Humanitarian corridor, Chattogram port issues: CPB calls countrywide protest progs

The Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) has announced two-day nationwide programmes on 23 and 24 May, protesting the interim government’s policy decisions to allow setting up a ‘humanitarian corridor’ to provide assistance in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, as well as to lease the New Mooring Container Terminal at Chattogram Port to a foreign company.

In a statement issued on Sunday, CPB President Mohammad Shah Alam and General Secretary Ruhin Hossain Prince said that the interim government is taking or going to take various state-level decisions without carrying out the necessary reforms to ensure free, fair, and credible elections, and that is by no means acceptable.

Establishing a corridor to facilitate assistance in Rakhine state and leasing a profitable port facility to a foreign company despite the country’s own capacity to run it go against the independence and sovereignty of the nation.

The statement called on the government to publish a white paper clarifying its position on the corridor and port issues, as well as to refrain from any activity that goes against the interests of the country and its people.

Additionally, the CPB urged left-leaning, democratic, and progressive parties, organisations, and all the citizens to unite and resist from their respective positions any activities that delay elections under any pretext, involve the country in imperialist proxy wars, or go against the interests of the nation and its people, the statement read.