Dhaka: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said she was offered an easy reelection in January if she permitted a foreign nation to establish an airbase in Bangladesh, stopping short of disclosing the country's name.
The 76-year-old who secured a fifth term in the January 7, 2024 election, boycotted by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), alleged a conspiracy to create a Christian state similar to East Timor by partitioning parts of Bangladesh and Myanmar.
"Like East Timor, they will carve out a Christian country taking parts of Bangladesh [Chattogram] and Myanmar with a base in the Bay of Bengal." Hasina was quoted as saying in the Daily Star newspaper. Claiming that the "offer came from a White man", the Awami League leader said, "It may look like it is aimed at only one country, but it is not. I am quite sure where else they plan to go."
When asked about her response to the "White man" who made the offer, Hasina stated that she replied in the same manner as she did back in 2001 when the US proposed selling the country's gas to India. "I've clearly said that I'm the daughter of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. . . we won our Liberation War, I don't want power by leasing out part of the country or handing it over to some other country," she said.
Bangladeshi leaders reportedly say that the US has been eyeing St Martin's Island -- a claim strongly denied by State Department spokesman Matthew Miller during a 2023 press conference.
