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Foreign policy in three years


Bangladeshpost
Published : 05 Aug 2019 09:14 PM | Updated : 07 Sep 2020 06:20 PM

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had a very fruitful foreign affairs policy. In the early years of Bangladesh, right after the liberation war, he addressed the global media in London. Many will remember the days of 1972 when he faced the entire world and presented the situation of Bangladesh. The very same sentiment which he presented to the world he again re-versed in his speech in Dhaka upon return.

Bearing no ill will against the Pakistani government he wished erstwhile president Bhutto well and hoped that he would be happy with the state Bangladesh. But most of all, he was happy about his new Bangladesh. Bangabandhu’s statesmanship was of the utmost humbleness. With regard to foreign policy he propagated the ideology of “Friendship to all, malice to none.” He became the leader of a nation but not for a single moment did he think of vengeance on the enemy of the people. Rather he focused on making allies in the world. This he did politely. In dealing with the international leaders he did not forget about the needs of his people and the country. In post war times, the economy was devastated along with the infrastructure and administration. All this was rebuilt by him.

Regarding his policy towards the US and China, practicality was the answer. Both the government and the leaders of those countries at that time had loudly opposed the Liberation War and had globally upheld the Pakistani mass killings in 1971. Moreover, after independence was earned through a liberation war the Chinese government twice vetoed Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s attempts at getting into the United Nations.

However, his sense of international relations was so great at that time that he knew that he had to come to good terms with both US and China in future. All this was done by the Father of the Nation for the interest of the country. The years he spent forging the foundation of the foreign policy at that time has helped strengthen the international ties of Bangladesh with other countries now.

History books further write: “Bangabandhu travelled to New York and then to Washington, where he apprised President Gerald Ford in unambiguous manner of the difficulties his country was up against. He spoke to Henry Kissinger, who would later visit Dhaka, despite knowing that Kissinger had been a strident voice in the Nixon administration's tilt toward Pakistan in 1971.

“In his rather short-lived administration of slightly over three years, Bangabandhu was instrumental in taking his new country into the important councils of global diplomacy. It was his sheer force of personality, his charisma, that earned Bangladesh's people respect and sympathy across the world. There clearly was the perception in him that while Bangalees inhabited a small state, they were privy to a culture as spacious as the long distances of time between generations. Bangabandhu personified this ambition in his people, through choosing to join the summit of Islamic nations in Lahore in February 1974 once Pakistan had acknowledged Bangladesh as an independent nation.

“Bangabandhu was a larger than life individual. Edward Heath and Harold Wilson were happy in his company. Fidel Castro was mesmerised by him, by the fact that a nation had fought and won a war in his name even as he languished in prison. Muammar Gaddafi, Pakistan's friend, was awed by Bangladesh's leader. Marshal Tito respected him hugely and Anwar Sadat thought of him as a brother.

“The United Arab Emirates' Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahiyan was happy to discover that he and Mujib were both sheikhs. Bangabandhu grinned and told him, “Yes, but there is a difference. You see, I am a very poor sheikh.” Both men burst into laughter.

“There was the quintessential diplomat in Bangabandhu; and it was in evidence as far back as the heady days of early 1972. Asked by a newsman if he contemplated West Bengal someday joining his free country to create a greater Bangladesh, he looked at the newsman in the eye, let out a puff of smoke from his ubiquitous pipe and said gently, with that trademark smile playing on his lips, “I am happy with my Bangladesh.”