The United States warned anew Tuesday that Bangladesh's row with microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus could hurt growing ties, after the Nobel laureate lost a final appeal against his dismissal. Robert Blake, the assistant secretary of state for South Asia, said the United States had a "strong interest in maintaining close relations" with Bangladesh, which he called "a democratic and moderate Muslim country."
But he said he raised concerns during a visit last month to Dhaka over the treatment of Yunus, who was removed from the helm of Grameen Bank after a feud with the government. "I warned that a failure to find a compromise that respects Dr Yunus's global stature and maintains the integrity and effectiveness of Grameen could affect our bilateral relations," Blake told a congressional hearing.
Yunus pioneered microfinance, in which Grameen bank has offered small loans to some 24,000 people - the vast majority of them women living in rural villages who would rarely have access to traditional banks. While his work won him the Nobel Peace Prize, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last year accused him of "sucking blood from the poor" and pulling a financial "trick" to avoid paying tax. Many of Yunus's supporters in Bangladesh and overseas believe he is being targeted by the government after he flirted with running for politics in the deeply polarized nation.
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