Shamima Choudhury
When General el-Sisi usurped powers in Egypt, he banned all NGO (non-government organisations) activities in Egypt. A visiting American diplomat who himself was a member of an NGO asked him why he banned all NGOs, President Abdul Fattah el-Sisi’s reply was very quick. He said, “Ask your own government” . It was learned that the US government itself advised Gen. El-Sisi to kick out all the foreign NGOs from Egypt and he did. A few of them made little noise but soon it stopped. President el-Sisi was successful in stopping the rise of street violence.
In fact, President el-Sisi banned all NGOs as he was reported that these NGOs could mobilize support for the ousted President Mohamed Morsi, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Party to regain his control. Muslim Brotherhood Party was banned in Egypt for years but when it was legalized in 2011 it gained a lot of support and by 2013 it elected its own man, Mohamed Morsi as the President of Egypt. However, when the Arab Spring erupted in Egypt, and NGOs mobilized its supporters, President Morsi was overthrown.
The NGOs of Egypt played a quiet but significant role during the Arab Spring. They were funded by foreign governments and they mobilized support for the ouster of President Morsi who was taking one after another decisions that hurt the Western interests. But soon a few of these NGOs realized that they had done a disservice to the Muslim Brotherhood, they started regrouping and reorganizing and this time, to overthrow President el-Sisi. Gen. Sisi quickly banned them and also he seized all their activities, accounts and operations.
Bangladesh is a land of NGOs and there are thousands of NGOs in Bangladesh. Many of them are foreign funded. It is needless to mention that the world’s largest NGO is in Bangladesh also. It is none other than the world famous, BRAC. It has operations in nearly 28 countries from Asia to Africa and beyond. These NGOs always get government support and therefore, they have become big business conglomerates. Their activities not only are confined in helping the poor and the destitute people but they are also engaged in big businesses. They have set up modern chain stores, factories, offices all across the country, training centers, they lend credits to varieties of people and institutions, and they have established universities, hospitals, and even they own banks and insurance companies. They are, in fact, diversified big business conglomerates.
Although their foreign funding as per law is supposed to be reported to the government, i.e. the NGO Bureau but normally by paying bribes they manage to keep their funding undisclosed.
President Donald Trump in a recent disclosure mentioned about two unknown NGOs of Bangladesh that received a $29 million US-AID fund for promoting democracy in Bangladesh, but the nation’s Finance Adviser Salehuddin Ahmed claimed that there is no record of those funds with the NGO Bureau. President Trump further added that those NGOs were small entities, a two-men shop. There is speculation that these could be the “Bela” of Rizwana Hasan and the “Adiker” of advocate Adilur Rahman. They both are the powerful members of the Yunus cabinet. A few, however , speculate that Dr. Badiul Alam Majumder, an American citizen who heads an organization titled “Sujan”, an organisation to promote democracy might be a beneficiary. However, none of them yet denied receiving funds. At present, Dr. Badiul Alam Majumder is the Chairperson of the Election Reform Committee of Dr. M. Yunus. The Yunus media wing however termed President Trump as a liar.
Many NGOs which are foreign-funded hardly report their budget, their income and expenditure, their programs, etc. to the government. For example, since 2014, the Adiker, an NGO that is engaged in human rights issues never reported their incomes and expenditures to the government. He could avoid such reporting as he had strong support from the USA government, particularly former US Ambassador Peter Haas. Currently he is a Powerful adviser to the Dr. M. Yunus cabinet.
During the last flood, a few governments plus many foreign institutions and individuals reportedly donated relief funds to the NGOs for helping the flood victims. The British government claimed that they donated lots of funds to the flood victims in greater Sylhet area. But neither the flood affected people, nor the government officials like DCs or Commissioners or the staff of the Relief & Disaster Ministry involved in distributing or managing flood relief materials in greater Sylhet could remember or have any record of the British assistance in Sylhet. However, they only could tell that ActionAid, a British NGO organized a couple of workshops and seminars on floods in big hotels in Sylhet when the flood was over. They did not help the flood victims.
After a thorough investigation, it was revealed that many labor leaders in the tea industry in the greater Sylhet area, the home of the tea industry, were provided with some funding to organize rallies to demand higher pay and benefits from the Bangladesh government. So it appears that the foreign funds were directed to labor leaders for the uprising.
During the July-August uprising in Bangladesh along with the students those who bravely faced the onslaught of the police firing were mostly young boys and unemployed teenagers and street urchins mostly of slumps. They generally live in nearby slumps or/and on the streets. There are many slumps in the city. They were reportedly paid handsomely by the NGOs to continue to demonstrate against the Sheikh Hasina government. Many young boys from the slumps of the Behari camps took the leadership role during the July-August anti-discrimination uprising.
Therefore, when Dr. Yunus formed his interim government, whom he picked up as his advisers? Most of his cabinet members are NGO leaders who assisted the uprising. No wonder, his government is popularly known as an NGO government.
Nobel Laureate Dr. Yunus knows the power of money as his own business is making money by lending money. He lends small loans as credits at high interest rates and as a result, those who once take credit from his Grameen Bank can never get out of debt. Many of his borrowers committed suicide as they were overwhelmed with the burden of debts.
Since he knows that financing can mobilize the poor people of slumps, his government is now trying to wipe out slumps by burning them down. A few super active slumps have recently been burned down forcing its residents to move outside the capital city. Col. Taher, an old friend of Gen. Ziaur Rahman who rescued him from captivity in 1975 was hanged by a kangaroo court of Gen. Zia as he was reportedly a revolutionary. Will Dr. Yunus stop NGO funding as they could be a vehicle of mass agitations against the interim government?