 Good morning and welcome. I'm Lise Grande and the head of the United States Institute of Peace, which was established by Congress in 1984 as a public, nonpartisan national institution dedicated to preventing, mitigating, and resolving violent conflict abroad. On behalf of the Institute, we are honored to welcome His Excellency, Abdul Momin, the foreign minister of Bangladesh to USIP. His Excellency was appointed to his position as foreign minister in 2019, after being elected to parliament the year before. Minister Momin served as Bangladesh's permanent representative to the United Nations in New York from 29 to 2015 and is a renowned economist, having served as the chair of the Department of Economics and Business at Framingham State University in Massachusetts. As we celebrate the 50th year of the partnership between Bangladesh and the United States, we want to honor the important role Bangladesh has played in advancing the cause of international peace. Bangladesh has made major contributions to nearly every UN peacekeeping effort during the last decades, and is today the world's largest contributor to UN peacekeeping forces with over 6,000 personnel deployed around the world. The partnership between the United States and Bangladesh is based on a shared vision, a prosperous democracy, rule of law, basic human rights for everyone, and security cooperation. The partnership is broad and deep. Last spring, Her Excellency Prime Minister Shekha Hasina participated in the Leaders' Summit on Climate Change, organized by President Biden. This past month, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland led a delegation to DACA to participate in the 8th round of a bilateral dialogue that focuses on trade, labor, human rights, governance, and security cooperation. Bangladesh's transformation into South Asia's second-largest economy is a testament to the country's ambition, drive and achievement, and to the inspiring resourcefulness of the Bangladeshi people. Bangladesh hosts 1 million Rohingya refugees who have fled Myanmar, and it is strategically located between India and China. Continuing efforts to improve labor rights, uphold and respect human rights, and protect and allow for freedom of expression will help Bangladesh to reinforce and expand its leadership role in the region. We are delighted to welcome Ambassador Teresita Schaefer as the moderator of today's conversation. During her 30-year career, Ambassador Schaefer has been one of the State Department's leading experts on South Asia, having served in U.S. embassies in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, and as U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka from 1992 to 1995. As part of our moderated discussion, we're pleased to welcome questions from our in-person and online audiences. For our in-person audience, please fill out the question cards that have been provided. And for those of you who are joining us online, we invite you to pose your questions via the chat function on our website. Please join the discussion online using the hashtag at USIP Bangladesh. Excellency, Mr. Minister, thank you for joining us for this important conversation. Madam Ambassador, we're pleased to hand over the floor to you. Thank you so much, Lise, and it is a special pleasure for me to moderate this program. I lived in Bangladesh for three years. Actually, it was when my late husband was ambassador. And at that time, we came to know another member of the minister's family, his brother Muhit, who subsequently became finance minister for many years and served with great distinction. We were also present at the early phases of Bangladesh's amazing economic success story. We are now at the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh-U.S. diplomatic relations. It has not always been a smooth ride. In fact, the start was rather bumpy. But it has been basically a good ride more recently than that. So, I would like to start by asking the Honorable Minister to give us a broad assessment of U.S.-Bangladesh relations after 50 years. Some of you may know that I teach a course on diplomacy at Georgetown University. And one of the things I tell my students in the very first class is it's all about national interests. So, if you would tell us please what you consider to be Bangladesh's core national interests and where we stand between the United States and Bangladesh. Thank you, Ambassador Sheffer. Maybe first I would like to thank the organizers for giving me a chance to speak before you, particularly Andy. And I also would like to thank my mission, Embassy, in coordination with the U.S.-I.P. that have organized this event. This is a very interesting year for us. We are observing, as you said Ambassador, we are observing the 50th anniversary of our diplomatic relationship this year. And yesterday in fact we celebrated it. And I had the privilege to meet the Secretary Lincoln. And also we had, we met many of our old friends and also new friends yesterday. So, we are very proud of this relationship. I also like to highlight that this year, last year, we were observing the 50th anniversary of independence of Bangladesh. And at the same time, we observed the 100th anniversary of father of the nation, Bangumundu Sheikh Majib-e-Rahman, a spirit who vision about independent Bangladesh. And through his hard work and sacrifice, we are lucky we got a sovereign independent Bangladesh. There have been many leaders in Indians of continent, particularly in Bengal. But no one could ever deliver a state, the concept of state, an independent sovereign Bangladesh. We are thankful to him. Currently we are very lucky that his daughter is the leader of the country. And she has been performing in an excellent way. Now go back to your question. Maybe I reiterate, I quote from, you know, how is our relationship? I quote from President Biden's letter, which is sent to Prime Minister Shekhasina. And in that letter, he mentioned, not read out everything, but in the beginning he said, on April 4th, we celebrate a 50-year milestone in the relationship between United States and Bangladesh. The drive, resourcefulness and innovation of Bangladesh is rebuilding after 1971 war and now forging a path of economic growth and development serve as a model for the rest of the world. A model, serve as a model for the rest of the world. We are proud of our partnership on development, economic growth and counter-terrorism. We work together to address the climate crisis, help bring us survivors of genocide and support United Nations peacekeeping worldwide. Our Prime Minister Shekhasina, in response, also said the same and I quote, in the last 50 years Bangladesh and United States have built a durable partnership over many areas by way of mutual support and collaboration. The strength and depth of Bangladesh-U.S. relationship is reflected in the areas of trade and investment, counter-terrorism and ending violent extremism, gender equality, agriculture, labor, defense and security, COVID-19 measures and of growing interaction of our peoples. Moreover, our close cooperation in global peacekeeping operations and climate change issues has been contributing significantly to the international peace and security, I unquote. Now these two, from these two letters you can see the depth of our relationship between U.S. and Bangladesh. And I would add one more thing, yesterday I had a, I was very privileged to, you know, I had a meeting with Secretary Blinken and also U.S.A. ID administrator Samantha Powers. And the code, the same sentiment, but President Biden also code. And he said, for the next 50 years, President Biden, I quote, Bangladesh and Americans alike share the idols of democracy, equality and respect for human rights. These elements are the foundation for healthy, secure and prosperous societies. I'm confident our partnership will continue to flourish for the next 50 years and beyond, President Biden. So these two letters tells the story of our partnership between U.S. and Bangladesh. And as you said over the years, we did, once we are known as a bottomless basket with no hope of survival. When Bangladesh was independent, I was working in the Ministry of Trade and Commerce. And I can tell you the pain and the difficulties that we put. We came from India with a lot of exuberance, you see. The whole world was under our feet when unfortunately we didn't have much resources. And the Pakistani, you know, this occupation army totally destroyed our economy. So we had to buy from pin to shit from abroad. And it was not easy. It was very difficult. But nowadays we feel proud that after 50 years Bangladesh economy is a vibrant economy. And it is the land of opportunity. So things have changed. It's changed because of one reason is the dynamic people of Bangladesh, hard-working, resilient and dynamic people of Bangladesh. The other one, we had a great leadership over the last 12 years because of leadership under Prime Minister Shekha Sina. I must say, relative to other countries, we did a miracle. Our GDP growth rate over the last few years, 12 decades, is around average 6.6% on average. And three years ago, before the COVID, it was 8.15%. And we'll be happy to know even the COVID, this last year, even under COVID, we achieved 6.94% GDP growth, one of the highest in the world. And this is possible because of leadership, cop-in-pen, targeted approaches and the spirit among the Bengali nationhood. That they want to achieve the goal of their father of nation. Bangladesh not only created independent sovereign in Bangladesh. He didn't have enough time to build a country. But he imbued in us, you see, a spirit that we live by with it. The spirit is, he wanted Bangladesh a prosperous country. We call it Sunaar Bangladesh, a prosperous stable economy where basic necessities could be ensured to every citizen of the country. And with that, you know, ambition, that spirit Prime Minister Shekha Sina has designed a number of road maps. One is by 2030, we like to be, you know, property free country. By, I mean, technically, property free country. If you have less than 5% extreme property, then you can call it property free country. And we propose to have around 3% extreme property by 2030. Currently, we have reduced our property, you know, I must say, this is another significant achievement. When Bangladesh was created, our below property level was around 80%. And now it is around 20.5%. And we propose to reduce the extreme property by 3%. The other, you know, the miracle is over the last years. Also, the living standard of people has gone up. And longevity has improved. Currently, we have almost 99% school enrollment. And we were very lucky that Prime Minister Shekha Sina could achieve 100% you know, services of electricity to every household. This is a miracle because this is a tool for productivity. So we did pretty well. A country which was, which has no reserve, foreign exchange reserve. Now we are pleased to have around 48 billion dollar reserve. So the country is doing well. We have achieved significant time in achievement in all the social indicators. More so vis-à-vis our neighbors. We did pretty well. So we are way too, we are in a trajectory of development. And the country is developed. You see, our, you know, living style has improved. The aspiration of people has gone up. And more so in this digital interdependent country. The people's aspiration has gone up. They want to have better infrastructure. They want to have a better living standard. And here, an opportunity is coming up. Here we have a role to play. The U.S. has a role to play. U.S. over the last 50 years, they are our single country largest trading partner. Our trade between two countries is around $9 billion a year. One highest in the single country trading. And our American investment in Bangladesh is the highest. Cumulative investment in the highest in Bangladesh. Around over 20% of total foreign investment from USA. But although it is mostly concentrated in only few sectors like energy and power. It is time that we need to diversify this investment portfolio. Because we have developed other areas. One is innovation area, IT. This is an area where U.S. can invest and be your winner. Because we have a large number of, you know, around 700,000 registered freelance IT experts. And American company can take advantage of you. You will be happy to know one Bangladeshi origin. Here he lives in USA. But he developed initially PayPal. And then he is a partner of creating YouTube. Which is so popular. So they have the, you know, innovativeness, the creativity. And therefore I think this is an area where U.S. and Bangladesh can work, you know, in partnership. And it would be a win-win for both the countries. And I would ask that, you know, this is an area they can think of investing. Government is creating around 28 high-tech parks. And we welcome American investment in all those high-tech parks. The necessary ingredients is there. You will be happy to know the Bangladesh has two great resources. One is manpower, young manpower. Hard-working, diligent. They may not have university degrees. But they are quick learner. They can catch up things very quickly. You can see it here in U.S. also. The other one, we have plenty of waters. And if we can manage our water, we can do medicine. So these are the areas we need, you know, expertise from U.S. our friendly countries. Now, the other area where U.S. can at this time think of investing in Bangladesh. It is in the pharmaceuticals. I lived in this country over 33 years. And I know how expensive, you know, even with the insurance, it was pretty high to buy the regular drugs. I had blood pressure, so I had to buy the blood pressure medicine each month. And I know how expensive it is. But in Bangladesh, they have the state-of-the-art pharmaceuticals. And you can produce the products at relatively comfortable price. So it is time for U.S. Maybe they can have partnership in the pharmaceuticals. They can produce their product back in Bangladesh, sell it to U.S. consumers at affordable price. I'm saying so because, yeah, this is a great worry for every household. So this is an area where Bangladesh and U.S. can work. We have also an infrastructure area. We need U.S. investment. We also need, we have a vast oceanfront. And that is, we would like U.S. to come forward and invest in the blue economy. Because we don't have much expertise in that. And the other beauty, if they come to our Bay of Bengal, you see, Bay of Bengal is an epicenter. I follow my colleague, Ambassador Tarik Karim, the Bay of Bengal is epicenter. So if U.S. invests there, then it can ensure our goal. We want the Indo-Specific should be free, open, inclusive, and open for navigation of all countries without any incomparances. And U.S. invests there in the Indo-Specific. They can also help us to ensure our goal of ensuring free, open, inclusive Bay of Bengal. So we would welcome, so countries doing well in terms of economy, in terms of, in a growth, we are doing well. And as regards, our relationship with U.S., you see, the relationship between U.S. and Bangladesh is based on principles and values. We share the same value. We share the values of democracy. And I must tell you, the Bangladesh was created when people's voice was denied. If you remember in 1970 election when my party, our Mili, got the majority. In the East Pakistan, this party got out of 169 seats. It got 167. In all Pakistan, out of 300, the whole party got the majority. But unfortunately, the minority party which only secured 81 votes, they claim that they should govern the government because a Bengali must not run, govern the country. So when this was being arranged by the military junta, Bangladeshi people rank and file spontaneously started the movement of independence. That's how. So our country was built on the perception of democracy and ensuring human rights. So U.S. also believes in democracy. Also human rights. You have 250 years of experience of practicing democracy. Yet at times we see there is hiccups even in the U.S. and democracy. We had only 50 years. Out of 50 years, we were ruled by military and military-backed technocratic governments for almost 18 years. So we got only few years of democratic practices. So we are not perfect. And democracy is continuously evolving process. And we're working hard. Last year, you know, these 12 years, Shekhasina has achieved one miracle. She has stabilized democracy. Every year, as part of the routine, there has been elections. Participation election is used on an average 72-plus people voted in the elections, which is uncommon here. And enthusiasm is there. Even the women, they are coming forward. There are more women voters. We have our institutions. There were some, you know, weaknesses in the institution over the years. We have rectified them. For example, earlier in the past government, they created many ghost voters, 12 million ghost voters. Now, Shekhasina government has created, you know, photo ID with a biometric photo ID. Now you cannot cheat. You cannot have ghost voters. Not only that, we have introduced transparent ballot boxes. So you can see how many votes are there, you see. And we are also trying to use electronic mechanism. Our opposition don't like electronic mechanism. But we are trying to introduce it, you know, stage by stage. And our elections are, you know, fully participate today. All parties join in the election. Even the one big opposition party whose main job is to criticize, they don't, as a party, they don't contest in the election. They stay away from public. They are afraid of public. But they contest as an independent candidate. In my own district, I'm elected from the Amilik party, the member of parliament. And the mayor of the city has been elected from the other party, the BNP. So we are very accommodated. And we are working together. So USA and Bangladesh shares values, values of democracy, human rights, justice and free play. Our country, I must say, we are thankful to Shekhasina. For a long period of time, even during when you were there, your husband was there in Bangladesh, there was not, you know, what should I say, the judicial system was a little twisted. Because there was some people at the above law. The military government made a rule. Some people, some killers were not allowed to be pursued in any court. They got indemnity from the government. Thanks to Shekhasina, she has changed that rule. Now no one is above law, and law is applied to everyone in blind faith. Mr. Minister, I wonder if I could follow up on a couple of things you said. Okay. I was delighted, I must say, to hear you start off with this great description of the Bangladeshi economy, which is one of the most unsung success stories as far as your international audience is concerned. But if you were going to look ahead 50 years, you've taught economics, what would you want to change? You mentioned diversification, but is there anything else? We want diversification. We want more private public partnership. We want more investment. As I said, your excellency, that we have two great resources. One is human resource. We need to create jobs or this gainful job for our human resource. And to do that, we need a lot of investment. And here we want to invite everyone. Investment not in one few sectors. I want a very varied portfolio of investment. Not only from one country, from all across. So this is one goal we have. I have termed it as an economic diplomacy. In my economic diplomacy, I have five components. The first component is, in order to provide jobs, gainful jobs to our people, I want to have more investment and a diversified portfolio from across the world. Second, I have to help improve our trade. Currently, our trade is basically considered one item, readymade garment. I need to diversify it. And also, I have to have more countries buying our products. So I need that thing also. Third, I need gainful employment of our people, both home and abroad. And the fourth I want, transfer of technology. Even today, whenever there is monsoon or flood, thousands of people get uprooted from their homes. For river erosion, global warming, this additional salinity and all those. But in the USA, you have a great technology. As a result, you don't have that much river erosion. So I need that technology. There I need also consistently financing so that I can develop ways and means so that we don't face this music. And of course, the last one also, I need to provide better quality service to our people, both home and abroad. And there, like in the business, for example, ease of doing business, still we are little off the mark. Our ranking is pretty bad. This is an area we need some technical support so that we can help improve our ease of business. Our even neighbors, like Thailand, their ease of business is much superior to that ours. And we need help, help from others. In USA, if there is 100%, if there is, let's say, $100 million intention to invest, you know, you materialize $100 million investment. In Bangladesh, unfortunately, I did a study a few years ago, around 20 years ago. If we have intention to invest for $100 million, the result is around $5 million is the reality. So we need to improve our situation. Here, as I said, you see, we are still in a working process. We need help and support for our friendly countries. So next 50 years, I look forward. That's an ambitious agenda, and Bangladesh is no stranger to ambition. Yes. So that's great. We do have ambitions. Could I shift gears a bit and talk a bit about the geopolitical position of Bangladesh? You're sitting right next to India, which is very large, which was midwife to your independence, and which is the big neighbor. We know something about being the big neighbor. I know. But India has troubled relations with China and a live border problem. The United States, which you've just been talking about, also has troubled relations with China. China is an increasingly important partner for you. How do these three angles intersect for you? Thank you for this question. You see, we believe in the principles that our father of the nation gave us, friendship to all, malice to us none. And he also said that you should help your neighbors. Your neighbors is most important. We are lucky that we have two big neighbors. One is India, the other is China. India is our, we have a rock-solid relationship with India. Many Indians also bloodshed for our independence. We can never forget that. And they're the one who provided shelter. In 1971, when half of the population was displaced from their homes, and around 10 million took shelter in neighboring India. It is not only the Indian government. Even the commoner, common people supported us, helped us. We can never forget that. We have a very solid relationship with India, with Prime Minister Shaka Sinha and Prime Minister Modi. Modi, you know, terms, the current relations, a sunali oddai means golden chapter. Very solid relations. We have resolved all our critical issues with India through dialogue and discussion. Not a single bullet ever been fired. We resolved our, you know, this border demarcation problem. We resolved our maritime problem with India. Of course, with Myanmar too. And also we resolved our water-sharing problems with Myanmar. Large water-sharing problems. We have very friendly relationship. But we need to develop our country. But India don't have that much resources yet. They afford to give it. The other neighbor is China. China initially were opposed to us during our war independence. That dad opposed to us. They are the one who put their first veto against Bangladesh membership to the UN. You see, we can never forget that. But we need to help develop our economy. And they have basket of money. They come with the basket of money with affordable and aggressive proposals. I know you're happy that we have... We are very prudent in receiving any credit. But we do take help from them. And they are helping building some of our MAGA projects. But there is a perception among... So we maintain a non-partisan relation. India and China, they have their own problem. That let them live with it. But we don't, you know, get intervened. You know, we don't intervene on those issues. We need to develop. We maintain a good relations with India. Basically, they are development partners. One of our development partners. But we don't influence their other, you know, relationships. Same with... USA may have difficulty with China. Okay? That's okay. Nothing against it. But we only relate China for our development efforts. So we're working okay. And they also know, because our position is principal position. It's a principal position that in the, you know, in the area of democracy, the area of human rights, we don't compromise. But in the area of development, we take... Even India takes money from China. They don't have good relationship yet. They borrow from China. You know, this is a very strange world. So as you said in the beginning, the foreign policy is for national interest. So we look... We also try to follow U.S. policy. The foreign policy is national interest. So moving a little bit further from home, Russia, the war in Ukraine, which I do call a war, I noticed that Bangladesh has abstained in all of the U.N. votes. I wonder if you could tell us what the thinking is that led you to make that decision. You have seen that we abstained and also we voted yes. The first resolution on Ukraine, our perception was that first resolution was more of a blame game. If you look at the wording of the first resolution, basically there is a blaming of the Russian Federation. And not exactly looking for a peace. Bangladesh is a peace-loving country. Even as we have always tried very hard to achieve peace. Our father of the nation said, Bangladesh will imitate across the nation the message of peace. And he said peace is imperative for development. Peace and stability is imperative for... we follow that. So we want peace. We are number one in U.N. peacekeeping missions. That's not all. Our commitment to peace is so much so that we passed a resolution in the U.N. All 193 countries passed this resolution. The resolution is culture of peace. We believe that there has been violence, there has been terrorism, there has been war, and a huge number of people are being uprooted from their homes becoming refugees. This is because only reason. Because there is a spread of venom of hatred against one group against the other. So we have been promoting one concept, and that is culture of peace. The very essence of the culture of peace is we want to create a mindset of tolerance, a mindset of respect towards others, irrespective of religion, ethnicity, color, or race. And if we can create such a mindset, we believe we can have sustainable peace across all nations. So we are a peace-loving country. In the first resolution it was a blame game. So we... and Russia is an old friend even in our independence, during our independence, Russia is the only country who put veto three times for Bangladesh. We can never forget that. So we voted, we stayed at the time, we stayed away from voting years or more. We maintained abstention on principle. Second one, we are a country who believes in humanitarian efforts. Always we... whatever there is a humanitarian problem, we move there. In the... even our prime minister, even it's, you know, five years ago, in the humanitarian consideration, she allowed 1.1 million Rohingya to temporary shelter in Bangladesh. So when the question of humanitarian response that we need free access to the people, the Red Cross and others in the Ukraine, we said it should be done. People should be allowed to leave their place if they want to, without any encumbrances. And therefore we supported that resolution. We supported it on principle, because we believe in humanitarian efforts. Moving to transnational issues, Bangladesh is one of the most seriously affected countries on climate change. What is the government's approach to dealing with this? Thank you for your question. Yes, you are right. We are a global country in terms of climate change. Each year, as I said, 6,500 people are uprooted from their homes, from their traditional jobs, because of global warming, because of river erosion, because of additional salinity. And over the last few years, when we started counting, around 6.5 million people have been uprooted from their homes, and they crowd the cities and towns, create slums. And as per varieties of estimates, that in future, around 20 to 25% of land, coastal land of Bangladesh, will be under water. That means around 30 to 40 million people will be uprooted from their homes. Where will they go? I don't know. Bangladesh is the most densely populated country. We have around 2,900 people in per square mile. While we have around 40% per square mile. And to give you an example, I always say in Iowa State, you know, it is pretty around close to Bangladesh, or to say Wisconsin, it's close to Bangladesh in terms of geography. In Iowa, you have 3.5 million. In Wisconsin, you have around 6 million people. But we have 165 million class. So you can see the enormity of problems. So the question is, we want to save this planet. We have only one plan. So Bangladesh is the leader. Currently we are the president of Climate Vulnerable Forum, a forum of 55 nations, almost half of the world population. What do we want? We want to save this planet. In order to save this planet for our future generation, we need to follow Paris Agreement. What it means? We want all the abusing countries, the government emissions countries, they should take aggressive, they should have aggressive indices in such a way so that double temperature remain not above 1.5 degrees centigrade. So this is one, our leadership has been trying very hard. Prime Minister Shekhar Sinha is very eloquent on that. Secondly, in the Paris Agreement, our development partners agreed to provide $100 billion a year for the climate fund. Unfortunately, till today, not a single penny has been, you know, earmarked for climate change. We want this money should come forth, not $100 billion, more than $100 billion because we have to save this planet. And over, you see this, and it is not a big issue. Annually we spent around $2,300 billion for defense expenditure to increase the security of people. But unfortunately, I don't know how much security is improving. If I allocate only 5% fund from this defense expenditure, $2,300, then you are talking of more than how much, $115 billion a year. So easily, you need a political commitment. If there is a political commitment, we can do it. We can save this planet. And if we don't save this planet, our future generation will not pardon us. So our second goal is we need to have this financing from our development partners. Third, of course, we need, as I said, the rehabilitation of, we need sharing of the burden of rehabilitation of these climate migrants. Those are displaced due to erratic climatic changes. And then, of course, we also need, we also want to be taught our contribution to the, you know, the global warming is less than 0.4% Bangladesh country. And all these 55 climate vulnerable countries, their combined contribution to global emissions is only less than 5%. But unfortunately, they are suffering. So what we want, we want that, although the 5% will also improve our green energy, but we don't have technology. We want development partners to come up with, you know, newer technology so that we can have renewable energy. For example, Bangladesh, Prime Minister Shekhar Sinha took a, you know, very bold step before the COP26. What she did, we had 10 coal-based power plant was coming up. It was all finalized. Amounting to $12 billion FDI. But she canceled all those 10 coal-based power plant in order to have more renewable energy. And there was another six is in the offering. Possibly we'll cancel all of them. So she has that commitment to help the global, you know, emission go down. Renewable energy. Others should come forward. Now in the area of renewable energy, you have technology. And I need those technology to be shared with us at affordable prices. We also need, you know, consistently financing from institutions so that we can also pick up our own. And as such, we have, you know, we started one climate strategy, long-run strategy. We even started with our own financing, a $440 million trust fund for climate. And adopted, we picked up 800 projects. We could not finance all of them. We want development partners to come and help us. We in Bangladesh, we've decided by 2041, we want to, would like to have more than 40%. Currently, our, you know, contribution is very long. It's around 3.5%. We want to help increase it. We are planting 70 million new trees. This is Bangumandu Sheikh Mojib prosperity plan. We have adopted it. And we have already planted 30 million. We want to, I mean have 70 million. I have a proposal yesterday. I also speak to Samanta about that. Then we wanted to have USA can feel proud of it. We want to have a project. That would be for both mitigation and adaptation. And it will be a, you know, carbon sink for the whole world. We want to create something. We discuss about it. And I'm so happy that she says she will send her team for a technical study. I'm thankful to her and the USA. So Bangladesh alone cannot do it. We are the big boys, but you see the actors are, the polluters are, you know who are they. They should come forward. They should come forward. And we should create a public awareness across the world so that they listen to us. Many years ago when I was visiting, you know, this Robert Kennedy's gave it. And there is a little thing. I cannot coin the word, but he said, if you fight for the right cause, then someone else will join. Then another will join. Then another will join. And many, when many millions join, then the tyranny, the house of the tyranny, the walls of the tyranny is sure to collapse. So I believe if we can a global public awareness to save this planet Earth, then those are the polluters. They will come down and will listen to us. And I want, you know, you are the leader. USA is the leader. I'm so happy. I'm thankful to U.S. particularly Biden administration and Senator Kerry for rejoining the climate discourse. This is a great thing for USA. We thank, we salute you. And you have to create this public awareness that we must save this planet Earth and therefore the greatest polluters should listen to us and we should force them. Mr. Minister, we have an audience here and we have a much larger audience on Zoom. And we have a growing number of very interesting questions from them. So I think I should start moving down through the list of questions. And the first one is there have been increasing concerns about the stifling of dissent in Bangladesh especially with the digital security act. What is Bangladesh doing to preserve the space for dissent which is so important to democracy which is after all one of the foundations of the country? This is a very good question. You see, as I said in the beginning, we are a working process. We created one law that is digital DSA that we mentioned. It has certain weaknesses also. We admit it. And if you see we are trying ourselves to eliminate those weaknesses. But it is essential because with the new global, you know, the cyber space, we need to have some security because at times in the cyber social media you put up a false issue. And this digital security act is mostly to issues that are criminal in nature that can create public resentment and, you know, difficulties really they went to. It's not to carve the freedom of press. Remember, it's not to carve the... It is a given example that someone did, wrote a piece in the social media stating that affecting your religion that holocaust is not reality. This is a game. Now, this will create a big issue because this is an established fact and that guy has made a statement like this. Others people get upset. In our part of the world, if you write that, you know, the prophet is fake or something like people get upset. It will create a lot of resentment in the community to stop this type of, you know, comments or, you know, what we have developed in the DSA room so that people stay away and also guarantee individual. You are an individual, but they made false acquisitions against you. If you're a public figure, that's welcome. We don't mind. If you're a public figure, you are there to be criticized. But you are a private person. They made all false things. There you need to be guarded. In USA, your Excellency will share with me that here I have freedom of speech, but does not allow me to go to a movie theater or a conference room and shout, bomb, bomb. You see, I cannot do that. If I do, police will take care of me. So there has to be freedom of speech. You know, freedom must be regulated in a way so that it does not hurt somebody else's freedom. So this DSA, we have some weaknesses. We are working on it. It's interesting that a large majority of those who have been prosecuted under the DSA have been either journalists or politicians. No, there has been some cases. One journalist suddenly wrote some pieces. One journalist, what he did a mockery. There was, she said she has been raped. Another journalist said that this girl has been raped. Found out she is an actor acting, but she put in the social media. So we have to stop that because she is not by another group, another community people, because that will create public nuisance. So we have to take care of that. But this is not generalistic freedom. That you make a false acquisition and you, you know, stage something which is totally false. There you have a difficulty. There has been some, after some individual has, before I give an example. There was a group known as what is this group? They had a demonstration. It was fine. They were welcome. Then some journalist put up a picture. Some media, powerful media put up a picture. And they said that 2,500 people killed in the Hafajat movement. That was totally false. Not a single guy was killed. But then it was found, again journalists found it out, that that picture was Johnstone, 1978 picture. When there was a, in Johnstone, there was a, you know, this, they took, or poisoned and died. That pepper put up that picture. Johnstone picture of 1978. So they were misguiding people with the wrong picture. That is not journalistic freedom. This is not. Now, sometimes you have guys, what they does, they go after private and public property. They burn the houses. They burn, you know, the buses. This is not freedom of speech. These are criminal act. So naturally there you take action. As a government you have a responsibility. Here you cannot burn a bus without any, you know, because you have freedom of, freedom of, you know, choice. So you go and burn a bus or a, burn a house. No way. It's not allowed. Government has a responsibility. We use that in those cases. We have a question concerning the, the rab and the sanctions. I would like to take the privilege of the moderator and ask you a related but slightly different question. You have met with Secretary Blinken. I make the working assumption that this was part of your conversation and I wonder if there's anything you would like to share with us. I would discuss this issue. This is a very burning issue in Bangladesh because first I want to give a background of, you know, this rapid-direction battalion. In 2001 to 2004 we have a very difficult time. There was uprising of jihadists. There was uprising of terrorists all across and extremists. Radicalism became the day of the, you know, and you'll be, you'll be surprised to know on one single day 495 bomb was blasted across the country in 60th district out of 64 simultaneously. There has been bomb, the judges court, judge who were in this session you know, the bomb was blasted and killed. There's a school where the bomb was blasted. There was a, you know, this the cultural program in which the bomb was blasted and killed. Even when the then opposition party leader Shekhas organized rally against this extremism and terrorism against this bomb her own rally was a gradient attack and bombed as a result 24 people including the president of our women, you know, women section was killed. 24 people was killed. 370 people have the bomb on one single day. They're wounded. When even a foreign diplomat the high commissioner ambassador when the country was visiting some place and there was bomb. Unfortunately, he was unharmed but two of his guys was killed. That was the situation. It was unbearable. So therefore at the time with the advice of US government and also the British government they create the rapid action battalion. And they provided them training and equipment. It worked out very well. In the beginning there has been some accesses. I must say this possibility there has been some accesses. Over the things it has become more matured. They have been trained, many of them have been trained by justice department and the rules of engagement were designed by the justice department. Things improved, things improved dramatically. But yet I agree that there could be some accesses at times. But if there is an accesses then there is this judicial system of punishment. You'd be surprised to know that I am told that around 270 of these RAB officials either been you know, set or you know, this demoted. And 12 of them got life transportation because they're involved in illegal activity. So there is a judicial process. But yet, if there is the reason why there was many reasons. One argument is that in Bangladesh as per the UN High Commission's report 70 people 76 people you know, enforced disappearance. There is no over the last 12 years 76 people in a country of 165 million they, we don't know where what happened to them. Of course out of the 76 recently we found out, seven reappeared and they're living with their families. So number has changed. But as over the last 12 years there has been 76 people, you know, disappeared. And therefore this is one reason there has been human rights violation and therefore you know the US government keep a sanction on this institution. That was termed by your, one of your, you know the colleague, Ambassador James Moriarty, as the FBI your, RAB is the FBI of USA. And he put a sanction on them. They have been doing excellent job RAB because because of them there is no more terrorism in Bangladesh. Radicalism has been wiped out. Not only that the drug trafficking and human trafficking is one of your goals. That you don't want human trafficking in person they have dramatically reduced it. No wonder the US has improved our, you know, rating in the human trafficking. Because of efforts by government particularly is RAB. RAB has achieved public, you know public acknowledgement. Public like RAB. I can tell this little story. In my district one guy was killed in a police custody. And then the case was given to another section of police to do the inquiry. The parents of that guy who killed, they said why don't you put RAB in it? I said why? They said if RAB is there we'll get a better judgment because they are not corrupt. And they will not be influenced by anybody else. So that is that much respect for bad. Unfortunately, you know, but my issue is it's not, it's a decision of the US and I always try to help myself that when I'm driving beyond speed limit, you know, many people are driving beyond my speed limit but police catches me. They don't catch the other guys who are speeding faster. They catch me when I'm supposed to maintain that. So this is happened because you see many other countries like Iraq, they have 16,800 people disappeared. No sanction on them. Sri Lanka, they have 6,000, around 7,000 people disappeared. No sanction on them. Yes, but there was a time when that was the you know, but you see Argentina Argentina, Algeria, they have over 4, 5,000. The other population is not that Sri Lanka population 21 million. I have 165 million. But anyway that's a judgment of the US. But I thought, you know, it is up to them to look into re-examined and we'll be happy. I made this point. We'll be happy if they withdraw, at least from the institution because this institution is doing an excellent job and this sanction is creating, I mean, the people will not be interested to join RAV anymore. Young people will say stay away from this because there is a sanction on it. And it will create possibilities that there could be resumption of terrorism, you know, resumption of radicalism and we are afraid of it. And if those happen, say there are increasing number of trafficking, increasing of drug trafficking, who will take the blame? Who will take the blame? So this is an important issue we should look beyond and try to fix it. It certainly is an important issue and I'm glad you had an opportunity to I had, I raised it in every meeting because I feel it personally that it is it is inappropriate. And of course the statistics have gotten better in the sense of the idea. Yeah, I got all the prostitutes from the UN. But they don't explain exactly why they only said the face, public face is the violation of human rights. Actually what I don't know. Maybe you can help me out. We have come to the end of a very full hour with you, Mr. Minister. And I must thank you profusely for sharing so much of your time. So I'm very straightforward. Many diplomats may not like it, but being a teacher you see, they have it to tell the truth, whatever I feel like. Well, I haven't been a teacher for nearly as long as you have, but I can understand your attachment to the profession. And I would like to thank those who have joined us, both online and in person. And to thank you for coming to USIP on what I realize is a very crowded visit to the United States. I wish you all the best for the next 50 years. Thank you Ambassador and look forward to see you sometime in Bangladesh also. Thank you.