AL retreats from Apr 30 deadline

Leader of the Opposition and Awami League (AL) President Sheikh Hasina speaks at a press conference in the party's Bangabandhu Avenue headquarters yesterday. AL General Secretary Abdul Jalil is seen on the right. PHOTO: STAR

The main opposition Awami League (AL) yesterday said there were all possibilities of the government's fall before or after its April 30 deadline in an apparent retreat from its position of unseating the coalition by the time limit.

"They will go, if not by this 30th, then by another 30th. They had to quit office on March 30, 1996," AL President Sheikh Hasina told a news conference at the party headquarters on Bangabandhu Avenue.

Urging her political arch-rival and Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to stand down immediately, she said: "If they want to cling to power using force even after April 30, their future will be very grim."

"There is a massive response at home and abroad, especially among the countrymen, to the deadline and it is our big achievement," Hasina, also the leader of the opposition, claimed.

"People have voiced no-trust to the government by responding to the deadline."

Hasina also touched on 'terrorists in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT)', recent arms seizure in Chittagong, her party's planned siege to Hawa Bhaban, crime wave, 'corruption by alliance leaders', and law and order downslide, price spiral of essentials and the recent Time magazine story on Bangladesh.

CREDIBILITY CRISIS

On a question of credibility crisis of AL General Secretary Abdul Jalil in case of the deadline failure, Hasina said: "We've reached our goal. People have already show no-confidence in the alliance government."

"In the past, Khaleda Zia gave several ultimatums for forcing our government from power, but failed to get any public backing. By responding to our call, people have already spoken out that they don't want to live in an atmosphere of repression."

She claimed that when Jalil announced the deadline the government began to rock to its foundations.

"What will happen if I issue the deadline?" the former prime minister asked. "It's only Chaitra now. Only Allah knows what will happen in Bhadra," she said, referring to two months in Bangla calendar five months apart.

INTERNATIONAL ARMS PROBE

Hasina renewed her demand of international probe into the largest ever gunrunning on the Karnaphuli coast in Chittagong, saying her party had no trust in the government-formed probe body under the home secretary.

Claiming 22 arms smuggling incidents last year, she said either the government was involved in the crimes or totally failed to unmask the criminals.

She wondered how a column of trucks rolled into Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Limited jetty where a delegation of lawmakers led by Deputy Leader of the Opposition Abdul Hamid could not enter because of 'security arrangements'.

Claming that there were no terrorist outfits in the CHT after the 1997 landmark peace accord, she alleged the highlands and other regions now seethed with terrorists under the patronisation of the government.

On the Hawa Bhaban siege programme unveiled by a front organisation of her party, she said the plan was justified as "the Bhaban emerged as the largest seat of corruption and bribery".

The people surrounding Hawa Bhaban have established an alternative rule, inflicting a dual rule on the nation, she alleged.

Pegging the present Jatiya Sangsad as 'totally dysfunctional', she said: "The Awami League placed 885 questions to the prime minister and 1,116 notices on matters of urgent public interest, but none of them were taken up by the House."