by M. Serajul Islam 16 October 2023
THE US National Security adviser Jake Sullivan’s meeting with the prime minister Sheikh Hasina on September 27 at the Bangladesh embassy in Washington was kept secret by the Bangladesh side. The spokesman of the US state department revealed it on October 4 at his regular news briefing of the department. The Awami League’s general secretary stated that Bangladesh had kept the meeting a secret because a secret agreement had been reached with the Biden administration that no one outside the Awami League regime believed.
The prime minister had waited for a week in early May in Washington for a meeting with any senior official of the White House and the state department or with someone from the Congress. The foreign minister AKA Momen had made a mountain out of a molehill with a selfie of the prime minister with president Biden during the G20 Summit in New Delhi in September 9–10 to use it to show at home that Washington was on the regime’s side.
Momen should, therefore, have gone over the moon with the meeting because Jake Sullivan represented the White House and is the closest to president Biden in his administration. The foreign minister, nevertheless, kept silent because the meeting had not been arranged by him or the Bangladesh ambassador in Washington or lobbyists and consultants of the Bangladesh government. The Bangladesh side was silent because sources close to it revealed on conditions of anonymity that the meeting was a nightmare for the Awami League regime.
The prime minister’s address to the Bangladesh community in London on her way home from Washington and her comments about Khaleda Zia spilled the beans that the meeting with Jake Sullivan was a disaster for the AL regime and her, personally. The prime minister’s press conference on October 4 on her return to Dhaka flagged further that her trip to Washington was the worst overseas trip of her tenure now 14 years long.
The prime minister has briefed the media as a ritual after returning home from every overseas trip. These briefings have been gala events. She used them to show her confidence and control over the country’s politics to the cheers of a section of senior editors and journalists and others who attended the events and to the nation that watched these events on television live. The editors and journalists who attended the briefings in person were in a contest to please the prime minister. Some dared to ask the prime minister a critical question or two. They were dispensed with long ago.
The prime minister’s press briefing on October 4 was visibly different. The jubilation and the media’s efforts to please her were conspicuously absent. She was far from her all-under-control mode. She stated that her participation in the 78th UNGA session was successful although few were interested in it. Incidentally, the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi would not attend the current UNGA session. The Nepalese prime minister reduced his delegation to 12 considering the original size of 24 was too big.
The nation expected the prime minister to talk about the next general election now less than three months away. The regime and the BNP are still dangerously divided over how to hold it. Her party supporters were eagerly expecting that the prime minister would energise them because many of them were now openly expressing fear for their life if the BNP assumed power. The Awami League was far more in the election mode and prepared for the last two elections many months before the elections. The challenges in those elections were nowhere close to what it is facing for holding the next general election.
These are different times. The US-led war on terror is over. The Awami League regime has served its purpose to the US and the west. These powers are now committed to democracy and human rights and not Islamic fundamentalism or terrorism. They are determined not to allow the Awami League regime to steal another election as they did with the 2014 and 2018 elections to stop the BNP from coming to power because of the latter’s alliance with Jamaat which they believed supported Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism.
New Delhi played a major role in bringing the United States and its allies together to support the Awami League regime in the 2008, 2014 and 2018 elections. It has watched the Awami League regime destroy its relations with these powers since the 2018 election by rejecting their concern on democracy, rights and free and fair elections at a time when New Delhi needs the powers for its national interests. Sheikh Hasina’s decision to drop a good number of pro-India ministers and drift towards China after winning in 2018 has also encouraged India’s apparent decision to keep its distance from the Awami League regime at a time when it needs its support more than any time.
The regime has, nevertheless, made light of the US concerns and persuasions about democracy and human and election rights in Bangladesh leading to the prime minister’s last visit to Washington. It also threatened to retaliate with sanctions against the United States without explaining what those sanctions were. Absurd as such a threat of sanctions and making light of US concerns were, the regime also tried to convince the people that all was well between it and the United States with a selfie of the prime minister with president Biden.
Jake Sullivan conveyed Washington’s decision to bring its dangerous money laundering laws against individuals extremely close and important to the Awami League regime to the prime minister. The money laundering laws with the visa sanctions would, henceforth, become the dangerous and toxic mix of policies that the Biden administration would pursue to ensure a free, fair and peaceful election in Bangladesh. The mixture has the potential to become the game changer in the politics of Bangladesh.
Pro-regime businesspeople said not too long ago that they would back the prime minister till the kingdom comes. Their voice has turned feeble. Visa sanctions are also not something that those close to the regime can wish away indefinitely because they involve their families. The Awami League regime’s choice of dealing with the United States with rhetoric and absurd counter-threats has been unwise and silly. It will haunt it for the remainder of its term and remind them of the prime minister’s prediction in a BBC interview in May that the United States has the power to change regimes any where.
There are, nevertheless, forces surrounding the prime minister who want another fake election that the Awami League cannot lose at any cost. The prime minister told Jake Sullivan that the next election will be held the same way as the 2014 and 2018 elections under the constitution which the AL-regime changed unilaterally in 2011. She did not, however, state so in her October 4 press briefing as her supporters expected that flagged that such an election would be very difficult. Meanwhile, the BNP-led opposition is determined not to allow such an election. It is certain to go all out to stop it if the regime tried to hold it any way.
The prime minister’s US trip has brought Bangladesh’s politics to a dangerous crossroads with the Awami League regime in a predicament it has not been since 2009, holding as the cliché goes, the hot potato. The regime’s intention to hold the election under the constitution has, meanwhile, been exposed as a death trap for the BNP to all and sundry, including the United States, the west and the United Nations. The BNP now has the power of a people’s movement behind it to challenge such a unilateral AL-led election.
Time is fast running out for the Awami League regime. Its desire to hold the election under the constitution has no support in the country except its own or abroad. A civil conflict or an extra-constitutional intervention could appear likely unless the Awami League regime places the country before the party and the interests of a few. Devastating economic sanctions are very likely to follow for the economy already on its knees if the US-led West is unhappy with the change.
M Serajul Islam is a former career ambassador.
The article was published in the New Age.