Yunus urges Bangladeshis to ‘get ready to build the country’
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Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus will head Bangladesh's interim government after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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DHAKA - Bangladesh’s Muhammad Yunus, who is set to lead a caretaker government after mass protests ousted the premier, called on compatriots on Aug 7 to be “ready to build the country”, ahead of his hugely anticipated return.
The Nobel-winning microfinance pioneer will head the interim government after long-time and autocratic prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India,
“Be calm and get ready to build the country,” Dr Yunus said in a statement on Aug 7, a day ahead of his expected return to the country from France, urging calm after weeks of violence in which at least 455 people were killed.
“If we take the path of violence everything will be destroyed,” he added.
The appointment came quickly after student leaders called on the 84-year-old Yunus – credited with lifting millions out of poverty in the South Asian country
The decision was made in a meeting with President Mohammed Shahabuddin, the heads of the army, navy and air force, and student leaders, the president’s office said in a statement.
Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman said on Aug 7 that he hoped to swear in the interim government the following day and that he backed Dr Yunus.
“I am certain that he will be able to take us through a beautiful democratic process and that we will benefit from this,” Gen Zaman said in a televised address.
Dr Yunus will have the title of chief adviser, according to Mr Nahid Islam, one of the leaders of Students Against Discrimination who participated in the meeting.
Mr Shahabuddin agreed that the interim government “will be formed within the shortest time” possible, Mr Islam told reporters, describing the meeting as “fruitful”.
Dr Yunus had travelled abroad earlier in 2024 while on bail, after being sentenced to six months in jail for a labour charge condemned as politically motivated, and which a Dhaka court on Aug 7 acquitted him of.
“I’m looking forward to going back home, see what’s happening and how we can organise ourselves to get out of the trouble we are in,” he told reporters at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris before his flight.
‘Victory’
There are few other details about the planned government, including the role of the military, but Dr Yunus has said he wants to hold elections “within a few” months.
“I congratulate the brave students who took the lead in making our Second Victory Day possible, and to the people for giving your total support to them,” Dr Yunus added.
“Let us make the best use of our new victory. Let us not let this slip away because of our mistakes.”
Ms Hasina, 76, who had been in power since 2009, resigned on Aug 5 as hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets of Dhaka demanding she stand down.
The Aug 5 events were the culmination of more than a month of unrest, which began as protests against a plan for quotas in government jobs but morphed into an anti-Hasina movement.
Ms Hasina, who was accused of rigging the January elections
‘Stop the violence’
Hundreds of people were killed in the crackdown, but the military turned against Ms Hasina on the weekend and she was forced to flee in a helicopter to neighbouring India.
The military has since acceded to a range of other demands from the student leaders, aside from Dr Yunus’ appointment.
The President dissolved Parliament on Aug 6, another demand of the student leaders and the former opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Supporters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party rallying in Dhaka on Aug 7.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The head of the police force, which protesters have blamed for leading Ms Hasina’s crackdown, was sacked on Aug 6, the president’s office said in the statement announcing Dr Yunus as leader.
Former prime minister and BNP chairwoman Khaleda Zia, 78, was also released from years of house arrest,
Political prisoners have been released, including Mr Michael Chakma, an Indigenous activist incarcerated in a secret prison since 2019, his United People’s Democratic Front party said on Aug 7. And the military reshuffled several generals, demoting some seen as close to Ms Hasina, and sacking Major-General Ziaul Ahsan, a commander of the feared Rapid Action Battalion paramilitary force.
Free from ‘dictatorship’
Since Aug 6, streets in the capital have been largely peaceful – with shops opening and international flights resuming at Dhaka airport – but government offices remained mostly closed.
Millions of Bangladeshis had flooded the streets to celebrate after Ms Hasina’s departure – and jubilant crowds also looted her official residence.
“We have been freed from a dictatorship,” said 21-year-old Sazid Ahnaf, comparing the events to the independence war in 1971 that split the nation from Pakistan.
Police said mobs had launched revenge attacks on Ms Hasina’s allies and their own officers, and also freed more than 500 inmates from a prison.
Aug 5 was the deadliest day since protests began, with at least 455 people killed since early July, according to an AFP tally based on police, government officials and hospital doctors.
Protesters broke into Parliament and torched TV stations. Others smashed statues of Ms Hasina’s father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s independence hero.
Some businesses and homes owned by Hindus – a group seen by some in the Muslim-majority nation as close to Ms Hasina – were also attacked.
Bangladeshi rights groups, as well as US and European Union diplomats, have expressed concerns about reports of attacks on religious, ethnic and other minority groups.
Neighbouring India and China, both key regional allies of Bangladesh, have called for calm. AFP
