The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

Army Chief General Moeen U Ahmed has said there is an urgent need of cleaning up of Bangladesh's cynical, venal and corrupt politics.

In an interview with Time Magazine, he said no systems of government are bad in their own rights. "It's the human being who makes it so."

The interview was published in the current issue of the world's leading newsmagazine.

Recalling the days preceding January 11, 2007, Moeen said, "The situation was deteriorating very rapidly. The world saw people dying in Dhaka streets. Was this the way forward?"

Asked if the growing outrage among political parties and their cadres may spill on to the streets in the form of mass people power protest, Moeen said, "Did they want to make trouble? Let them."

The Army Chief favours building of effective leadership in Bangladesh and educating its vast illiterate masses "so that they don't keep on cutting of their own feet."

Gen Moeen said, "You can judge the people of a nation by their type of leaders they select."