When BNP was formed by General Ziaur Rahman after he usurped power, US supported him wholeheartedly. But BNP’s policy of aligning with Islamist groups like Jamaat-e-Islami backfired against it. With the Supreme Court banning Jamaat as a political party, the Hasina government started a crackdown on the organisation. Their leaders were arrested, they were not allowed to conduct rallies. Naturally, they began to use social media like Telegram, Twitter in order to disseminate their venomous views. Islamists began to spread rumours on alleged sacrilege of the Quran by the minorities. In 2021, the Quran was placed in a Durga puja pandal at the deity’s feet and it was said that Hindus had committed blasphemy. Widespread arson and attacks on Hindus followed, reminding us of similar violence carried out by the BNP against the minorities when it came to power in 2001.
The US Ambassador to Bangladesh Peter Hass demanded an explanation of the clashes between BNP and the police. While even Trump had met Bangladeshis opposed to Hasina, this time US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken urged Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen that the election of 2024 has to be free and fair.
Let us not forget how the US designated Bangladesh’s elite Rapid Action Battalion(RAB) and six of its current and former leaders as complicit in, or engaged in, serious human rights abuses in relation to the country’s war on drugs, effectively freezing all their assets in the US.
But US sanctions have not worked before and in any case have brought about sanctioned nations together, creating a formidable anti-US alliance led by China. US did not even invite Bangladesh for the Summit on Democracy.
US has often resented the progress of the Bangladesh under Hasina. They feel that with unstable neighbours, India would be bothered about security all the time and will not be able to focus on its development, thereby forcing it to turn to US for support, returning to its status of a vassal as it was in the 1960s.
Besides, Bangladesh has never been a vassal of US, unlike Pakistan. It has also got more exports to the US than imports from the US. With the assistance of both India and China, it has managed to get a shield from any potential Western intervention.
Sheikh Hasina’s denouncing the US on the floor of the Parliament and its pointing out to the support to the killers of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman like Rashed Chowdhury, hosting of BNP leaders and giving permission to anti-Hasina protests and the history of US intervention shows that the Hasina government is serious about the US-BNP pact. She also reminded the people of US support to Pakistan in the 1971 War and its attempt to stall the final assault on the Pakistanis. US must not play its devious game in Bangladesh.