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Morningsun Online Desk //

There are many controversies about Sheikh Hasina’s resignation. He left the country in the mass movement of students and went to India. Hasina has repeatedly said that America had a hand in getting rid of her. But America says they are not associated with it. Hasina was forced to resign due to the mass movement of students in Bangladesh. In such a situation, the Indian media The Sunday Guardian gave a sensational news.

The Sunday Guardian says that the United States has been plotting to overthrow Hasina since five years ago. They got this idea after rummaging through some documents. From 2019, the US started working on the plot to overthrow Hasina. Readers will be curious about this. And taking that into consideration, the report of The Sunday Guardian was presented.

Documents show U.S. The report titled set in motion plan to oust Hasina says that the plan to oust Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina started in early 2019. Documents obtained by The Sunday Guardian point to that. According to the document, the task was entrusted to government-funded agencies from the United States After Mongolia (1996), Haiti (2001) and Uganda (2021), the latest success for the US-based International Republican Institute (IRI) is ‘Bangladesh’, which has successfully managed to bring about regime change in Dhaka.

According to internal documents shown by The Sunday Guardian, the IRI carried out the broader objectives of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The documents also show how the project was necessary to counter Indian interference.

Washington-based IRI’s mission is to promote democracy by supporting democratic institutions, political parties, civil society, and electoral processes, and to partner in the implementation of USAID-funded projects aimed at improving democratic governance. IRI is one of the four core institutions of NED, along with the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) and the Solidarity Center.

Similarly, NED provides grants to IRI for various projects aimed at strengthening democratic institutions and processes. Founded in 1983, the National Endowment for Democracy or NED is a private, non-profit organization primarily funded by the US Congress. It operates independently, receiving annual appropriations through the Foreign Office. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is a government agency involved in administering foreign aid and development.

In March 2019, after receiving grants from USAID and NED, IRI began the process of implementing a program to bring about governance change in Dhaka. The said program was named Promoting Accountability, Inclusivity and Resilience Support Program (PAIRS) and it ran for 22 months till January 2021.

IRI said the program was needed to increase political participation of Bangladeshi citizens and amplify anti-authoritarian voices. IRI fosters citizen-centric, local and non-traditional forums to implement social empowerment projects for political engagement. For this, IRI has awarded 11 advocacy grants to musicians, acting personalities or organizations. who have created 225 artworks to highlight the political and social issues of Bangladesh which have been shown nearly four lakh times.

Three civil societies from LGBTI, Bihari and ethnic communities helped IRI train 77 staff and engage 326 citizens in developing 43 specific policy demands. It was proposed before 65 government officials. Three focus groups have conducted community-based research, including the largest survey of LGBTI people in Bangladesh.

Incidentally, on March 16 this year, another Washington-based organization National Democratic Institute (NDI) and IRI’s Technical Assessment Mission (TAM) released a report on Sheikh Hasina’s victory in the 2024 national elections. The agency released the said report after running the PAIRS program for 22 months.

It claims that the 2024 election, i.e. the election campaign period, election day and immediately after, saw less physical and online violence compared to previous elections. Primarily due to the absence of nationwide partisan competition and the state’s increased focus on election security. The report also said that the quality of the January elections was marred by incidents of violence by the state, the ruling party and the opposition. The pre-election environment noted political polarization, violence between leaders, narrowing of citizenship and erosion of freedoms.

Documents obtained by The Sunday Guardian detail how individuals were sensitized for events, book launches, storytelling, photo exhibitions, art exhibitions, theater performances, dance performances, film and documentary screenings, round table meetings, advocacy training programmes. Some of these were exclusive invitations, attended by political officials and consular officers from the US Embassy.

According to IRI findings, the program directly affected 4 lakh Bangladeshi citizens. Similarly, IRI worked on another project from February 2021 to September 2022, for which the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) gave the organization a grant of $900,000.

Their aim, IRI said, was to empower marginalized voices, particularly youth and women, to participate in political debate and decision-making. Encouraging women to enter politics. Also educate them about inclusive and non-violent means of political participation by engaging with student wing representatives of the two major political parties. Enhancing the leadership skills of non-partisan student leaders on university campuses and supporting student engagement in the cultural world.

The document identified five US State Department officials based in Washington and three US officials based in Dhaka, two from USAID and a political officer from the US Embassy as primary contacts. However, the Sunday Guardian did not want to reveal their names.

The senior officials named to oversee the execution of this entire program under the Hill Outreach heading are – Chris Murphy (D-CT), SFRC (assigned to the South Asia Subcommittee), Sumana Guh, South Asia Director, National Security Council, Donald Lu, SCA, Incoming Assistant Secretary of State, Sarah Margon, DRL, Incoming Assistant Secretary of State, and Francisco Bencosmey, EAP, Senior Advisor, State Department.