With a few months to go before the incumbent government serves out, foreign diplomats have become active in Bangladesh’s politics, giving their views on how the political parties should resolve the crisis over the mode of an election-time government.
Although diplomats from different missions in Dhaka in the past few months have made numerous statements on the political impasse, the UN chief’s communications this week with both the prime minister and the opposition leader have made their involvement in local politics more visible.
Leaders of both the ruling and opposition parties have reacted positively to the moves, but the opposition leaders are particularly content with the developments as they consider the diplomatic intrusions provide support to their concerns over the fairness of the next elections.
Awami League advisory council member Suranjit Sengupta, also a minister without portfolio, said that he did not think that the statements of foreign diplomats and the UN secretary general’s correspondence with the two leaders on the issue of the next polls, could be considered as ‘interference’ in the local politics.
‘They are just expressing concerns about possible political conflicts in Bangladesh, just as they do in the context of global politics. It should not be seen as interference in the local politics. They just want a peaceful resolution of any disputes,’ he added.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party standing committee member Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain said the moves of Ban Ki-moon and other foreign diplomats stationed in Dhaka had justified the party’s demand for holding elections under a neutral government.
‘Not only 90 per cent of the country’s population, now many, including the United Nations, also want an acceptable election with all parties participating in it,’ he said at a discussion on Saturday. ‘The UN secretary general has asked for holding a free and fair election. We welcome his call.’
The minister for foreign affairs, Dipu Moni, has made no comments on the foreign diplomats’ statements regarding the need for a participatory election but she has reacted to the presence of some diplomats in a courtroom following the arrest of Odhikar secretary
Adilur Rahman Khan and requested the diplomats not to cross the mark.
Political analyst Shantanu Majumder, also associate professor of political science at Dhaka University, said he found nothing wrong with the UN move but he had reservations about the activities of foreign missions in Dhaka. ‘I think there is nothing wrong if the UN move can yield something positive. But I have reservations about the activities of the embassies in Dhaka as they speak for their respective interests,’ he said.
He said China’s decision to ‘break its silence’ in commenting on local issues was also not ‘surprising’ and in fact ‘inevitable’ as China has different interests in South Asia compared to that of the US and India.
The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon on Friday talked to both Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia over the telephone to and called for settling the current dispute over the mode of an election-time government through discussions in parliament.
It was Ban’s second initiative in four months to convince the two political leaders to end the stalemate by holding dialogues preferably in parliament setting aside street agitation. Ban in May wrote to Hasina and Khaleda conveying his intention to have the impasse resolved by the two leaders through dialogues.
He also sent the UN assistant secretary general for political affairs, Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, to Dhaka in May, who met Hasina and Khaleda for a resolution of the standoff. The UN initiatives have so far not produced any visible positive results.
Similar moves were made by the Commonwealth secretary general in 1994 who had sent his special envoy Sir Ninian Stephen to mediate between the two leaders – but the move turned out to be futile.
Within 24 hours of Ban’s phone call to Hasina and Khaleda, the US ambassador in Dhaka, Dan W Mozena, also made a similar request, urging the two leaders to hold dialogue to bring an end to the deadlock over modalities of holding the next general elections.
‘There is no alternative to dialogue between the two major political fronts to reach a consensus on holding a meaningful election. Both the parties need to find a way out through dialogue,’ he said.
Mozena also said he was working towards creating a position so that the two leaders could sit across the negotiation table and
talk about the modalities of the next elections and an election-time administration.
In a rare instance, the Chinese ambassador in Dhaka, Li Jun, on August 21 called on the ruling Awami League and the opposition BNP to sit in a ‘face-to-face dialogue’, which to him, ‘would be of great help’ to resolve the crisis.
Li Jun had made the appeal as he considered ‘stability is needed for the development’ of Bangladesh. He also said he already had made his effort and would continue it for a ‘face-to-face talks’ through their ‘good friends’ in both the parties. But he left the issue to the politicians saying, ‘they [politicians] have wisdom to solve their problems’.
Courtesy of New Age
