Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus played his last card being imbued with Pannalal Bhattacharya’s song Amar Sadh Na Mitilo (My dream has not come true) and Tagore’s Boro Asha Kore Asechi Ma Kache Deke Nao (Mother, please give me shelter. I have come to you with great expectations.” He convinced 40 global citizens to sign an open letter in his favour and got it published in The Washington Post as an advertisement. His conspiracy failed. Instead of giving shelter, the mother has discarded him. The advertisement was aimed at showing the government’s ill treatment to him.
A question travels in public mind as to the objective of collecting signatures of 40 global persons. As per directive of the High Court, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has started investigation into Dr Yunus’ involvement in money laundering and bribery. If allegation is proved, he will be liable to be convicted and sentenced to imprisonment. Dr Yunus might have published the anti-government advertisement to pressurise the ACC. The move purported to prevent the anti-graft watchdog from investigating. He tried to strangulate the Rule of Law of Bangladesh. Besides, Dr Yunus started repeating his stereotyped conspiracy to block victory of the popular leaders and party in the upcoming parliamentary polls. The nation had experienced his villainous role in 2006.
Dr Yunus is well-known globally for winning Nobel Prize. Although Amartya Sen and Abhijit Banerjee got the prize for their contribution to economics, Dr Yunus got for peace.
Alfred Bernhard Nobel, a Swedish chemist, engineer and philanthropist, introduced the Nobel Prize in recognition of the contribution of the people to the fields of health, physics, chemistry, literature, and economics. He bequeathed his fortunes to establish the Nobel Prize. The prize started its journey in 1901. Besides, some people are awarded in peace category. The awards in science and economics are beyond questionable although Albert Einstein and Sir Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose were deprived of the Nobel. Had Alfred Bernhard Nobel sensed abuse of peace award, he would have dropped the category. In 1973, Henry Kissinger received Nobel peace award. The person was notorious for harming peace across the world. He instigated bloodshed in Chile, Vietnam and Bangladesh. Vietnam foreign minister Le Duc Tho declined the Nobel Peace Prize on the plea that no peace was established in his country. Two members of Nobel committee resigned protesting against nomination of Henry Kissinger for the prize. In 1994, Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres were awarded Nobel peace award despite their role in killing many Palestinians. Lech Walesa of Poland received the Peace award in 1983 and Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev of Russia in 1990. They were controversial people. Gorbachev perhaps was awarded for splitting Russia.
In 1993, Frederik Willem de Klerk, a South African ruler instigating colour strife, managed to get Nobel peace award. He killed many blacks. Similarly, the Peace award to Dr Yunus questioned justification. He did zero contribution to peace of this region, let alone world. He was known to outside Bangladesh as introducer of micro-credit in the country. Such claim is untrue because ancestors of Nobel laureate Poet Rabindranath Tagore had established micro-credit much earlier. Sir Fazle Hasan Abed founded BRAC and changed the fate of poor people in Bangladesh by micro-credit programme. Dr Yunus started micro-credit through forgery. Showing a big house, he used to claim that a woman taking loan from him became millionaire and constructed the house. Later, the claim was proved false. Rather, the micro-credit programme of Dr Yunus is a debt trap. The corruptions and crimes committed by him know no bounds. The employees of his Grameen Telecom filed cases with Labour Court seeking profit share as per law. The court issued arrest warrant against him. Later, the employees filed writ petion with High Court for liquidation of his company. Dr Yunus choosing dirty way of wining the case against employees paid Tk 16 crore to his counsel in bribe to negotiate the issue out of the court. He terminated the employees when the matter was sub-judice. But the HC ordered him to pay the dues to the employees.
The ACC is investigating the allegations against him. Prof Yunus embezzled huge fund from Grameen Telecom which was registered as non-profit company. He also took undue advantage from state-owned Grameen Bank. He not only swindled huge money from these organisations but also laundered it. He was bound to return money to the employees as per the HC order. The very return of money proved that he embezzled it earlier.
Giving tuppence to rule of law is habit of Prof Yunus. He tried to continue with chief post of Grameen Bank and other companies despite retirement age. He wanted Awami League government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to allow him in the hot seat of the bank and companies. But the government could not satisfy his desire inviting his red eye. Being Nobel prize winner, Dr Yunus has strong global link. Hillary Clinton is his classmate and one of the patrons. And he keeps on abusing such links for own benefit.
Dr Yunus is the major enemy of Bangladesh. It is admitted fact that he influenced the World Bank to withdraw funding in the Padma Bridge project. In 2006, the caretaker government took over state power through 1/11 episode following his conspiracy and confined democracy. He is full of antagonism against the country. He published an advertisement but failed to explain how the government harassed him. If the allegation of Yunus was true, Washington Post would cover a report. None of 40 signatories are holding important positions. However, we have no scope to hide failure in this regard. Bangladesh authorities did not make publicity about involvement of Dr Yunus in embezzlement of funds from non-profit organisations and money laundering. The failure of the authorities has paved the way for anti-state campaign by him.
(The writer is former Justice of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court)
BDST: 1504 HRS, MAR 19, 2023
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