U.S. assistant secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal has again called on all sides in Bangladesh to restrain violence and find ways for credible and violence-free elections. ‘Violence has no place in the democratic process. And we think it’s very important that all sides find ways to move forward to have free, fair, credible, and peaceful or violence-free elections in Bangladesh,’ she said at the foreign press centre in Washington on Tuesday while speaking on U.S. foreign policy priorities in South and Central Asia.
Welcoming the announcement of general elections on January 5, Nisha made an urgent call for concerted efforts for dialogue to bring the two major political parties closer together.
Asked about the situation in Bangladesh she recently visited and what would be the US position if there is military intervention in the country, Nisha did not give a straight reply but said Bangladesh made enormous progress and has enormous future potentials.
She cited the economic growth that Bangladesh has experienced over the past decade; the gains that it has made on developments; on the improvements in health, in maternal mortality and child mortality; the drops in fertility rates; the improvements in food security.
‘This is an incredible story of progress that we have seen in Bangladesh, and an incredible potential for the future as we talk about this more integrated region between South and Southeast Asia,’ she said.
Nisha added that the major challenge that stands in the way of Bangladesh realising that future is if there’s not a political transition that is free, fair, smooth, and acceptable to the Bangladeshi people. ‘We would like to see this country continue to move forward on the path towards development and prosperity.’
She said the United States and its friends in the international community don’t have a stake in who wins what election. ‘But we would like to see a process that is free, fair, credible, and free from violence. That has been the message that we have underscored. And for that to take place, both of the major political parties need to come together.’
She said the solutions are not going to come from the international community. ‘The solutions are there within the people and the institutions and the parties of Bangladesh, and what needs to happen is for that dialogue that allows a compromise to emerge that will allow for elections to take place that the people of Bangladesh can have confidence in and can feel are credible. And that has been our underlying message publicly and privately.’
-With New Age input
