Bangladesh News

Five caretaker government advisers held ‘unofficial’ talks with four senior Awami League (AL) leaders yesterday to discuss the nature and agenda of the upcoming dialogues between the government and political parties.

Sources said the government is also likely to meet Jatiya Party, Jamaat-e Islami and BNP for similar ‘unofficial’ meetings within the next few days in preparation for the official dialogues.

The government also plans to hold a broad-based ‘citizens dialogue’ to build a ‘broad national consensus’ on the future direction of the country’s politics and economy.

The dialogues will be held at divisional headquarters and the participants will be comprised of advisers to the military backed caretaker government, senior government officials, military officials and eminent representatives from the civil society, private sector, and different professions, according to sources.

Yesterday’s unofficial meeting between government representatives and AL discussed six key points tabled by the latter, which were AL chief Sheikh Hasina’s release from detention, the prospect of her travel overseas for medical treatment, the election schedule, the ban on political activities, lifting of the state of emergency, and rising food prices.

The government sat with AL as part of its ‘unofficial’ round of talks with political parties before it sends out official invitations to them for the proposed dialogues, which might begin as soon as the next week.

Government sources told The Daily Star last night that the advisers asked AL to commit to ‘peaceful’ elections, denounce political violence, and to move ‘forward’ in the spirit of ‘compromise and accommodation’.

“They have to commit to the election and stay away from violence, how else can we prevent a return to the troubling period of late 2006,” said a senior government official who was present in the meeting.

Sources said the four AL leaders met the five advisers after Hasina had given a green signal to his party colleagues for the meeting, when she had appeared before a court earlier in the day.

The five government advisers at the meeting were Law Adviser AF Hassan Ariff, Foreign Adviser Iftekhar A Chowdhury, Communications Adviser Ghulam Quader, Education Adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman, and LGRD Adviser Anwarul Iqbal.

The four AL leaders were its presidium members Tofail Ahmed and Matia Chowdhury, Hasina’s Political Secretary Saber Hossain Chowdhury, and Forest and Environmental Affairs Secretary Hasan Mahmud. Later, Hasan Mahmud briefed AL Acting President Zillur Rahman about the meeting in the latter’s house.

The meeting was held in Railway Bhaban in the capital between 6:30pm and 7:45pm.

Tofail told The Daily Star that the meeting was a ‘pre-dialogue’ in preparation for the official one.

“That was a preliminary meeting before the dialogue,” Matia told The Daily Star adding, she was asked to join the meeting ‘on behalf of another party leader’.

She said the meeting ‘informally’ discussed an agenda for the government announced dialogues with political parties, holding of the stalled ninth parliamentary election, and creation of a conducive environment for it.

“We have told the government that politically motivated harassment and torture of the leader [Sheikh Hasina] under false charges must come to an end,” Matia said adding, “We also said we will not join any dialogue in presence of war criminals.”

“Since the meeting was informal, we just exchanged views, but before the dialogue starts the party will fix an agenda and choose a delegation,” she added.

Matia also said she thinks members of the party presidium will be in the AL delegation.

The meeting also triggered a backlash from senior AL leaders who felt slighted by their omission from the meeting and called AL Acting Chief Zillur to air their grievances, according to party sources.

Their complaint surrounds the decision by Adviser Hossain Zillur to contact Hasan Mahmud, who the senior AL leadership say is not high enough to arrange the meeting.

Sources said, Hasan told Hossain Zillur that Hasina had selected the four leaders to take part in the meeting, which led to angry senior AL leaders protest that Hasan is not authorised to make those decisions.

Meanwhile, Jatiya Party (JP) Acting Chair Anisul Islam Mahmud told The Daily Star that they were not approached by the government yet, but said he ‘heard’ the government is thinking of meeting JP leaders.

BNP’s pro-reform faction leader also a standing committee member, Lt Gen (retd) Mahbubur Rahman said the government did not hold officials talks with them because of a pending court verdict over which faction of the party is legitimate.

“We hope the Election Commission will call us soon and we will proceed to hold a dialogue with the government,” said Mahbub.

Meanwhile, senior AL leaders led by Acting Chief Zillur Rahman met three high-level influential government officials in a restaurant in Gulshan of the capital last Saturday to hammer out the modalities of the upcoming political dialogues.

The AL leaders in that meeting issued strong demands for release of Hasina and for her to be sent abroad for treatment.

The government however firmly told the AL leaders that the ’status of the two leaders’ is non-negotiable and the two former prime ministers are still undergoing trials for corruption, according to meeting sources.

The officials urged AL, along with BNP, to undertake widespread party reforms to bring long-term stability to the political process and to hold up the ’spirit of 1/11′.

AL leaders present at the restaurant meeting were presidium members Amir Hossain Amu, Abdur Razzak, Tofail Ahmed, and Suranjit Sengupta, Acting General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam, Saber Hossain Chowdhury, Publicity Secretary Asaduzzaman Noor, and Hasina’s Security Chief Maj Gen (retd) Tariq Siddiqui.