M. Shahidul Islam
Born in the turbulent days of Cold War rivalries between Moscow and Washington, Bangladesh has failed to extricate itself from the regional and global geopolitical antagonism perpetrated by powerful nations. With China and the USA vying for global predominance, and, India playing second fiddle in between, the allegiance of future Bangladesh governments is deemed as indispensable to preserving Washington’s pre-eminence in the Asia-Pacific region.
For decades, the USA has been in the forefront of an intense jockeying for power in the Indian Ocean littoral nations where Bangladesh sits as the gateway to South and Southeast Asia, and, where a powerful Nationalist-Islamist compact has been trying desperately to dislodge a secular regime accused of destroying democracy within and tilting blindly toward India. The crisis is costing lives every day and stirring waves in the capitals of powerful nations.
A general election is only weeks away, as per constitutional guidelines, but the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies are up in arms to foil the election unless it’s held under a non-party caretaker government. The crisis began in 2011 when the ruling Awami League changed the Constitution (Act # 14, 2011) to hold the election under its own umpire-ship, the incumbent Prime Minister staying in office as the chief executive of the country.
Grave danger to democracy
Ever since, opposition parties waged a series of nation-wide strikes that had hit the economy hard and growth has slumped. The $22 billion strong garment industries are the worst victims of the crisis. Citing political uncertainty, weakening exports, consumer and investment demands, ADB’s Asian Development Outlook Update (ADOU) 2013 cautioned that gross domestic product (GDP) growth in Bangladesh will be just 5.8 percent in fiscal 2013-14, down from the projected 7.2 percent.
Now that the protracted crisis is posing a grave danger to democracy too in a country which has seen its military snatching political power on three different occasions in the 42 years of it’s existence no wonder an election under an incumbent regime is disliked by over 90 per cent of the population due to all elections under such regimes (held in 1973, 1979, 1986, 1988) having resulted in the victory of the party in power only.
Faced with a deadline where elections must be held by early January 2014, the crisis is aggravating by the day, putting President Barack Obama into a tight spot with respect to sticking to a foreign policy posture that sought for years to act in concert with Delhi. Worst still, Obama faces twin challenges from Bangladesh and Pakistan; the later a nuclear armed nation, an arch rival of India, and at the centre of US’s success and failure in Afghanistan.
Following months of preoccupation with Bangladesh where incessant strikes and agitations to compel the government of Sheikh Hasina to cave in to the opposition’s demand for a poll-time caretaker regime has paralyzed the nation, Pakistan has added more fuel to the burning South Asian cauldron.
On Saturday, Newaz Sharif’s government declared to postpone a scheduled meeting with the Obama administration in protest of Friday’s drone attack near the Afghan border that had killed the Pakistani Taliban’s top commander, Hakimullah Mehsud, and three of his associates. As Taliban vowed to avenge the incident, Pakistan’s security forces have been put on high alert while a government minister in Islamabad said the strike by an unmanned aircraft on Friday had destroyed attempts to hold peace talks with the militants, which began this week. Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, the interior minister, said: “This is not just the killing of one person, it’s the death of all peace efforts.”
Similar sentiments were echoed by former cricketer turned politician, Imran Khan, who threatened to block lorries carrying supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan unless the attacks stopped. “Dialogue has been broken with this drone attack,” Khan lamented.
Dubious diplomacy
The Indian influence in Islamabad being almost non-existent, Delhi remained fixated on the Bangladesh affairs where its influence is maximal, and orchestrated a back-channel diplomacy to convince the Obama administration that election in Bangladesh be held under the incumbent regime, as is being said and planned by the Sheikh Hasina-led administration.
“For months, Delhi tried to impose its will on the BNP,” said a senior BNP leader. Having failed to convince Khaleda Zia, leader of the BNP, the US ambassador to Dhaka, Dan Mozena, sat for a series of consultations with the Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka, Pankaj Saran. Sources say Mozena tried to impress upon Delhi the necessity to hold election in Bangladesh under a caretaker regime, keeping in mind the fateful consequences of not doing so, which Delhi did not view kindly. “The US is trying to create a terror bogey in Bangladesh to ensure its military presence in the Indian Ocean,” wrote a pro-administration Indian daily.
Upon advice from the Indian envoy in Dhaka, Mozena dashed for Delhi to discuss the Bangladesh situation. Kelly S McCarthy, the U.S. Embassy spokesperson in Dhaka, admitted that Ambassador Mozena and Mr. Saran met and discussed “a range of issues,” including Mr. Mozena’s four-day visit to New Delhi where he met Indian high officials, including Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh.
Upon return from Delhi, Mozena seperately met Awami League’s General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam and BNP’s acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir. As Mozena insisted that BNP would not participate in a poll unless held under a caretaker regime, “Indians have reacted angrily to suggestions that they were on the ‘same page’ with Washington,” said the source. A leading Indian daily, The Economic Times, made things worse by reporting that the US ambassador in Dhaka went to Delhi “uninvited” and discussed Bangladesh.
The consequences
The diplomatic dramatics organized by Delhi prove how far the administration in Delhi is willing to go to deprive the USA of any influence in the Bay of Bengal littoral states. In desperation, Dan Mozena decided to travel to China at one point to build a regional consensus on Bangladesh’s election-related crisis, said the source, but Washington called him for a consultation before making such a move.
According to another source, the US ambassador to Dhaka decided to stay away from his station for the whole month of November as a protest to what the Bangladesh Foreign Minister, Dipu Moni, obliquely accused him of doing. Moni insisted in the aftermath of Mozena’s Delhi visit that foreign diplomats must follow ‘codes of conduct. “If they want to discuss our issues, they must do it with us, not with others.” she added. Moni also urged the envoys to stay within the ‘boundaries of diplomatic etiquette’, apparently expressing displeasure with those who were seen as actively interfering in the domestic affairs of Bangladesh.
These are not, however, the moot reasons why Delhi, Washington and Beijing are exploring diverse avenues in Bangladesh with respect to who to back up for governing this turbulent nation in coming years. In January, Bangladesh and Russia signed a billion dollars arms deal, which followed a nuclear collaboration agreement that will enable Bangladesh to install two nuclear power plants to generate electricity. Bangladesh also signed a deal with India to install a coal-powered power plant along the common border which environmentalists are fighting to stop due to the adverse impact it will have on the country’s fragile eco-system in the globally-famed Sundarban region.
However, the manner in which the contours of the latest regional military and economic collaborations have evolved are indicative of a growing consensus between Delhi, Moscow and Beijing to deprive Washington from having a lasting imprint in the regional matters, something Washington is unwilling to accept. Barack Obama’s visit to Myanmar in May sought to befriend the country formerly ruled military dictators for decades through investment and inducement in order to ensure a lasting presence in the region. Bangladesh being the US’s age-old partner in development collaborations, Washington wants a stable Bangladesh where it can work comfortably with both the major political parties.
Washington is mindful that Bangladesh has proven and lasting military and economic ties with Beijing while its people are mostly wary of Indian highhandedness in their domestic affairs. Hence the silence of Beijing must be interpreted as being partly diplomatic and partly strategic. “Beijing is supportive of the demand for the installation of a caretaker regime to conduct Bangladesh polls,” according to senior BNP leaders dealing with foreign policy matters.
Chinese Ambassador to Dhaka, Li Jun, met BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia on October 7 to discuss bilateral issues, including the election-related matters that have turned political situation in Bangladesh bloody and chaotic lately. Make no mistake, China too is watching from the sideline.
Source: Weekly Holiday
