WIKILEAKS :
Sheikh Hasina 'offered money to quit Khaleda-led alliance' Amini
disclosed to US diplomats in December 2004.
Although Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is on record for criticising
religion-based politics in Bangladesh, she offered Islami Oikya Jote's
(IOJ) chairman Fazlul Haq Amini money, to quit the then ruling
four-party alliance, headed by Khaleda Zia.
Amini disclosed to US diplomats in December 2004 that Hasina's Awami
League (AL) had offered him the money.
At a dinner on December 14, 2004, Amini characterised Awami League
president Sheikh Hasina as unscrupulous, and said he had been
approached by AL leaders to reach a "political understanding," in a
diplomatic cable dispatched to Washington from the US embassy in Dhaka
on December 15, 2004.
Amini "rationalised" IOJ's presence in the ruling coalition, despite
popular displeasure over its corruption and poor governance, saying
that his party's supporters knew this was preferable to giving
political advantage to Sheikh Hasina, whose actions when she was in
power against IOJ's madrassas and allegations against him of terrorism
were 'deplorable.'
Amini criticised the government on several counts and opposed the
proposed $2bn investment by India's Tata Group in Bangladesh and
described in general terms his vision for Bangladesh as a truly
Islamic state, said the cable.
"How can IOJ improve its image in the US and why is the your
government anti-madrassa," Amini was quoted in the cable to have asked
the US diplomats.
Amini denounced another party Jamaat-e-Islami as "power-hungry," and
predicted that the next generation of Jamaat leadership, trained as a
violent student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir, would be "extremist," said
the cable.
Amini claimed that the IOJ was interested only in propagating values,
not political power, and it is out-polled by Jamaat only because it
does not operate as a political party.
According to the cable, Amini stated that legal and other changes
would be required to make Bangladesh a truly Islamic state. "In this
new state, women will have the vote, Shariah-based interest-free
banking will be introduced, taxes other than zakat will be lowered but
not eliminated, and religious minorities will not be deemed
second-class citizens. He could think of no foreign model for
Bangladesh or the IOJ," said the cable.
Amini accepted the phenomenon of women working in garment factories,
but said they should be segregated from the men. "We saw no difference
in the outlook of parties in Pakistan and Bangladesh, or between
Bangladeshi and Pakistani societies," the cable said.
Amini denied any kind of relationship with then Prime Minister Khaleda
Zia's parliamentary affairs adviser Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, one
of the BNP's principal promoters in including IOJ in the ruling
alliance.
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