Bonikbarta Exclusive

United States Ambassador in Bangladesh Peter Haas has recently undertook a visit to Chattogram. In an exclusive interview with Bonik Barta’s Rashed H Chowdhury, the envoy talked about his experience in the port city and shed light on different aspects of Dhaka-Washington relations.

How did you find your experience in Chattogram? Was this your first visit to Bangladesh's second largest city? What were your impressions?

It has been fascinating to come here. In fact, I grew up in what was called then the second city in America which is Chicago, and which was referred to as the second city behind New York but it was fabulous to come here and a great number of things that I was able to see from the naval base to the shipbreaking, to meeting some of the people that rigged down with from the embassy’s standpoint over the years here in Chittagong and of course to eat some of the famous Chittagonian food.

Can you share your insights from your visit with exchange program alumni of the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs? Why do you believe initiatives like these are important?

Meeting with the women from the academy of women entrepreneurship was really inspiring because not only we were able to look at the products they are selling and talked through how this program has helped them identify what they needed for their business. One of the most fascinating things is that almost all of them said that they raise the prices, as a result of it, they worked valuing their own time, and their own effort that they put into their products what they are doing. So, this program is done with Thunderbird School of Management in United States and so this links to how some of them opening their second shops, some of them expanding exports. Then having the conversations about what it means to the women and their families, and some of the societal resistance from family members to them being entrepreneurs and how they have been able to overcome those challenges with their family’s support, so the entire context in the women economic empowerment in Bangladesh which has a truly impressive track record. It’s overcoming these challenges that are the next hurdle in order to get full women’s economic empowerment. So this is really inspiring meeting them. 

Your visit to the Ship Breaking and Recycling industry must have been intriguing. Could you elaborate on your observations and what fascinated you the most during the visit?

Another one of the industries that is in total transformation here in Bangladesh so there is, I think, a very bad reputation that Bangladesh has had over the years about not taking care of the environment and this industry not being safe. So we were able to…one of the facilities now is meeting all of the international conventions on how we recycle in a way that is safe for the environment and safe for the workers who are doing it. So seeing that level of commitment and knowing that rest of the ship yards are slowly transforming to that same standard is really impressive. We also had the opportunity to speak with some of the workers who actually working in the ship breaking yards and with IPSHA, the NGO that works on the training the workers on safety standards. One of the things that is striking about that is that tremendous progress being made on the environment, tremendous progress being made on the workers’ safety but still a long way to go in terms of conditions for the workers’ pay, whether they have prominent positions, how they protest, all of those things but enormous progress and truly fascinating to see these huge ships being broken down and recycled and Bangladesh taking a lead on that. 

The United States is a significant development partner for Bangladesh, with numerous contributions to the country. US is committed to working closely with Bangladesh on matters of mutual interest. This partnership is eagerly anticipated by the people of Bangladesh. What will be your primary focus in the upcoming days?

I would say that we will move with those practices as far as Bangladesh is expanding our relationship. We currently have five (5) priorities we work on. I think everyone knows that we work on human rights which is one of those issues, we work on security cooperation, part of which is my visit down here for the ship visit this time, we work on economics and environment, again this was part of that, we work a lot on the Rohingyas which I know is closed by here and also just basic resilience, education, and those kinds of things, climate change that Bangladesh needs to, in order to stay resilient to continue to grow. So keep focusing on those and again I will go as fast and as far as Bangladesh is willing to go on these issues.

You have been performing admirably as the US Ambassador to Bangladesh for the past two years. What is your primary evaluation of Bangladesh's natural allure, societal dynamics, cultural richness, and its people?

I find Bangladesh just being endlessly fascinating.  The combination of the cultures, the way it is. I attended a cultural program last night. Just seeing the attention people pay to Bangla songs, Bangla dance, traditions, having just compacts of Bangla New Year, Eid. It is just fascinating, watching a country that is so quickly developing still retain so much of cultural heritage and the fact that people can talk endlessly about whether kala bhuna is better than mejban which is better than kacchi biriyani and argue about which city has the best sweets. It is just fabulous. I heard Kala bhuna beats all yesterday. I had kala bhuna before, last night. I had beef with olive. I guess that is navy special.

I am eager to gain some insights on a particular matter. What are your thoughts on the recent military exercise you observed? Any particular aspects that stood out to you?

The thing is it’s the 30th year that we have done this volunteer exercise. You think about that. 30 times we have gathered our navies together and share our best practices with the particular focus on a couple of things that are super important to Bangladesh, super important to us. There is a huge focus on humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, about maritime security, about safety and security on the ships and shores. And when they were showing me, they were showing me of course the slide shows from the past 10 or 15 years of all these and I think it is just a really good symbol of partnership between these two countries of how they can work together on issues that we both care about. I just found that interaction to be fascinating.

I am curious to learn more, about education. How does the Education USA program in Chattogram assist students in navigating the application process for US universities and colleges?

We are here right now in the American corner here in Chattogram Premier University. Here only now we moved about a year ago and I am told that it is always packed. One of the reasons is that we have Education USA here. As a free service, I will say that again as a free service, people can come and get advice on which universities and colleges are available in the United States, get advice on how to apply to them, get advice on how to find scholarships for their subjects, get advice on which ones are the best for them because there are more than 4000 universities in United States and finding the right one. There is a right one for almost everyone. So this is fabulous that we have this here. Yesterday I have my Domino’s pizza with the Kala bhuna talking to number of students who got accepted to different USA universities and just listening to them about how they chose them and how Education USA helped them and their enthusiasm was just fantastic. Again I will say that one more time because it is so important all of the stuffs are free! Here they got the books and councilors and everything, so I really encourage people to visit.

If you could finally share with me, I have heard that the 2023 country report on Human Right already published. What are your thoughts on the report?

So it is true that our annual Human Rights report was published yesterday. We do a report every single year on every single country around the world and we strive as to make it factual, it’s not us interpreting it to anything. It is just listing the human rights violations as we have become aware for the years for these countries. And in Bangladesh, the human rights abuse that we have seen documented. We don’t do this saying that we are perfect, we are not. People rightly criticize the United States for our human rights issues. But that until you start looking into them, and trying to address them, they do not just go away. I think the other thing that is really important and last week the Atlantic Council which is a USA think tank issued a report where talks about the link between basic freedoms, political, economic and legal freedom and how prosperous that country is, and they found the more freedom the people have, the better the economy is and so I think that is critical in the context of Bangladesh that desired to be a developed country by 2041 as it is part of the prime ministers’ vision 2041. It is just to realize that to get to that prosperity, it is not all about mega projects and doing this doing that but huge part of it is providing individual citizen a freedom to make their own choices and that is what most important for the country’s development.