David Bergman can never be an “impartial and unbiased” commentator on Bangladesh because of his family ties as his father-in-law, Dr. Kamal Hossain, was de facto representative of BNP chief Khaleda Zia and her son Tariq Zia during the last general elections, said albd web-team Coordinator Tonmoy Ahmed.
“The Zia family went against the wishes of senior BNP leaders and party members to put Dr. Hossain, an ex Awami League man, in charge of their electoral coalition. Why? Because they knew his decades-long vendetta against Jono Netri Sheikh Hasina would be enough reason for him to turn his back on the secular, progressive politics he claimed to represent during his lifetime,” he observed in a Facebook post.
His comments came hot on the heels of David Bergman’s latest article that made scathing remarks on Tonmoy and his organisation Centre for Research & Information (CRI).
Bergman’s write-up came a month after his colleague and editor-in-chief at Netra News, Tasneem Khalil, without any proof, tagged Tonmoy as a member of Islami Chhatra Shibir, the very party that stabbed him mercilessly leaving him almost dead few years ago as he was the General Secretary of Bangladesh Chhatra League BUET unit.
Referring to Dr. Kamal Hossain’s sudden shift in political views, Tonmoy went on saying, “This was not the first time that the Hossain family put aside their principles for a naked power grab. In 2006, Dr. Hossain rushed to give legal cover to an illegal takeover by the military which was backed by Dhaka elites and the international community. The constitution was trampled on and a brutal state of emergency ensued. Dr. Hossain publicly defended the indefinite postponement of elections which the Awami League were projected to win by a landslide. His daughter and David Bergman's wife, Sara Hossain, a noted human rights lawyer, privately exhorted the benefits of illegally incarcerating Sheikh Hasina and other political leaders while the military 'cleaned up politics'.”
“David Bergman had no career in print journalism to speak of before arriving in Bangladesh, but being the son-in-law of one of Bangladesh's most famous lawyers gave him the type of access and influence that few other foreigners could rely on. He ended up having a revolving door career at the top English newspapers in Bangladesh, each stint usually ending in acrimony. But being Dr. Hossain's son-in-law meant that he was always given a second, or a third, or a fourth chance,” he added.
“He didn't speak a word of Bangla and his main sources of information were the wealthy Bangladeshis he met at diplomatic cocktail parties who mirrored the narrow, interest-driven, and elite-centric political views of his father-in-law. He lived in his father-in-law's sprawling compound and given the nature of Bergman's stop-start employment record, it's fair to question whether he was also financially dependent on Dr. Kamal Hossain or not.
“David Bergman's perspective on Bangladesh is colored by Dr. Kamal Hossain's political views and he is fighting his father-in-law's fights. Bergman's obsessive coverage of the PM and her family (does he write about anything else?) is a testament to this. Any organization that employs David Bergman to write about Bangladesh has an ethical duty to flag this clear conflict of interest,” read Tonmoy’s post from his verified facebook page.
