by M. Serajul Islam 6 October 2023
THE US ambassador Peter Haas is under the spotlight of Bangladesh’s politics because the Biden administration placed him there. He did not waste any time on arriving in Dhaka in March 2022 to let it be known to all and sundry what his role would be. He chose the Bangladesh Institute on International and Strategic Studies, or the BIISS, to explain the Biden administration’s policies that he would implement in Bangladesh.
The ambassador addressed the BIISS in April 2022. The address is available on the US embassy and BIISS web sites. He named three key areas where the Biden administration gave him the responsibility to focus on taking US-Bangladesh relations to a new and higher level acknowledging that ‘Bangladesh is now one of the fastest growing economies in the Indo-Pacific.’ The three areas that ambassador Haas named, were, first, security, second, human rights and democracy and third, economic ties.
Peter Haas has been working relentlessly in these areas. He focused on democracy and human rights and encouraged the Awami League regime to hold the next general election in a free, fair and peaceful manner to enable the voters to elect the government of their choice. Haas has, thus, been pursuing democracy and human rights for which the people of Bangladesh fought their liberation war.
It is ironic, therefore, that the supporters of the party that led the war of liberation are vilifying ambassador Haas for pursuing the same objectives for which millions embraced martyrdom in 1971. The same group of Awami Leaguers had attacked ambassador Haas’s official car in December when he visited the family of a victim of enforced disappearance at the hands of the AL regime’s law enforcement agencies.
Washington gives the safety of ambassadors in their posts the highest importance. One reason Hillary Clinton lost her 2016 bid for the White House was under her watch as the secretary of state, US ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed by terrorists in Libya in 2012. Ambassador Haas’s recent concern for the safety of US diplomats in Dhaka was backed by the US state department spokesman as a matter of major significance for US-Bangladesh relations.
Ambassadors (and other diplomats) in their posts are given immunity under the Vienna Convention of Diplomatic Relations by receiving states. The courts in the receiving states are powerless against ambassadors (and diplomats) for whatever they do. Article 41 (1) of the convention, however, reminds ambassadors/diplomats that they have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of the host country. The spirit of the convention is, nevertheless, to facilitate, by a mutual agreement of the 193 UN member states that have signed it, and not obstruct the work of the ambassadors (and diplomats) in receiving states.
The Vienna convention allows the receiving state to declare an ambassador a persona non grata, or PNG, and send him back to the sending state if the ambassador interferes in domestic affairs of the host country to an extent that the receiving state is unwilling to accept. However, the receiving states rarely exercise this option in the case of an ambassador. Further, in the case of ambassador Haas, it is only the AL supporters who are displeased with him. The rest of the country wants him to do more against the AL regime to ensure their human, democratic and electoral rights.
There are other ironies in the actions of the Awami League’s present displeasure with ambassador Haas. While AL supporters are using rhetoric and patriotism to raise passion against the United States for its present role in Bangladesh by using its 1971 role against Bangladesh’s war of liberation, its top leadership is simultaneously looking desperately at the White House, the state department and the Congress for a lifeline in Bangladesh’s politics.
The prime minister was in Washington when very well-known AL activists lambasted ambassador Haas for violating the international law by intervening in Bangladesh’s internal affairs in a television talk show. He described him as representing a country that opposed Bangladesh’s liberation and demanded that he should be ‘ousted’ from the country. While this activist was rabble-rousing against ambassador Haas to the cheers of AL supporters, the prime minister was desperately waiting in Washington to meet US officials in the White House, the Congress and the state department. She failed to meet a soul.
The selfie and line-breaking attempt at the New Delhi G20 Summit in early September was the same desperate attempts of the AL regime to procure a picture or video footage of the prime minister with president Biden to create the allusion at home that Washington is happy with the AL regime. In early May, the prime minister was in Washington for five days and tried to meet officials at the White House, the Congress and the state department, also unsuccessfully. Instead, her delegation was given an advance copy of the now well-publicised visa sanctions that were officially announced three weeks later. On her just-concluded visit to Washington, she was given the news that the state department had started implementing the visa sanctions.
The denial of the US side to meet the prime minister repeatedly was, of course, expected by all except the Awami League’s top leadership. It was the result of the regime’s surreal responses to US policies. The prime minister and all the top AL regime leaders stated repeatedly that they were least bothered about the visa sanctions, human rights sanctions, et al. It was, therefore, bizarre that they also made such unbelievable attempts to be seen near the US leaders, in particular president Biden, for a selfie or a video footage to use these to make a mountain of a molehill in US-Bangladesh relations.
The foreign minister epitomised the surreal nature of present US-Bangladesh relations from the way the AL regime is handling it. The prime minister’s failure to meet even a single US leader on two successive attempts to Washington was a major failure of the foreign minister. Yet, he unashamedly stated to journalists after the prime minister’s just concluded US visit that Bangladesh-US relations are ‘outstandingly warm and cordial’ at a time when the AL general secretary warned the Biden administration for its punitive measures against the AL regime and AL supporters demanded ambassador Haas should be declared a persona non grata.
Bangladesh’s economy has, meanwhile, hit a major roadblock. The Bangladesh Bank governor’s ‘D’ rating came as a reality check for the planning minister and the pro-AL regime economists who were busy not too long ago taking the country to heaven. The governor earned the dismal rating for high inflation and devaluation of the taka, both major signs of an economy in ill health. The governor of the Indian central bank received an A+ rating that came from New York-based Global Finance magazine.
In his BIISS address, ambassador Haas stated that economic ties will be one of the three key areas within which the Biden administration will pursue bilateral relations with Bangladesh. He further stated that the US embassy in Dhaka would soon ‘welcome the first ever full-time attaché from the US department of commerce… as a testament to the importance we place on growing our two-way trade and investment relationship.’
The United States has a major influence on the international financial institutions that will be crucial to Bangladesh’s graduation to a middle-income country. Its ally, the European Union, is backing it on human rights, democracy and electoral rights. The European Union is indispensable for the survival of Bangladesh’s critically important apparel sector. The AL supporters who are rooting against ambassador Haas are strengthening it with the role of the United States in 1971. Yet, they are blissfully in denial that the nation that had opposed Bangladesh in 1971 the most, namely China, is now the AL regime’s strongest backer.
Ambassador Haas has astutely pursued to perfection the Biden administration’s human rights, democratic and free and fair election agenda in Bangladesh. These issues are the same issues for which Bangladesh fought its liberation war. The ambassador has done so without taking sides in the country’s deeply divided politics that required diplomatic skills of the highest order. He has flag, without intending to do so, that the AL supporters who are demanding action against him as a persona non grata are opposing the spirit of 1971.
The article appeared in The New Age.