An ambassador’s legacy

By the time the former US ambassador to Bangladesh, Peter Haas, concluded his term, the nation was already a powder keg.

Just a few days after his departure, the students and youth of the nation erupted in full-scale revolt against a government that showed no inclination to listen to their demands. This revolt eventually turned into a revolution that would dethrone a political leader who had seemed invincible just a few days earlier.

Ambassador Peter Haas served in Dhaka during one of Bangladesh’s most significant chapters: the 2024 general election. The entire nation witnessed the one-sided affair, the violence, the mass arrests of the opposition, and one of the lowest voter turnouts ever recorded. It’s a shame Haas couldn’t witness the consequences of this disenfranchisement.

The actions and words of the US ambassador carry an enormous amount of weight in a country like ours. Haas was one of the most outspoken advocates of free, fair, and participatory elections in Bangladesh. His term saw an unprecedented number of high-profile diplomatic visits from the US to Bangladesh. Meetings were held, and letters were penned to urge the government to listen to the people’s demands.

Freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and labour rights were some of the key points emphasised. All this pressure came in the context of the recent US sanctions on Bangladesh security forces for human rights violations, a measure that led to tangible positive results. Extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances by security forces in Bangladesh dwindled to almost nothing for a few months.

As a result of this pro-democratic posturing, people-to-people relations between the US and Bangladesh soared. It is due to this high degree of reverence for the US that the people of Bangladesh remained relatively quiet while the rest of the Muslim world was in uproar about the US’s support for Israel’s actions in Gaza. However, after the elections, all the pro-democratic pressure from the US came to an abrupt halt.

We, as ordinary citizens, may not be savvy about the goings-on in the halls of the State Department, but we can certainly feel it when a policy change is enacted.

There are many interpretations of the sudden silence of the US regarding the plight of the Bangladeshi people. Due to the very prominent role that the US ambassador had been thrust into, he had also become somewhat of a target for the most militant supporters of the ruling party, the Awami League.

There were indeed many open calls for violence against the ambassador. There was also an alarming incident when the ambassador was nearly surrounded by a pro-ruling party group while visiting the family of a victim of enforced disappearance. Such alarming deterioration in the ambassador’s security, extremely hostile rhetoric against the US from the prime minister herself in parliament, as well as Bangladesh’s previous record of attacks against US ambassadors, might have forced the US to turn down the volume on its pro-democracy and pro-human rights messaging.

A more conspiratorial interpretation would suggest India’s active role in forcing the US into a more timid policy vis-à-vis Bangladesh.

Needless to say, India is the US’s key strategic partner in South Asia and one of the four pillars of QUAD. Washington has frequently proclaimed that it supports India’s leading role in the region. It’s also true that the current government of India gave its full support to the Awami League. This unwavering support from India for the Awami League is due to the narrative that the outwardly centre-left political party is a vital bulwark against the rise of fundamentalism and religious extremism in Bangladesh.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government of India has expressly placed all its bets on the Awami League government in Bangladesh to stifle religious tensions between the two nations. That is why many are convinced that it was India who asked the US to back away from Bangladesh by arguing for the prioritisation of regional stability over ideological divides.

The other interpretation is a more practical one.

The world is on fire, and the US is preparing for its most important election in recent history. There is simply not enough ideological bandwidth, strategic interest, or diplomatic will in the US to try and influence the internal matters of a country so far away.

Regardless of the true circumstances, it cannot be said that the US did everything in its power to call for democracy in Bangladesh.

The sanction on the former army chief for corruption and undermining democratic institutions could have come before the election, rather than months after. The much-discussed visa restriction policy from the State Department against undemocratic actors remains a mystery as to whether it was ever effective. Moreover, the sudden backtracking of US policy in Bangladesh gave the US’s rivals a clear indication of the limitations of the US in the region.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20.

Despite the shortcomings, the active role of the US and its ambassador in promoting democracy in Bangladesh had several positive effects. Due to the space created by US sanctions and diplomatic pressure, the opposition parties managed to rally in numbers not seen in many years. Such an uprising, and the ruling party’s eventual crackdown, also showed the world the dark side of Bangladesh’s development story. The narrative of Bangladesh as South Asia’s development miracle has been well and truly shattered. This kind of unveiling of the façade of democracy by the ruling party was also a key component that led to the student protests and expedited the fall of Sheikh Hasina.

At the time of writing, it is still unclear whether the regime’s overthrow will truly bring about democracy in Bangladesh. The nation is suffering in every aspect. Too many people have died. There is still a great deal of anger and unresolved hatred. The scars of this revolution will take quite some time to heal, but the marks will never disappear. But the world has its eyes on Bangladesh, waiting to see what kind of nation will rise from the ashes.

Before leaving quietly from a troubled Bangladesh, Peter Haas made a touching post on LinkedIn about how he hadn’t expected his assignment to end this way. Many regarded him as a hero, a champion for democracy in Bangladesh. Others saw him as a foreign actor trying to orchestrate regime change. Whoever replaces him has very big shoes to fill, and it is hard to imagine that people will soon forget the legacy of work the ambassador left behind.●

Zillur Rahman is the executive director of the Centre for Governance Studies (CGS) and a television talk show host in Dhaka. His X handle is @zillur.