Bangladesh witnesses discord among Yunus-led interim govt, allies

Dhaka, Oct 8 (PTI) A key adviser in the Muhammad Yunus-led Bangladesh interim government on Wednesday rejected claims by its key ally, the student-led National Citizen Party (NCP), that the advisers were now looking for a “safe exit” amid a visibly changing political scenario.

“I am not seeking any exit at all,” environment and climate change affairs adviser Syeda Rizwana Hasan told reporters when asked about NCP convenor Nahid Islam’s recent comments that the advisers were seeking a “safe exit” through negotiations with political parties.

Islam did not explain why the advisers were seeking a “safe exit” or named them or the parties they were negotiating with as he was interviewed by a private TV channel on Saturday.

Three days after Islam’s comments, another key-NCP leader Sarjis Alam on Tuesday told reporters that the only exit that remained open for advisers was “death”.

The NCP is regarded as the government’s closest ally while the comments of its leaders come amid growing speculations about the course of Bangladesh politics ahead of planned national elections in February next year.

Hasan, however, said she would spend the “rest of my life in Bangladesh” but demanded explanation of NCP leaders’ comments.

The NCP emerged as a political party visibly with Yunus’s blessings in February this year as a large offshoot of the Students against Discrimination (SAD) movement that led the last year’s violent street campaign dubbed as the ‘July Uprising’ that eventually toppled then prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League regime on August 5.

Three days later, Yunus flew from Paris to take charge of the interim government as its chief adviser, saying the students who led the uprising were his “appointers”.

Yunus inducted three of the student representatives, including Nahid Islam, in his council of advisers or cabinet. While he later quit to lead the NCP, two others remained as advisers.

Complying with the NCP demands, the interim government in May disbanded the Awami League activities until its leaders, including Hasina, were tried for their attempts to tame the uprising brutally and their “misdeeds during the ousted regime”.

The government imprisoned hundreds of its leaders and activists while thousands are on the run at home and abroad as the SAD and later the NCP vowed to make Awami League “irrelevant” in Bangladesh.

But Awami League activists continued to stage flash street marches emerging from nowhere and disappearing among masses in the capital and elsewhere to make visible their presence in the political arena defying the ban.

Foreign affairs adviser Touhid Hossain on Wednesday confirmed social media reports that ambassadors of three European nations recently held a meeting with Awami League leader Saber Hossain Chowdhury, who is currently on bail, saying “they (envoys) merely visited a private house”.

“Diplomats can, in general, go to anyone’s home,” he said responding to question during a press briefing though the mainstream media refrained from carrying any report on the meeting amid a government restriction on media coverage that could promote the now disbanded party.

But social media platforms reported that Norwegian Ambassador to Dhaka Haakon Arald Gulbransen, Swedish Ambassador Nikolas Linus Ragnar Weeks and Danish Ambassador Christian Brix Molla met Chowdhury at his residence earlier this week.

“The (interim) government maintains good relations with all political parties, including newly-formed ones. Now, why he (Islam) made comments about advisers’ safe exit or what grievance prompted him to do so, he should explain it,” Hasan said.

In his TV interview, the NCP convenor alleged several of the interim government’s advisers were now prioritising their own safety over public service and questioned their loyalties during the student-led uprising.

“It was a big mistake to trust many members of the advisory council. We were betrayed after placing our confidence in them. Many advisers have liaised with different political parties; they are now thinking of their own safe exit,” Islam said.

NCP coordinator Alam later supplemented his comrade saying “some advisers appear focused on escaping responsibility rather than carrying out duties”.

“Where will one take a safe exit? There is only one place in the world to take a safe exit, and that is death. Wherever you go on the face of the earth, the people of Bangladesh will catch you,” he said.

Meanwhile, a special tribunal in Bangladesh on Wednesday issued arrest warrants against deposed prime minister Hasina and 29 others on charges of crimes against humanity in alleged cases of enforced disappearances during her Awami League regime. PTI AR GSP GSP