[BenarNews] A senior U.S. official highlighted "tremendous progress" made by Bangladesh in reducing alleged extrajudicial killings by its elite RAB security force, which Washington had sanctioned in December 2021 over gross human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
abuses.
Donald Lu, the United States assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, noted the progress as he wrapped a weekend visit to Bangladesh. Bilateral tensions arose in the wake of the U.S. sanctions on the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and comments by the Biden administration, the same old faces in slightly different places, the same old ideas, the same old graft
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 ...the collection of boodlers, grifters, hangers-on, and self-proclaimed experts affiliated with the Biden Crime Family. Entrusted with an entire nation as the result of a suspicious election, they set about happily implementing stuff they absorbed in college, all of which blew up and splattered the rest of us...
about upcoming national elections in the South Asian country.
In commenting on the reduction of extrajudicial killings, Lu cited information from a newly published annual report by international watchdog Human Rights Watch.
"If you have seen the statement this week by Human Rights Watch, they recognize, and we recognize, tremendous progress in the area of reducing extrajudicial killings by the RAB," Lu told a press briefing in Dhaka on Sunday.
"This is amazing work. It shows that the RAB is able to carry out its important counter terrorism and law enforcement function while respecting human rights."
At the end of 2022, the United States announced it was imposing targeted sanctions against several commanders of RAB. It accused the unit of more than 600 enforced disappearances in the past 12 years, a similar number of extrajudicial killings, and the use of torture.
In the Bangladesh chapter of its World Report 2023 published last week, Human Rights Watch opened it by saying that the government had been able to rein in RAB following the U.S. sanctions.
"Following the US Global Magnitsky human rights sanctions against Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and some of its top commanders in December 2021, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances dropped dramatically, indicating that authorities have the ability to bring security force abuses under control," the report said.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, the New York-based watchdog group said that another Bangladesh security unit, the Armed Police Battalion (APBn), was committing "rampant" abuse against Rohingya refugees, including extortion, arbitrary arrests, and harassment of refugees who were already facing violence from criminal gangs and gangs.
Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said that he had an "excellent meeting" with Lu on Sunday.
This is what they call diplomacy. The home minister said he also talked with Lu about Washington lifting the sanctions on RAB.
"Donald Lu told me that lifting of the sanctions is a complex procedure. He told me that we were on the right track for lifting of the sanctions and hoped that it would be lifted with the completion of the procedures," Khan said.
According to Khan, the U.S. official told him that Washington had considered further sanctions in December, but held off because RAB had shown improvement in its duties.
"As we are on the right track, they decided to hold off on further sanctions," the minister said.
NO TIME-FRAME FOR SANCTIONS’ REMOVAL
On Tuesday, BenarNews sought comments from the U.S. embassy in Dhaka about the procedures for lifting of the sanctions, but did not immediately hear back.
During his meetings in Dhaka, Lu did not indicate a time frame for the removal of RAB sanctions, the U.S. embassy said in a statement on Tuesday.
During his meeting, according to the Bangladesh home minister, he told Lu that the government had "not been obstructing the opposition parties from holding peaceful political programs."
"But the government would not tolerate any attempt to destroy public property and cause anarchy in the guise of political freedom," Khan said about their conversation.
The minister was referring to recent U.S. statements calling on Dhaka to ensure that upcoming elections be free, fair and transparent. Last week the Bangladesh foreign minister had responded to these comments by saying that Dhaka did not need lessons on democracy from other countries.
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