US embassy cable - 05DHAKA2610

C O N F I D E N T I A L DHAKA 002610 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/06/10 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, PHUM, BG, KDEN 
SUBJECT: PMO HARDBALL AGAINST ERSHAD UNLEASHES BIZARRE SOAP 
OPERA 
 
REF: 04 DHAKA 1572 
 
Classified By: P/E  Counselor D.C. McCullough, Reason(s): 1.4 (b),(d) 
 
1. (C) Summary: In a riveting turn of events starting June 2, 
former President Ershad stripped his number-two wife Bidisha 
of all Jatiya Party positions, police then arrested her on 
theft and embezzlement charges, Bidisha threatened to kill 
her son and herself, Ershad divorced Bidisha as a bigamist, 
and Ershad fled to Saudi Arabia.  The catalyst of this 
bizarre soap opera appears to be PMO concern that Bidisha was 
pushing the Jatiya Party -- still a force in northern 
Bangladesh -- to ally with the opposition Awami League.  End 
Summary. 
 
2. (C) On June 5, Jatiya Party Presidium member Kazi Zafar 
Ahmed told poloff that the Ershad/Bidisha soap opera began 
several weeks ago when the BDG threatened to arrest Bidisha, 
the 30-something junior wife of the eighty-something former 
president, on charges to include kidnapping, bigamy, money 
laundering, and espionage (apparently on behalf of India). 
Ershad reportedly urged Bidisha to leave the country for her 
own protection, but she refused, electing instead to assault 
Ershad and trash his personal effects.  Ershad then decided, 
in self-defense, to have his wife arrested and told police, 
and the newspapers, that she had embezzled funds and stolen a 
cell phone from him.  On June 2, Ershad stripped Bidisha of 
all party positions, including her seat on the Presidium.  On 
June 4, police arrested Bidisha at the Ershads' home in the 
diplomatic enclave after a brief public standoff when she 
threatened to kill her child and herself. 
 
3. (C) Other sources, widely reported in the media, describe 
a somewhat different scene.  Bidisha, they say, was pushing 
Ershad to remove ABM Ruhul Amin Howlader as Secretary General 
of the Jatiya Party in favor of Kazi Feroj Rashid, who 
recently returned to the Jatiya Party fold from the 
Bangladesh Jatiya Party (BJP) faction, a member of the ruling 
four-party coalition.  Haris Chowdhury, PM Zia's Political 
Secretary and referred to by media accounts as an un-elected 
 
SIPDIS 
BNP leader in the PMO, then threatened to activate pending 
corruption charges against Ershad if the change took place. 
 
4. (C) Haris was also supposedly antagonized by Bidisha's 
support for a Jatiya Party alliance with the opposition Awami 
League and her alleged contacts with Indian Government 
officials who encouraged her to do the same.  The politically 
ambitious Bidisha had persuaded her husband several years ago 
to remove his estranged senior wife, the sixty-something 
Raushan, from the party Presidium; Raushan, MP and leader of 
the party in Parliament, favors closer ties to the BNP. 
 
5. (C) The latest twist came June 6, when Ershad announced he 
had divorced Bidisha because she remained married to and 
involved with the man she had claimed to have divorced before 
marrying Ershad.  "One woman cannot have two husbands but she 
had," Ershad told the media before leaving for Saudi Arabia. 
"She has cheated me."  Jatiya SYG A.B.M. Ruhul Amin Howlander 
told poloff that Ershad will remain in Saudi Arabia until 
June 14, and that the trip was previously arranged. 
6. (C) Comment: Belying the farcical nature of this bizarre 
affair is a serious political point: the PMO plays hardball 
against its opponents.  With 14 seats mostly in northern 
Bangladesh, the Jatiya Party is still a potential player in 
certain electoral scenarios that involve a broad anti-BNP 
coalition.  However, it is a party in apparently terminal 
popular decline, with an aged leader hamstrung by 14 
corruption charges pending against him from his time as 
president that are held in suspense as leverage by the BNP 
and previously the Awami League when it was in power.  In 
March 2004, Ershad complained to us that Haris Chowdhury was 
threatening to jail him over a parliamentary vote.  The 
ex-president's bottom line was, "I can't go back to jail." 
Fifteen months later, nothing seems to have changed. 
THOMAS