Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed Yunus confirmed on Tuesday that, at the request of student movements, he will lead the transition in Bangladesh following the flight of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after the strong protests against the quota system for public jobs that have already left hundreds dead.
“When they contacted me on behalf of the students, I did not accept at first,” Yunus said, according to a source close to the Nobel Peace Prize winner to whom the Bangladeshi newspaper ‘The Daily Star’ has had access.
“If students can sacrifice so much, if the people of the country can sacrifice so much, then I also have a certain responsibility,” said Yunus, who is abroad for medical treatment, although he has also been invited by the Olympic Committee to attend the Paris Games.
Hours earlier, the leaders of the student movements that have led the protests announced that Yunus would be in charge of organizing a transitional government, thus finally convincing him to accept the post after he had ruled himself out of any political role on Monday following the fall of Hasina.
“We have decided to form an interim government in which Dr. Mohamed Yunus, a Nobel Prize winner of international renown and wide acceptance, will be the main advisor,” announced Nahid Islam, coordinator of the Anti-Discrimination Movement.
Islam urged the country’s president, Mohamed Shahabuddin, to take “immediate and effective measures to restore law and order,” also demanding that students be allowed to remain in the streets to “help” the forces of law and order until the interim government is formed.
“We are calling on everyone to come out on the streets from Tuesday (…) We have to protect our minority communities, our public property and our country,” said Islam, who announced that in the next few hours Yunus would announce the names of those who will form the interim government.
Yunus finally assumes the role of organizing an interim government after he ruled himself out after the fall of the government and the flight of Hasina to India was confirmed. “I am not the kind of person who would like to be in politics. It is not my thing,” he said in an interview with the portal The Print.
Hasina, he said, “behaved like a dictator” and destroyed the legacy of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, former president of the country and founding leader of Bangladesh. “Now all the people of Bangladesh feel liberated,” he said.
Yunus, who was released on parole after being sentenced in January to six months in prison for violating the country’s labour laws, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work at the head of the Grameen Bank, whose interest-free microcredit programme lifted millions of people in Bangladesh out of poverty.
US FOLLOWS SITUATION CLOSELY
A few hours earlier, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that Washington was “closely” following the situation in the country following Hasina’s resignation and flight, and had asked the parties to refrain from committing further acts of violence.
“We are closely monitoring the situation. The United States stands with the people of Bangladesh. We urge all parties to refrain from further violence. Too many lives have been lost over the past few weeks, and we urge calm and restraint in the days ahead. We welcome the announcement of an interim government and urge that any transition be carried out in accordance with Bangladeshi law,” she said during a press conference.
Finally, she expressed her “deep sadness” at the reports of deaths, injuries and other victims of human rights violations in recent weeks.
The protests stopped focusing solely on the quota system – which establishes that 30 percent of public places go to children of veterans of the War of Independence – a criterion that for students was an act of discrimination, to focus on the figure of Hasina and denounce police repression and excessive use of force, as the actions of the security forces have left more than 300 dead.
