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| Bangladesh |
| B'desh army chief defends crackdown on corruption |
| 2007-02-15 |
| Bangladesh’s army chief has attacked the country’s corrupt elite who he accused of amassing huge wealth by stealing money meant for the poor, a report said Wednesday. “Corruption has engulfed every sphere of life. This cannot be allowed to continue,” head of the army Lieutenant General Moeen U Ahmed was quoted as saying late Tuesday by the private UNB news agency. “It is not possible to count the enormous wealth they have accumulated,” he said, adding that their “lust for wealth” had seen the mass misappropriation of funds allocated for the poor. Moeen’s comments came just over a month after President Iajuddin Ahmed stepped down as head of the previous caretaker government, cancelled disputed elections and imposed a state of emergency. Speaking to an invited audience in the southern town of Barguna, Moeen said the country was not under martial law and denied that the army was running the government. Earlier this month he also denied that the army wished to seize power. “No martial law exists. The president has declared an emergency. The armed forces are only assisting the civil administration,” he said. Moeen warned that the new interim government’s corruption drive would spare no-one, no matter their position. “(The) corrupt whoever he is - politician, business magnate or bureaucrat - will not be spared,” the report quoted him as saying. |
| Posted by:Fred |