Published in The Independent, April 2nd; 2010
M. Serajul Islam
The short tenure of AKH Morshed came to an end in a strange manner. He went on leave preparatory to retirement (LPR) while he was a member of the President’s delegation to Malaysia to attend the Commonwealth Summit. I am not sure whether an officer could go on LPR while abroad. There are many who would say that an officer has to be in the country to avail the privileges of LPR.
Before going on this trip, AKH Morshed was in New York on an official trip. While he was away, the Director-General (Administration) informed me that I would have to get a note signed by the Foreign Secretary that he would like to prevail the advantages of LPR before he went on his trip to Malaysia with the President. AKH Morshed arrived that day from New York in early morning and in the evening, he left with the President. I was at the airport to receive him as I was whenever the Foreign Secretary left on an overseas trip or arrived home. I was not sure whether the Foreign Secretary would come to the Ministry that day but it was important that he should. I requested him to come to the Ministry, telling him that there were a few issues that needed his attention before he left for Malaysia. The Foreign Secretary was tired and he wanted to relax that day but came to office later in the day at my insistence.
At the Ministry, I had the note ready for the Foreign Secretary to sign related to his LPR given to me by the Director-general (Admn). I was also not sure whether the Foreign Secretary would be given an extension because there was no news even in the Ministry that a new Foreign Secretary would take office soon. I had however seen a note in which it was mentioned that AKH Morshed would soon be made the Chairman of the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), a think-tank sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense. The post was then and still is a honouray one and was then occupied by former Foreign Minister Shamsul Huq. I had also seen a separate note, hand written by the former Foreign Minister in which he did not seem very willing to relinquish the post. There was thus a lot of confusion in the Ministry at that time where everything was very uncertain. The most unfortunate aspect of it all was the fact that AKH Morshed was kept in the darkness concerning his fate.
When the Foreign Secretary came to office that day, I went up to him and told him about facts; that I had seen a note that he was being made the Chairman of BIISS and that he needed to sign the note on LPR. The Foreign Secretary signed the note. The Foreign Minister was in office at that time and I suggested to the Foreign Secretary to talk to the Foreign Minister Anisul Islam Mahmud about what the Government had in mind about him. I am not sure what was discussed between the two but the Foreign Secretary left office that day soon after. When he returned from Malaysia, he was not the Foreign Secretary! That was indeed incredible for there was a delegation led by the President going to attend a Commonwealth where AKH Morshed went to attend it as Foreign Secretary but ceased to be one while still a member of the Bangladesh delegation.
There were friends of mine who were members of that delegation. One of them was Jamil Majid, another Iftikharul Karim, a former member of the ex-PFS. They both told me later that AKH Morshed’s predicament was discussed at their level in Kuala Lumpur; whether AKH Morshed had forfeited his claims under LPR or whether an officer could go on LPR while abroad. They however did not know that I had a note signed by AKH Morshed about his intentions for availing LPR. Recently Jamil Majid and I discussed this issue again arguing whether an officer could go on LPR while not in the country and working in the post from which he was retiring. We could not arrive at a conclusion. Legally, it does seem untenable that one could go on LPR as AKH Morshed had unless there was an executive order over-riding the requirement for an officer to be in the country and at the post before going on LPR. In case of AKH Morshed, there was no such executive order. It could however be argued that AKH Morshed was taken on that trip by an order of the President and therefore there was executive sanction for relaxing on the rules relating to the LPR in case of AKH Morshed.
Remembering Jamil Majid and AKH Morshed in the context of that visit also made me reflect on the former, an officer of the ex-PFS batch of 1970. When Jamil Majid was posted to London in 1988, AKH Morshed who was then the Additional Foreign Secretary said about him in his farewell that with Jamil Majid gone, the Ministry would need an encyclopedia for losing him! He was so correct for Jamil Majid was then and still is the quintessential resident scholar who just did not seem to have every bit of information stacked in his brain; he was then in regular habbit of “trapping” many of us to bets on wide range of subjects and issues to end up taking him to lunches and dinners. In Delhi where we worked together, he once so much astonished the US Defense Attaché while talking on General Douglas McArthur at a dinner that the former in amazement was forced to ask whether Jamil Majid and not he was the US Defense Attaché!
There were interesting things that happened on that visit. One concerned the President’s desire for humour in one of his speeches. The President had asked that the Foreign Ministry officials to prepare a speech for him that he was going to deliver at the dinner for the Heads of State/Government for which he was chosen with humour inserted in it. When the Foreign Secretary was informed of the wish, his response was that humour cannot be delivered on order! The President of course was not daunted by the “failure” of the Foreign Ministry to deliver. He gave his speech extempore and also made sure that it had humour. He used the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as the butt of his humour. He told the participating dignitaries, with Margaret Thatcher present, that his son, then just a kid, knew about Margaret Thatcher and called her the “iron lady”! The President thought there would be appreciative laughter from his distinguished audience. Instead there were long faces around the table. The President only succeeded in committing a diplomatic faux pas that humiliated the country. AKH Morshed was just not right when he said that humour could not be delivered by order; people not naturally gifted at making humour should try it only at their peril!
When the President’s delegation to the Commonwealth Summit returned, the Foreign Ministry lost a Foreign Secretary without getting a new one. Among those who were in line to succeed AKH Morshed were Rezaul Karim of the 1959 batch (with 2 years’ ante dated seniority as a freedom fighter) who was then Ambassador to Iran and Abul Ahsan, who had then just completed his tenure as first Secretary General of SAARC. It was Abul Ahsan who was eventually chosen for the post. When Abul Ahsan came to Dhaka, I was at the airport to receive him. While waiting for his luggage, he took me out for a walk outside the VIP lounge. He expressed to me his disappointment and displeasure that he was not promoted to a Secretary before he was called home to succeed AKH Morshed. His point was that many in the civil service of the erstwhile ex-CSP cadre many batches junior to him were working as Secretary and he was deliberately humiliated by not being made a Secreteray and then called home to become the Foreign Secretary.
Abul Ahsan was the type of diplomat around whom legends are made. He was one. He had stood first in the CSS examination of 1961 on all-Pakistan basis. There were so many stories about him that made us feel that we all knew him without working with him. I was one of those who seemed to know him just too well but had never worked with him. In fact, when he assumed charge, I was already at the Headquarters for over three years and regretted that I would not be with him for much longer. I continued with him seven more months and enjoyed every day of that period because he was a Foreign Secretary every one of us wanted to work for. I hope to write on some of those days in the forthcoming pieces.
I was very sad at the short stay of AKH Morshed as Foreign Secretary. But we worked in those days in an environment where those who decided upon such things did not have much use for merit. In an earlier piece I erred about the academic credentials of AKH Morshed. He is a BA (Hons.) from University of London, School of Jurisprudence; LLM from Harvard and was called to the Lincoln’s Inn as Barrister-at-Law. He stayed as Foreign Secretary less than four months!
The writer is a former Ambassador to Japan and Egypt.
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