DHAKA, 30 October 2006 — India yesterday suspended cross-border trade with Bangladesh through Benapole because of political turmoil.

Several thousand trucks loaded with merchandize remained stranded at Haridaspur and Bongaon on the Indian side and a few on the Bangladeshi side, customs officials said.

Traders on both sides said they tried to resume business after the Eid holidays but were told by Indian customs officials that they would not allow the transportation of goods because of political turmoil in Bangladesh.

Unruly Awami League activists on Saturday attacked a number of India-bound trucks loaded with fish.

Can Yunus Help End Stalemate?

With Bangladesh’s major political parties at odds over the caretaker setup, can Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus help end the stalemate?

According to Bengali daily Gonokontho, the reference to Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize this month, came up as a possible head of an interim government when Awami League chief Hasina Wajed was in the US, where she met senior officials in the State Department.

It is not known whether Hasina discussed this with the Americans or on her return home with her party leadership.

There is no indication whether the idea is still in currency amid political stalemate that has triggered street violence killing dozens of people and leaving over 1,000 injured in Dhaka and other places across the country.

Yunus, 66, who pioneered Grameen Bank, a network of rural banking among Bangladesh’s poor, is widely respected. He became the first Bangladeshi to win a Nobel, having already won the Magsaysay Award and the Indira Gandhi Prize for International Understanding.

Yunus has not given out his mind. But when a question was put to him amid tumultuous celebrations earlier this month, he had not ruled it out either.

Indeed, he echoed the appeals of the civil society, NGOs, captains of trade and industry and vocal sections among Dhaka’s diplomatic corps, especially the US and the British envoys, to political parties to end strife and resolve disputes through dialogue.

What perhaps began as the fond hope of some that a renowned person with a record of work among the country’s poor should take up the job acquired a high measure of credibility and currency when an indication to this effect was made by the US State Department in Washington.

Under the Bangladesh constitution, President Iajuddin Ahmed had to exhaust try out with all former chief justices of the country before invoking a provision that empowered him to take up the post himself.

President Iajuddin yesterday decided to head the caretaker setup when all the parties failed to reach a consensus on the interim head.

Although Iajuddin was sworn in yesterday as the interim chief, observers still believe Yunus may have a role to play in calming down the belligerent parties given the fact that the the Awami League has again vowed to continue protests. Going by the way the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Awami League have knocked out each other’s “candidates,” and by the Awami League’s earlier rejection of the president stepping into the post, the turn of “an eminent citizen” could then come.

Yunus’ selection to the job would require political sagacity by the political parties, analysts say. They would have to think out-of-the-box.