A parliamentary body has accused the Foreign Office of being behind US sanctions against the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and its officials.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs in a meeting at Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban considered it a total failure that the Bangladesh Embassy in the United States totally ignored such a decision by the United States against this important law enforcement agency. the law in Bangladesh.
The parliamentary watchdog asked the ministry to inform it if any other country or organization imposes sanctions against Bangladesh and also recommended missions located in different major countries including America and Europe to play a more active and responsible role.
This information was obtained from the minutes of the Jatiya Sangsad committee meeting held today (April 27, 2022). The minutes are approved during the meeting.
On December 10 last year, the United States imposed human rights-related sanctions on the Rapid Action Battalion and seven current and former senior agency officials, including Benazir Ahmed, today Inspector General of Police.
Benazir, a former chief executive of Rab, and five officials were designated by the Treasury Department under the Global Magnitsky sanctions program in connection with serious rights abuses.
The five are the Rab’s director general, Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun; Khan Mohammad Azad, Additional Managing Director (Operations) of Rab; Tofayel Mustafa Sorwar, former Deputy Managing Director (Operations); Mohammad Jahangir Alam, former Additional Managing Director (Operations), and Mohammad Anwar Latif Khan, former Additional Managing Director (Operations).
In addition, the US State Department banned Benazir and another former official Lt. Col. Rab Miftah Uddin Ahmed from traveling to the United States.
According to the minutes of the meeting, the chairman of the committee, Muhammad Farooq Khan, said it was a total failure on the part of the Bangladesh Embassy in Washington that they had no idea of the imposition. sanctions against Bangladesh.
He advised all missions in America and Europe to work more actively and responsibly.
Nahim Razzak, a member of the committee, said a group with special interests has long been carrying out propaganda to make the government controversial in front of the world by recruiting lobbyists from different countries. But the Ministry of Foreign Affairs failed to deal with this propaganda.
Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said Bangladesh’s overseas missions work as lobbyists. But lobbying firms appointed by others are more influential because embassy officials are not so close to this country’s lawmakers. On the other hand, the issue of accountability arises when public money is spent to hire lobbying firms.
The foreign minister said an anti-government clique was engaging in anti-national activities by recruiting lobbyists for huge sums of money and providing false information. Although embassies tried to prevent such activities, they were unsuccessful.
Fayaz Murshid Kazi, DG of the American wing of the Foreign Ministry, said that the United States had not raised or discussed the issue of sanctions against the Rab in any forum, it had done so very secretly.
Muhammad Farooq Khan chaired the meeting.
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