Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned during a press briefing last week that the US might orchestrate a Color Revolution in Bangladesh. She revealed that the American Ambassador recently met with a high-ranking member of the opposition and promised them “information support” if their side scuffled with the police during forthcoming protests. She then compared that official to Victoria Nuland and suggested that Bangladesh could soon experience its own “EuroMaidan”.
A State Department spokesperson soon reacted to her words by describing them as a “deliberate mischaracterisation of US foreign policy and Ambassador Haas’s meetings.” They then reaffirmed that their country supposedly doesn’t have a preferred winner in early January’s elections and claimed that they only want them to be free and fair. There are credible reasons to suspect that spokesperson of lying on all three points, however, as was explained in these three analyses throughout the year:
* 16 April: “Why’s The US Scheming To Carry Out Regime Change In Bangladesh?”
* 26 August: “India’s Reported Pushback Against US Meddling In Bangladesh Is Driven By Security Concerns”
* 31 October: “Five Emerging Challenges To Indian Security Could Converge Ahead Of Next Spring’s Elections”
In short, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina accused the US of scheming to overthrow her last spring, which was assessed at the time to be driven by the desire to punish Bangladesh for defying the West’s anti-Russian sanctions. There’s now an even more important motive to attempt this since it could put further pressure on neighboring India, which has also defied those sanctions and with whom bilateral ties are becoming troubled due to the Anglosphere’s solidarity with Canada amidst those two’s spiraling dispute.
“India’s Honeymoon With The West Might Finally Be Over” after the Financial Times reported last week that the US allegedly accused India behind the scenes of trying to assassinate a Delhi-designated terrorist-separatist with dual American citizenship. Considering this, the argument can provocatively be made that there’s no reason why the US shouldn’t try to orchestrate a Color Revolution in Bangladesh, though it remains to be seen whether it actually will. In any case, it’s worth everyone keeping an eye on.
