Dr. A. K. Abdul Momen
Former Foreign Minister
Last year when Professor Muhammad Yunus, the only Nobel Laureate of Bangladesh usurped powers through a ‘meticulous design’ and formed an unconstitutional government (now evidence show that it was done by defrauding the signatures of judges), people accepted him because of his high international profile supported by hundreds of Nobel Laureates and celebrities by publishing a full-page ad in the leading Western dailies and bewildered Bangladeshis hoping that he would follow Nobel Laureate Nelson Mandela of South Africa, and would bring honey, money and prosperity to Bangladesh. But his performance over the last 10 months is simply dismal and frustrating. Looting, vandalism, detention, lies, and violations of laws and cruelties have become a norm rather than an exception.
It may be because, he adopted a policy of vengeance. His administration is promoting jehadis or extreme radicals. He released all the convicted terrorists from jails who are in a rampage to loot and vandalize the properties of past government officials. They forced women to quit work and created a total mess in the country. As per reports, 2.1 million workers lost their jobs during July-December 2024 of which 85% or 1.8 million were women. Women’s participation in nation building efforts was one of major strengths of the past government of Sheikh Hasina and also of Bangladesh’s rapid economic growth and development. Unfortunately, environment is upside down now — the young women and girls are now being harassed if they go out without wearing hijab. Yunus supporters are demanding mandatory 5-times a day prayer (as Islam requires to pray 5 times a day) and hoping to establish an Islamic Khilafat in Bangladesh. In order to eliminate devils and improve law and order situation, he launched his “Operation Devil Hunt”, a Draconian law but it did not work as it principally clamped down only on the supporters of the past government and thousands were arrested. The nation’s prison authority complained that the total number of prisoners have exceeded 82,000 almost double of the jail capacity. No wonder, reports of prisoners dying inside the jails are coming out every now and then.
Nobel Laureates and celebrities published advertisements supporting Dr. Yunus
Hundreds of Nobel Laureates and celebrities published advertisements supporting Dr. Yunus hoping that he would hold a free, fair, inclusive election soon.
Dr. Yunus received his Nobel Peace Prize Award as his microcredit innovation reportedly helped reducing poverty. In fact, microcredit bank was first established in Columbia as early as 1962 and it had over half a million borrowers. Its repayment was not as good as that of Grameen Bank. The Grameen Bank of Bangladesh was established in 1982 by the Bangladesh government at the initiative of Dr. Muhammad Yunus and although he never paid a penny, he was made its Managing Director (MD) and he held that position till 2011. He never wanted to relieve that job and he violated all rules and regulations to hold onto that job. He even used the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to retain that job.
Admittedly, microcredit is not his innovation, however, his contribution to microcredit is basically in three areas and these are, (1) he lends credit mostly to women, (2) he sends his collectors to each borrower weekly for repayment and he collects it by force, and (3) he innovated a 5-member peer pressure for effective repayment. He gets fund either as grant or at 1 or 2% and lends at 22% or more.
Although he is credited for alleviation of poverty, recent research suggests it otherwise. In fact, those who avail themselves micro loans from the Grameen Bank, only 9% could maintain or improve their status and the rest 91% are either pushed into more indebtedness or become destitute. He claims that he made a ‘sea change’ in lending — while his father and his contemporaries used to lend money to poor villagers at 300 or 400 percent interest rate, he gives them at 22 or 27 percent only. He claims that he has made 10 million poor people as the ‘owners of his Grameen Bank’. How he made them owners? It is mandatory for all the borrowers to open an account by paying ten taka each to the Grameen Bank when they take out loans, thereby they become owners although in its 41 years of existence, the Grameen Bank never paid a penny as devident nor ever shared its profits with them. Since the Nobel Laureates and celebrities don’t know the whole truth, they are eloquent in supporting him unreservedly by publishing advertisements in the global media. Is it not exceptional?
Yunus government redraw the boundaries of Bangladesh
To have cheap popularity, his Cabinet colleague Mahfuz Alam whom he introduced as the Chief Architect of meticulous design came up with a new map of much larger and bigger Bangladesh that includes 10 states of India inside in it. As Indian government objected to it, he deleted the map but his hawks are demanding to capture a few states of India by force and cut off India’s 7 sisters by taking over the “chicken neck”, a small corridor that connects the mainland India to it’s seven North East sister states namely Arunachal Prodesh, Assam, Manipur, Megalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Tripura.
Industries are shutting down in Bangladesh
There is lawlessness and anarchy in the country. The nation’s RMG and agricultural sectors besides remittance are the three major engines of its growth. Hundreds of RMG factories have been shut down, it laid off over 100,000 workers and an additional 26.6 million people registered in the unemployment roster. The nation’s GDP growth rate which was expected to be 7.2%, is now, as per IMF/WB may reach 3.3% only, lowest in 30 years. There is no new investment. Because of instability and uncertainty, the foreign assistance went down by 71%, ADP achieved only 18% and an additional 3 million people, as per World Bank are being pushed into below poverty level. In fact, poverty level which was reduced during the past government of Sheikh Hasina to below 17% in 2024 is now increased to 22% and extreme poverty shots up from 5% to 9% now. As the joblessness and poverty has increased, the theft, robbery and criminal activities have dramatically increased making the life of law abiding citizens difficult.
Moreover, as the availability and distribution of fertilizer, seeds, water I.e. agricultural inputs disrupted due to corruption, and breakdown of supply chains, there is apprehension of food storage and hunger. Already, reports of hunger are coming out of St. Martin island as there is no tourists anymore, their main source of income.
Because of shortage of energy and foreign exchange to import essential raw materials, the nation’s business leaders claimed that 50% manufacturing factories will close down soon. The international credit rating agencies have already lowered their ratings for Bangladesh creating more barriers to borrowing and imports.
Since the fall of the past government, the life in Bangladesh have become difficult and uncertain as inflation is high over 10%, roadblocks often paralyze cities, public officials hardly work, students hardly attend classes, they don’t have books or supplies, corruption and nepotism shot up, and most importantly, most of the institutions in the country have been destroyed or not functioning including the local government institutions and departments.
Yunus Judiciary has become a Joke
In order to punish the supporters if the past government, Professor Yunus filed nearly 18,000 false murder cases against more than 300,000 supporters of the past government. Even cases were filed against dead people and people that have been living abroad. It has become a norm to demand a huge ransom to withdraw one’s name from these fraudulent murder cases. To avoid non-bailable arrests and revenge, a few hundred thousand of them left the country and as they left, their businesses and properties are being grabbed by young jehadis and terrorists. Now the nation’s judiciary has become a tool of extortion and corruption. Since judicial abuse is wild and pervasive, people lost all faith in his judiciary. If he needs any reform, it should be his justice system which is now truly an evil mechanism of extortion and abuse.
Nation’s Police force highly demoralized
Since his jehadis and sharp shooters reportedly killed 3,200 police offcials, there is complete breakdown of law and order situation. Moreover, his granting of “indemnity” to the killers which means no one can solicit justice nor can file a case against the killers of 5-8 August (2024) mayhem made them totally demoralized. Therefore, no one is safe in Bangladesh now as the police are inactive and demoralized. No wonder, a few foreign missions in Bangladesh have already advised their nationals to avoid visiting Bangladesh and if they do, must stay away from crowded places or remote areas.
Corruption and Extortion Reached Historic Heights
Dr. Yunus promised the world that he would reduce corruption. Since there is no law and order in the country, corruption and extortion has reached to its historic heights. He has recruited hundreds of new officers without any due processes, and since they know that once an elected government would be installed, they would lose their jobs and therefore, they are taking bribes as much as they can.
The new government as per media reports exceeded the 15-year record of accumulated corruption of the previous government within the last 10 months. Reportedly they looted 90,000 crore taka from the stock market alone.
Media and freedom of opinion
Although Professor Yunus publicly stated that media is free in Bangladesh but sadly, there is no media freedom in Bangladesh now. Hundreds of journalists and reporters have been detained, terminated, and many TV stations and dailies were shut down or taken over and the government imposed strict restrictions on publication. Press registrations of thousands of reporters have been canceled. His government claims that 2.6 million Indians are illegally working in Bangladesh and when 3 journalists asked them to provide evidence, they lost their jobs. Yunus media machine often comes up with false narratives. Therefore , only source of information is now ‘social media and facebook’ many of which are unreliable.
Human Rights and Abuse of Power
In current Bangladesh, human rights and justice is totally absent. Even movie and sports celebrities and stars are not immune. In order to extort money, its anti-corruption agency targets wealthy persons for extortion. If they refuge to pay extortion money, false cases are filed against them. In fact, if the government continues its current repression and high-handedness, it may lead it to a ‘failed state’. The ruling oligarchy has goons and jehadis and they grabbed properties and businesses of thousands of citizens illegally. People have no place to go. Once the Yunus government falls, there is apprehension that there could be blood bath. Professor Yunus is reportedly upset with all these developments yet he is failing to improve. Instead, he promptly managed 9 special benefits for himself and for his institutions including tax evasion by abusing his power and reportedly trying to leave the country.
Bangladesh Losing Foreign Friends
In order to defame the past government of Sheikh Hasina, his administration came up with hundreds of false and fabricated stories of corruption. In the process, they claimed that many governments including India, Indonesia, Japan, Russian Federation, France, and Qatar governments were involved in corruption.
For example, Bangladesh signed many agreements with India, its largest neighbor, including transit arrangements. Since Yunus blamed India, the Indian government stopped all transit trade with Bangladesh and as a result, Bangladesh would lose almost a billion dollars trade. Bangladesh used to import many essential items like wheat, rice, onion, chili, sugar, cotton, etc from India but now it is importing those items at higher prices from Pakistan, China, Myanmar and Turkey. Moreover, out of fear of rise of terrorism in Bangladesh, India puts up visa restrictions to Bangladeshis. As a consequence, millions of Bangladeshi tourists, medical patients and shoppers cannot visit India now (in 2023, nearly 2.8 million Bangladeshis visited India). Now a hostile situation has been created between these two neighbors, and two close friends suddenly become enemies.
The Yunus government claimed that France provided bribe to Sheikh Hasina to buy its satellite and her planned purchase of 10 airbus. In fact, Sheikh Hasina brought 21 Boeing from the USA and in order to diversify her fleet, she decided to buy 10 Airbus, and signed an agreement in London. Airbus is owned by France, Germany and Spain governments plus private EU companies not alone by France. Reportedly, the France government cancelled Dr. Yunus’s scheduled visit to Paris because of such false allegations.
Yunus government claimed that Japan bribed Hasina to get the job of building its first metro rail in Dhaka, a new airport terminal and its Matarbari project. Reportedly, Japan has asked the Yunus government to provide them documentary evidence of such claims. In order to manage them, Dr. Yunus rushed to Tokyo to apologize.
Yunus government claimed that Indonesia bribed Hasina and she accepted poor quality coal from Indonesia. The issue of Bangladesh’s sectoral membership to the ASEAN, therefore, was not approved during the last week’s ASEAN summit.
Yunus claimed that Sheikh Hasina concluded a 15-year agreement to buy gas from Qatar as Qatar bribed her. In fact, she signed the agreement as the energy market is uncertain and volatile. Qatar agreed to take 1129 military personnel from Bangladesh in 2023 but now got upset and stopped engaging them. Dr. Yunus therefore visited Qatar recently to manage the situation.
Yunus government claimed that the Russian government bribed Sheikh Hasina, her sister Rehana and her niece, a British citizen,Tulip Siddique nearly half a billion dollars to sign its first Nuclear Power plant in Bangladesh. At the time, Tulip was a staff member to a British MP, not a Minister and she accompanied her aunt to Russian Federation. Russian Federation got upset at it and it told the Yunus government that the Rosatom is a government organization and it never bribe anyone for business. Tulip’s lawyers asked the Bangladesh government to submit evidence of corruption to which they did not respond yet. In the meantime the British Prime Minister publicly stated that he had full confidence on Tulip Siddique.
Dr. Yunus is not a friend to US President Donald Trump either. In fact, he is very close to US President Bill Clinton and to his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. He has very poor opinion of Donald Trump. Professor Yunus contributed huge amounts to Hillary Clinton and used all his sources to defeat Trump. He was greatly upset at Trump’s victory. Dr. Yunus is also a great friend of billionaire George Soros of “Deep State” who contributed to defeat Donald Trump and also provided fund to dislodge Sheikh Hasina government from power and was successful.
However, to keep President Trump in good humor, Dr. Yunus welcomed Trump’s imposition of 37% tariff on Bangladeshi garments exports and assured him of reducing tariff barriers to the US products to Bangladesh. And as a gesture of friendship, he refrained from claiming that the US government bribed Hasina to buy 21 Boeing aircraft’s till now?
People demand National Election
Professor Yunus is delaying the next election in the pretext of reforms. He created his own political party popularly known as “king’s party NCP” (initially he created it when he received Nobel Prize but it failed) and their main demand is ‘no election until his Kangaroo courts complete verdicts’. His government appointed mostly foreign nationals (out of 24, he employed 16 foreign nationals) to design his reforms. Unfortunately, none of his appointees worked in Bangladesh in the last 20/30 years and therefore, they don’t know the ground realities. People have no trust on them and they don’t like his “reform game”.
To delay any national election, he is meeting political parties (many ones are one or two-men parties recently born), and their combined mass support is around one or two percent only and they are echoing Yunus’ powerful bloggers and media office that they don’t want any election.
Political parties in Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, like the USA or the UK, there are two major political parties, the Awami League (AL) and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). The largest and oldest is the Awami League of Sheikh Hasina and nearly 38% percent people support it. Due to recent upheaval and more so as few of its leaders were involved in corrupt practices and excesses, its support might have reduced in recent days and also as the Yunus government banned all its activities. Its supporters are being detained under its Draconian “Operation Devil Hunt” program. All said and done, yet its support base is still strong more so as excesses of Yunus government is too harsh and his governance is very poor. Grass root poor people are the AL’s greatest supporters. Next is the BNP party of Begum Khaleda Zia and nearly 32% people support it. Currently its support might have gone up. The 3rd party is the Jamatee Islam who wants to introduce the Sharia laws in the country. It had around 6 or 7% support and now may have jumped to 17% under the patronage of Professor Yunus. The followers of this party opposed the creation of independent and sovereign Bangladesh in 1971. They preferred to stay with united Pakistan. Its youth group, the Islami Chatra Shibir was termed by the US government as a “terrorist organization”.
Major political parties want early election and they argue that reform is a dynamic process and reforms will not be sustainable without people’s participation.
It is unfortunate that an emerging economy of Bangladesh which was developing fast and becoming the world’s 25th largest economy in terms of purchasing power is now becoming a Failed State due to poor and lopsided governance of Nobel Laureate Professor Yunus.
What to do?
If you don’t like to see “Bangladesh as a failed state “ and if you don’t like to see hunger and starvation in Bangladesh, you should speak out and demand an election within next 60 days. Dr. Yunus has passed 10 months in the name of reform knowing fully well that reforms without people’s participation are not sustainable, and therefore, he must not be allowed to befool people any longer. He must arrange a free, fair, transparent and all inclusive election where all major parties must be guaranteed level playing field. If he fails to arrange a free, fair and inclusive election, he must resign and let a non-partisan government hold the election within next two months’ time.
