Statement of 15 US Senators a hoax

The reported statement of 15 US senators, including Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Edward Kennedy, requesting the Caretaker government to withdraw the emergency within two months and announce a roadmap for election is allegedly a hoax.

According to a message received from New York yesterday, the US senators expressed their surprise at the publication of the news because they signed no statement, which was quoted to be its basis.

“Indeed, no US senator had sent any letter to the Chief Adviser of the Caretaker government Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed. The news published in the name of 15 US senators is totally fabricated,” the source said.

The source has it that one Abul Hashem Bulbul and Kazi Azam, President and General Secretary of newly floated ‘Volunteers of America’ who at a press conference on Tuesday presented the statement, admitted later that despite their best efforts they were not able to meet any of the said senators.

They claimed that they collected the signatures of the senators with assistance from an employee of the office of Senator John Kerry. However, Press Secretary to John Kerry ruled out the claim.

The source said Abul Hashem Bulbul is working at a City School as Security Guard while Kazi Azam is known as a broker of land purchase and sale.

Journalist Mahmud Khan Taser reports that he communicated with the offices of Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Joseph Biden, Richard G Lugar and Chuck Schumer and came to know that the senators did not sign the said statement.

The Press Secretary to Richard G Lugar told him that the signatures might have been superimposed by using the photoshop’ programme of computer to meet their ends.

When contacted with Nancy Eriksson of the Senate Secretariat, Khan Taser was informed that no such letter was sent to the Bangladesh Government from the secretariat and no senator handed over such letter to the secretariat.

It may be mentioned the said statement of the 15 senators, issued on May 14, urged the Caretaker government to lift the state of emergency and restore full civic and political rights of all citizens of Bangladesh.

The statement, said to be addressed to the Chief Adviser of the Caretaker Government, also called for announcing within next two months a roadmap towards free and fair elections to be held as soon as possible, with input of the political parties and civil society leaders, so that a democratically elected government can be restored soon.

The other reported signatories to the said statement included Senators Joseph Biden, Richard Lugar, Norm Coleman, Christopher Dodd, John Sununu, Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, Robert Menendez, Johny Isakson, Chuck Schumer, Frank Lautenberg and Joseph Lieberman.