Reaffirming that her government can handle the current situation, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday asked the officials of Foreign Ministry and Bangladesh embassies abroad to remain alert about any bad campaign against the country.
“The prevailing situation in Bangladesh is a like a ‘temporary black cloud’ and we’re capable of handling this, and we’ll surely tackle it,” she said alleging that the BNP chief’s main aim is to kill people.
The Prime Minister came up with the remarks in her introductory speech during a meeting with Foreign Ministry officials as she made a visit to it.
Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali delivered the welcome address at the meeting, which was attended, among others, by State Minister for Foreign Affairs M Shahriar Alam, Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque and other senior officials.
The Prime Minister said, her government has restored democracy in the country and vowed afresh to take the country forward maintaining the continuation of democracy, or else, the country would not see any development.
“We’ve been able to tackle natural disasters in the past and we’ll be able to overcome the manmade disasters like ‘temporary black cloud’ the same way and Bangladesh will continue to move forward and I can say that,” she said.
About the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA), Hasina said the bill is now in Indian parliament seeking ratification, and hoped that the problem will be resolved soon.
The same way, she said, the Teesta Water Sharing treaty is now close to a solution.
Continuing her scathing attacks on her arch rival BNP chief Khaleda Zia, Hasina said, “Although there is now no issue, the BNP chief set her lone target to kill people and burn people to death. She doesn’t want to keep alive the people of Bangladesh, the same way Pakistani occupation forces launched genocide on March 25, 1971. Now we’re seeing their (BNP-Jamaat) such character.”
She also hoped that the good sense would prevail among the BNP-Jamaat men since the current violence and anarchy are hindering the pace of development that Bangladesh has achieved over the last six years.
The Prime Minister said, following the oil spill incident in the Sundarbans, a UN team visited the world’s largest mangrove forest, but that oil spill did not cause any severe loss to the Sundarbans thanks to the hard-work of the local people who collected the oil.
Recalling the countrywide violence and atrocities unleashed by the BNP-Jamaat to thwart the last January-5 general election, Hasina said BNP then decided not to participate in the election and let others join the election.
“We’ve been ruled for long by the martial law and military dictators. But, can you let again change over of power through that kind of unconstitutional way for military dictators? We can’t let that be happen.” she added.
She also asked the Foreign missions abroad to go out for searching newer exportable items and markets, boost export earnings and trade and commerce and attracting more Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
Recognising the role of some 80-90 lakhs Bangladeshi expatriates abroad in keeping alive the country’s economy through sending remittance, the Prime Minister asked the Foreign Ministry officials and the officials at the Bangladesh missions abroad to give due importance towards addressing the problems of the Bangladeshi expatriates and stressed the need for gearing up issuance of MRP passports.
She also suggested the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to go for having own buildings of the Bangladeshi embassies and constructing a separate training center at the Foreign Service Academy namely Sugandha keeping intact the main building.
About checking terrorism, militancy, drug smuggling, child and women trafficking, Hasina said the support of the neighboring countries is needed to contain these problems as those cannot be handled alone.
Hasina said, following the nuclear bomb tests in Pakistan and India in the late 90s, she had directly talked to the then Indian and Pakistan Prime Ministers and visited these two countries. Following her visits, she said, the situation then started returning to normalcy gradually.
