Young officers in Bangladesh’s army persuaded chiefs to back protesters

DHAKA, Bangladesh—As murmurs of discontent rippled through Bangladesh’s army after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina deployed troops to help subdue intensifying protests, the country’s new army chief convened an internal town hall.

At the meeting on Aug. 3, Gen. Waker-Uz-Zaman defended the army deployment, but also called on junior officers to speak their mind, according to people with knowledge of the gathering.

One after another, officers ranking from major to colonel spoke against the use of force, an infantry major who was present said. The meeting ended with Waker declaring that the army would stand by the people of Bangladesh, according to a statement from the armed forces.

Two days after the meeting, Waker appeared on television to announce that the prime minister had resigned and had left the country.

A younger generation of officers that tracked the protesters and public sentiment on social media played a crucial role in persuading the top rungs of the army to pull support for Hasina’s government, said Maj. Gen. Nayeem Ashfaque Chowdhury, a retired officer who has held senior posts in the Bangladeshi army. Waker is married to a cousin of Hasina, and was initially seen as a confidant of the autocratic leader.

“As the crisis dragged on, there was soul-searching within the Bangladesh army,” Chowdhury said. “The army chief saw the unprecedented unity among the people, understood Hasina’s unpopularity among the midranking officers and was aware of international condemnation of the use of excessive force against unarmed protesters.”

The army has since closely coordinated with student protest leaders and thrown its support behind Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, the students’ choice to lead the interim government.

The high level of sympathy for the protesters among younger army officers, as well as international pressure, means the army is likely to prefer to maneuver behind-the-scenes, rather than seek to govern directly, say political experts.

Protests erupted in Bangladesh in July over a court ruling that reinstated an unpopular quota system for government jobs, in high demand in a country where the youth unemployment rate is in the double digits. As the government cracked down harshly on demonstrators, the protests grew into a broader uprising against Hasina, who had ruled since 2009.

More than 500 people were killed after the demonstrations intensified in mid-July.

Waker was opposed to “shedding blood to prop up the regime,” Chowdhury said. “By Aug. 4, he was secretly trying to convince Hasina to step down, citing threats to her own safety.”

Waker was in a tricky position, Chowdhury added, because some senior army officials were close to Hasina. The army chief has since sidelined some officials from top roles and fired one officer seen as particularly close to Hasina.

It is unclear how long the army’s current hands-off stance will hold.

Yunus’s government is facing significant challenges and law and order remains fragile, with police and many government agencies in disarray.

On Aug. 25, the army intervened to maintain security around the Secretariat complex, where government ministries are housed, after students clashed with members of an auxiliary security force demanding a pay raise and job security.

Zahed Ur Rahman, a political analyst in Dhaka, said the army has now taken a back seat and is allowing the student-backed interim government to run things, but may soon find it needs to get more closely involved in the detail of governance.

“We cannot expect the students to provide security or deliver services that are the state’s responsibility,” he said. “If the security situation deteriorates, the army may be forced to play a more hands-on role.”

Chowdhury and others said the army decided not to take power on its own because it understood doing so wouldn’t be well received at home or abroad. “The pragmatic decision was taken not to declare martial law,” he said.

Yunus is widely respected globally and the army is likely to be eager to use the chance to repair diplomatic rifts with the U.S. that emerged under Hasina by supporting his government.

Although many Bangladeshis regard the army as one of the few institutions to retain some degree of independence during Hasina’s 15 years of continuous rule, critics say the force’s senior leadership had been steadily politicized over the past decade.

The U.S. this year blacklisted Gen. Aziz Ahmed, a former army chief, for alleged corruption. The general has denied any wrongdoing.

In 2021, the U.S. also blacklisted the country’s Rapid Action Battalion, a law-enforcement unit that includes army officers, citing involvement in serious rights abuses, including cases of enforced disappearance and extrajudicial killings. The Bangladesh Police Association, which represents police officers, said at the time that the sanctions were “unwarranted.”

The interim government on Tuesday formed a five-member inquiry commission, headed by a retired high court judge, to investigate allegations of enforced disappearances and killings during the Hasina administration.

Inter Services Public Relations, the armed forces press wing, told The Wall Street Journal that the army would provide its full support to the commission. Anyone found guilty would be dealt with according to the law, an army spokesman said.

Political experts believe the army faced pressure from the United Nations as the crackdown on protests worsened.

Bangladesh is one of the biggest contributors of troops to U.N. peacekeeping operations. Deployment as a U.N. peacekeeper remains a lucrative source of income for midranking officers in the Bangladesh army.

When some armored personnel carriers marked with U.N. insignia appeared on Dhaka’s streets in late July, the U.N. secretary-general’s office said the body had voiced “serious concern” to Bangladesh over the use of such insignia outside of mandated peacekeeping operations.

In the days before Hasina’s departure, the U.N. also joined human rights groups, the U.S. and the European Union in criticizing the government’s use of deadly force to quell the protests. Volker Türk, the U.N. High Commissioner for human rights, called for accountability for human-rights violations, including for those with “command responsibility.”

Bangladesh’s retired army officers also called for the armed forces to be withdrawn from the streets.

By then, protesters in Dhaka had already started to see a change in the army’s posture. Arifur Rahman, a law student in Dhaka who took part in the protests, said the soldiers moved to the main street corners and no longer accompanied the police on patrols.

On Aug. 4, the ruling Awami League called on its supporters to resist what it said was a conspiracy against the government. More than a hundred people died after Hasina’s supporters clashed with protesters across the country.

That night, a young naval officer in full uniform posted a video on Facebook where he pledged to join protesters the next day. “Enough is enough,” he said, calling on fellow officers in the armed forces to “resist.”

Heavily armed troops were still manning barricades on Aug. 5 as two main groups of protesters—consisting of tens of thousands of people—marched toward the prime minister’s residence. The columns of students paused and tried to negotiate with the soldiers, waving flags and offering flowers and water.

“We weren’t sure the soldiers were on our side, but it seemed like something happened that changed the army’s mindset,” Rahman, the protester, said. “We decided to do a bit of emotional blackmail to remind the soldiers they were sons of the soil.”

In the early afternoon, the soldiers suddenly stood aside, Rahman and other protesters said. The crowds surged past the barricades and rushed forward. The news was already filtering out that Hasina had fled the country.

“The Bangladesh army faced a historic decision,” said Zahed Ur Rahman, the political analyst. “After plenty of uncertainty, they finally came through.”

Tripti Lahiri contributed to this article.