Bangladesh: the ruling classes are trying to control the situation

Featured image: protesters last Saturday in Dhaka. Source: PTC News.

At the beginning of the month we reported on the huge rebellion which overthrew Sheikh Hasina and made her flee Bangladesh. After overthrowing her, the Bangladeshi people has not stopped and continue to point at the collaborators of the Awami League (AL) regime. Protests continued and also repression by the old State and the AL thugs. Thus, the United Nations stated that around 650 people died at the protests in Bangladesh between July 16 and August 11. Among them, UNICEF states that 32 children died during the month of July. Shortly after Hasina was overthrown, the military took control of the country and they stated they would be in charge of the situation, carry out investigations of the committed crimes against the people and they would form an interim government with the promise to form a civilian government and hold early elections.

The military decided to appoint Muhammad Yunus, as maximum leader of the new interim government, who studied and was early tied to United States, and who was a recognized opposition figure to Sheikh Hasina and also well-known friend of Yankee imperialism, for example of its representatives as the Clintons. He also has received numerous honors from several bourgeois Yankee institutions, such as the Congress Golden Medal or the Freedom Presidential Medal, awarded by the White House. But he was mainly known because he received the Peace Nobel Prize on 2006 along with the Grameen Bank, specialized in micro-credits. His supporters, among them the USA, stated that this initiative was fundamental to give chances of survive and to have a better economical future to millions of small peasants, students, etc. At the end of 2008, 7,6 billion dollars were granted. There were numerous critiques by academics as well as accusations of that mechanism has been used by big companies to make tax evasion by giving small donations from some companies to others which were dependents. But the most well-known aspect is that, far away of helping the poor peasantry, these micro-credits sunk the peasantry in a more acute bankruptcy, causing a wave of suicides among the ruined peasants in South Asia. Despite Yunus and imperialists pretended that these loans were specially dedicated to combat poverty, many peasants had problems to pay them, the banks were not letting the peasants to do not pay and harassed them. There were numerous cases of suicides which affected mainly the poor peasantry in India and Bangladesh. The bourgeois press named these consequences of the micro-credits as the “micro-credit death trap”.

One of the first things Yunus made was to meet the representatives of the garment companies in Bangladesh, gathered in the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association – BGMEA, and ask for their help to ‘rebuild the nation’. The BGMEA representatives has promised to help him and they stated they ‘fully support’ the leadership of Yunus.

So far the Yunus cabinet has included several military high rank officers or former high rank officers in the new government. Thus, the repressive forces, the same ones which had an infamous role under the Hasina government during the protests in the last years, now are represented in the new interim government which supposedly is a change or break up with the AL and Hasina government. Yunus has also incorporated two student leaders, Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmud Sajeeb Bhuiyan, two coordinators of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement. Some elements of the new cabinet are linked with the main “opposition” Party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

Some elements are trying to drive these protests into the electoral path and wants to create a political party which gathers the students and bring them into the institutions. The incorporation and representation of the protests in the new cabinet was also advised by analysts and ‘think tanks’ of Yankee imperialism.

However the plans to stabilize Bangladesh are facing the resistance of the people: the garment proletariat once again protested, demanding better conditions and also the end of the ‘black lists’ which are frequently used to attack the proletarians who protest to improve their conditions. Even though Hasina fell, there are numerous State and repressive forces leaders who continue in their positions, and therefore there are numerous reports of demonstrators who point the AL thugs and repressive forces members and they carry out demonstrations against them. They make clear that the combative mass movement has not enough with a change of government which keeps everything as it was. For example the Bangladeshi people massively protested against the Justice Chief who had not been replaced by the new government and was one of the highest representatives of the repression against the demonstrators. Two days after the protests he resigned.

We recently shared a joint declaration by several Bangladeshi and and abroad organizations. These organizations warned about the danger of imperialism and ruling classes and the necessity of expel them after the resignation of Hasina: “For this reason, it is necessary to oust all imperialism, Indian expansionism and broker ruling class including the US, China, Russia, EU and establish a democratic government of the masses including the workers-farmers-middle class. So support the movement to overthrow all imperialism, Indian expansionism and crony ruling classes and establish a democratic government of the masses including the workers-peasants-middle class.”