Staff Correspondent

Institutional reforms are losing importance in the interim governments agenda, replaced with narrower goals of regime change at key institutions, visiting British foreign secretary David Miliband was told at a discussion of young Bangladeshis at the British Council in Dhaka on Friday.

The participants told Miliband the opportunity for change in political and socio-economic trends that the interim governments assumption of power ushered in in 2007 is now being lost, or worse still, squandered.

The discussion on the future of Bangladesh, organised by the British High Commission, brought together a diverse group of young Bangladeshi professionals from politics, media, development and business to share their views with Miliband.

The Awami Leagues womens affairs secretary Dipu Moni, one of the participants, said for Bangladesh to achieve across-the-board development, the institution of democracy is essential, pointing out that the current regime has suspended fundamental human rights.

If you compare the years of military dictatorship that Bangladesh has experienced with the period between 1991 and 2006, when democratic governments were in power, we see immense achievements in economic and social development under democratic rules, Dipu Moni said. Instead of reforms, all the nation has seen under the current regime is some changes of faces at the top,he said.

Institutional reforms should have been the key agenda of the current regime, but instead, they have chosen to go after personalities and are wasting the opportunity they had, Zayd Almer Khan, deputy editor , told Miliband.

2008 is going to be a critical year for Bangladesh, you must have elections by the end of this year, said Miliband, asking the forum whether they identified with some of the problems that the interim government had resolved to address.

He stressed the need for institutions such as the media and the Election Commission to be strengthened as important aspects of democratic institutions.

The problems in our political arena need healthy political solutions, not depoliticisation of society as we are currently seeing, said participant Zahiruddin Swapan, a former BNP lawmaker. Among other issues that the forum discussed were the challenge of economic prosperity that Bangladesh is faced with and whether the country is ready to meet the challenge of extremism.

Miliband admitted that religious extremism is as much a challenge for the United Kingdom as it is for Bangladesh and sought views on how young Bangladeshis looked at the issue.

Others who joined the discussion are CSB president Asifa Raihana, Daily Star assistant editor Zafar Sobhan, UNAIDS social mobilisation and partnership adviser Lazeena Muna, Asian Tiger Capital managing partner Ispy Islam, Standard Chartered Bank capital market head and director Asheque Moyeed, Bangladesh Enterprise Institute project director Shahab Enam Khan, and Bikalpadhara Bangladesh leader Mahi B Chowdhury.

The British foreign secretary is on a two-day visit to Bangladesh, during which he is scheduled to visit Sylhet and development projects in the chars of Sirajganj.

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