Documents show U.S. set in motion plan to oust Hasina

Senior American officials who oversaw the program included Chris Murphy, Sumona Guha, Donald Lu, Sarah Margon and Francisco Bencosme.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

The plan to remove Sheikh Hasina as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh was set in motion in early 2019, documents provided to The Sunday Guardian indicate, and as is being claimed by her, it was executed by government funded agencies operating from the United States.

After Mongolia (1996), Haiti (2001) and Uganda (2021), Bangladesh became the latest victory for the USbased International Republican Institute (IRI), which was successfully able to bring about a regime change in Dhaka.

The IRI, as per internal documents provided to The Sunday Guardian show, was implementing the broader objectives of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The documents also show how the project was necessary to counter-balance India's "interference".

The Washington-based IRI's stated objective is to "promote democracy through supporting democratic institutions, political parties, civil society, and electoral processes" and it serves as an implementing partner for USAID funded projects aimed at enhancing democratic governance. The IRI is one of the four core institutes of NED, alongside the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), and the Solidarity Center.

Similarly, NED provides grants to IRI for various projects aimed at "strengthening democratic institutions and processes". While NED is a private, non-profit organization established in 1983, funded primarily by the US Congress that operates independently from the US government while receiving annual appropriations through the Department of State, the USAID is a government agency responsible for administering foreign aid and development assistance.

In March 2019, IRI, after receiving the grant for its activities from USAID and NED, started the process of execution of a program to bring about a regime change in Dhaka.