My Travels with Minister Kamaruzzaman

Part I

---Ziauddin M. Choudhury

“To be sure that your friend is a friend, you must go with him on a journey, travel with him day and
night, and go with him near and far.” -African Proverb

I started working for AHM. Kamaruzzaman in May 1972 when he was the Minister in charge of Relief
and Rehabilitation—the ministry that had the gargantuan tasks of reconstruction of war ravaged
Bangladesh, and providing help to millions of people uprooted from their homes. I was a greenhorn in
Civil Service then, having worked only in the sub-divisions in 1971, with a short stint in the Prime
Minister’s Secretariat immediately after independence. I had never seen Kamaruzzaman, but only had
heard of him. In a brief interview that lasted only a few minutes, I was asked by Kamaruzzaman to join
his ministry immediately as his Private Secretary. I did not know at the time that I would work for him
in all his three terms as Minister or that I would be one of the last government officials to see him before
he was incarcerated by Khondker Mushtaq in August 1975.

AHM Kamaruzzaman, a minister in three cabinets of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, President
of Awami League in 1974-75, is one of the least talked about leaders of the Bangladesh liberation
movement. He gave leadership to our freedom movement as Minister for Home Affairs, and Relief and
Rehabilitation in the interim cabinet formed in Mujibnagar in April 1971. He was the most recognized
political face in North Bengal. He had been a member of the Pakistan National Assembly before the
1970 elections. Kamaruzzaman continued the tradition of parliamentary politics that started with his
grand father who was a member of Bengal Legislative Assembly in 1920s.

In the three years that I worked for him, I came to know Kamaruzzaman as a political leader with
foresight, vision, and great empathy for others. Much of this I learnt from days and months of travel
with him home and abroad. . He was a literary man with a great sense of humor, a lover of arts and
music, and above all a family man. He was a tolerant man who would allow access to even those who
were at the other end of the political spectrum during our liberation movement. The man never frowned
on any one. He was everybody’s Hena Bhai, young and old. I came to know of the qualities of head and
heart of this leader more from travels with him than working for him in the confines of the Bangladesh
Secretariat.

As Private Secretary I was his travel companion for many of the arduous travels that he took both home
and abroad. I watched in amazement how he could travel for hours, sleep little, and meet with scores of
people at any time of the day without showing a sign of fatigue. In domestic travels he would marvel
me with his capacity to keep himself on a roll for 17-18 hours a day with road travels, public speeches,
and streams of meetings with political workers, government officials, and favor seekers that never
seemed to end. He was an eloquent speaker both in public and private audience. In his travels abroad,
he would amaze his counterparts with the depth of his knowledge of the country he was visiting, its
economy and politics, and above all, by his extremely friendly and informal way he of treating his
interlocutors. In his domestic travels I traveled literally all over Bangladesh with him, particularly in his
first term as Minister of Relief and Rehabilitation. In his foreign travel as Minister of Foreign Trade, I
would accompany him to countries in Europe, USA, Japan, Thailand, Burma, India, and the former
Soviet Union.
The first domestic travel that I took with Kamaruzzaman was what I would like to call as my baptism by
fire. It was a marathon travel that began immediately after I joined him in May 1972. The travel plan
that Kamaruzzaman laid out before me later seemed it would last for months. It would cover six
districts—all in the north beginning with Pabna, and ending in Dinajpur. I knew that the Ministry of
Relief and Rehabilitation had received four Russian Helicopters for relief operations, and that the
Minister could use these for his official travels. After the itinerary was written, I showed him the travel
schedule noting helicopter as transportation. The Minister crossed out helicopter, and wrote “by road”.
Hopes of quick jaunts in the air thus dashed to the ground, I started planning for a road trip over war
ravaged roads and bridges, numerous ferry crossings, and travels through hot country sides of northern
Bangladesh in a dry and sultry month of May.

Travels to the majority of the districts in 1972 (there were 18 districts then), particularly those in the
north, were nothing but frightful adventures. There were three ferries to cross to reach Pabna on the
other side of the Jamuna River. Each ferry crossing would take hours, even with Ministerial
prerogatives, simply because the number of ferries had dwindled to a handful after the war. The roads
were potted with holes, some the size of small ponds. The potholes were created by tanks that had
traversed the districts during the war. At points where the bridges were blown away, there were more
ferry crossings, or simply one had to drive through the river beds if they were dry.

In that particular May trip to the North, we made it to Pabna town, our first stop, in about eight hours.
The local Circuit House, where we sojourned, was already populated by local officials and party
followers. Both Minister and his entourage, which included two European NGO officials, arrived in
sweaty clothes and dust from head to foot. Kamaruzzaman asked me to look after the NGO officials
while he attended to his work in Pabna. I was relieved as that would give me also time to refresh.

I probably had given myself an hour when the Minister’s attendant asked me to join Kamaruzzman in
the main hall where he was meeting with local officials. I found Kamaruzzaman as fresh as I had seen
him in his house early that morning, without a sign of the wear and tear that I was showing in my much
younger, twenty-something body. After about two hours of meeting with officials, and perhaps another
hour with political workers, Kamaruzzaman announced that we would leave for the next district. I had
thought that we would stop in Pabna for the night as planned earlier, but the Minister told me that night
travels in hot seasons were more comfortable. With dinner over (a quick meal of rice, fish and daal), an
energetic Kamaruzzaman hopped in his car with his security detail, while I followed him in a jeep with
the two dog tired foreign NGO officials. The entourage set off for the next stop, Meherpur sub division
of Kushtia in the thick of a sultry night.

We arrived in Meherpur before the crack of dawn and lodged into a rest house that was reportedly built
in early 1900 by the British. I probably slept for three hours, when I was informed by the Minister’s
orderly that the Minister was ready for his meeting with the local officials. A fresh looking
Kamaruzzaman draped in white kurta and pajama was already in the meeting hall awaiting his
interlocutors. With the meeting over Kamaruzzaman asked that we follow him to his next places of
visit, villages that were heavily damaged during the war. The tour of the villages lasted several hours,
through dusty roads under a hot sun. Time and again the minister’s entourage would be stopped by local
people, supplicants for relief in most cases. Patiently he would listen, assure the people that help was on
the way, and accept the bundles of applications that were pushed to him by people.
The town of Kushtia was next where we arrived around noon. The chores were similar, meeting local
officials, party workers, and supplicants. Before the day was over, the caravan was on its way to the
next district, which was Bogra in this case. However, in between Kushtia and Bogra there were
impromptu way side meetings where the Minister had to stop and address the gatherings, visit a school,
or a hospital all of which required rehabilitation.

We spent the night in Bogra where the Deputy Commissioner had also arranged a musical soiree in the
minister. Prior to that there was a formal dinner for the Minister that had to wait as he was having back
to back meetings, some of which were taking place in his suite in the Circuit House. The meetings were
a sight to behold. The Minister would be sitting in his bed partly reclining on a pillow, while a dozen
others—mostly local political leaders would be seated on the bed. There would be others some standing
over the headrest, while still others would be sitting idly in the sofas spread in the bed room. It would be
my destiny to some how pull a chair and sit near the minister, and take down notes on follow up actions
that he would ask me to take when we would be back in Dhaka.

With fifty people crammed into a small room, the air cooler would be completely ineffective; but
Kamaruzzaman would listen patiently, frequently wiping sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.
The fresh kurta and pajama that he had changed into a couple of hours before would become soggy with
his sweat, but the man would not seem to dislike it.

Near midnight, the Deputy Commissioner ventured to enter inside and reminded Kamaruzzaman politely
that dinner was getting late, and that he had other guests waiting for him. This helped as the Minister
finally found an excuse to get rid of the crowd. Again, this was not an easy task. With some cajoling
from the Deputy Commissioner and the local MPs, the crowd left. We left to let the Minister refresh
himself. Dinner and music later took care of half of the night, leaving about a few hours of sleep for us
before we began the next leg of the odyssey.

For next four days we covered another three districts, and countless thanas all in the dusty hot northern
areas. The chores in each place were the same, meeting with officials, wayside meetings organized by
political workers, night parlays with political workers, and of course lunches at dinner time, and dinners
past mid night. Fortunately for the foreign NGO workers, they left our company at Rajshahi where they
were to start some relief and rehabilitation work. For us, the official retinue of the minister, the
endurance continued.

I can hardly describe the conditions of roads, bridges, and other physical infrastructure in the north
ravaged by war. There was scarcely any bridge that was left in tact; pavement on the roads had given
way to gravels and stones since tanks rolled over them only a few months before. Villages on the way
side bore marks of war in school buildings and other solid structures since many skirmishes took place
between the Indian Army and the retreating Pakistani forces in these places. In some cases, we also saw
remnants of burnt villages.

In areas most affected by the war, there were camps for the returning refugees from neighboring West
Bengal districts. These camps were mostly in Rangpur and Dinajpur districts—two northern most
districts of Bangladesh. In Dinajpur, the city itself had a war torn look as battles were fought in side the
city.
Refugees to India and elsewhere had returned to their war torn villages only to be sheltered in tin sheds
put together with bamboo poles in some cases or simply with tarps in other cases. Each shelter was a
sight by itself—with hundreds of families in vast camp sites. Tending to all the needs of the millions
impoverished by the war in matters of months was an impossible task. But listening to them was
probably was not so difficult. Kamaruzzaman made it his mission that year to visit each and every war
affected district in Bangladesh, see for himself the conditions of people, and do what he could as
Minister for Rehabilitation.

The May 1972 tour of six northern districts was of a dozen other trips that I would endure with
Kamaruzzaman. In one and half years that Kamaruzzaman served as Minister for Rehabilitation, he
would visit all 18 districts (total number that time) and over two hundred thanas. I myself accompanied
him to 16 of the districts, more frequently by road than by helicopters. In his next two terms as Minister
of Commerce and Foreign Trade from 1973-74, and as Minister of Industries in 1975 (till his internment
in August), I did some repeat travels with him to various districts by road, but these were less frequent.

In the beginning I dreaded the road trips, the bumpy rides through dusty roads, and involuntary and
unplanned road side stops. I abhorred the late night suppers and lunches on the go. I had great
discomfort in writing notes in a small circuit house room that was crowded by a hundred favor seekers
and politicos. But in time when I saw the appalling conditions of the people ravaged by the war, the
bombed out homes and burnt villages, and watched how Kamaruzzaman empathized with the needy that
I realized all this was for a cause. I became a seasoned traveler of the roads along with Kamaruzzaman.
This was also my first hand education in grass roots politics—travels bring leaders closer to people.
Kamaruzzaman knew more of his country and his people from his travels than by reading reports from
officials who served him.

Bangladesh was a war ravaged country through much of the early seventies. Its infrastructure
thoroughly broken, and an economy limping largely through foreign assistance, it took more than
political leadership to cheer a people who were hardly able to eke out a living in the districts and the
villages. The political rhetoric and bureaucratic paper work in Dhaka could not feed the millions. The
relief and rehabilitation work that Kamaurzzaman led in the formative years was grounded on the reality
that he had seen for himself from his untiring travels through the length and breadth of the country, and
his relentless efforts at providing some succor to the hapless multitudes with international aid efforts.
He had made it a routine in his travels for the top civil servants in Dhaka to tour with him to the distant
places he would go, follow up on his commitments the next round of visit to the same place, and take to
tasks officials who failed to do so. In a number of travels to the distant North, he took as travel
companions officials from UNHCR, ICRC, UNDP, and countless other NGOs. Kamaruzzaman led the
first efforts to coordinate the activities of the NGOs that were flocking to Bangladesh by creating an
office of coordination of International Relief Agencies. His advice to all of the agencies were, travel,
travel, and travel—and then get to know what will work and what will not work in Bangladesh.

The author worked as Private Secretary to A.H.M. Kamaruzzaman from 1972-75.

 My Travels with AHM Kamaruzzaman
Part II

---Ziauddin M. Choudhury

Kamaruzzaman’s foreign tours would not begin until he became Minister of Commerce and Foreign
Trade after the first Parliamentary elections in independent Bangladesh in 1973. As in his domestic
tours I embarked on a succession of foreign tours with Kamaruzzaman in his first year as Minister of
Foreign Trade. In seven months he would visit four Asian countries, six European countries, USA, and
lastly the Soviet Union. Like the domestic tours, the minister showed an unending spirit of mind and
body in all the countries he visited in a matter of months, some lasting over three weeks in one go.

The Minister’s first trip was to New Delhi to sign a bilateral trade agreement with India with his
counterpart D.P. Chottopadhaya. This was a historic event since the agreement was the first that
Bangladesh would have with India as a sovereign country. The delegation consisted of the Minister,
Joint Secretary of Foreign Trade, Shamim Ahsan, Chairman Trading Corporation of Bangladesh,
Siddiqur Rahman, and myself. There was no direct flight to Delhi that time, so we flew first to Calcutta,
and then to Delhi.

In Delhi, we lodged as Government guests in the government owned Ashoka Hotel, which was one of
the best hotels in early 70s. The official talks were held in the Central Government Secretariat, with the
Minister’s counterpart. The trade agreement signing ceremony took place in the Indian Ministry of
Commerce at the conclusion of the talks.

Kamaruzzaman handled the event in his characteristic tact as a representative of a sovereign nation who
was also fully cognizant of Indian support and friendship in our struggle for liberation. This he would
state in his speech at the dinner in his honor in the Ashoka Hotel in New Delhi given by D.P
Chottopadhaya. The dinner was a star studded one that was attended by most central ministers of India
including Sardar Swaran Singh, the Foreign Minister, and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, who would later
become the President of India. Kamaruzzaman had a prepared text for the occasion that he set aside
during his speech and spoke extempore, a practice he followed in most of his speeches abroad. In a
speech that lasted about half an hour, the Minister recognized India’s critical role in our independence,
expressed gratitude for sheltering the Bangladesh government in exile, but emphasized that friendship
between two countries was best when it was set on equal terms. I still remember the glowing tributes
that were paid to him by the Indian ministers at the end of the speech. Mr. Kamaruzzaman thrived best
when he spoke without any assist from a written script.

The weekend we drove to Ajmer, Rajasthan, where the Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur, who was also
the local MP accompanied the minister to the shrine of Pir Mainuddin Chishti. The lunch there was also
hosted by the Maharani. On way back we stopped at Jaipur for the afternoon tea with the Chief Minister
of Rajasthan, Barkatullah. Apparently, Kamaruzzaman knew Barkatullah from before as the two
greeted each other as long lost friends. We had to drive back to New Delhi the same night as the
Minister was due back in Dhaka the following day. It was a grueling trip covering more than six
hundred miles in one day in the hot summer of North India; but Kamaruzzaman was indefatigable all the
way. He had seasoned himself with such arduous trips in his domestic travels.

Bilateral trade agreement would be the driver of our next trip to Burma (now Myanmar) that was in
August same year. This would be the first trip by a cabinet minister of Bangladesh to our only other
neighbor connected by a common border. Besides the Minister, the delegation this time consisted of
Secretary of Commerce, Mafizur Rahman, Joint Secretary Foreign Trade, Shamim Ahsan, and myself.

There was no direct air link to Rangoon that time; we had to travel there via Bangkok. Rangoon in 1973
appeared to me to be frozen in time since the British days. Old massive buildings of concrete dominated
the main section of the city on roads that were badly in need of repair. The buildings mostly housed
government ministries. There were only two hotels in the city that foreigners mostly stayed in. The
Strand Hotel was a throw back from early twentieth century, and the relatively modern Inya Lake Hotel
was constructed in the sixties. Our delegation was put up in the State Guest House, which was actually
the residence of the chief executive of now nationalized Burma Oil Company. It was an elegant
bungalow with a huge lawn, equipped with fittings from the colonial days.

Kamaruzzaman concluded his visit with the first ever bilateral trade agreement between Bangladesh and
Burma on the fourth day. Each day he had a heavy schedule of meetings with ministers, almost of all of
who were either serving or retired army officers—mostly of the ranks of Colonels and Brigadiers. The
ministers were army officers, either serving or retired, understandably as the government in Burma, then
as now, was run by the army. I recall a conversation that I had at a dinner with a retired colonel—a
deputy minister in one of the ministries. Out of curiosity I asked him why the highest ranking among
ministers that we had met was a brigadier and not above. The deputy minister jokingly replied that the
President of Burma, General Ne Win, wanted to keep a minimum difference of three ranks between him
and his ministers so that none of them had any ideas of replacing him!

At Lunch and Dinner gatherings Kamaruzzaman gave all his speeches extempore in English that was
easy to follow, very casual but effective. Time and again he would prove his oratorical skills that I
would never cease to admire. In a profoundly moving speech that he gave at Inya Lake Hotel dinner
hosted by his Burmese counterpart, the minister drew a lasting applause from the audience when he
referred to trade agreement between Burma and Bangladesh as a symbol of peace and good neighborly
relations. This statement was welcome to our hosts all the more as Burma was carrying a guilty
conscience for not being exactly on our side during the war of liberation.

Kamaruzzaman’s next important overseas visit was to Tokyo in September to attend GATT Ministerial
Conference. The delegation was small, the Minister, a Joint Secretary (Ahmed Farid), and me. GATT
meeting was the only time that the Minister would make his speech from a prepared text since it was an
International Conference, and the speech was a policy statement that conveyed Bangladesh’s stand on
the General Agreement on Trade and Tariff. We spent all week attending the conference sessions. The
weekend we drove down to Kamakura—a sea resort about fifty miles from Tokyo.

The Minister enjoyed his stay in Tokyo but what he could not endure was the bland Japanese food laid
out before him by his hosts at lunch and dinner. I remember at lunch in Kamakura Kamaruzzaman
writhed in great distaste when I ate before him a plate of raw fish and eggs. I understood why he would
not like raw Japanese food such as Sushi or Sashami, but he dismayed his Japanese hosts greatly when
he would not touch the much sought after Kobe Beef steak at one of the official dinners. He simply
dined on soups and vegetables. To relieve the Minister’s gastronomic crisis, sometimes Bengali food
cooked at the Ambassador- Muntaqim Choudhury’s house was transported to his hotel room. The food
ordeal of the Minister would come to an end seven days later when we would leave Tokyo for Dhaka via
Hong Kong. He told us later that if there is one reason he would never like to visit Tokyo again, it
would be food.

Kamaruzzaman’s two-day stopover in Hong Kong was spent in meetings with some leading private
sector agencies who had earlier operated in Bangladesh. He spoke to Hong Kong Chamber of
Commerce to reassure the agencies that Bangladesh would not renege on its obligations to the private
sector that operated in the country before. Hong Kong also gave some gastronomic relief to the Minister
as he liked Chinese cuisine like other mortals.

Kamaruzzaman’s next leg of foreign travel was to the west, to UK and four other European countries in
October 1973. This by far was the longest and most arduous travel as it entailed frequent jaunts in the
air, a model of travel that Kamaruzzaman was not very fond of. I myself was greatly excited as it was
my first ever trip to London, and not to speak of other European cities that I had dreamt of.

The Minister’s trip to UK was intended for bilateral trade discussion as also the visits to Germany (West
Germany that time), Holland, and Denmark. The fifth destination, Brussels, would be for meetings with
EEC officials at EEC headquarters in Brussels. The trip began in early October, and lasted about 18
days. The delegation once again small, comprising the Minister, Joint Secretary Foreign Trade, and me.

The first stop in this three-week travel was London, where the Minister had meetings with the British
Secretary of Trade (a cabinet minister), the British Chamber of Commerce, and leading MPs of the
British Parliament. There were also meetings with expatriate Bangladeshi community, more famously
our London Sylheti population. Our High Commissioner in UK that time, Sultan Ahmed, also arranged
a dinner meeting for the Minister with leading MPs, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Trade, and
few other diplomats from other countries. In three days Kamaruzzaman probably covered over a dozen
meetings, three official lunches and dinners. This being my maiden visit to London, I thought I could
take some time off for sight seeing, and visit relatives. All I had was a glimpse of the Buckingham
Palace from a running car while traveling from our hotel to the meeting places. (In the latter part of this
trip I was able to see London sights as we dropped visit to France from our travel schedule, and we had a
couple of free days in London.)

Countries next in the list of Kamruzzaman’s EEC visit, in order, were the Netherlands, Denmark,
Germany (West Germany), and Belgium. Kamaruzzaman would cover the four countries in eight days
with me and another Joint Secretary in tow. In all of these visits, the Minister would have meetings that
would last all day ending in official dinners either by his counterparts or by our Ambassadors in those
countries. In his meetings with his counterparts and other officials Kamaruzzaman impressed everyone
with his affability and bonhomie, and the ease with which he carried himself.

There are a few anecdotes that are worth recalling during this trip. Kamaruzzaman was addicted to
“paan” that was almost like a drug obsession. His fear during this long EEC trip, however, was that he
would not be his normal self without his daily dose of “paan”. In London, it was not a problem as
“paan” chewing Bengali residents there had this exotic material imported almost daily from India or
Bangladesh. Sensing his fear and to make sure that the Minister had adequate supply of “paan” for the
next eight days, our High Commission in London stuffed a bag with “paan” along with his luggage.
Kamaruzzaman had already sufficient quantity of betel nuts and other condiments (including Zarda) in a
separate bag. He also carried with him a silver box (paandan) in the pocket of his jacket. With such
assurance of a good supply of “paan” Kamaruzzaman left London a happy customer.

The first incident over “paan” happened after we reached the Netherlands. The Minister had his meeting
in the day at Hague where he was driven from Amsterdam. Late at night in the hotel after I had retired
to bed I got a frantic call from the Minister to come over to his suite. Fearing that perhaps
Kamaruzzaman had had a heart attack or something I rushed to his suite. As I entered the room, I saw
paan leaves strewn over his bed and a visibly upset Kamaruzzaman viewing the leaves like some dying
relative about to leave his mortal body. “Look, what Farid (the Joint Secretary) has done to me”, the
Minister said forlornly as he saw me pointing toward the bed, which was strewn with mostly brown
wilted paan leaves.

Ahmed Farid, the Joint Secretary, was asked by the minister to take care of his paan, which he did by
putting all in a plastic bundle, in the refrigerator in the Minister’s suite. Either due to changes in
temperature or because the leaves were packed tightly, most the leaves had browned and quite wilted.
The exercise next was to rescue the still good leaves and keep the leaves somehow back in the frig. I
called for help from Ahmed Farid who gallantly agreed to undo his mistake. It took us another hour to
complete the task, and leave a somewhat satisfied Kamaruzzaman in his suite.

The next incident was at the dinner given by the Danish Minister in a hotel in Copenhagen.
Kamaruzzaman insisted on carrying the silver box wherever he went, but usually he would indulge in his
paan after the official meetings, in the car. The dinner was long, full of speeches. Kamaruzzaman lost
his patience; he was dying to have his dose of “paan”. At the end of one of the after-dinner speeches, he
signaled me to approach him. He whispered to me that I bring to him his betel box from the pocket of
his overcoat at the coat rack. I looked at him incredulously, but he insisted, and I brought his silver box.

I was waiting for an embarrassing moment when the Minister would gulp down his favorite object in his
mouth with his host looking with awe this display. But Kamaruzzaman knew better. He put the silver
box in front of his Danish host with great flourish, and said “Excellency, I want to show you a typical
Bengali, after-dinner, mouth freshener.” As the Danish Minister watched with great curiosity,
Kamaruzzaman opened the box and showed him the contents. He took out first a green betel-leaf and
proceeded to fill it with the other ingredients. One by one, he described the ingredient, after folding the
“paan”, he held it up for every one to see, and said “this we call a Green Sandwich”, and offered the
object to his host. The amused host looked at the Green Sandwich, and said “Excellency, I will pass this
time”. Kamaruzzaman did not lose a moment. “In that case, I will eat it”, and immediately put it in his
mouth. He left the dinner very satisfied.

In Germany (West Germany that time), Kamaruzzaman met with his counter part in Bonn (Bad
Gudesberg), and two days later drove to Frankfurt to meet with German Chamber of Commerce, which
hosted a lunch for him. At the official dinner given in his honor by Ambassador Humayun Rashid
Choudhury, the minister again relied on his superb skills at extempore speech to impress his German
counter part and other officials. At Frankfurt he invited German private sector cooperation for building
commerce and industry in a country devastated by a nine-month war, and decades of neglect.
Our next and final destination was the EEC headquarters in Brussels, where we drove from Frankfurt.
This was my first ever experience of a modern highway—the famous German Autobahn. Our car sped
through the night probably doing near 100 miles an hour in an inexplicably smooth surface. To me
having just recently driven in Bangladesh over potholed roads stomaching jerks and bumps all the way,
this was an unbelievable relief. The Minister slept through the entire trip that lasted about six hours,
with Ambassador Chowdhury in tow, while I feasted my eyes on the cars and the scenery we passed by.

The Minister planned the Brussels visit to lobby with EEC officials for easier trade relations of
Bangladesh with EEC countries (such as granting of most favored nation priveleges as a newly
sovereign developing country). The highlight of the meeting was a very successful meeting with the
EEC Secretary General (whose name I forget, but I do remember that he was a son-in law of Sir Winston
Churchill), followed by a formal lunch given by the EEC Chief in the Minister’s honor. In his speech at
lunch Kamaruzzaman made an impassioned plea for support to Bangladesh, which the EEC chief
acknowledged in his reply as one of the most memorable he had heard. .

From Brussels we were scheduled to visit Paris, but the visit was canceled as the French Minister had to
travel out of Paris at the last moment. We sojourned at London for a couple of days, which allowed me
some free time to see London sights that I had missed earlier. We returned to Dhaka after a three-week
of exhausting but thrilling visit for me spread over five countries that I had only heard of before.

The author worked as Private Secretary to A.H.M. Kamaruzzaman from 1972-75.

 My Travels with Minister Kamaruzzaman
Part III

---Ziauddin M. Choudhury

In November that year (1973) Kamaruzzman was asked by Prime Minister Sheikh Mujib to lead a
delegation of trade and commerce to the United States. This mission was not contemplated at least until
the completion of the EEC countries visit. The invitation was arranged by the State Department, and it
would take place a few months before the historic visit of Bangabandhu to the US. The delegation was
as usual small, but in addition to the three of us (Minister, Joint Secretary, myself), the Chairman of Jute
Mills Corporation, Khurshid Anwar, joined the delegation.

In a wintry November morning we all arrived at JFK Airport to be received by then Permanent
Representative to the UN, Anwarul Karim. New York was not the first destination, it was a stop on our
way to Washington DC where we landed the following day.

The Embassy of Bangladesh in Washington DC was then located in a hotel near DuPont Circle where
the Minister had his first meeting with the Ambassador, Hussain Ali, and other embassy officials
including AMA Muhith, who was then our Economic Minister in the US. Next three days,
Kamaruzzaman would meet with Senators, Congressmen, President of EXIMBANK, and President of
OPIC, besides the resident Bangladesh community in Washington area.

Kamaruzzman’s visit to the US was significant in many respects. He was the second senior minister in
then Bangladesh cabinet to be invited by the US that would be followed by the historic visit by
Bangabandhu. (The first senior minister to visit US was Tajuddin earlier in 1973.) The visit was not
simply for advancing trade relations with the US, but more importantly to assess US attitude to the
newly sovereign country, which the Nixon government had not supported during the war of liberation.
To that end Kamaruzzaman had meetings with two US senators (Frank Church, and Stan Percy), and
several Representatives of the House, including Congressman Poage, who was Chairman of House
Agriculture Committee that period, all of which were fruitful.

Senator Church, Democratic Senator from Illinois, was a staunch supporter of the Bangladesh liberation
movement. He had raised the issue of Pakistan army atrocities in then East Pakistan in the Senate. In
meeting with him Kamaruzzaman thanked him profusely for his support in our difficult times. Senator
Percy, the Republican Senator from Illinois was a member the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
(later becoming its Chairman). He was gracious in his meeting with Kamaruzzaman, and offered to
support all efforts to mitigate the plights of the fledgling country.

I have a special recollection of the meeting with Congressman Poage because of a remark by the
Congressman. The meeting was mostly of a courteous nature, and it required a substantial amount of
diplomatic tact on Kamaruzzaman’s part to avoid the sensitive side of the rather negative role that US
had initially played in the war of our liberation. Bangladesh. The minister politely thanked the “people
of the United States” for their support for Bangladesh, and hoped for US help for the country’s
rehabilitation. Toward the end of the meeting in the Capitol, the Congressman asked the minister what
were the chances that the newly independent Bangladesh could eventually merge with West Bengal
since both regions spoke Bengali. The minister politely replied there were no such chances. If language
were to be the basis of nationhood, all English speaking countries would be one country, he would later
remark.

A major event of Kamaruzzaman’s later visit to New York City was a luncheon hosted by the New York
Chamber of Commerce in the deluxe Plaza Hotel. In an eloquent speech, much like the one given by
him in Brussels for the EEC lunch a month before, the Minister described the economic plight of the war
ravaged country, and urged on his hosts the need for its rehabilitation with support from public as well
as private sector. As in the speeches before Kamaruzzaman made an impression on his audience by his
communication skills, be it in English or Bengali (for a domestic audience).

My last foreign travel with Kamaruzzaman was to then Soviet Union in December of 1973. It was
unforgettable for several reasons. First, it was the first and only Communist country that
Kamaruzzaman would visit in his entire term as Foreign Trade Minister. Second, weather wise the
timing could not have been worse—it was the dead of winter with temperatures never rising above zero.
Third, the opulent reception given to the Minister and his entourage was nothing comparable to what we
had witnessed in our other travels to the west. The Minister held meetings with his Soviet counterpart in
the Kremlin, was feted to lunches and dinners by two other Cabinet ministers, was taken to Leningrad
(now St Petersburg), and honored by the City Council. A major outcome of this travel was a forma trade
agreement with the Soviet Union much like the one signed by Kamaruzzaman with India earlier that
year.

There are a few concluding points on my reflections on Kamaruzzaman’s foreign travels. Bangladesh in
the early seventies was characterized by a bias toward the socialist block in its foreign policy. Indeed,
socialism was one of the four state principles laid down in Bangladesh constitution that time. It is also
believed that the top leadership of Awami League that time was largely inclined to building friendship
and trade relations only with the socialist/communist block. Yet, out of the fourteen countries that
Kamruzzaman visited in his entire term as Foreign Trade Minister, only one was Communist. From my
association with Kamaruzzaman in the three-year period that I worked for him I had found little
evidence that he was enamored of the socialist system. Despite the rather egregious reception given to
him in USSR, in his dealings with Soviet Officials Kamaruzzaman was more restrained than he was with
government and public sector individuals in the free enterprise countries. In a curious contradiction with
then Bangladesh government policy on state ownership of major industrial enterprise, Kamaruzzaman
was courting for private investment in his travels to the West. In personal comments abroad, he often
expressed a desire for an economy that would have a blend of state controlled and privately owned
enterprises.

The reminiscences above are to commemorate a great Bangladeshi—Late AHM Kamaruzzaman, a

leading figure of our national liberation struggle, and one of the top four statesmen that our country had
lost in the darkest period of our history in 1975. We mourn the absence of political vision, leadership,
and patriotism of these leaders today when our country is passing through another political crisis. Men
like AHM Kamaruzzman and the other leaders we lost tragically are not borne every day. A greater
lament is the legacy they left behind is forgotten easily. We could be a stronger nation, morally and
politically, if we could only follow the examples of the leaders who brought this nation into being.

The author worked as Private Secretary to A.H.M. Kamaruzzaman from 1972-75.