Almost 100 days after being sworn in as head of Bangladesh's interim government, Muhammad Yunus, the 2006 laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize, spoke with Le Monde at the Jamuna State Guest House, his official residence in Dhaka where foreign dignitaries used to be hosted. The palace of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who held power for 15 years, was ransacked after she fled to India on August 5, when she was overthrown by a mass student movement.
The country was shell-shocked because hundreds of young people were killed in the streets by law enforcement. There was excitement at the same time. The regime, which was running this country with a tight fist for the last 15 years or 16 years, collapsed.
They [the students] persuaded me to accept the job [of head of government]. We didn't know each other and we began in an uncertain environment. The only thing we knew was that we had the chance to create the country in a completely new way. The students were saying to push the reset button, to get rid of the old things that happened to us and start the world of our dreams, a "new Bangladesh." It became a national ambition. But that led to a problem because their expectation was sky high. They want giant steps. So that was our problem: how to make them feel that this is the way we take steps, baby steps.
In the beginning, they were hostile. The administration collapsed because thousands of employees are so dedicated to the previous regime. You don't know who is the one sitting next to you. That creates a lot of misunderstanding, a lot of distrust. So there's a lot of chaos. Many [civil servants] disappeared, some left the country. There are empty slots in the entire government, and we need to find the right person to replace them. The police is still missing, they didn't come back to work yet. And there's those who are afraid to go out into the street because they think the public will be shouting at them, spitting at them... But gradually, order has been established I would say now we feel comfortable.
Everybody wants all their problems solved. Bureaucrats want their promotions, arguing that they were deprived of them because they didn't support the previous government. For all the read-made garments, which is the core of our economy, there are demonstrations every day because they want wages rises.
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