Bangladesh’s long-standing government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was forced to resign and flee the country on Monday, Aug. 5, as a result of growing economic turmoil, student protests, and international pressure. The very next day, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that it would disburse $1.5 billion out of a stalled financial bailout package totaling $4.7 billion, which had originally been approved in January of this year. Reuters covered the news under the headline “IMF Says It Is ‘Fully Committed’ to Bangladesh after Protests Oust PM.”
Whatever else is happening with the internal politics in Bangladesh, and the unknowns about what the next government will do in its relationships with its giant neighbors India and China especially, the fact is that Bangladesh is part of a pattern of Wall Street/City of London intentional attacks and destabilizations of Global South nations that have joined, or are leaning towards, the BRICS dynamic. Bangladesh has been a member of the BRICS New Development Bank since September 2021, the first country outside of the original five BRICS members to join.
It should be noted also that the (interim) replacement for Hasina, Mohammad Yunus, the elderly World Bank darling and Nobel Peace Prize winner, is responsible for devising a global policy of “microcredits” which has been instrumental in getting poor strata in developing sector countries hooked on “microcredits,” under the guise of “development aid,” to the great praise of the World Bank, IMF, and the major commercial banks.
British think-tank Chatham House promptly published an article which noted: “Most significantly, the country faces high levels of youth unemployment with 18 million people—almost a fifth of the population of 170 million people—not working or in education. This is what made the issue of public sector job quotas a lightning rod for anti-government unrest, with 400,000 new graduates competing for 3,000 civil service jobs.”
Financial Times happily noted that the ouster of Hasina will cause major problems for neighboring India. “India’s Bangladesh Bet Backfires after Sheikh Hasina Ousted. Toppling of long-governing prime minister is a major setback for New Delhi,” FT headline reads. The article emphasizes that Hasina’s fall “has left a precarious power vacuum in Bangladesh…. India did not join powers including the U.S. and U.K. in criticizing a crackdown on the opposition BNP ahead of Sheikh Hasina’s re-election in January.”
