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| Friday, 26 March 2004 |
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B'desh opposition sets April 30 'deadline' for Govt to quit DHAKA, Thursday (AFP) Bangladesh's main opposition Awami League party Wednesday demanded Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's Islamist government quit by April 30, amid threats of a series of protests including general strikes. The deadline came days after a senior US official said the international community was concerned over the political situation in the impoverished South Asian nation, where anti-government unrest has been mounting. However Zia has brushed aside the ultimatum, saying she would speak at a rally in Dhaka on May 1 to prove it a bid was to fool the people. Zia, who has a two-thirds parliamentary majority, has vowed to complete a five-year term that expires in 2006. She has been locked in a bitter feud with the league's Sheikh Hasina Wajed, who lost power to her in 2001. "The party's central working committee after its two-day meeting today approved that the government will have to quit by April," Abdul Jalil, the secular Awami League party's general secretary told a press conference in Dhaka. "We will do everything that is necessary to achieve our target," he said. He announced a series of protests starting Friday with an "Independence Day march" to be led by party leader Sheikh Hasina Wajed, a 22-mile human chain in Dhaka on March 30 and two days of nationwide general strike April 7 and 8. Bangladesh is to celebrate the anniversary of its 1971 independence from Pakistan Friday. Jalil refused to elaborate what would the opposition do if the government stayed on after April 30, saying only "wait and see". Since February the Awami League has enforced five strikes, costing at least 60 million dollars a day in lost production. The business community has called for alternative protests that did not hurt the country's fragile economy. |
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