" If I had handed over the sovereignty of St. Martin and allowed the United States to control the Bay of Bengal, I could have continued to govern." According to reports from Indian media such as the Economic Times and India Today on August 11, former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is currently in India, broke her silence for the first time and made "explosive" accusations in a statement, implying that her forced resignation was related to US interference.
The Economic Times said Hasina provided the above statement to the newspaper through her confidant. As protests against the government's "civil servant quota system" turned violent, Hasina resigned and fled to India on the 5th. There are reports that she had planned to make a national speech before leaving Bangladesh, but was dissuaded. According to India Today, the statement is the original text of the speech that Hasina failed to deliver.
Hasina said she resigned "to avoid seeing the marchers turned into corpses" and "they wanted to step on the bodies of students to get on stage, but I did not allow it." She stressed that if she continued to stay in Bangladesh, more people would die and more facilities would be destroyed, so she made the "extremely difficult decision" to resign. "I came with your victory, you are my strength, you didn't want me, and then I left by myself."
She also clarified that she had never called the protesting students "Razakar," a term used to refer to East Pakistani militias that helped the former Pakistani authorities suppress the independence movement during the Bangladesh independence movement. In Bangladeshi political terminology, Razakar is synonymous with traitors and reactionary forces.
Hasina reportedly said she would give more in her speech if there was still an opportunity in the future. She promised that she would return to Bangladesh "soon". "My heart is crying after receiving news that many leaders of (Bangladesh Awami League, Hasina's ruling party) have been killed, workers have been harassed, homes have been vandalized and set on fire... By the grace of Almighty Allah, I will be back soon."
Saint Martin Island is a small coral island in the northeast of the Bay of Bengal, located at the southernmost tip of Bangladesh. India Today said on the 11th that although the island is only 3 square kilometers in area and has a population of only about 3,700, it has become the center of geopolitical topics in recent months and has attracted widespread attention.
India's The Print newspaper pointed out that for decades, there has been a rumor in Bangladesh that the United States wants to "take this key strategic island for itself." Last June, Hasina accused the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, of planning to sell St. Martin Island to the United States to build a military base in exchange for victory in the January general election.
In the end, Hasina's People's Alliance won the National Assembly election and she became prime minister for the fifth time. Just a few months before Hasina announced her resignation, she revealed that during the election, someone offered her an easy "path" to re-election on the condition that she allowed foreign countries to build air bases in Bangladesh.
Hasina also said that this was not the first time she had received such an offer. Although Hasina only said that the above proposal came from "a white man from a certain country", it is generally believed that she was referring to the United States. According to Hasina, someone is planning a conspiracy to overthrow her government, carve out a piece of land from Bangladesh and Myanmar, and establish a new "Christian country" like East Timor. The US State Department denied it.