▲ Protesters celebrate the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday in Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh.Photo Ap
AFP and AP
The newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday, August 6, 2024, p. 24
Dhaka. Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country on Monday after 15 years in power under pressure from mass protests, while the military announced the formation of an interim government.
Hasina, nicknamed the Iron Lady, tried to quell mass protests that began in early July with a student revolt, but ended up resigning after the crackdown on the demonstrations left nearly 100 dead the day before yesterday.
In a national address broadcast on state television, army chief Gen. Waker Uz Zaman said Hasina had resigned and the military would form an interim government.
Hasina, 76, fled the country by helicopter to India, a source close to the situation told AFP on condition of anonymity, adding that she first tried to leave by car.
Shortly afterwards, hundreds of protesters stormed his official residence in Dhaka, the country’s capital.
Crowds of people waved flags and some danced on top of a tank yesterday, after more than a month of violent protests in this Muslim-majority country of 171 million people, whose economy is heavily dependent on the textile industry.
But some celebrations for Hasina’s resignation quickly turned violent, with protesters attacking symbols of her government and party, and looting and setting fire to several buildings.
At least 66 people were killed in the violence on Monday, most of them in Dhaka, according to hospital and police reports, which said gangs had attacked Hasina’s allies.
Quota system
The protests began after the reintroduction of a quota system that reserved more than half of public jobs for certain groups.
Critics said the quota system would benefit groups loyal to Hasina’s Awami League party.
At least 366 people have died since the protests began on July 1, according to an AFP tally based on reports from police, authorities and doctors in hospitals.
President Mohamed Shahabudin ordered the release of the jailed protesters and opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia, 78, of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
The military announced that the curfew will be lifted today.
Protesters tore down a statue of Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, a revolutionary who led Pakistan’s independence struggle in 1971 and later became prime minister.
Given the scale of the protests, the Supreme Court reduced, but did not repeal, the quota system for civil servants, and the demonstrations continued and evolved into an anti-government movement.
Hasina, who first ruled from 1996 to 2001, returned to power in 2009 and has led Bangladesh for the past 15 years. Her latest term, which began in January, was marked by an opposition boycott of elections that it said were neither free nor fair.
The Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, called for a peaceful transition to democracy, the same as the European Union.