New Delhi: The publisher and editor of the most highly regarded and widely read English language newspaper in Bangladesh, the Daily Star, has said the view that the Bangladesh army and its army chief, General Waker-uz-Zaman, call the shots is mistaken and wrong.
Mahfuz Anam said that in Bangladesh the buck stops with Muhammad Yunus, the head of the interim government and, perhaps, the students who spearheaded the downfall of Sheikh Hasina, but not the army.
He said the army has deliberately and very carefully chosen to remain in the background and the army chief has, therefore, kept a conscious and deliberate low profile.
Speaking about the attacks on minorities, which his paper on Saturday (August 10) had front-paged with the statistic that there have been 205 attacks since the fall of Sheikh Hasina (i.e. over five days), Anam said these have now virtually ended. As a result, he said his paper has not mentioned any such attacks in the edition it brought out today (August 12).
An editorial in the Daily Star on Saturday making the case for the country’s police to return to the streets said that official forces ought to ensure safety, “especially in minority communities that have faced violence and vandalism from different coteries trying to take advantage of the power vacuum created by the former government’s departure”.
In another very important set of answers, Anam said that many Bangladeshis – and not just the new foreign adviser, former foreign secretary and former deputy high commissioner to Kolkata, Touhid Hossain – have concerns and reservations about the relationship with India. In answer to a specific question about such reservations held by Yunus, Anam said that he is a wise man and these will not affect his attitude to India now that he is chief adviser of the interim government.
The interview also has a substantial section about Hasina and whether Bangladesh’s relationship with India would be adversely affected if she seeks asylum and New Delhi grants it.
Anam gives considerable details about corruption and crony capitalism under Hasina. This is particularly revealing.
He also speaks about reports, carried by NDTV and the Economic Times, about an allegedly undelivered speech where Hasina accuses the United States of effectively plotting her downfall with references to St. Martin Island as one of the issues that has annoyed the United States.
Anam said that even if Hasina’s son is right in claiming that this speech is fake, the sentiments allegedly expressed in it have been spoken by her when she was prime minister on multiple occasions.
