The interim government has not limited itself to the United States. It has launched unnecessary and highly ambitious initiatives with other countries as well.

On 13 June 2024, Bangladesh’s current interim government, led by Dr Yunus, signed an NDA agreement with the United States. The explanation was a familiar one: urgency, and the need to reduce “reciprocal taxes” imposed under the Donald Trump administration. But the way it was done matters as much as what was done. The agreement was rushed through without meaningful consultation with relevant stakeholders. And because it was a Non-Disclosure Agreement, the public had no way to know what was promised, traded, or quietly conceded.

The government kept repeating one line: nothing in the deal goes against national interest. Yet it never answered the obvious follow-up. If there was nothing to hide, why was the public denied the right to see it? Later, when a draft leaked from Bangladesh’s National Board of Revenue, the government’s claim, collapsed on contact with the text. This 20-page NDA did not read like a harmless confidentiality instrument. Page after page, Bangladesh’s interests were weakened. The authority to make decisions linked to national security, the economy, natural resources, and foreign relations was, in effect, handed over to a foreign state.

At the time the NDA was signed, media reports said the agreement included a plan to buy 25 Boeing aircraft and import wheat from the United States. Then, in August, Commerce Adviser Sheikh Bashir Uddin claimed that during discussions with US officials, they did not seem serious about selling Boeing aircraft. Biman Bangladesh Airlines, too, said it was not aware of any Boeing purchase plan. And yet, within just four months, Biman finalised a decision to buy 14 Boeing aircraft. That decision was taken at Biman’s board meeting on 30 December 2025.

Under Yunus’s interim government, work is now underway to finalise this massive unnecessary procurement, valued at 37,000 crore TK, roughly 3 billion dollars. To speed up the process, on 27 August 2025, Commerce Adviser Sheikh Bashir Uddin was appointed Chairman of Biman. Then, on 14 January, Security Adviser Khalilur Rahman, Yunus’s Special Assistant Faiz Ahmed Taiyeb (serving with the rank of State Minister), and Akhtar Ahmed, Senior Secretary of the Election Commission Secretariat, were appointed to Biman’s board. Each is widely known as close to Dr Yunus. The interim government has also finalised a decision to buy Black Hawk helicopters from the United States for the armed forces.

In July 2025, the interim government signed an MoU with the US Wheat Exporters Association to import wheat from the United States. Under this agreement, Bangladesh will import 3.5 million tonnes of US wheat over five years. The contract set the price at 308 dollars per tonne, with a note that the price may be adjusted over time. But wheat is currently available on the international market at 226–230 dollars per tonne. Already, under this arrangement, Bangladesh has imported 220,000 tonnes in three batches. Importing at inflated prices will raise the price of flour in the open market. That increase will spread quickly across food prices. The cost will land on ordinary people.

On 12 August 2025, the interim government approved a decision to purchase two bulk carrier ships from the United States, from Hellenic Dry Bulk Ventures LLC, for nearly 1,000 crore taka. The oddity is glaring: the United States is not even among the world’s top ten shipbuilding and ship-exporting countries, yet Bangladesh is buying at prices well above market rates. And then comes the detail that makes the whole thing feel like a bad joke: both ships will be built in China. In other words, Chinese-made ships are being purchased not from China, but through the United States, at a higher price.

The interim government has also signed a 15-year LNG purchase agreement with Excelerate Energy worth around 1 lakh crore taka (8.5 billion dollars). Under the Awami League government, Bangladesh had signed a preliminary agreement with Excelerate Energy in November 2023. Before that, Bangladesh imported LNG at competitive prices through long-term deals with Qatar Energy (signed in 2017) and OQ Trading Limited, Oman (signed in 2018). The stated idea behind Excelerate was competition, with supplies expected to begin from 2026.

But after the fall of the Awami League government on 5 August 2024, Excelerate Energy intensified its efforts to expand in Bangladesh. In September, Bangladesh-focused former US ambassador Peter D Haas left the US State Department and joined Excelerate as a Strategic Advisor. In October, Excelerate’s CEO Steven M Kobos flew to Bangladesh to meet Dr Yunus. After that effective single control of LNG exports to Bangladesh moved into Excelerate’s hands. Under the interim government’s revised agreement, the price of gas purchased from Excelerate is set at 15.69 dollars per MMBtu, at least 2.5 dollars higher than the spot market. In April 2024, Bangladesh purchased LNG from the spot market at 9.5–9.93 dollars.

On 30 December, the interim government decided to buy short-term LNG from Switzerland-based SOCAR Trading S.A. Although the office is in Switzerland, it is essentially the commercial arm of SOCAR, the state oil and gas company of Azerbaijan. Notably, on 7 December, Azerbaijan’s president’s two daughters, Leyla Aliyeva and Arzu Aliyeva, visited Bangladesh and met Dr Yunus. It was Dr Yunus’s personal intervention that drove the decision to purchase LNG from the controversial SOCAR-linked company.

The interim government has not limited itself to the United States. It has launched unnecessary and highly ambitious initiatives with other countries as well. These include plans to buy JF-17 Thunder fighter jets from Pakistan, purchase Eurofighter Typhoon jets from a European consortium, establish a drone factory under a G2G agreement with China and buy J-10CE fighter jets, purchase submarines from South Korea, buy T-129 ATAK helicopters from Turkey, and sign a defence agreement with Japan.

Then there is the question of ports and terminals, where decisions today can lock a country into dependencies for decades. In November, the interim government signed a 33-year agreement with APM Terminals to build and operate the Laldiya Terminal at Chattogram Patenga. The Chattogram Port’s New Mooring Container Terminal is being handed over for 30 years to UAE-based DP World. And the Pangaon inland water terminal near Dhaka has been leased for 22 years to Switzerland’s Medlog S.A..

Put all of this together and a picture forms. Dr Yunus has seized control of Bangladesh’s governing authority and, used it in two directions at once: to serve personal interests, and to satisfy those who “employ” him by pushing through agreement after agreement that runs against the country and the state. The long-term damage will not be theoretical. Bangladesh will face deeper long-term loss, the economy will deteriorate, and ordinary people will be the ones left carrying the burden.

And now comes the political insurance policy. To secure impunity for these actions and corruption, Dr Yunus has planned a referendum-style drama designed to deliver a “Yes” victory. He wants that outcome to serve as a shield. Beyond that, he is moving to amend the constitution to build a governing structure in which no future political government can undo the decisions he has made. Western powers are openly consenting because it would secure their long-term influence and business interests in Bangladesh.

The purpose for which Dr Yunus took control of Bangladesh’s governance, has been fully executed. The staged election on the 12th is meant to apply the final seal.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Bangladesh will not be deceived by borrowed prestige. Nor will it forgive betrayal of its sacred destiny.

In the hierarchy of global honours, few distinctions have commanded as much reverence as the Nobel Peace Prize. Established in 1901 according to the will of Alfred Nobel, the Prize was conceived as a tribute to those who strove for the fraternity of nations, the reduction or abolition of standing armies, and the promotion of peace over war.

For decades, it symbolised not merely recognition, but a clarion call to moral leadership—a testament to humanity’s capacity to transcend violence with conscience, humility and courage. Yet, in our present time, the Peace Prize is increasingly not of the nobility not losing it as a sacred accolade, but also as an ornament of geopolitical performance—a gilded endorsement bestowed often to appease global powers, sanctify political narratives or embellish diplomatic theatre.

The Case of Muhammad Yunus and the Loss of National Trust

No example illustrates this tragic dissonance more painfully for Bangladesh than the figure of Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the nation’s sole Nobel Peace laureate. Once celebrated for the model of microcredit under cloak-and-dagger of manipulation and the rhetoric of poverty alleviation, Yunus today stands as a deeply polarising figure—regarded by many Bangladesh’s people not as a pioneer of social uplift, but as an architect of manipulation, financial exploitation and political intrigue.

His legacy, instead of strengthening social peace, has been seen to align with the direful foreign factions and forces that undermined democratic stability and the sacred aspirations of the Liberation War of 1971.

At this pivotal moment in Bangladesh’s contemporary history, Yunus is not remembered as a symbol of principled peace, but as a man who allowed foreign power networks and private ambition to overshadow the national conscience. Thus, the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to him has come to represent a stark and discomforting paradox: global prestige divorced from moral accountability. The medallion glitters—but its glow conceals shadows.

Political theorist Peiman Salehi offers a piercing interpretation: today, the Peace Prize is awarded not to those who challenge systems of domination, but to those who help make empire comfortable. Peace, in this modern architecture, has become negotiable—compliant, symbolic, and cosmetic.

And when peace becomes merely the illusion of calm rather than the triumph of justice, the trophy itself becomes meaningless.

When the Prize Still Meant Something

There was a time when the Nobel Peace Prize resonated with authenticity. When the first laureates—Henri Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross, and Frédéric Passy, a tireless advocate of international arbitration—were honoured, their recognition arose not from political expediency but from humanitarian transformation. Their work echoed conscience, sacrifice and the fundamental belief that humanity must rise above barbarism.

Later laureates such as Elie Wiesel embodied this moral vocation. “I accept this great honour on behalf of the many who perished,” he said, reminding the world that memory must prevent the repetition of atrocity. In such moments, the Prize served as a beacon of ethical clarity, not a tool of global branding.

The Gradual Descent

However, scholars such as Fredrik Heffermehl have rigorously shown that the Peace Prize has, over the past century, strayed from Nobel’s original criteria. Nearly half the awards conferred since the Second World War, he argues, do not conform to Nobel’s explicit mandate of demilitarisation and anti-imperial peace. The Prize has often rewarded heads of state whose involvement in war and coercive diplomacy contradicts the very ideal they were honoured for.

Critics have lamented that the Prize has shifted from recognizing courageous dissent to incentivizing diplomatic decorum. Peace has become an ill performance, not a principle. The honour often celebrates ceasefire photography rather than the dismantling of violence itself. The air of sanctity surrounding the Prize has increasingly dissipated, replaced by cynicism and intellectual disquiet.

Indeed, one commentator suggested renaming it “The Global Order De-Stabilization Prize”—a sarcastic epithet symbolizing how the award is frequently used to fortify the status quo rather than to challenge injustices that perpetuate conflict.

The World’s Growing Demand for an Alternative

If the Nobel Peace Prize can no longer be relied upon as a faithful steward of global moral conscience, then we must ask: Is the world not urgently in need of a new way to honour peace? A new prize—one grounded not in diplomacy and political convenience, but in integrity, justice, and transformative compassion?

Such a new award must be built on three unshakeable pillars:

1. Integrity and Transparency
   The criteria for recognition must be unambiguous, accountable and rooted in verifiable contribution—not reputation, lobbying networks or geopolitical alignment.
2. Justice as the Foundation of Peace
   As Martin Luther King Jr. taught us, peace does not mean the absence of conflict—it means the presence of justice. One cannot reward peace where injustice is left intact.
3. Recognition of the Unheard and the Unseen
   Peace is most often built by those who do their work quietly—community organizers, women mediators, indigenous & minorities defenders, grassroots activists. The award must centre them—not the well-polished foxy people like Yunus who receive applause and cameras.

A Vision for the Future: The Global Peace Integrity Award

Let us imagine an annual Global Peace Integrity Award (GPIA). Its selection committee would be composed of conflict survivors, human rights advocates, social workers and scholars—individuals who understand peace not as theory, but as struggle. Recipients would be chosen only when their work has measurably reduced violence, restored dignity or strengthened justice. Fanfare would be unnecessary. Authenticity would be the source of prestige.

Such a prize would accomplish what the Nobel once promised: it would serve as a moral compass.

Lessons from the Nobel’s Decline

Even the Nobel Committee itself has acknowledged its limitations. Former Secretary Geir Lundestad admitted, “If the purpose of the Nobel Peace Prize had been to establish peace all over the world, it would clearly have failed.”

Recognition is not transformation. Applause is not peace.

Desmond Tutu once reflected that the Prize opened doors—but he also implied that it placed him inside the same halls of power where compromise and negotiation overshadow ideals. The paradox is clear: awards can either amplify moral truth—or neutralise it.

Bangladesh’s Final Word

And so, we return to Muhammad Yunus. His Nobel medallion cannot erase or overshadow the wounds inflicted upon the national conscience in Bangladesh. The honour he wears internationally stands in painful contradiction to peace.  

This nation—born from blood, sacrifice, tears and unbreakable resolve—does not measure greatness by Western trophies. It measures greatness by fidelity to the spirit of 1971.

Bangladesh will not be deceived by borrowed prestige. Nor will it forgive betrayal of its sacred destiny.

Yunus may keep his medal.
But he has lost the trust of the nation that once gave him moral legitimacy.

History will record this truth.

Let the Work of Real Peace Begin

The time has come to end the charade.
To reject performative peace.
To restore dignity, justice and moral courage to the idea of peace itself.

Let this be the moment the world stops applauding illusions—and begins honouring transformation.

The mockery must end. The real work must begin.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.