Answer to Question
Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Resigns and Flees the Country
(Translated)

Question:

On 5 August 2024, the resignation of the Prime Minister of Bangladesh and her escape abroad was announced after the protests against the quota system for jobs required in the public sector since the beginning of last month. The protests turned bloody since the middle of last month, as followers of the ruling party clashed with protesters. The army announced its assumption of power, and the country's president announced the dissolution of parliament and the appointment of an interim government. Were the protests premeditated? Did the army’s intervention come with an agreement? Is this related to the international conflict over the country?

Answer:

To clarify the answer to the above questions, we will review the following matters:

1- Bangladesh is an Islamic country. During the early years of the thirteenth century CE, Muslims conquered Bengal during the campaign of Muhammad Al-Ghori in late 1192 CE, which extended across northern India. Bangladesh, the eighth largest country in the world in terms of population, with a population of about 171 million, is located in South Asia and is bordered by Myanmar and India. More than 90% of the population is Muslim and the official religion of the country is Islam. As part of the policy of divide and rule followed by Britain, the Awami League, which was based in East Pakistan and headed by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the British agent, and supported by the British, declared its independence from Pakistan after the war with Pakistan in 1971.

2- Bangladeshi Prime Minister Hasina inherited her subordination to Britain, the country's former colonial ruler, from her father, former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Mujibur Rahman, head of the Awami League, who was executed with his family in 1975 by officers who staged a coup against him. She survived because she was abroad during the coup. She lived in Britain until she was allowed to return to her country and resume political activity in 1981. She first served as Prime Minister between 1996 and 2001, and has since led the government since 2009. She was accused of rigging the elections held earlier this year, in which she won an overwhelming majority in parliament formed by her party, the Awami League, with 233 out of 300 members of the parliament, in addition to 9 members from a party allied with her party. The other parties rejected the results and considered them sham elections, and America also criticized them. However, Hasina's regime officially acknowledged her victory!

3- During her rule, Hasina worked to strike the American agents and establish the British influence in the army, political circles, the judiciary, and other centers. She was competing with the leader of the opposition party, the head of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Khaleda Zia, who inherited the subordination for America from her husband, General Ziaur Rahman, who came to power in 1977 and was assassinated in 1981 by British agents. His wife, Khaleda Zia, took over the government for two terms between 1991 and 1996 and between 2001 and 2006. She was later convicted of corruption and abuse of power. She and the detainees were released during the recent demonstrations after Hasina fled on 5/8/2024. Therefore, there is an international conflict in Bangladesh between the old colonizer, Britain, which has strong influence, and its new colonizer, America, which has created influence by gaining agents in the army since its agent, General Ziaur Rahman, seized power in 1977. It has also found agents in the political circles, especially General Zia’s wife and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. However, the predominant influence is the British influence.

4- Hasina and her government have fought those who seek the return of Islam to power because she is secular and her party is secular and nationalistic. Politically she is subservient to the Western colonialists who are fighting Islam and its return to power. So she banned Hizb ut Tahrir on 22/10/2009 because it calls for the return of Islam to power by establishing the Khilafah Rashidah (rightly-guided Caliphate) state, knowing that Hizb ut Tahrir is a political party whose ideology is Islam and does not adopt material actions as its method, but rather engages in political and intellectual struggle. She also banned four other Islamic groups. She threw many members from Hizb ut Tahrir and other groups into prisons, and executed some Islamic leaders. [Hasina Wajid began her political purges against the Jamaat-e-Islami since 2013 under the pretext that they were war criminals who rejected the independence of Bangladesh, while the goal was to get rid of the Islamic movement. Among the most prominent figures who have been arrested, executed, or died in prison from the leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami so far are seven senior scholars, five of whom were hanged, and two died in prison before being sentenced to death. (https://alestiklal.net/, 6/8/2024)]. Hasina was extremely hostile to Islam and to those who called for its return to power and the unity of Muslims in one state. She headed a secular party founded by her father, who committed high treason, separating East Pakistan (Bangladesh) from West Pakistan with the support of Britain and its agents in India in 1971.

5- Bangladesh is suffering from intractable economic crises due to the lack of a renaissance and due to its connection to foreign political and economic powers. It is estimated that about 18 million young Bangladeshis are looking for jobs, and university graduates face striking unemployment rates! More than 40% of the Bangladeshi population between the ages of 15 and 24 are unemployed and uneducated. On 5 August 2024, the BBC reported interviews about the economic situation in Bangladesh. Lutfey Siddiqi, a visiting professor-in-practice at the London School of Economics said, "Regime change in Bangladesh an economic inevitability– a matter of when, not if. Sheikh Hasina’s government appears to have lost both the right and might to govern. Soon it will run out of the resources to do so as well... Bangladesh is on the verge of economic implosion." It is worth noting that Hasina's government has mortgaged the country's economy and resources to foreign companies, especially British, American, Chinese and Indian. It began to rely on interest-bearing loans under unfair conditions from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, two institutions dominated by America, in addition to the Chinese Asian Development Bank. This meant that the situation in Bangladesh was critical and on the verge of explosion.

6- Bangladesh has been witnessing a wave of student protests since the beginning of last month, on 1 July 2024, against the employment system. The protests aimed to abolish the quota system in the public sector, which allocates about 56% of jobs to specific groups, which the Prime Minister and her entourage exploited to employ their relatives and supporters and deprive the opponents. Among these specific groups who were included in the jobs were "those who participated with her father and their sons" in the high treason in the war of secession between East Pakistan (Bangladesh) and West Pakistan with the support of Britain and its agents in India in 1971. This was the employment system against which the protests began, as students demanded that employment be based on the person's merit and not for other considerations. These protests influenced the abolition of this system, so the Supreme Court in Bangladesh declared on 21/7/2024 that the decision to reintroduce job quotas was illegal. However, this did not help silence the protesters. The first deaths in these protests occurred on 16/7/2024 when students from Hasina's party confronted protesters in Dhaka with sticks and threw stones at each other.

7- To stop these protests, Hasina's government ordered the closure of schools and universities across the country. Hasina made statements calling on students to remain calm and vowed to punish every murder in the protests. But the protesters rejected her statements and began targeting her in particular, chanting "Down with the dictator", and burned down the headquarters of the state broadcasting corporation in Bangladesh and dozens of other government buildings. The government cut off internet services. The protests became more intense and the number of dead and wounded increased daily. A 24-hour curfew was declared and soldiers were deployed. The police fired live bullets and tear gas at the protesters, declared a curfew across the country, and deployed the army to maintain security. By the evening of 19/7/2024, 105 people were reported killed. Naeemul Islam Khan, spokesman for the Prime Minister's Office, said: ("The government has decided to impose a curfew and deploy the army to assist the civilian authorities." (AFP, 19/7/2024)). Communications, news channels and some mobile phone services were cut off in an attempt to suppress the protests. Protesters stormed a prison and freed hundreds of inmates on 19/7/2024, before setting the building on fire. The total number of deaths in the protests in Bangladesh has reached 409, according to AFP, based on statements from police, government officials and doctors. The events appear to have erupted as spontaneous student protests against a job system that denies most jobs. The protests were not limited to students, with people from all walks of life joining in numbers that reached 400,000. These demonstrations were seen as an unprecedented challenge and threat to Hasina’s 15-year authoritarian rule.

8- On 5/8/2024, Bangladesh Army Chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman announced that he would take full responsibility after Hasina's resignation and escape, and would form an interim government. He said on state television, "I promise you that all grievances will be addressed." He said, "The country has suffered a lot, the economy has been hit, many people have been killed -- it is time to stop the violence, I hope after my speech, the situation will improve," (AFP, 5/8/2024). General Waker-Uz-Zaman was an infantry officer who was appointed army chief last June. Hasina trusted him because of their distant kinship, and he worked as an advisor to her in her office. His father-in-law was the army commander during Hasina's first term in office from 1996 to 2001. Waker-Uz-Zaman received military training in Britain and holds a master's degree in defense studies from the Bangladesh National University and King's College London, which confirms that he is of the same type as Hasina's regime, which is loyal to Britain, which instructed him to seize power and maintain its influence in Bangladesh. He also agreed with Hasina that she should leave in order to save her life, because her continued presence would exacerbate the crisis and more blood would be shed. After that, the army tried to get closer to the protesters to calm the situation, so on the penultimate day of its seizure of power, the army allowed the protests and prevented shooting at any of the protesters as a way of getting closer to them to calm them down.

9- When the army chief, General Waker-Uz-Zaman, announced that he was taking over the country, he promised to form an interim government as soon as possible, and that he would hold talks with major opposition parties and members of civil society, but excluding the Awami League, Hasina’s party. To please America and block it, from the malice of British politics, the presidency in Bangladesh announced on 7/8/2024 that Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, would head the interim government. The presidency’s statement said [“The decision to form an interim government headed by Yunus was taken during a meeting between President Muhammad Shahabuddin, senior army officers and leaders of the Students Against Discrimination Group. The statement said, “The president has asked the people to help ride out the crisis. Quick formation of an interim government is necessary to overcome the crisis,” (AFP 7/8/2024)]. Following this, Muhammad Yunus, who is in Europe and is 84 years old, announced that he is ready to assume the presidency of an interim government. Thus, the British worked to save themselves from collapse and maintained their influence when their agent fled to India on board a military helicopter under the pressure of the protests, the government and parliament were dissolved, with the army commander taking control and an old American agent like Muhammad Yunus being appointed to head the interim government until the next parliamentary elections and the formation of a new elected government. In this way, they worked to silence the protesters by deporting Hasina and appeasing America by appointing Muhammad Yunus, who is loyal to it. Former US President Bill Clinton had previously praised him as deserving of the Nobel Prize: [Professor Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, shared with Grameen Bank. US President Bill Clinton was advocating for the Nobel Prize to be awarded to Muhammad Yunus. During a speech he gave in 2002, President Clinton described “Dr. Yunus is a man who long ago should have won the Nobel Prize” (Al-Jumhur, Tuesday 6/8/2024)]. It is worth noting that Hasina was fighting him, as a Bangladeshi court sentenced him on 1/1/2024 to 6 months in prison on charges of violating labour laws in the capital, Dhaka. (Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus has been convicted of violating Bangladesh’s labour laws, Attorney General Khurshid Alam Khan told AFP on Monday, in a case his supporters say is politically motivated. Alam Khan told AFP that Yunus and his colleagues were convicted under labour laws and sentenced to six months in prison, noting that they were released on bail pending appeal. 160 international figures, including former US President Obama and former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, published a joint open letter denouncing the ongoing judicial harassment of Yunus and expressing concerns for his security and freedom. (Asharq Al-Awsat, 1/1/2024). Thus, Muhammad Yunus was approved by America. And the British scheming was able to quell the protests by exiling Hasina... and to satisfy America by appointing an old loyalist... and furthermore Britain, remains in control of Bangladesh through the army commander, as it was before Hasina fled.