Bangladesh: From Former Turmoil Towards a Prosperous Path

Diplomatic Connections: Your professional diplomatic career runs almost concurrently between the difficult birth of your nation in the early 1970s to where it is today — a sought-after partner in a contested and sometimes dangerous region. Tell us what lessons you’ve drawn between these parallel journeys.

Ambassador Mohammad Ziauddin: As you know, in ’71 we had the war of liberation, and during that time three million Bangladeshis were killed in a genocide that took place. Ten million migrated to India, which at that time had been very helpful in giving refuge to all these helpless, hapless people. After that, after nine months of struggle, Bangladesh became independent. Since then, change has taken place in the South Asian subcontinent. Under the leadership of the father of the nation, Bônggôbôndhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who believed in peace and had already given a dictum with respect to foreign policy, Bangladesh wanted to have a policy of peace and friendship with all countries of the world, and malice towards none. Since then, we have made a lot of progress. At the moment, Bangladesh is on the road to becoming a middle-income country. Despite the population more than doubling from 75 million to 160 million, the land mass remains the same. We have food and energy security and are moving progressively towards a better Bangladesh.

Diplomatic Connections: You are in a region of three nuclear powers: India, Pakistan and a bit farther away — China. How does Bangladesh fit into this triangle?

Ambassador Mohammad Ziauddin: Bangladesh is a country that feels strongly about and is committed to peace. We have contributed to peace and international security with a huge contribution to U.N. Peacekeeping operations. We had entered the U.N. Peacekeeping operations in 1988 with some advisers in Lebanon. In 1992 troops were introduced for the first time, and since then till now we have contributed 122,000 troops in several dozen missions. At the same time, at this moment we have about 9,000 troops in nine countries in nine missions. As you very rightly said, there are three nuclear powers in the region, and Bangladesh has an excellent relationship with all three countries. At one time, when there was some tension in 1998 between our two neighbors in South Asia, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina took one-day visits to the capitals of those two countries and talked to the leadership. She was able to persuade them to reduce the tension among themselves, and thus bring some stability and normalcy in the subcontinent.

Diplomatic Connections: Your biggest neighbor is India. Is it accurate to describe India as your most important and best friend?

Ambassador Mohammad Ziauddin: India has been our best friend since 1971, when we were struggling for our independence. As they say, “A friend in need is a friend indeed.” So has been India, when they gave refuge to 10 million of our people and looked after them with food and medicine, all that they had. So we are grateful to India and we believe that India is definitely a very good friend.

Diplomatic Connections: But there are, at the moment, issues with India on the border — immigration and allegations of sheltering terrorists. Much of your relationship with India was when the Congress Party governed them. Will you be able to maintain these close ties in an India run by the Hindu nationalist BJP Party, which during the campaign was critical of some Bangladesh policies?

Ambassador Mohammad Ziauddin: Bangladesh believes in a strong, durable friendship with India. India has been our very good friend, and we hope that our relationship with India will continue to remain. In this regard our current prime minister took certain initiatives soon after she assumed office in 2009. She firmly believes that our common enemy in the region is poverty. We need to fight poverty together with the neighboring countries — this cannot be fought singularly. If we are to be successful in fighting poverty, then we will all gain together. With this philosophy in mind, she spoke to the Indian leadership at that time about two things. One was connectivity among the countries in the region, which of course includes Nepal and Bhutan, but also the fight to eradicate all forms of terrorism and extremism in our part of the world. In this respect, she ensured that Bangladesh will not be used by any sort of groups to create terror and misunderstanding with our neighbors. Since then, our government has been very successful in containing these groups and even, we should say, eliminating some of these groups.

Diplomatic Connections: How do you see China’s role playing out in South Asia?

Ambassador Mohammad Ziauddin: China has been a good friend of Bangladesh, too. A country like ours, which is progressing but at the moment still is a developing country, is beset with multifarious problems. To resolve these problems, we need the help of all the friends we can get. So China has also been very helpful in extending their hand of friendship and support, and has been responsible in many ways for some excellent building infrastructure in the country, among other things.

Diplomatic Connections: O'Neill did not set a precise time when these countries would reach that mark, in part because they are 11 different countries and economies. But the ambassador did set his country's goal and time line.

Ambassador Mohammad Ziauddin: The prime minister has a vision that by 2021 we expect Bangladesh to become a middle-income country. Before she took office in 2009, the per capita income was around $600; currently it is $1,144. So we are moving very fast now.

Diplomatic Connections: There are two specific aspects of this that have been cited by experts: one is the BRAC, and the other is microcredit and Grameen Bank. How does the BRAC work? What sets it apart?

Ambassador Mohammad Ziauddin: BRAC is a non-government organization that is funded from various sources from abroad. They have their own mechanism of earning, of making their own money, from which they are doing good work. They are also making their contribution in trying to elevate the general conditions of the people in all respects. But these are non-governmental organizations, and of course their funding and their reach cannot be matched by what the government does. The government has all the resources it needs, maybe needs a bit more but is a large organization that is doing maximum good for the elevation of the people.

Diplomatic Connections: The fact that so much microcredit in Bangladesh is going to female businesses and female entrepreneurs, this seems to set it off from a lot of other poor countries.

Ambassador Mohammad Ziauddin: Well, one of the things about Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is she’s a crusader for women’s rights and women’s empowerment. She believes in bringing the country to a level where men and women will be equal in all terms. For this, she has been concentrating very hard on education. At the moment we have nearly 100 percent enrollment in primary education and also in secondary education. It has been seen that because of the encouragement she has been giving girls, they have a higher level of enrollment than boys. Number two is microcredit. Number three is that she believes that only if there is empowerment of women will there be real development in the country.

For that, in the political structure she has ensured that women have a fair share of seats in the local government, other than at the top. As you know, the prime minister is a lady, and the opposition leader is a lady. The speaker of the house is a lady. We have five other women who are holding important posts of agriculture, plus some other female ministers. Thirty percent of reserve seats in parliament are supposed to be reserved for ladies and now she has increased it to 50 percent.

Diplomatic Connections: Now, of course, another element in the economic development of the country, perhaps central, is garment manufacturing — billions of dollars of sales of clothing to Europe and to the United States. But after the Rana tragedy, there’s been a lot of pressure from the U.S. and EU governments, private sector and NGOs for major reforms in worker safety. What is your government doing to act on those reforms and to create safe and decently paid jobs for the thousands of people in the garment industry?

Ambassador Mohammad Ziauddin: Bangladesh is basically an agriculture-based country. Now it is becoming an industrial country. But in the forefront of all this industrialization is the garment sector. Which is here, let’s face it, because of the low cost of production in Bangladesh, the cheap labor and also the incentives we provide for foreign direct investment. These have attracted a lot of foreign investors into the country.

A lot of young entrepreneurs are taking up garments as a sector to invest in. So, in the span of about 15 years, we have about 4,000 garment factories. Many of these companies have come up very suddenly; it has been made easier for them to take loans from banks and using their own assets, they have set up these factories. But it has happened so fast and the demand has been so high from around the world. The business has been so good that sometimes some of these owners, they could not get sufficient space or the right kind of buildings to house their industries.

The rush towards this business has finally resulted in one or two incidents. The one, Rana Plaza, was a horrendous incident that shocked and, in fact, traumatized the nation. Of course, it immediately caught serious attention from the government. Aside from paying the victims and their families compensation, a lot of changes started taking place with respect to reforms. In this, I must say that developed countries, they have been helping Bangladesh go through this process of reformation and changes for the better. I think that we are all doing a good job, and in a very short period of time we should be able to have a system which will be acceptable to the buyers and the countries where so many of these goods are being exported.

Diplomatic Connections: No country can pick its own geography. You’re one of the most low-lying, water-covered nations in the world, and now considered the most potentially vulnerable to global warming. Could you describe some of the efforts to reduce the effects of all these floods, cyclones and typhoons, particularly to the extent that some of them are made worse by a lot of deforestation?

Ambassador Mohammad Ziauddin: When the present government assumed office in 2009, one of the first foreign policy and domestic policy initiatives was to do something about climate change and its impact on Bangladesh. Our prime minister went to several conferences on climate change and placed the plight of Bangladesh before the world. Since then, we have been getting assistance from countries which felt that Bangladesh needed support in this area. Yes, Bangladesh is a low-lying country. It is said that if there is a one-degree centigrade rise in global warming, then there will be about a meter rise in sea water. That would submerge one-fifth of Bangladesh, which will mean about 25 – 30 million people displaced and moving toward safer areas, and of course causing social disorder. We are very much concerned about this, and we have our own national strategy for mitigation and adaptation. We have our own climate fund from our own resources that is being used to implement these plans. We have a 129-point action plan, and these are being implemented. At the same time we are looking for much more support from the developed world so that we can take the kind of action needed for the country’s actual survival.

Diplomatic Connections: Do you think you will be able to reach an accord in the upcoming Paris conference that will replace the Kyoto Treaty?

Ambassador Mohammad Ziauddin: We are always hopeful. We are always negotiating to have what is rightfully due to us; not only to us, to the least developed countries in general and the small island developing countries. We hope that the upcoming Paris conference will take the issue to a higher level and there will be better cooperation and all participating countries will come to a good conclusion.

Diplomatic Connections: You had a very high-level U.S. delegation in Dhaka just a few months ago stressing a desire to expand and improve what has been historically a pretty good relationship, a friendly relationship between the United States and Bangladesh. How do you see relations with the United States evolving at this point?

Ambassador Mohammad Ziauddin: We have the best of relations. The U.S. has been very helpful in supporting our development in many ways. President Obama has a global initiative in which he included Bangladesh as one of the, I think, eight countries to have the benefit of those initiatives. Those initiatives cover health, education, climate change and also reaching out to the Muslim world. So we are grateful to the president’s administration. We have, I think, a common purpose and goals. As far as terrorism is concerned, we have the same goals. In this government, we are all determined to eliminate terrorism from our part of the region, at least in our country, and then cooperate with other neighboring countries. We don’t want extremism and terrorism to destabilize our part of the world.

Diplomatic Connections: You’re unique among ambassadors in that you were once a Congressional fellow in the United States, so you have a particular insight into American politics.

Ambassador Mohammad Ziauddin: [Laughs] Thank you very much. Yes, I was. It was in 1989 when I was on a fellowship here. It was one of the most enlightening experiences, and it definitely gave me some insight on how politics are very fluid and keep on changing. You can understand that things might have changed a lot since that time. You just reminded me of the days about 24 years ago when I walked the corridors of the Hill.

Diplomatic Connections: Well, welcome back and thank you very much for joining us for this interview.

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