres and is located in the north-eastern part of Bay of Bengal. It is the southernmost part of Bangladesh. “Maybe, if I had stayed in the country, more lives would have been lost. I have removed myself. You were my strength, you did not want me, so I have left,” it adds.
In her message to her party members, she has said Awami League has always bounced back. “Don’t lose hope. I will return soon. I have lost but the people of Bangladesh have won, the people for whom my father, my family died,” the speech adds.
The Awami League leader had to resign and flee the country amid violent protests by students that started as an agitation against reservation and snowballed into a stand-off with the Sheikh Hasina government. Over 400 protesters were killed as the veteran leader tried to crush the protests.
“If I had remained in the country, more lives would have been lost more resources would have been destroyed. I made the extremely difficult decision to exit. I became your leader because you chose me, you were my strength,” the undelivered speech said. It adds that she is pained by the targeting of Awami League leaders and that she “will return soon”. “Awami League has stood up again and again. I shall forever pray for the future of Bangladesh.”
She also clarified that she never called the protesting students Razakars. In one of the statements during the protests, Sheikh Hasina had said, “If not the grandchildren of the freedom fighters, then who will get quota benefits? The grandchildren of the ‘Razakars’?”
The word, used to refer to a paramilitary force recruited by the Pakistani army during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, sparked a massive backlash and the protests intensified. In her undelivered address to the nation, the Awami League leader has said, “I have never called you Razakars. Rather my words were distorted to incite you. I request you to watch the full video.”
Relations between the US and Bangladesh had nosedived during Sheikh Hasina’s term so much so that Washington DC had said the January elections in which Awami League returned to power were not free or fair. Months before her exit, Sheikh Hasina had claimed that “conspiracies” were being hatched to topple her government and alleged a “white man’s” plot to carve a new “Christian country” out of Bangladesh and Myanmar. “If I allowed a certain country to build an airbase in Bangladesh, then I would have had no problem,” she had said in May.
Following her resignation and escape, the US said, “The United States has long called for respecting democratic rights in Bangladesh, and we urge that the interim government formation be democratic and inclusive.” Washington DC also said the US greatly valued its relationship with the people of Bangladesh.
Earlier, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller had condemned the violence against protesters. “We condemn any violence against peaceful protesters. We’ve been watching this matter very closely, both from our embassy and officials here in Washington. (We) have been monitoring the protests, have seen the reports of people dying, being killed in the protests. And we again, call on the government to uphold individual’s rights to protest peacefully,” he had said.
The BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has strongly rejected reports about US plans to acquire a military base in the country, labelling the claims as “irresponsible remarks” and dismissed the allegations saying that such talks did not exist.
“This is very unfortunate that a person who was a prime minister of an independent country for the last 15 years could make such irresponsible remarks. Unfortunately, I believe that whenever she is in a problem, she always blames others. The main reason for quitting the country, that she has been ousted from her job is misrule and her failure to rule the country properly,” Mr Alamgir said.
Abut Ms Hasina’s remarks on the alleged link between US regime change plans and BNP, Mr Alamgir said this was “all bullshit.” “The utterances are unreasonable and so irresponsible. I don’t understand how she could say that, because in this movement there was no involvement of foreign diplomacy; it was a spontaneous movement by the students and then the people joined in,” he added.
The Secretary General also reaffirmed the BNP’s solidarity with the Hindu community in the wake of targeted attacks against minorities and highlighted the party’s amicable ties with India. Alamgir also underlined that the interim government’s decision regarding Hasina’s return is contingent on India’s stance, yet the BNP remains firm in its demand for her trial over alleged wrongdoings.
On the possibility of Jamaat-e-Islami and BNP joining hands for the upcoming election, Mr Alamgir clarified that the BNP had no connections with Jamaat-e-Islami, referring to it solely as an alliance partner. He expressed the BNP’s commitment to ensuring that all political parties, including Hasina’s Awami League, participate in the upcoming elections.