Who pulls the invisible strings in Bangladesh’s politics? Why does the United States so often appear on the wrong side of the struggle for power in Dhaka? And why, more than five decades after its bloody birth, does the question of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) fingerprints in the country’s affairs still ignite such suspicion and passion?
These questions have resurfaced with a vengeance following the explosive remarks by Bangladesh’s former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal. In a yet-to-be-released book, ‘Inshallah Bangladesh,’ Khan alleges that the August 2024 ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was nothing less than “a perfect CIA plot”.
The claim, widely circulated by Indian media before the book’s release, has fuelled a new round of feverish speculation about Washington’s hand in Dhaka’s volatile politics. Khan names Army Chief, General Waker-Uz-Zaman as “the main plotter,” describing him as “a CIA agent” who betrayed Hasina to advance American interests.
The US, he asserts, “does not want too many powerful heads of state in South Asia,” pointing to Narendra Modi, Xi Jinping, and Hasina as leaders whose assertive nationalism unsettled Washington. Hasina herself, now in exile in New Delhi, has joined the chorus, accusing the US of orchestrating a regime change operation and coveting Bangladesh’s strategic St. Martin’s Island.
Whether these are the angry recriminations of a deposed leader or glimpses of a deeper truth is impossible to confirm. Yet the controversy revives an uncomfortable question long buried under polite diplomatic formulas: what exactly has the CIA done in Bangladesh and what has it chosen not to do?
Calculation, not ignorance
Six months after independence, the CIA assessed the new nation of Bangladesh. “The economy is in shambles,” the report noted. “Agricultural production is down sharply, industrial output is negligible, and the country remains heavily dependent on foreign aid.”
It warned that “Mujib (Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) has been able to maintain an image of unity only through his personal prestige” and concluded bleakly that “Bangladesh’s prospects for stability in the near term are poor”.
But behind this analytic detachment lay a history of moral abdication. During the 1971 genocide in East Pakistan, as Pakistan’s Army massacred hundreds of thousands of Bengalis, US diplomats on the ground sent increasingly desperate reports to Washington. The most famous, known as the Blood Telegram, condemned “the selective genocide” and charged that US policy “evidenced what many will consider moral bankruptcy”.
Consul General Archer Blood and his staff accused their own Government of ignoring mass murder for geopolitical convenience. Henry Kissinger, then National Security Adviser, dismissed the dissenters as hysterical. President Richard Nixon, recorded on the White House tapes, called them “Indian-lovers” and sneered that the Bengalis “can’t govern their own people”.
The reason for such callousness was not ignorance but calculation. Pakistan’s military ruler, Yahya Khan, was then serving as the secret channel between Washington and Beijing in the opening that would transform global diplomacy.
“The Bengalis became collateral damage for realigning the global balance of power,” writes historian Gary J. Bass. Nixon and Kissinger were not about to jeopardise that grand design by condemning their intermediary. “While the Pakistani Government was crushing the Bengalis, it was also carrying covert messages back and forth from Washington to Beijing,” Bass notes. In choosing silence, Washington prioritised strategy over morality, power over people.
Declassified CIA assessments from the period reinforce this picture of a Government that knew far more than it admitted. By September 1971, the agency estimated that “some 200,000 or more residents of the area have been killed”. It acknowledged that “many if not most of the Hindus fled for fear of their lives,” and that Lt. Gen. Tikka Khan had “singled out Hindus as targets”.
Yet no decisive American action followed. Kissinger’s staff recognised the contradiction but saw no remedy.
An unwavering gaze
After independence, the CIA’s gaze on Bangladesh did not waver. A 1975 memorandum from Director William E. Colby to Henry Kissinger warned that Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi might intervene militarily after Mujib’s assassination, an act that plunged the new nation into chaos.
Colby’s note observed: “There is clearly a great enough possibility of Indian intervention to be taken seriously… such a situation could lead to an international crisis of considerable proportions.”
Through the following decades, CIA analyses chronicled each twist in Dhaka’s internal power games. A 1987 report assessed General Hussain Muhammad Ershad’s chances of surviving protests, while others tracked the Chittagong Hill Tracts insurgency and the rise of Islamist groups.
Bangladesh’s poverty, factional politics, and strategic coastline made it a perennial subject of intelligence scrutiny. But surveillance is not necessarily interference; what remains opaque is whether observation occasionally shaded into manipulation.
Local suspicions have often filled that void. After Mujib’s assassination, Indian intelligence officers privately speculated that the CIA had at least foreknowledge of the plot.
Such rumours found fertile ground in a region where coups and assassinations rarely occurred without whispers of foreign hands. The US, for its part, maintained cautious relations with successive Bangladeshi regimes, offering aid and training while preaching democracy from a safe distance.
Yet the pattern of selective morality persisted. During the Ershad dictatorship of the 1980s, Washington muted its criticism so long as Dhaka cooperated on counter-terrorism and the Afghan war effort.
After the attacks of 11 September 2001, intelligence cooperation deepened further: Bangladeshi officers trained under US programmes and American surveillance technology reportedly operated out of Dhaka. Snowden-era leaks later suggested that the National Security Agency and CIA jointly ran a collection site in the Bangladeshi capital to monitor regional communications.
An enduring reality
All this underlines an enduring reality: Bangladesh has never ceased to be strategically useful. Wedged between India and Myanmar, overlooking the Bay of Bengal’s shipping lanes, and sitting astride China’s expanding maritime reach, it offers vantage points that any global power would covet.
The island of St. Martin, repeatedly mentioned by Hasina and her allies, is less about tourism than about radar, logistics, and sea-lane control. Whether or not Washington covets it, as Hasina claims, the logic of its geography ensures that others will.
What is undeniable is that the CIA’s record in Bangladesh reflects a wider American pattern: moral blindness when allies commit atrocities, analytic vigilance when adversaries gain ground, and pragmatic amnesia once the crisis passes.
In 1971, US officials knew a genocide was unfolding yet continued to supply arms to Pakistan. In 1975, they watched another coup tear apart the country they had just recognised. In later years, they dissected Bangladesh’s instability in cables and assessments while professing friendship.
This is not to say that every rumour of CIA plotting deserves credence. Intelligence agencies traffic in secrecy; their successes rarely see daylight and their failures are often exaggerated by those they oppose. But dismissing every accusation as conspiracy theory is equally naïve.
The historical record shows that the US has repeatedly subordinated Bangladeshi lives and democracy to its own strategic calculus. The allegations may be impossible to verify, yet they expose a deeper unease about sovereignty in a world where superpowers still play chess with small nations.
Since Hasina’s departure, the interim Government under Muhammad Yunus has courted Washington, seeking economic support and military cooperation. The two countries hold annual defence dialogues, the US has provided tens of millions of dollars in military financing and training, and Bangladesh now looks increasingly to Western suppliers for modern technology.
Whether this represents partnership or dependency is open to debate, but it ensures that American influence will remain entrenched. When power demands silence, truth becomes classified.
(The writer is an author based in Colombo)
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the official position of this publication)