President Zia’s address at UN General Assembly
President Ziaur Rahman Bir Uttam delivered a historic address on August 26, 1980, at the General Assembly of the United Nations where he particularly emphasized the adoption of the suggestions by the Brandt Commission during the Second Oil Crisis. The text of the speech is available for the readers here.
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‘Solid administrator Zia emerged from the chaos’, Eisenbraun on Zia
In an interview archived in the Library of Congress, the U.S. diplomat Stephen E. Eisenbraun discussed the rise of Ziaur Rahman, how 1977 October coup shaped his thoughts and his invitation to the White House. The relevant parts of the long interview have been published here for the readers. Q: You got to Bangladesh when? EISENBRAUN: July…
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‘Americans caught as much by surprise as Bangladeshis’, Eisenbraun on August 15
In an interview archived in the Library of Congress, the U.S. diplomat Stephen E. Eisenbraun discussed Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s rule as both Prime Minister and President and his assassination during a brutal coup. The relevant parts of the long interview have been published here for the readers. Q: You were discussing previously that they asked…
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Dacca: A Lingering Illness
Lewis M. Simons, Washington Post (November 19, 1975) `Terminally sick nations, unlike sick people, don’t die,” a Bengali newspaper editor said mournfully one recent evening. “But they linger and linger and linger. That’s what’s happening to our Bangladesh.” Bangladesh most certainly is very sick. Its leaders have been murdered, its political parties ground into extinction,…
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OIC Resolution calls Zia a ‘Martyr’
The Twelfth Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers was held in Baghdad of Iraq from June 1-5, 1981. President Zia’s news of death came right before the inauguration of the conference and within days the foreign ministers of Islamic countries passed a special resolution on the death of Ziaur Rahman to commemorate his achievements and efforts…
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Bangladesh Chiefs Split on Ideology
Lewis M. Simons, Washington Post (May 4, 1976) Senior military commanders in Bangladesh are deeply split over ideology and the threat of renewed violence there is growing rapidly, according to an officer who has -just returned to exile from Dacca. The officer, Lt. Col. Khandakar Abdur Rashid, a leader of the Aug. 15 coup that…
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Bangladesh President Appreciates U.S. Help And Hopes for More
Lee Lescaze, Washington Post (August 28, 1980) Bangladesh President Ziaur Rahman met with President Carter yesterday to thank the United States for past assistance and explain Bangladesh’s need for even more aid in the future. Zia told a press conference that the White House meeting “was extremely useful to us.” Bangladesh, one of the world’s…
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President Zia Has Reputation as ‘Bangladesh’s No. 1 Motivator’
Stuart Auerbach, Washington Post (March 28, 1981) Ten years ago today an obscure Army major named Ziaur Rahman proclaimed to the world over a captured radio station Bangladesh’s independence. Now Zia, a retired general, is Bangladesh’s president. Zia is described by correspondents who cover him regularly as “Bangladesh’s number one motivator.” His agriculture secretary, A.…
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Bangladeshi Villagers Despair at Loss of President
William Branigin, Washington Post (June 3, 1981) Iman Ali Sarder paused by the side of the road outside this village northeast of Dacca, holding up an old black umbrella with a carved, wooden handle to shade himself from the blazing sun. The 67-year-old farmer listened stoically to a visitor’s question, but as he answered a…
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Vast Crowds Mourn at Burial of Zia
William Branigin, Washington Post (June 3, 1981) Hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis poured through the streets of this crowded, dirt-poor capital today in a funeral procession for slain President Ziaur Rahman and the government announced the deaths of three leaders of the rebellion that took his life. At least one person was reported killed as…
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President Carter’s letter to Zia on his firm diplomacy
Bangladesh was at the forefront of the diplomatic efforts to tackle the hostage crisis in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Ziaur Rahman personally wrote a letter to President Bani Sadr of Iran after the Islamic Revolution regarding the hostage crisis and Bangladesh decided to boycott the Moscow Olympics to protest Soviet invasion in…
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Zia’s letter to President Carter on Ganges water sharing
On November 30, the General Assembly elected Bangladesh to a 2-year term on the Security Council through secret ballot voting. The U.S. state department decided to support Japan, yet Bangladesh managed to pull it off as Japan withdrew its candidacy after two rounds of voting. Ziaur Rahman in his letter to President Carter informed the…
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President Zia’s exchange of letters with Carter on UN Security Council
Bangladesh was a successful candidate for the United Nations Security Council’s membership in 1978. But before the election for membership, Bangladesh needed the support of the majority of the nations including the permanent member United States. President Zia on June 26, 1978, wrote a letter to President Jimmy Carter of the U.S. for his support…
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Joint Statement: Meeting with President Ziaur of Bangladesh
President Carter and President Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh met for one hour today. The two Presidents held a wide-ranging discussion on bilateral and international matters. Others participating in the talks included Foreign Minister Shamsul Huq, Agriculture Minister Nurul Islam, Information Consultant Daud Khan Majlis, Ambassador Tabarak Husain and Additional Foreign Secretary Ataul Karim for Bangladesh…
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Remarks of the Presidents: Meeting between Carter & Zia
President Ziaur Rahman is the first Bangladeshi President to be invited to the White House of the United States as a president’s guest. He went to visit President Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States at the Oval Office on August 27, 1980. After their 20-minute-long meeting, they met key officials in the…
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Zia’s exchange of letters with President Carter on food assistance
Bangladesh suffered from a famine in 1974 and due to the growing population problem, despite some immediate steps taken by the Zia administration, was struggling to harvest sufficient food for a country with a population of nine million. To avert another famine, Ziaur Rahman personally encouraged leaders of the developed world to provide food assistance…
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UK Foreign Office’s confidential letter on Zia
President Ziaur Rahman paid an official visit to the United Kingdom in June 1980 that made headlines in The Times and The Guardian. A letter was sent to the Prime Minister’s office when he expressed his willingness to visit the United Kingdom and have a discussion with Prime Minister Margaret Hilda Thatcher from the Foreign…
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UN Secretary General on Zia’s death
U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim sent a message to Acting President Abdus Sattar on May 30, 1981, over an urgent cable through United Nations Information Center, Dhaka. The message reads: Mr. President, I wish to express to you and through you to the Government and people of Bangladesh my horror and grief at the tragedy which…
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Indira Gandhi’s condolence
India Prime Minister Indira Gandhi expressed shock at the assassination of Bangladesh President Ziaur Rahman, whom she called a man of ‘statesmanlike vision.’ We are shocked at the tragic news of his excellency President Ziaur Rahman’s assassination. I have always condemned the politics of murder. President Ziaur Rahman led his country with distinction, giving special…
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President Reagan on Zia’s death
President Ronald Reagan of the United States of America, sent a message to Acting President Abdus Sattar of Bangladesh on the Death of President Ziaur Rahman immediately after he received the information on May 31, 1981. The message read: I was shocked and deeply grieved to learn of the assassination of President Ziaur Rahman. The…
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The Times interview: Bangladesh and the hazards of democracy
President Zia ur-Rahman of Bangladesh leaned forward in his armchair, his eyes alight with enthusiasm: “Everybody knows our problems in this country are terrible but we have our muscles and we can work, dig and grow. We can pull ourselves up. With our, bare hands we can achieve great things.” No one knew better than…
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The Times Biography: Zia Ur-Rahman
The Times: Biography (June 1, 19781) President Zia ur-Rahman of Bangladesh, who was killed at the age of 45 in Chittagong on May 30 during an insurrection against the government, had been the effective instrument of power in the country since soon after the overthrow and assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman by a group of…
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A rush of blood leaves Bangladesh on the brink
John Cunningham, The Guardian (June 1, 1981) President Ziaur Rahman’s luck fatally ran out in a hail of bullets in the government rest house just before dawn on Saturday. The province on the East flank of Bangladesh which takes its name from the port city he was visiting, mocks the imprint of national stability which…
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A moderate nationalist who wanted to lift his country out of extreme poverty
Gerard Viratelle, Le Monde (June 01, 1981) Only 46 years old, but in power since November 1975, General Ziaur Rahman, familiarly known in his country by the diminutive of Zia, was a moderate nationalist and a man of authority. Always calm, neatly dressed and with eyes often hidden behind tinted glasses, his “coldness” contrasted with…
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A Tragedy for Bangladesh
The Times Editorial (June 01, 1981) The killing of President Zia-ur Rahman is a shattering blow to peace and good government in Bangladesh, likely to throw the country into despair at the unending military rivalry from which the country has suffered from its birth. Nothing that is known of the rebel leadership in Chittagong promises…
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Don’t Write Off Bangladesh
The New York Times Editorial (June 12, 1981) At first glance, the recent news from Bangladesh seems only to confirm that nation’s pathetic image. Born out of a fracturing of Pakistan only a decade ago, Bangladesh early on gained a reputation as an international ”basket case,” a metaphor for misery and hopelessness. Only charity and…
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Bangladeshi Leader Tireless in Pep Talks to People
Michael T. Kaufman, The New York Times (July 28, 1980) As he does three or four times every week, President Ziaur Rahman recently flew to villages and country towns in Bangladesh to exhort cheering crowds to produce more food and have fewer children. In this river port, the 43-year-old President walked into crowds waiting for…
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U.N. to Start Talks on How to Assist Third World
Bernard D. Nossiter, The New York Times (August 22, 1980) Secretary of State Edmund S. Muskie and President Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh are among the officials due here next week when rich and poor nations begin a new effort to aid economies in Asia, Africa and Latin America that have been depressed by the high…
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Sri Lanka and Bangladesh Reach Accords During Visit by Rahman
The New York Times (November 11, 1979) President Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh ended a visit here this week by signing new agreements with Sri Lanka on economic and technical cooperation and shipping. The President told reporters shortly before his departure: “We are very satisfied with our visit. We have opened our hearts to each other.”…
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Where to Look for Aid: New Ideas for Third World
Bernard D. Nossiter, The New York Times (August 29, 1980) Maj. Gen. Ziaur Rahman, the President of Bangladesh, has been uttering heresy at the United Nations bargaining session between rich and poor. Unlike most spokesmen here for developing countries, General Zia does not think that the task of aiding the poor is exclusively a Western…
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Ziaur Rahman was strict leader who tried to give nation direction
Les Ledbetter, The New York Times (May 31, 1981) When Maj. Gen. Ziaur Rahman seized power in Bangladesh six years ago, he was hailed as the strict leader that the struggling nation needed. After the coup that gave him the presidency, the soft-spoken military man was described as hard-working and incorruptible in his personal life…
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Without Zia, Less Chance for the ‘Peaceful Revolution’
WILLIAM BORDERS, The New York Times (June 7, 1981) If the population of the entire world were squeezed into the continental United States, that land would be about as densely populated as Bangladesh is now. That is the kind of illustration prized by the legions of aid and development experts who for years have been…
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Bangladesh’s Soft‐Spoken but Strict President
One hot, sultry evening two years ago, shortly after he had taken over as the military ruler of Bangladesh, Maj. Gen. Ziaur Rahman was sitting in the living room of his white‐stone bungalow here explaining the country’s international relations. When a reporter raised the possibility of a regional alliance in southern Asia, General Zia paused…
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Murder in Chittagong
FRED BRUNING, Newsweek (June 8, 1981) Several times a week President Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh liked to board a government helicopter and hopscotch across his impoverished country spreading a gospel of hard work and self-help. Last Friday his schedule called for a stopover in the steamy port city of Chittagong, where the Presidential party would…
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The Basic Problems of Bangladesh
The Times Editorial (June 19, 1980) Bangladesh was born but of Indian intervention and Pakistani inability to keep together two parts of a country that was divided by everything but the religion that was deemed to have. brought the country into being. The severance of East Pakistan and its emergence as Bangladesh was celebrated as…
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President leads from the front
The Guardian (December 31, 1979) PRESIDENT ZIA faces the task of introducing reforms of land tenure, education, and law in a country that has been busy over the last eighteen months restoring democracy. Over a little canal-digging, he tells Peter Niesewand: “This is our own revolution.” THE WEATHER pattern seemed to be changing in Bangladesh,…
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Man in Motion: Slain Leader Traversed Nation Preaching Progress, Hard Work
Stuart Auerbach, The Washington Post (May 31, 1981) The Slain president of Bangladesh, Ziaur Rahman, liked to move out among his people- As many as 20 days a month he headed by helicopter from Dacca to some remote village. Usually, one village wasn’t enough for the short, trim Zia. Dressed in a bush shirt, he…
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Bangladesh Wooing Businesses
James P. Sterba, The New York Times (April 9, 1979) After an unsuccessful experiment with socialized industry, Bangladesh has begun courting private enterprise, both foreign and domestic, in an effort to stimulate its economic growth and development. Offering an almost inexhaustible supply of the world’s cheapest labor, abundant supplies of natural gas, virtually untapped seafood…
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Economic Hope For Bangladesh
Kevin Rafferty, New York Times (October 10, 1976) Which Asian country last year achieved double‐digit economic growth? It was certainly not Japan, which is still staggering out of recession and was thankful to turn in a positive 2 percent growth after a 1.2 percent shrinkage in 1974. Nor was it Singapore or Malaysia or any…
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Bangladesh Recovers calm after political upheaval
William Borders, New York Times (December 7, 1975) One month after the latest political convulsion in this critically poor country, calm has returned to its daily life as the ruling military junta moves toward relaxing its strict control. In the overcrowded marshy countryside, where a relatively good rice harvest is just getting underway, the armed…
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Poor But Hopeful: Bangladesh has not collapsed, after all
Kevin Rafferty, The New York Times (February 29, 1976) Bangladesh is not merely poor, it is the poorest of developing countries, but for the first time in its five years of independence, there is hope for a better future. The change has come unexpectedly because, following the assassination last August of Sheik Mujibur Rahman, the…
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Bangladesh: Since independence, just failure
WILLIAM BORDERS, The New York Times (November 9, 1975) At a high‐level White House meeting nearly four years ago, Ambassador U. Alexis Johnson, trying to explain to his colleagues what a grim future faced Bangladesh, described the new nation as an “international basket case.” Since then, life in Bangladesh has worsened: And there is no…
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President Zia is assassinated: Time
Time Magazine (June 08, 1981) Ten years ago this spring, young Major Ziaur Rahman broadcast an electrifying message from a clandestine radio in the East Pakistan city of Chittagong, proclaiming a rebellion against West Pakistan that ultimately created the nation of Bangladesh. Late last week there was another voice on the radio from Chittagong, announcing…
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Bangladesh leader is shot and killed in a coup attempt
KASTURI RANGAN, Special to the New York Times (May 31, 1981) President Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh was shot and killed in the port city of Chittagong early today and a broadcast by the Dacca radio said a little-known opposition group was responsible for the assassination. A state of emergency was declared by Vice President Abdus…
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Zia Assassination Reverberates through South Asia
WILLIAM BORDERS, Special to the New York Times (June 8, 1981) Beyond its far-reaching consequences in Bangladesh, the assassination of President Ziaur Rahman has had considerable repercussions all over South Asia. In a region where stability is often elusive and democracy is fragile, governments and embassies have spent much of the week since President Zia…
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Everyone Loses In Bangladesh Coup Attempt
The New York Times (June 7, 1981) If there are worse places than Bangladesh these days, much credit goes to Ziaur Rahman. From his rise to power in 1975 until his assassination last weekend, General Zia instilled new motivation in the New England-sized nation of 92 million people to produce more food and fewer children.…
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Zia Archive 