The Foreign Hand In Dhaka

IN AN ALREADY VOLATILE social and political situation in Bangladesh, US President Donald Trump’s decision to do away with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has led to a number of people employed in American-aided projects in the country losing their jobs. Institutions like icddr,b (an international health research organisation based in Dhaka) have had to dispense with the services of a large number of employees as a consequence of the Trump administration’s move.

And now what has emerged is a pretty unsettling report, and this comes directly from Trump, of $29 million having made its way to two individuals involved with a little-known organisation in Bangladesh. The obvious goal, as it has been given out, a strengthening of the political landscape in the country. Trump made it clear that such an amount was doled out by his predecessor Joe Biden’s administration, the implication being that American taxpayers’ money was being wasted on pointless projects overseas.

Trump’s mention of the $29 million has been exercising minds in Bangladesh, with journalists and others busy trying to unearth the organisation and the individuals involved in the scandal. In the process, the name of an academic at Dhaka University has come up as the person who received the money. Of course, the academic has denied any involvement. On social media, without any fact-checking, fingers have been pointed at some figures in the current interim government as being the beneficiaries of the largesse. Of course, the government has so far made no statement on the issue.

Thus, speculation runs rife on Trump’s statement. As if that were not enough, there is now the additional report that the $21 million the US president cited as having gone to India to encourage voter turnout was in fact also sent to Bangladesh. Whether the $21 million and the $29 million fall in two different categories or whether Trump and his officials have been creating confusion over the situation is yet to be known. Questions about the $21 million for India have been probed by the Indian Express, which reported that it engaged in a process of fact-checking on its own and eventually came up with the finding that the money had made its way to Bangladesh.

The facts, as disturbing as they are, certainly call for in-depth analysis. As the Indian Express reports, the $21 million grant to Bangladesh was confirmed by a USAID political processes adviser on a visit to Washington. He is quoted thus: “The USAID funded $21 million (for the) CEPPS/Nagorik project… which I manage.” CEPPS is the acronym of the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening and within its ambit are the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute, and the International Foundation for Electoral Sys­tems. For its part, CEPPS has been funded by the USAID Global Elections and Political Transitions Program.

The picture begins to get murkier, for the good reason that the $21 million has not quite been picked up in Bangladesh owing to the fact that speculation has so far focused on the $29 million Trump alleged went to Dhaka. Of the $21 million, as reported in the Indian Express, as much as $13.4 million was disbursed among Bangladeshi students for “political and civic engagement” prior to the January 2024 elections. Besides, the $21 million was sanctioned in July 2022 for a USAID project termed Amar Vote Amar (My Vote is Mine). The language is Bangla and surely could not have related to India. Which raises the critical question whether the amount was disbursed with a clear objec­tive of destabilising Bangladesh.

The question has so far remained unanswered. With the disclosure that no CEPPS project has been undertaken in India since 2008, at a time when Congress was in power, the mystery only deepens. And where the $29 million which Trump has spoken of is concerned, one would certainly like a full inquiry to be launched in Bangladesh by the interim authorities in response to public curiosity. One cannot quite be dismissive of the US president’s statement, given that he has repeated it, most recently at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on February 22. The phrase “strengthen­ing the political landscape”, whatever that means, has been quoted by the president once again. Understandably, the people of Bangladesh would like a clear explanation of the situation, on the basis of a serious investigation in Dhaka, in order to arrive at a real picture of how all this money was transferred to Bangladeshi individuals or groups in the time leading up to the collapse of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government in August last year.

Muhammad Yunus, the chief advisor, has invited Elon Musk, currently busy as head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in Washington, to Dhaka. The interim government would like Musk to reach a deal with the Bangladesh authorities on introducing his Starlink project in the country. Given the ferocity with which Musk and Trump have gone into investigating financial waste in the US govern­ment, and given also the $21 million and $29 million issues related to Bangladesh, it is too early to say if Musk will be in a position to accept Yunus’ invitation anytime soon.

Meanwhile, Trump’s reference to the $29 million has raised the inevitable question about the efforts the Biden administration may have expended towards dislodging Sheikh Hasina’s government. For her part, Hasina, in the final phase of her prime ministership, more than once publicly made it known that Washington did not wish to have her continue in power. She also alleged that efforts were on to create a state, ostensibly independent of Bangladesh and separated from it, in the south-east of the country for people of a specific faith. No details related to these statements came from her, but what was obvious was that she had no friends in the Biden administration.

Sheikh Hasina’s indignation at Trump’s predecessor was a reminder of how the Ford-Kissinger team was well aware of the plot that would eventually lead to the violent coup against Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s government in Bangladesh in August 1975. The late Christopher Hitchens refers to Kissinger’s role in the coup in his work, The Trial of Henry Kissinger. Moreover, the role of the US government in the overthrow of the Pakistani governments of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (in 1977) and Imran Khan (in 2022) has been highlight­ed since the departure of Sheikh Hasina for India last year. Now, if as the Indian Express reports, the $21 million actually made its way to Dhaka and was disbursed among Bangladeshi students ahead of the January 2024 elections in the country, credible questions arise regarding the active role the Biden administration played in generating the crisis which currently plagues Bangladesh.

BANGLADESH CONTINUES TO lurch from crisis to crisis. A coordinated assault on the nation’s history has gone on since August last year, with monuments dedicated to the 1971 War of Liberation systematically vandal­ised by mobs unabashedly opposed to the country’s emergence as a sovereign nation. Nothing stood in the way of the mobs committing their nefarious deeds. In early February, the iconic home of Bangladesh’s founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, which had been torched following Hasina’s fall in August, was razed to the ground by people who brought in bulldozers and excavators to do the job. No effort was made by the nation’s security forces to prevent the destruction. Neither was there any condemnation of the act by the interim government, save only Yunus’ bland statement that it was regrettable. Meanwhile, Awami League leaders and workers at the grassroots level continue to be hounded by mobs.

In recent weeks though, the crisis has taken a new dimension with the Bangladesh National­ist Party (BNP) of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia getting increasingly rattled by the failure of the Yunus administration to announce a clear timetable for elections. The Jamaat-e-Islami, formerly the junior partner of BNP in anti-Awami League agitation, is in little mood for parliamentary elections at this point. Clearly upstaging BNP, it would like local government elections to be held first, a stance BNP continues to oppose. BNP’s acting chairman Tarique Zia, who had expected to make a triumphant return home from exile in Britain following the Awami League government’s fall, has been forced to stay on in London since not all cases lodged against him in the past have been withdrawn. On February 21, the anniversary of Bangladesh’s Lan­guage Movement in 1952, senior BNP leaders were not allowed by supporters of the Yunus regime from visiting the Central Shaheed Minar, the memorial honouring the language martyrs.

Uncertainty dominates the times. Law and order slides from day to day, with citizens carefully staying away from venturing out of home in the evening. Prices of essential commodities have spiked, to a point where the poor and middle-income classes find it hard to fend for themselves. Small businesses are in a quan­dary. Education has been taking a bad mauling, with students agitating to articulate their various demands. They have held up traffic on Dhaka’s roads. On Monday, February 24, they attempted to march to the gov­ernment secretariat to protest the slide in law and order and demand the resignation of the home affairs adviser, a retired lieutenant general. Meanwhile, one of the advisers in the interim government, a 27-year-old student heading the ministry of information and broadcast­ing, has resigned to join his fellow students instrumental in the anti-Hasina agitation in the formation of a political party before an election schedule is announced. The proposed party is already being dismissed by critics as a king’s party aimed at keeping power in the hands of anti-Awami League elements.

On Tuesday, February 25, the anniversary of the mutiny by sepoys of the erstwhile Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) on Febru­ary 25-26, 2009, which led to the massacre of 74 individuals, including 57 army officers, General Waker-Uz-Zaman, the army chief, served what he called a warning to elements disturbing peace in the country. Interpretations have been coming forth over his comments. Visibly angry, the general reminded his audience that nothing that causes chaos would be allowed and indeed any effort to undermine social peace would be dealt with a firm hand. He reiterated his statement of a few months ago that he expected elections to be held within 18 months. Significantly, he let it be known that he looked forward to an inclusive election. That has raised the question whether it means an opportunity for the Awami League to re-enter the public domain and take full part in the campaign. For now, apart from Sheikh Hasina periodically ad­dressing her followers on audio and video from Delhi, former ministers and lawmakers of the Awami League have gone into hiding, with some making their way to India, Britain, and even Canada and the US.

As matters stand, no credible assessment can be made about the road immediately ahead. The Yunus government is clearly at sea, despite the many reform and administrative measures it has undertaken in the past few months. To what extent it is in control or the degree to which it is being influenced by its student followers is a big question. And with Trump coming up with his report on money funnelled to Bangladesh under the Biden administration and with the fact-checking of the $21 million for India, worries assail Bangladesh’s people.

Let’s not ignore a refrain of the ordinary citizens of Bangladesh, against the backdrop of the turmoil: “Aagei bhalo chhilo (Things were better earlier).”

American moneyBangladeshDonald TrumpForeign Hand In DhakageopliticsJoe BidenMuhammad Yunusregime changeSheikh Hasina