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After BDR Mutiny

Commotion in army got Hasina nervy

The PM desperately wanted to meet Obama, get US backing

Star Report
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina strongly desired a meeting with US President Barack Obama to show a sign of US support to her government weeks after the 2009 BDR mutiny, said several cables from US embassy in Dhaka.
"The late February mutiny of border guards against their army leadership that left more than 50 officers dead was a huge blow to her government. Hasina's decision not to immediately use the army to quell the mutiny angered many mid-level military officers, and the state of civil-
military relations is tenuous,” reads one cable.
A meeting with Obama would signal the US government's continued strong support for democracy in Bangladesh, it added. WikiLeaks published the cable on August 30.
Two weeks into the BDR mutiny, Hasina was worried about the fate of her government, according to another US embassy dispatch.
The then US ambassador James F Moriarty wrote in a cable to Washington that Hasina on April 27, 2009 requested a
meeting with Obama during her planned private visit to the United States in the second half of May the same year.
"She also asked for a meeting with Secretary [Hillaryl Clinton but made clear she would only visit Washington if the President agreed to see her,” added the cable.
Moriarty also wrote that senior Bangladeshi officials were eagerly following up on the premier's request for a meeting with Obama.
On May 4, 2009, Foreign Minister Dipu Moni reiterated the government's strong desire for the meeting. She thanked the ambassador for supporting the request and said Bangladesh would also push for the meeting through its own channels in Washington.
The previous day, Bangladesh special envoy Mohammad Ziauddin told the US embassy officials that the government viewed a meeting with Obama as an important sign of support for Bangladesh's transition back to democracy after two years of a military-backed caretaker government operating under a state of emergency.
“Ziauddin said such a meeting would increase goodwill toward the United States in this Muslim-majority nation of about 150 million people. He added that the Prime Minister was delaying the start of her trip to Canada, originally scheduled for May 5, to ensure she would be available to meet the President any time during the second half of the month.”
Moriarty strongly endorsed meetings with both the President and the Secretary and said, "Even a short meeting with the President would help solidify US relations with the world's seventh most populous nation, which also is home to the world's fourth largest Muslim population.”
"Sheikh Hasina's newly elected government embodies a delicate transition; a meeting for her with the President would bolster democracy in Bangladesh and make her a stronger partner in fighting transnationalterrorism.”
Moriarty wrote that Bangladeshi officials were lobbying for the meeting
clearly viewing a meeting with Obama as a strong signal of support for Bangladesh's still-fragile democracy.
“Despite its poverty, corruption and history of military political intervention, Bangladesh took a huge step forward with national elections in December 2008 that were declared free, fair and credible by domestic and international observers alike."
The then Indian high commissioner to Bangladesh Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty on May 3 told Moriarty that a Hasina-Obama meeting would be very beneficial to democracy and stability in Bangladesh.
The PM met the US presi-dent in New York on September 23, 2009 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session.
In another cable sent to Washington on January 13, 2010, Moriarty wrote traditional distrust between AL and the Bangladesh military flared into the open in the aftermath of the 2009 BDR mutiny.
"Officers who openly expressed their dissatisfaction with the government's response to the mutiny saw a number of their fellow officers prematurely retired from service."
Continued the cable, “An attempted assassination of Aw ami League Parliamentarian land Hasina relative] Barrister Fazle NoorTaposh served as a reminder of the potential for this civil-military conflict to turn violent."
Hasina and her advisers have been careful not to provoke an open conflict with the military even as they had sought to ensure that loyalists occupied key senior positions, Moriarty said in the cable sent on the occasion of the AL government's one year in office.
Concern about lingering dissatisfaction colours the government's conduct of the trials of those accused in the BDR mutiny, the cable said, adding: “At present, we see no indication that the military may intervene extra-constitutionally to cut short the government's tenure.”
“Looking ahead, however, both the government and opposition assume that the military could return to its arbiter role if political confrontation erupts."