Yunus urges Bangladeshis to ‘get ready to build the country’

Dhaka, Bangladesh – AFP

Nobel peace prize winner Muhammad Yunus was flying back to Bangladesh on Thursday to lead a caretaker government after a student-led uprising ended the 15-year rule of Sheikh Hasina.

Yunus, 84, could be sworn in as the country’s new leader as soon as Thursday evening to begin what the army chief has vowed will be a “beautiful democratic process”.

The prospect of Yunus standing alongside military leaders was almost unimaginable a week ago, when security forces were shooting dead protesters who had taken to the streets demanding that Hasina resign.

But the military on the weekend turned on Hasina, and she was forced to flee to neighbouring India as millions of Bangladeshis celebrated her departure.

The military then agreed to students’ demands that Yunus, who won the Nobel in 2006 for his pioneering microfinancing work, lead an interim government.

“I’m looking forward to going back home, see what’s happening and how we can organise ourselves to get out of the trouble we are in,” Yunus told reporters in Paris’ airport on Wednesday.

Yunus had travelled abroad this year while on bail after being sentenced to six months in jail on a charge condemned as politically motivated, and which a Dhaka court on Wednesday acquitted him of.

“Be calm and get ready to build the country,” Yunus said Wednesday in a statement before beginning his journey back home.

“If we take the path of violence everything will be destroyed.”

Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman said Wednesday that he hoped to swear in the interim government on Thursday evening and that he backed Yunus.

“I am certain that he will be able to take us through a beautiful democratic process,” Waker said.

Yunus said he wanted to hold elections “within a few” months.