When chief adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus spoke about pressing the reset button, he meant making a new start from the corrupt politics, which destroyed all Bangladesh鈥檚 key institutions,聽 pushed the economy to the brink of collapse and robbed the rights to vote and civil liberties of tens of millions of people.
Clarifying his recent remark, the chief adviser鈥檚 press wing in a statement on Thursday said that Professor Yunus did not mean wiping out Bangladesh鈥檚 proud history of the War of Independence.
鈥榃hen you press the reset button, you reset the software to start all over again. It doesn鈥檛 change the hardware. The 1971 Liberation War is the hardware of Bangladesh,鈥� said the statement amid criticism from various quarters over the remark.
It said that some people were misinterpreting Professor Muhammad Yunus鈥檚 recent interview with Voice of America where he mentioned about the pressing of 鈥榬eset button鈥�.
鈥榃hen he arrived in Dhaka on August 8 to take over as the chief adviser to the interim government, Professor Muhammad Yunus told reporters at the Hazrat Shahjalal Airport that July-August student-led mass uprising was our Second Liberation -- the first liberation being the country鈥檚 glorious War of Independence in 1971,鈥� the statement said, adding that Professor Yunus was an assistant professor at Middle Tennessee State University in 1971.
He formed the Bangladesh Citizens Committee immediately after the declaration of independence of Bangladesh and launched a US-wide campaign to persuade the US government to recognise Bangladesh, it continued.
Muhammad Yunus published the Bangladesh Newsletter to inform the world about the genocide in Bangladesh perpetrated by the Pakistani army during the 1971 Liberation War, according to the statement.
