Bangladesh crisis: Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus will become the chief adviser of the interim government in Bangladesh, said the coordinators of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement on Tuesday, following the chaotic departure of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina amid violent protests in the country. This came after Bangladesh President Mohammed Shahabuddin said an interim government would be formed after dissolving the parliament as Hasina fled the country.
Nahid Islam, one of the key coordinators of the movement, said that Prof Yunus has agreed to take on this crucial responsibility at the call of the student community to save the country, as per local media. Earlier, Nahid, Asif Mahmud, and Abu Bakar Mazumdar released a video message in which they announced Yunus' name as the next prime minister of the country.
"We have decided that the interim government would be formed in which internationally renowned Nobel Laureate Dr Mohammad Yunus, who has wide acceptability, would be the chief adviser," said Nahid, flanked by two other coordinators. Yunus, 84, has agreed to take the responsibility to "save" Bangladesh, they said. Nahid said the names of the other members of the interim government would be announced soon.
Nahid said the group earlier took 24 hours to announce the framework of the interim administration but the chaotic situation forced them to announce the name immediately. He urged the President to take steps as soon as possible to form an interim government headed by Yunus whose experiment of poor men's banking earned Bangladesh the repute of being the home of microcredit.
Who is Dr Muhammad Yunus?
- Yunus, 84, a Nobel Laureate Professor, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for pioneering microcredit to help impoverished people, especially women, while the Grameen Bank, which he had founded, also secured the prize on the same occasion. He faces over 150 other cases, including major corruption charges that could see him jailed for years if found guilty while the economist denies all wrongdoing.
- Yunus was born in 1940 in the city of Chittagong and studied at Dhaka University in Bangladesh. He received a Fulbright scholarship to study economics at Vanderbilt University and received his PhD in 1969, after which he became an assistant professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University. His major accomplishment was the formation of the Grameen Bank, which gives loans to poor people without any collateral.
- According to the Nobel Prize website, Yunus was a member of the International Advisory Group for the Fourth World Conference on Women, a post to which he was appointed by the UN secretary general. He has served on the Global Commission of Women’s Health, the Advisory Council for Sustainable Economic Development and the UN Expert Group on Women and Finance.
- He entered Bangladeshi politics in 2007 by forming his Nagorik Shakti (Citizen Power) party and planned to contest the upcoming election amid a state of emergency and severe conflict between Sheikh Hasina's Awami League and Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). He dropped his efforts to establish the party after lack of support but has maintained his fierce criticism of Hasina's government.
- A Dhaka court indicted him for embezzling more than $2 million from the dividends of the employees of a telecom company. The prosecution has accused Yunus and the others of embezzling Taka 250 million (more than $2 million) from the workers welfare fund of Grameen Telecom. The criminal trials held against him were condemned by eminent world leaders including former US President Barack Obama.
In January, Yunus was sentenced to six months in prison on a separate charge of violating labour laws but was granted bail while the sentence was challenged before the Supreme Court’s High Court Division. He is believed to be living in Paris currently.
What happened in Bangladesh?
The massive protests in Bangladesh were initially against the controversial quota system in government jobs, but soon spiralled into a broader agitation against the Awami League government after Hasina's 'razakar' remarks and the harsh police crackdown on protesters. While the initial protests calmed down after the Supreme Court scaled back the quotas, the recent unrest broke out as several students demanded Hasina's resignation.
With police firings, mob beatings, and arson across the country, at least 135 people were killed in Bangladesh on Monday during unrest, according to Dhaka Tribune. The country announced on Monday that the clashes between demonstrators and members of the Awami League claimed the lives of at least 96 people in police firings. The protests culminated in Sheikh Hasina's abrupt resignation and departure from the country as several people stormed her official residence in Dhaka. Dramatic visuals showed protesters vandalising and pulling down the statue of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the 'Father of Bangladesh', at the Bijoy Sarani area.
Bangladesh's Army Chief will meet student protest leaders on Tuesday as the country awaits the formation of a new government. Traffic was lighter than usual in the usually chaotic streets of Dhaka and schools reopened with thin attendance after closing down in mid-July as protests against quotas in government jobs spiralled. "I call upon the people of Bangladesh to display restraint and calm in the midst of this transitional moment on our democratic path," Tarique Rahman, the exiled acting chief of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), said in a post on X on Tuesday.
Army Chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman held talks with leaders of major political parties - excluding Hasina's long-ruling Awami League - to discuss the way ahead and said it was "unanimously decided" to immediately release BNP chairperson and Hasina's long-time nemesis, Khaleda Zia, who was convicted and jailed in a graft case in 2018. A BNP spokesperson said on Monday that Zia was in hospital and "will clear all charges legally and come out soon".
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