Foreign ministry’s cold war

"In this cold war, the western ambassadors are paradoxically championing the spirit of '71 that the Awami League regime claims as its exclusive forte."

THE foreign affairs ministry is in the midst of a cold war with the ambassadors of the western countries and the United Nations. The US ambassador Peter Haas is the central focus of the foreign ministry in this regard. The cold war is about politics and the political situation in Bangladesh and the forthcoming general election.

The ministry’s stand is that these ambassadors are violating the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations as well as established traditions and etiquette in Bangladesh now. The ministry confronted the ambassadors directly recently. It called 13 western ambassadors that included the US, French and German ambassadors and the British high commissioner to the ministry over a statement that they issued regarding the assault of an independent candidate in the Dhaka 17 election on July 17.

The ministry called these ambassadors to the ministry after a media hype created by the foreign minister who expressed anger and contempt at them for their statement. The minister’s media hype created the allusion that the ambassadors would be called by the ministry and the Vienna Convention would be thrown at them. The public, thus, believed that the ministry would teach these ambassadors a lesson not to consider Bangladesh as a ‘mager mulluk’ or an anarchic or ill-governed state.

That did not happen. The British high commissioner Sarah Cook’s simple question to the state minister who received them at the ministry whether they were summoned or invited exposed that the ministry’s decision to call the ambassadors was a case ‘… full of sound and fury signifying nothing.’ The state minister stated that the ambassadors had been invited to a cup of tea because fortunately, he was aware that summoning 13 powerful ambassadors was no joke.

The US ambassador flagged the ministry’s poor and weak diplomacy over calling the 13 ambassadors while facing the journalists after he met the chief election commissioner Habibul Awal at the Election Commission. When a journalist asked for his comment on whether the 13 western ambassadors had violated the Vienna Convention for which they were ‘invited’ to the ministry, Ambassador Peter Haas nonchalantly dismissed the ministry’s stand. He said that if foreign ambassadors in Washington had expressed such s view about the US election, the US state department would have welcomed it.

The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations on which mainly the ministry is fighting its cold war is, nevertheless, overwhelmingly in favour of the sending state, their diplomats, diplomatic mission and diplomatic communication to facilitate the work of diplomats from the sending in the receiving state, free from any hindrances. Article 29 and Article 31 are particularly significant. Article 29 prohibits the receiving state from arresting or detaining a diplomat from the sending state. Article 31 is the icing on the cake for diplomats from the sending state because it grants them diplomatic immunity from the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the receiving state.

In contrast, the ministry’s case is based on only the second line of Article 41 (1) of the Vienna Convention which states as follows: ‘They (the diplomats) also have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that (receiving) State.’ The ministry’s case under Article 41 (1) of the Vienna Convention is, however, not as convincing or strong against the ambassadors as it would have liked which is why ambassador Haas nonchalantly dismissed it at the Election Commission.

Human rights and democracy are bedrock issues of the Biden administration. It is fighting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on these issues. These issues are also the backbone of the US Indo-Pacific Strategy that the AL regime has backed wholeheartedly. The AL regime’s Indo-Pacific Outlook which it announced in April as a major foreign policy initiative is more or less US IPS under a different name.

The decision of the United States to zero in on Bangladesh’s next general election is, nevertheless, a different matter. The way the United States and the western ambassadors zeroed in on expressing their views on how Bangladesh’s next general election should be held crossed both the Vienna Convention and diplomatic etiquette and traditions. Dhaka, therefore, made the case against the ambassadors more under diplomatic traditions and etiquette and less on the Vienna Convention.

There is, perhaps, no country other than Bangladesh where ambassadors from sending states indulge in the receiving state’s politics so freely as they do in Bangladesh. Their present interference in Bangladesh’s politics under the pretext of democracy and human rights may be explained as pursuits of their respective countries’ foreign policy priorities. Their interference in how Bangladesh conducts its national election certainly cannot be explained as such.

Nevertheless, there are matters outside the Vienna Convention or diplomatic customs/etiquette that makes clear why western ambassadors interfere in Bangladesh’s politics freely. Bangladesh’s history of conducting foreign relations explains a great deal of it. Western ambassadors have interfered in Bangladesh’s politics in the past like it was normal. They were not concerned about the Vienna Convention or diplomatic etiquette or traditions. So was the ministry of foreign affairs.

Many who served in the ministry like this writer during the Ershad regime remember the massive influence of US ambassador Howard Schaffer. General Ershad would do anything for the United States to look at his regime favourably. That was reflected in the US ambassador’s influence. Ershad’s religious hypocrisy allowed the Iraqi ambassador to openly claim that he could make anyone a minister in his cabinet. General Ershad’s respect for Hazrat Qadir Jillani (RA) and his birthplace in Iraq allowed the Iraqi ambassador the influence.

The role of Anwar Chowdhury, the British high commissioner, Patricia Butenis, the US ambassador, and Renata Lok Dessallien, the UN resident representative, during the 2007–2008 emergency is still fresh in memories of many in Bangladesh. They ruled the roost in politics and decided some of the key issues of Bangladesh’s politics of the period.

Therefore, blame as much as one placed on western ambassadors, they indulged in Bangladesh’s politics for two reasons. First, they did so in pursuit of the legitimate bilateral interests of their respective countries. Second, and more important, they were asked by the Bangladesh political parties to do so. Ironically, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party has been more often at the receiving end of such interference.

India’s high commissioner in Dhaka and the Awami League have been in hand-in-glove relations in Bangladesh politics since 1971. The Indian high commissioner facilitated the naked interference of the Indian foreign secretary in Bangladesh’s 2014 election like Bangladesh was an Indian province. The two acted like the Vienna Convention or diplomatic traditions and etiquette did not exist.

The ministry, while complaining about the western ambassadors, has been silent over the role of the Chinese and Russian ambassadors in Bangladesh’s current politics. The Chinese ambassador warned the western ambassadors to refrain from interfering in Bangladesh’s sovereignty on pretexts of human rights and democracy. He has been active on the AL regime’s behalf while the western ambassadors have been busy against it. The Chinese ambassador’s role is directly against the BNP’s current movement. His role is reminding many about China’s role in 1971.

The current cold war between the foreign ministry and the western ambassadors exposed that the ministry had used the Vienna Convention and diplomatic etiquette against the ambassadors because their current indulgence in Bangladesh’s politics is against the AL regime. The AL regime welcomed such indulgence in the past when it favoured them. The western ambassadors on their part, nevertheless, indulged in Bangladesh’s politics in the past, first, in pursuit of their bilateral interests primarily and, second, on being asked by the country’s political parties. The Vienna Convention or diplomatic traditions, et cetera, were not in their radar.

The current indulgence of western ambassadors in the politics of Bangladesh is different. They are still not concerned about the Vienna Convention or diplomatic etiquette, et cetera. They are instead focused on democracy and human rights which are on a slippery slope in Bangladesh. Their interest in the country’s next general election is to help its people regain their right to vote that was taken from them through the 2014 and 2018 controversial elections. There are, thus, many in Bangladesh, perhaps the majority, that do not see their action as indulgence in Bangladesh’s politics as the ministry does. It is Bangladesh’s politics that makes it so.

Postscript: In this cold war, the western ambassadors are paradoxically championing the spirit of 71 that the AL regime claims as its exclusive forte.

 (This article was originally published in New Age)