Is Sheikh Hasina’s next destination Russia?

SALEEM SAMAD

Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus met with International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan QC at the United Nations General Assembly in New York last week.

Taking to Twitter (X), Karim Khan QC said, “Common visions to strengthen ICC cooperation ensure accountability for crimes committed against the Rohingya.”

ICC in The Hague (Den Haag) is hearing the war crimes and ethnic cleansing committed by Myanmar troops against the Rohingya Muslims after they were declared illegal migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh and dubbed as Bengali (meaning they are not Myanmar nationals).

It is not known whether Yunus has discussed ICC’s support for strengthening the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal. The ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been implicated in ‘crimes against humanity’ for the deaths of more than a thousand students and protesters during the Monsoon Revolution in July and early August.

The Interim Government, led by micro-credit inventor Dr Yunus, told audiences in New York that he would like to see former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina be extradited and brought to justice “if she” has committed crimes.

“Why shouldn’t be? If she committed crimes, she should be extradited and brought to justice…She should be facing justice too,” he said while responding to a question at “The New York Times Climate Forward Event”.

Earlier, he reiterated to an Indian media that Delhi should deport Hasina to face the music of justice for the deaths of thousands of protesters in less than 35 days of the Monsoon Revolution.

The number of times Yunus mentions “extradition” of Hasina, South Block in New Delhi is having hiccups. The worrisome seasoned officials and politicians in Delhi have kept their lamps burning regarding the future status of Hasina living in exile at a Safe House at Ghaziabad Hindon Air Base near Delhi.

A high-profile defence correspondent in Delhi said she is in a safe house for security reasons. Indian Intel believes that she has external threats and is forced to live in seclusion.

She is living incommunicado at the air base and unable to meet her daughter Saima Wazed, who has been the South East Asian regional director for the World Health Organisation since 1 November 2023 and is based in New Delhi.

Saima, in her tweet, admitted that she wanted to hug her beloved mother but was unable to do so due to preoccupation and hectic conferences in the South East Asian region. Does anybody believe her excuse?

Similarly, her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy, despite his best intention to meet his beleaguered mother in Delhi, has not been given diplomatic clearance to arrive in Delhi.

None of the ruling BJP politicians or officials of the Indian government has paid courtesy calls to Hasina, except for Ajit Doval, National Security Advisor of India. He was at the air base when she arrived in Delhi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is yet to meet her. External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, while briefing the all-party meeting, said, “We received a request for a short stay.”

Ousted Hasina has always given the impression that China, Russia and of course India are ‘all-weather friends’ of Bangladesh.

The three countries have always lent their shoulders to Hasina, despite appalling human rights records, fraudulent elections in 2014, 2018 and 2024, money laundering, bank loot, poor accountability of elected rogue politicians and politicisation of democratic institutions.

The time-tested friends unfortunately did not react to the autocratic regime. Delhi, Beijing and Moscow’s silence encouraged Hasina to become an iron lady – a Frankenstein. She has brutally cracked down on opposition, dissidents, critics, journalists and even netizens.

Now that her long stay in India is likely to dent its bilateral, regional and global relationship, Delhi has to find a reasonable argument for not extraditing Hasina to Bangladesh authorities for her trial.

Delhi knows very well that if Hasina faces a politically motivated trial for the deaths of students, the court will hand down the death penalty. The Interim Government will not take any risk in keeping her alive.

However, the trial is not expected soon. The Yunus administration will wait until United Nations Human Rights Commission Chief Volker Türk, who took responsibility for deploying an UN team of experts to probe into the killing of the protesters during the “student revolution”, gets the report from the team.

Bangladesh will have to wait for the UN fact-finding mission to submit its report to begin the much-talked-about trial.

It is very rare for China to give shelter to exiled leaders from other countries. Then it leaves with two other “all-weather friends” – India and Russia.

With Dr Yunus’s hectic parleys with world leaders at UNGA, India read the pulse that it would be difficult to provide a credible excuse not to extradite Hasina.

Thus the best alternative would be to send her to Russia, where she will be safe and secure, several officials of the Indian National Security Council (NSC), who are privy to the issue, have confided with this journalist.

Russia has a history of ignoring international calls for extradition. For India, it will be difficult to absorb diplomatic and international pressure. So the only country for Hasina to live happily ever after would be Russia.

Well, when did Hasina live in Russia? It would be extremely difficult to determine the time. However, the NSC officials guess that the balls will begin to roll when Bangladesh will officially seek her extradition.

A top official in the Chief Advisor’s Office, who declined to be quoted, said it would be too early to comment on what Bangladesh should do if Hasina is shifted to Russia.

First published in the Northeast News, Guwahati, India on 30 September 2024

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with the Reporters Without Borders (@RSF_inter). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

Sheikh Hasina bids farewell to her colleagues in Dhaka before emplaning for Johannesburg

 

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is prepared to participate at the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa from August 22 to 24.

The BRICS 2023 summit is the fifteenth upcoming annual BRICS summit, an international relations conference attended by the heads of state or heads of government of the five member states: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa also invited the leaders of 67 countries to the summit, including 53 other African Countries, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Indonesia and Iran.

Bangladesh likely to get BRICS membership, says Foreign Minister Dr. Momen after meeting of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina with South African President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa in Geneva. Report say the issue was raised during the meeting between two leaders.

Sheikh Hasina is likely to hold parleys on the sideline of the summit with her counterpart Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will skip the summit in person due to an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes in Ukraine. He will take part in the summit virtually and will be represented in Johannesburg by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, reports Reuters.

The Chinese leader Xi will be taking the second overseas visit of 2023. It comes as China attempts to expand its geopolitical influence in the region, and also in South Pacific. The treacherous move has raised eyebrows among the many countries in South Asia, South East Asia, Far East Asia and Australasia.

The “BRIC” was coined in 2001 by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neil to recognise the potential of emerging economies. Later the bloc expanded to include South Africa, adding to BRICS.

BRICS is an influential coalition of emerging economies that focuses on economic cooperation, peace, social and human development for developing countries.

As the BRICS is spreading wings, Bangladesh aims to create a new multi-polar world order and usher in a more diverse economy to override the influence of the United States and its dollar currency in the region.

Can BRICS currency shake the Dollar’s dominance? Joseph W. Sullivan, a senior advisor at the Lindsey Group and a former special advisor and staff economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Trump administration is not a sceptic and he believes de-dollarisation is in the air.

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inàcio Lula da Silva, chimed. “Every night,” he said, he asks himself “why all countries have to base their trade on the dollar.”

BRICS is steadfast in its mission to establish itself as a formidable alternative platform to Western-dominated institutions like the IMF and the World Bank.

As expected, the United States and the United Kingdom have expressed concerns about the emerging BRICS alliance, while the European Union is inclined to support it, writes Maryam Ibrahim in the Diplomatic Insight.

At a time when Bangladesh is poised to join BRICS, there would be a prospective impact on the bilateral relations between Bangladesh and India to continue its development voyage.

Hasina is looking forward to political and moral support from her counterpart Modi to become a member of the most desired BRICS bloc. Dhaka is confident that Delhi would extend its hand to bring Bangladesh on board, according to insiders of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Dhaka.

Obviously, Dhaka is expecting New Delhi would help Bangladesh to reap benefit from the BRICS when the country’s forex has dwindled after the Ukraine-Russia war and have forced to curtail all government extravaganza expenditure and postponing non-essential projects, including funding official to travel abroad.

With Bangladesh joining the ranks, it could lead to increased economic ties and collaboration between the two neighbouring countries. This could result in improved trade relations, investment opportunities, and infrastructure development, thus benefiting Bangladesh and India.

Besides the blocs alternative platform, BRICS would be further fortified, signalling a resounding call for reforms in global governance and facilitating cooperation within a framework.

India, as an existing BRICS [founding] member and would need to navigate the changing dynamics within the group and adjust its approach towards Bangladesh accordingly.

Combined, the BRICS bloc had a GDP (gross domestic product) of over $26.03 trillion in 2022, which is slightly more than the US. The five members of the bloc collectively represent about 27% of the world’s geographic areas and 42% of the world’s population. About 26% of steel and iron, 40% of corn and 46% of wheat are produced by BRICS countries. It has a $4.5 trillion combined forex reserve, reported the Arab News.

Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, a distinguished fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), sharing his insights on the economic potential and political ambitions of BRICS said Bangladesh is already a part of some alliances, like SAARC, BIMSTEC, and D-8. They also aim to enhance trade relations among member countries.

Well, the country has not seen significant benefits from these alliances. Bangladesh imports a significant amount of raw materials from the two key members of BRICS – China and India, he told the largest circulated daily newspaper, Prothom Alo.

Bangladesh’s interest in joining BRICS may stem from the broader effort to gear up the role of developing nations through a southern alliance, he said.

We have noticed different types of reprimands and punitive measures from some major world powers over elections as well as human rights conditions in Bangladesh. We have also seen diverse responses from the government, Dr Bhattacharya explained.

Researcher Sadia Aktar of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Dhaka explains that Bangladesh needs a relationship with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries for its growing energy needs and BRICS can be the gateway for that.

As Saudi Arabia and UAE have already shown interest to engage in more flattering bilateral relations with Bangladesh, the admission of these three countries into BRICS will be a very important investment for Bangladesh in advancing its Muslim allies in the current world, she wrote in The GeoPolitics.

However, Dr Salem Nasser, professor of international law at Brazil’s FGV Direito SP University, does not believe that through joining BRICS the newcomers include Saudi Arabia, Iran, Argentina, the UAE, Bangladesh, Algeria, Egypt, Bahrain, Indonesia, Syria, from East Africa, West Africa and others will be aligning themselves with China or closing the door on collaboration with the West and says “BRICS represents a new pole of economic and political power which” can “compete with North American hegemony.”

First published in India Narrative, New Delhi, India, 22 August 2023

(Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. Views expressed are personal. Twitter: @saleemsamad)

Spending in Bangladesh: The most bucks for the biggest bang

Buddy, can you spare a dime? A very, very large one?

THERE is no lack of world-beating records in Bangladesh. It starts as the world’s most densely populated country (not counting city-states and the like). Its capital, Dhaka, merely an undistinguished district headquarters at time of partition from India in 1947, can now be counted as the fastest-growing city in the world. Female leaders have ruled the country for longer than have men—which is to say, longer than women have anywhere else. No country at peace with its neighbours has more citizens shot dead by the security forces of one of its neighbours. The world’s biggest NGO, also apparently the best, BRAC (formerly the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee), bears the name of its home country. Despite astounding progress, 53m Bangladeshis, fully one-third of the population, still live below the poverty line.

Until the end of January, Bangladesh was also the location of South Asia’s biggest infrastructure project to funded by donors. The Padma bridge, a proposed river crossing that was to cost $3 billion to build, would also have been the world’s longest, at a length of about 10km. But its fate has become forlorn, since the Bangladesh government withdrew its request to the Word Bank for financing, on January 31st. The decision to turn down $1.2 billion in cheap loans—the biggest pile of cash the World Bank has ever offered to a single country—came a day after the bank’s president, Jim Yong Kim, forcefully stated his commitment to not allow crony capitalism to persist under his watch. (Mr Kim went on to use the Padma bridge as an example of the bank’s stance in the face of “insufficient response by the authorities to the evidence of corruption”.)

Thanks, but no thanks, seemed to be Bangladesh’s reply. With the refusal of the World Bank’s conditions went the loans that had under negotiation with the Asian Development Bank and the Japan International Co-operation Agency: altogether nearly $3 billion. Since Bangladesh cannot borrow from international markets, the net result of the government’s apparent intransigence is that 30m people, who are cut off from Dhaka by the vast Padma and the Jamuna (known to India as the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, respectively), and cut off from the rest of the country as well, will have to be patient.

But forget the bridge for a moment. It appears that the government has developed a taste for other symbols of power, of the kind that were till recently in the preserve of regional-powers-with-adversaries. No longer. Last year Bangladesh ordered its first satellite. Only last week it announced plans to buy its first submarines. Finally, Bangladesh intends to spend the single-largest amount of cash it has ever seen devoted to a single project—and start building nuclear power plants.

More than 50 years after politicians in what was then East Pakistan conceived the idea, the government has found a donor in Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia. Mr Putin’s conditions, compared with those of Bangladesh’s other international partners, are financially inferior but politically irresistible.

This is a country, after all, where as recently as 2007 the army stepped in to lock up the political class, including the two heads of dynasty, and installed its own military-backed administration. One must be prepared for exigencies, and it helps when the men in green see things the same way. Russia made a $1 billion loan to Bangladesh, to buy Russian-made arms, last month, which might well punch a hole in those recent statistical estimateswhich showed that Bangladesh might be at especially high risk of suffering a coup d’etat in 2013.

The arms sale however will be small in comparison. The price tag for the country’s first nuclear plants is believed to be somewhere between $2 billion and $4 billion; the Russians have agreed to lend $500m to kick-start the project. The idea is for Rosatom, the Russian state’s nuclear company, to build and operate two plants in Rooppur, in western Bangladesh. If all goes well Bangladesh may soon be the seventh Asian country with an operational nuclear power plant (the others being China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Pakistan).

So how bad an idea is it?

The first thing to say is that Bangladesh has an energy problem the scale of which tends to be, like the country as a whole, hugely underreported. According to the World Bank, there is no country where businesses find it more difficult to get electricity than Bangladesh. In its latest “Doing Business Survey”, the bank ranks Bangladesh an unflattering 185th out of 185 countries in this category. More than 60% of people do not have access to electricity.

So if the size of the problem were to suggest the size of the solution, a chunky 2,000MW more from two nuclear power stations might be a good start. The Russian plants would generate enough power to fill the current supply gap and would be a big step towards meeting the government’s goal of producing 20,000MW by 2020. The country’s current electricity-generation capacity stands at a mere 5,000-6,000MW. Domestic reserves of gas, the main source of energy, are not plentiful. The government’s short-term strategy, to fix the power crisis by installing oil-based power plants, is both unaffordable and environmentally precarious. Coal deposits exist, but too many people live on top of them. Any politician who dares touch the coal is likely to get a hostile reaction similar to the one experienced last week by foreigners who offered to help in digging it up.

The obvious solutions to Bangladesh’s long-term energy future would be a mix of coal and gas imports from Myanmar or the Middle East. But they don’t sound nearly as impressive as indigenous nukes, do they? Bangladesh’s political parties cannot agree on much, but they both like the idea of nuclear power.

There are a few problems with trying to produce 5,000MW of nuclear power (ie a fifth of the total projected generating capacity) by 2030 in what is essentially one big hot river delta. The lack of an alternative source of power, in case cooling systems collapse, and annual flooding, which, in a bad year, can cover up to two-thirds of the delta, come to mind. An earthquake once shifted the course of the mighty Brahmaputra, which used to flow east of Dhaka, to its current riverbed, 150km west of the capital. Experts may find that the plants’ proposed site on the bank of the Padma river is safe. Yet public protests, like the one in Kundankulam in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, over the same type of Russian reactor, are to be expected nonetheless. 

Bangladesh is not set to enrich its own uranium in any case; Russia would provide the radioactive fuel rods. But both the Bangladeshi public and neighbouring India, whose border with Bangladesh is only 25km from the proposed site, are likely to demand guarantees concerning the safe transport of nuclear material. The rods would have to travel from the port of Chittagong on roads that are among the world’s deadliest.

And if the transport of nuclear material is to circumambulate the urban sprawl of Dhaka, then they will have to cross the Padma. So unless the government puts the Chinese, say, in charge of constructing that bridge quite swiftly, the nation’s first nuclear-fuel cask will have to take a boat.

First appeared in The Economist, February 6th 2013