Is there something in the authoritarian mindset or ethos that requires enemies? Or is it simply in the personality of authoritarian leaders to use their dictatorial powers to get at, or back at, people and/or organizations that they don’t like or that they worry are not properly subservient? Authoritarianism is a growing phenomenon in the world these days, often connected to populism, nativism, and hyper-nationalism. The methods authoritarians use to gain and maintain control are familiar ones in history: repealing the rule of law, repression of opponents and perceived enemies, bogus history—in all, what is now generally called a post-truth world in which facts are what the ruling party says they are.
In Bangladesh, the growing authoritarian nature of the one-party political system has led to a ruthless campaign to eliminate, in one way or another, all those thought to be dangerous to the government. The heavy hand of the government has fallen on many opposition politicians and on the media, and has reached outside politics to members of civil society deemed “a threat” through some arbitrary and arcane calculus. This latter aspect is highlighted by a campaign of calumny and threat carried on by the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the faithful of her party against 2006 Nobel Laureate for Peace, Muhammad Yunus. This campaign has been going on since 2011 somewhat below the international radar, but has now been escalated as a number of serious allegations have been hurled at Yunus since November of last year.
We should not be surprised at the timing; this escalation is not exactly a coincidence. Even the feeble noises of condemnation made by the U.S. and other Western governments against the initial harassment of this internationally acclaimed winner of the Nobel Prize seemed to induce a note of caution into the government’s campaign. The government moved more carefully and slowly, but continued to harass Dr. Yunus. The international press also weighed in, and threw a troubling shadow over the previously good international image of the country. But the surprising results of the US election last November, gave impetus to the campaign of defenestration against Yunus, and it seems clear from the timing, led the prime minister to take the gloves off.
The campaign of vilification began in 2011, when Dr. Yunus was relieved summarily (and illegally, I believe) from the Managing Director’s position at his creation, Grameen Bank. Though he contested this in court, the case was dismissed on a technicality–that he did not have standing. How a claimant could not have standing in a case which directly and seriously affected him and the bank he created is beyond me, but the mysteries of Bangladesh jurisprudence elude me often these days.
The campaign continued in the subsequent years, and the primary worry was that the government would move to take over the bank. I know that Dr. Yunus was worried by this prospect, as he conveyed it to me personally when i saw him only a few weeks after he had been removed as MD of the bank. I wrote about this in an article carried in the Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal some weeks after our meeting. This concern was dismissed as “impossible” by the State Department when I conveyed it to them after my return to Washington from that particular visit to Dhaka. The Prime Minister moved very slowly and carefully in her campaign against Yunus and Grameen. It was almost a year to the day after he had left the MD post when the news was published that the Cabinet had voted for a proposal that the Government take over the bank.
It was this Cabinet decision that opened eyes, prompted the spate international articles, and prompted Western Governments to go into overdrive to preserve the bank . Since then there has been a long struggle over management of Grameen Bank, with nine heroic poor ladies on the Board holding the fort. These brave women held out for several years, and despite changes in the law, the bank still remains independent. Much of this is discussed at greater length in the introduction to this blog.
Now the prime minister seems to be upping the ante. First she attacking Dr. Yunus in the Parliament as a, “tax cheat” which he vigorously denied and convincingly proved false. A few months later she made, publicly, the absurd allegation that he was responsible for the withdrawal of the World Bank financing of the Padma Bridge, probably the largest infrastructure project ever for Bangladesh and an important part of the government’s plan to improve growth prospects with enhancing infrastructure projects. . In essence, it was claimed that Dr. Yunus persuaded the US State Department to threaten the Prime Minister and her son with a USG veto of the World Bank’s decision to provide a substantial part of the financing if Yunus was not restored to the MD position. Her son, who lives mostly in the US was allegedly threatened with IRS audits.
With this allegation, it seems the Prime Minister is moving decisively into the realm “alternative facts,” which as noted above, is a common modus operandi in authoritarian regimes.It is necessary to pause here and provide some background. First, the World Bank did withdraw from financially supporting the bridge project. It has said publicly and consistently that its reason for doing so was because of corruption. (Although facts in such cases are hard to come by, in particular those in which end up in the courts of the aid-giving countries, it appears that Canadian bidders on some part of the project improved their chances of being chosen by bribing some Bangladesh officials, but that is only conjecture.) The Canadian bidders accused of bribery were tried in a Canadian court which found insufficient evidence to convict them. However, it should be noted that these bidders have been barred from bidding on Bank projects for 10 years, an indication that in fact the judicial decision was not indicative that there was not a crime–only one they couldn’t prove in the strict standards of the Canadian courts. Second, the project is underway with substitute financing (perhaps by a financial institution with less concern about bribery), although probably a somewhat higher cost. The World Bank’s decision did not in the end make much difference to the project. Third, the Bank actually made quite a public fuss about the corruption and tried in several ways to stay in the project if the Government would do something about corruption. It was rebuffed at every turn. And it fact, the final Bank decision to withdraw from the project was taken in the middle of 2012, a year later that Dr. Yunus was forced out of the MD position at Grameen. So it is a pretty long stretch to link whatever pressure, was put on the ‘Government regarding his removal from the MD position at Grameen Bank to the World Bank withdrawal from the Padma Bridge project.
Nonetheless, when the Canadian court decision was announced earlier this yearIt is a miscarriage of justice the Prime Minister and her acolytes played it up as a verdict which proved that there was no corruption to cause the World Bank to withdraw. Thus it had to be something else, and Dr. Yunus became the convenient target again.
To those who understand how the world works, these charges against Dr. Yunus ring totally hollow. And to them and those many Bangladeshi citizens, who understand how great a national asset Dr. Yunus is, and in fact a great international asset, there remains a great wonder as to why a government would not understand this, and instead catch him up in the vindictive personal and authoritarian political culture that seems to rule the country. It is a monumental miscarriage of justice to persecute this man whose great idea has improved the lives of the very poor in Bangladesh and around the world. Welcome to the post-truth world we now live in.
The article above, which was previously posted to this blog, was edited slightly for clarity and accuracy and was then re-posted on June 19.
When the government of Bangladesh began to attack Prof. Muhammad Yunus more than six years ago, my children were 12 and 9 years old. They had known about the extraordinary work of Prof. Yunus and Grameen Bank, so I looked for a way to help them understand these attacks. I told them that Nelson Mandela had been attacked by the South African government, that Mahatma Gandhi had been attacked by the British/Indian Government and that Martin Luther King had been attacked by the U.S. Government. I told them that governments are sometimes threatened by visionaries. That helped.
And on it goes. The government of Bangladesh continues its campaign to defame Prof. Yunus, most recently by the prime minister, who again promoted baseless charges related to a cancelled World Bank loan for the Padma Bridge.
The prime minister’s statements have created a dangerously hostile environment for Professor Yunus. Several organizations with official or quasi-official links to the ruling party have been calling for harsh and unjustified action against Professor Yunus or the Grameen Bank that he founded. These actions represent a serious violation of human and civil rights, with the power of the state being turned against an individual who has devoted his life to supporting the needs of the poorest people, and who only has the truth with which to defend himself. These developments should prompt strong response from leading human rights organizations in the days ahead.
The Bangladesh government’s claim that a Canadian court vindicated it after a corruption case related to the Padma Bridge was withdrawn due to a technicality – key evidence was deemed inadmissible – was recently debunked by journalist David Bergman. He wrote, “Those who claim that the Canadian proceedings prove that the World Bank allegations were baseless or that the evidence was made-up are distorting the contents and meaning of Justice Northeimer’s January ruling…. Truth, however, is a stubborn thing. So even in this new post-fact world, saying inaccurate things about Canadian judicial orders may just come back to bite the [Bangladesh] government.”
Sam Daley-Harris is founder and CEO of the Center for Citizen Empowerment and Transformation.