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| Bangladesh |
| Did the U.N. engineer Bangladesh's coup? |
| 2007-02-24 |
| If you thought the United Nations was not in the business of backing military takeovers, think again. According to Britain's Economist, the world body sent a letter to the Bangladeshi army chief on January 10, warning him that his army would lose lucrative peacekeeping contracts if it provided security for dubious elections scheduled for later in the month. The next day, General Moeen U. Ahmed ordered the president to cancel the elections and install a military-backed caretaker government, effectively with U.N. approval. Does this mean the peacekeeping contracts could top the list of U.N. diplomatic tools when it comes to influencing its member states? It certainly worked in Bangladesh, one of the biggest contributors of manpower to peacekeeping missions. It has 10,000 soldiers deployed at any one time, as do Pakistan and India. This brings in $300 million (£153.2 million) a year for Bangladesh, not an insignificant sum for a poverty-stricken country. Since the elections were going to be flawed, the coup may have been the best option, the paper argues. The West certainly didn't complain. But the paper is sceptical this success could be repeated in other countries. Bangladesh's generals were considering the move anyway and, according to the paper, "they must have known that the United Nation's threat was almost certainly hollow". After all, Pakistan and Fiji didn't lose their peacekeeping contracts after coups in their countries. In any case, it is unlikely that the United Nations would jeopardise the numbers of already overstretched peacekeeping forces, which should be enough to dismiss the Bangladesh scenario as unique and unlikely to be played out elsewhere. |
| Posted by:Seafarious |
| #4 What the UN "warning" meant to the generalissimo is that there will not be international sanctions following a military coup. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-02-24 04:37 |
| #3 Correlation does not equal causation. they must have known that the United Nation's threat was almost certainly hollow Well, duh. "Almost" certainly hollow? |
| Posted by: gromky 2007-02-24 04:05 |
| #2 My thoughts exactly. |
| Posted by: Fred 2007-02-24 00:36 |
| #1 The U.N. couldn't have been involved... the coup was competently run and successful |
| Posted by: Snavise Slotle9568 2007-02-24 00:29 |