Armed with bamboo sticks and pipes, protesters going after suspected supporters of former prime minister Hasina as they tried to hold a rally in Dhaka. — ©️2024 The New York Times Company
THE tables had turned: yesterday’s victims of brutal suppression are today’s perpetrators of brutal revenge.
Mobs wielding bamboo sticks and pipes thrashed supporters of Bangladesh’s toppled ruling party, preventing their first major gathering since their leader, Sheikh Hasina, fled the country earlier last month.
The sticks arrived in sacks on the back of electric rickshaws, the pipes as flagpoles that soon became weapons as their flags were removed.
The attackers were largely supporters of opposition parties that had endured abuse and violence from the former prime minister’s party, the Awami League.
They beat anyone they suspected of belonging to the party, flogging their legs before dragging them with shirts ripped and faces bloodied.
The student protesters who rallied to oust Hasina have become de facto police officers on the streets. But they are mostly on the sidelines, and their unanswered pleas for calm lay bare what they have called one of their chief concerns.
Into the vacuum, they worry, will walk the established political opposition, not only to unleash revenge, but also to restore the kind of dynastic politics that defined Hasina’s party.
Breaking the cycles of vengeance that have afflicted Bangladesh through many turbulent periods is a monumental task for the interim government now running the country.
The purging of her party from the government has continued since Hasina was toppled and fled to India.
Protesters are calling for the former prime minister to face justice for the deaths of about 500 people during the month-long uprising, most of them in the crackdown that she unleashed.
At least two senior members of Hasina’s government were arrested by security forces as they tried to flee the country by boat. When they appeared in court, their opponents prevented their lawyers from defending them, local news media reported, continuing a pattern of injustice that had long bent to those in power.
The chief of Bangladesh’s army also appeared to confirm reports that some leaders of Hasina’s party were being housed in its quarters, saying the military would shelter anyone facing the threat of “extrajudicial action”.
“We have given shelter to those whose lives are under threat,” said army chief Gen Waker-uz-Zaman. “No matter what party, religion or opinion, we will do this.”
Officials in the interim government, which is led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, said they are facing multiple crises while trying to carry out a more fundamental overhaul of the state.
The caretaker government has struggled to get police to return to work after they vanished in the face of retaliatory mob violence for their role in the protesters’ deaths.
The country’s long-persecuted Hindu minority has been gripped by fear of increased attacks.
A woman taking a photo next to barricades near Sheikh Mujib’s house, in Dhaka. — ©️2024 The New York Times Company
The economy, largely reliant on the garment export industry, has also been on a downward spiral, with foreign reserves dwindling.
Bangladesh’s interim leaders have said the country needs “a strong element of reconciliation” to avoid falling into the usual violent cycle. But what shape such a reconciliation might take is still being figured out by an overwhelmed government.
“We have formed this advisory board standing on the dead bodies of no less than 500 people,” said Rizwana Hasan, a member of the Cabinet and a spokesman for the interim government. “It’s no easy task. It’s very depressing.”
Moving forward will be difficult for a nation still coming to terms with its past.
Much of the action in recent days has been around the home of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country’s founding leader and Hasina’s father.
Four years after Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan in 1971, Sheikh Mujib was killed at this house in a military coup, along with much of his family.
Bangladesh’s short history since then has been marked by coups and counter-coups.
Hasina’s reign over the past 15 years was increasingly shaped by revenge for the massacre of her family. Everything she did was in the name of her father, whose face was plastered everywhere.
In the hours after Hasina fled the country, a mob believed to have been led by her political opponents vandalised the house, looted it and set it on fire.
Since then, the home has become a sad museum for the country’s layered trauma.
The staircase where Sheikh Mujib was killed in 1975, with nine bullet holes marked on the wall, is now covered in soot from fires.
The student protesters tried to distance themselves from the vandalism, arriving in large numbers to clean the house and collect what was left of the family archives. They handed to the army scraps of diplomatic correspondence, a deck of antique cards with naked pictures, and the packaging of an old shampoo that declared “Really Does Clear Dandruff”.
“I am feeling very sorry,” Mohammed Haroun Rashid, 69, said as he held back tears while going through the burned house. “This is barbaric.”
He said that Hasina had done a great deal for the development of the country, but he admitted that “she lost it” by turning autocratic.
Another older man, a senior lawyer, was shaking in anger at the sight of the damage. He also highlighted Hasina’s development work.
Aahir Amin, 18, who had on plastic gloves and was helping with the cleaning, listened quietly. He said nothing as the men finished their monologues.
“We are not denying the development,” he said after they left. “But you can’t deny everything else she did.”
He added: “He is entitled to his free speech.”
The scenes unfolding in Dhaka, the capital, weren’t so understanding.
The Awami League demonstrators had planned to gather at Sheikh Mujib’s old house to mark 49 years since his assassination. But as they tried to mobilise, the roads leading to the site were blocked by the mobs of people, who sought to prevent journalists from documenting the violence that ensued.
Mohammad Shamsuddin, a member of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party – one of the parties long repressed by the ousted government – said its followers would not let the Awami League gather while the blood from Hasina’s crackdown was still fresh. He said Hasina must face trial.
“Everyone has the right to protest,” he said. “But no one can protest on the side of the killers.” — ©2024 The New York Times Company
