Sheikh Hasina Wajid, the former prime minister of Bangladesh, issued a statement on Sunday accusing the U.S. government of orchestrating the events that led to her abdication last week, because she refused to give the U.S. control over a strategic island in the Bay of Bengal.
Hasina resigned as prime minister after 15 years in office and fled the country last Monday as demonstrators stormed her official residence. The cause of the month-long protest that ended her administration was a long-standing quota law that reserved a hefty percentage of prized government jobs for people from certain ethnic and political backgrounds.
Men run past a shopping center which was set on fire by protesters during a rally against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government demanding justice for the victims killed in the recent countrywide deadly clashes, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on August 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)
Hasina said her statement on Sunday was originally written as a speech she planned to deliver to the nation before she was driven from office. She claimed the U.S. drove her from office because she would not hand over control of Saint Martin Island, located in the northeastern Bay of Bengal.
St. Martin Island is a coral reef island known to the locals as Narikel Jinjira, which means “Coconut Island.” It does indeed have a large number of coconut trees, tended by a population of about 5,500, who also earn money from fishing, collecting algae, and hosting tourists. Most of the residents live in huts without electricity. The larger hotels and commercial facilities get power from individual generators. The total surface area of the island is less than two square miles.
Bangladesh and its neighbor Myanmar (formerly Burma) have been arguing over ownership of St. Martin Island and its surrounding waters ever since Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan in 1971.
The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) issued a landmark judgment in 2012 confirming that the island is Bangladeshi territory. Myanmar caused a brief diplomatic crisis in 2018 by publishing a map that showed St. Martin Island as part of its territory. The foreign ministry of Myanmar apologized and called the map a “mistake.”
People participate in a protest march against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government, demanding justice for the victims killed in the recent countrywide deadly clashes, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on August 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)
In recent times, rebels opposed to the Myanmar junta have sought to use St. Martin Island as a base for their operations, leading to fierce fighting with junta troops in coastal areas close to the island. Bangladesh has been patrolling the waters between the island and the mainland to ensure the Burmese rebels do not attempt to occupy it – and to make sure Myanmar’s naval forces deployed against the rebels stay out of Bangladeshi waters.
Hasina first brought up U.S. plans to acquire the island in June 2023, when she claimed her arch-rival Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) was secretly planning to sell St. Martin Island to the Americans so they could establish a military base.
“I could have remained in power if I had left St. Martin’s and the Bay of Bengal to America,” Hasina said on Sunday.
Successive U.S. administrations have denied they had any designs on the island for the past 20 years. The hypothetical strategic advantage of the tiny island lies in its proximity to the Strait of Malacca, through which a great deal of Chinese shipping flows.
China is helping Bangladesh build a billion-dollar drydock facility at the city of Cox’s Bazar, a tourist hotspot with the longest uninterrupted natural beach in the world. Chinese officials attended the ceremony in March when Hasina inaugurated the drydock, which is large enough to service six submarines and eight warships at the same time.
People participate in a protest march against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government to demand justice for the victims killed in the recent countrywide deadly clashes, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on August 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)
Bangladesh already operates two Chinese-built submarines out of the sub base at Cox’s Bazar, which is named after Sheikh Hasina. A U.S. base on St. Martin Island would certainly be helpful for keeping an eye on Chinese military activities at Bangladeshi ports, but in June, the Biden administration became the most recent U.S. government to deny it has made any attempt to purchase the island or lease its territory for military purposes.
“We have never engaged in any conversations about taking over St Martin’s Island. We value our partnership with Bangladesh. We strive to bolster our relationship by working together to promote democracy, including by supporting free and fair elections,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in June, after Hasina’s latest accusation that BNP was negotiating a secret deal to sell the territory to America.
Before she won her final re-election in a contested January ballot, Hasina claimed she was secretly approached by a “white man” who offered to ensure she would remain in office, if she was just willing to lease St. Martin’s Island to the U.S. military.
In her statement on Sunday, Hasina essentially accused the U.S. of fomenting a revolution against her to install someone more amenable to Washington’s ambitions in her place. She said the ultimate goal of the U.S. was to create a new “Christian state” with territory poached from both Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Hasina, like most Bangladeshis, is a Muslim, but she was friendly with Hindu-majority India. Muslim mobs in Bangladesh have been attacking Hindus ever since Hasina resigned, prompting many Hindus to seek refuge in India. Indian intelligence officials last week accused China of orchestrating the protests to drive Hasina out of office because they wanted to pull Bangladesh out of India’s orbit.
Hasina concluded her comments on Sunday by apologizing for disparaging remarks she made about the student protesters, and promising that her exit from Bangladesh was only temporary. For the record, Hasina used a lot more than harsh language against the student protesters, who dismissed her administration as a “killer government” after some 300 fatalities during the demonstrations.