In an exclusive RT interview, former Bangladeshi cabinet minister Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury accuses USAID and the Clinton family of backing the 2024 riots that ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. He claims NGOs like USAID and the International Republican Institute ran campaigns against the government since 2018, funding clandestine activities for regime change. The unrest, initially student protests against job quotas, escalated into violence killing over 700 people. Hasina fled as crowds stormed her residence, with Muhammad Yunus taking over as interim leader. Chowdhury alleges a long-standing nexus between the Clintons and Yunus, with US aid vanishing into riot planning. Post-coup, Bangladesh shifts ties from India to Pakistan, seeking apologies for 1971 war crimes.
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RT reports: The 2024 riots in Bangladesh, which led to the ousting of then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, were backed by USAID and Hillary Clinton’s family, a former cabinet minister and chief negotiator, Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury, has told RT in an exclusive interview which will be broadcast on Monday.
“Certain actions of some NGOs, especially from the United States – naming a few, I mean USAID, for example, or the International Republican Institute. They were running campaigns against our government for a while, since 2018,” Chowdhury, who served as a minister in Hasina's cabinet and was at the heart of negotiations during the crisis, has told RT's Runjun Sharma.
The accusations come more than a year after Hasina’s dramatic fall from power. In August 2024, weeks of student-led protests against job quotas spiraled into nationwide violence, claiming over 700 lives, according to the interim government’s tally.
Hasina, who had led Bangladesh for 15 years at the head of her Awami League party, fled the country as crowds stormed her residence. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus became the chief adviser of the interim government.
According to Chowdhury, the unrest was not a spontaneous youth revolt but a “carefully planned” operation bankrolled by Western interests.
“There is a nexus between the Clinton family, and the interim Yunus regime from a very long past,” he alleged. “These activities were going on for a long time. They weren’t very open, but funding of clandestine NGOs was going on. They were hell-bent on changing the government in Bangladesh.”
He zeroed in on the flow of US aid, questioning where millions in USAID dollars had vanished. “IRI was active, USAID’s fundings were going to nowhere. Where had that money gone to? It was destined for regime change activities.”
“A chaos was carefully planned with this money. And then the chaos was turned into a big riot.”
Since Yunus took over as interim leader, Dhaka has begun shifting focus away from New Delhi and toward Islamabad in an effort to rebuild relations that have been strained since 1971, when then East Pakistan gained independence as Bangladesh. Millions of Bengalis were killed in the 1971 war, and Bangladesh has sought a formal apology from Pakistan for alleged war-crimes committed by its military during the conflict. In the aftermath, then-Pakistani Defense Minister Aziz Ahmed stated that his country “condemned and deeply regretted” any transgressions that may have been committed.