Stealing an United Nations organization

Is it possible to steal the name of UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA, IMF, ILO, IFAD and UNHCR etc which are United Nations organization and use it as a business enterprise? Any sensible or responsible individual will immediately say, no! But, such stealing of the name of United Nations organization has taken place in one of the South Asian countries, and the matter has already drawn the attention of bosses in UN.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized agency of the United Nations, was established as an international financial institution in 1977 as one of the major outcomes of the 1974 World Food Conference. The Conference was organized in response to the food crises of the early 1970s that primarily affected the Sahelian countries of Africa . The conference resolved that "an International Fund for Agricultural Development should be established immediately to finance agricultural development projects primarily for food production in the developing countries". One of the most important insights emerging from the conference was that the causes of food insecurity and famine were not so much failures in food production, but structural problems relating to poverty and to the fact that the majority of the developing world's poor populations were concentrated in rural areas. IFAD is dedicated to eradicating rural poverty in developing countries. Seventy-five per cent of the world's poorest people - 1.4 billion women, children and men - live in rural areas and depend on agriculture and related activities for their livelihoods.

Few years back, name of this United Nations organization has been stolen in Bangladesh by a group of people and surprisingly enough, none of the officials at UN office in Dhaka ever raised any objection to this, nor did they bring this matter to the attention of United Nations head quarters or Bangladesh government. Look into this website IFAD how some Bangladeshi businessmen are continuing to register IFAD as several business entities. And most office of the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies, which is under Ministry of Commerce is continuing to issue incorporation certificates to various enterprises using the IFAD title, which is in fact a patent right of United Nations. It may be mentioned here that, names of United Nations organizations are patent rights of it and no one can use any of the names and titles or logos of these UN organizations for any other purpose. On the other hand, all the United Nations member states are obliged to protect the right of such organizations in their respective countries.

Bangladesh greatly benefits from various United Nations organizations on a regular basis. On the other hand, Bangladesh is one of the top participants of United Nations Peacekeeping forces, where hundreds of members of Bangladesh Army and police are working in different countries. Service in United Nations Peacekeeping is considered to be a very lucrative opportunity for most of the member countries, especially those economically disadvantaged nations.

The person who has stolen the name and title of the United Nations organization is no one but the elder brother of former army chief of Bangladesh , who earned criticism at home for misusing the name of UN in seizing power from a constitutional government in a bloodless coup. While seizing power, General Moeen U Ahmed told people that he received calls from envoys of some powerful nations telling him that they would request the United Nations to withdraw Bangladeshi peacekeepers if the army cooperated in holding the election. Here is a relevant link. Later, envoys in Dhaka as well the United Nations denied this fishy claim of the Bangladeshi army chief.

Iftekhar Ahmed Tipu, who is the owner of IFAD Group in Bangladesh , is the elder brother of General (now retired) Moeen U Ahmed. After the military coup in Bangladesh in 2007 under the leadership of General Moeen, IFAD Group managed to received millions of dollars as loan from various financial institutions including Trust Bank (owned by Army Trust), Rupali Bank (state owned), Sonali Bank (state owned) etc. This business enterprise became visibly aggressive in expanding various projects taking the advantage of unique situation in the country, where fundamental rights and human rights were largely abused and democratic institutions virtually squeezed by the military dictator. It is even alleged that office of the IFAD Group in Dhaka turned into the unofficial headquarters of the military dictator in summoning businessmen, editors and politicians with the ulterior motive of extracting money from them through various threats.

General Moeen U Ahmed has the ambition of becoming a long-term president of Bangladesh right after he seized power in January 2007 and with this blueprint in mind, he continued to attack political parties, politicians, editors and civil society members. Leading politicians like Sheikh Hasina (current Prime Minister and head of Bangladesh Awami League, which is regarded as a secularist party) and Khaleda Zia (leader of the opposition and head of Bangladesh Nationalist Party). He even pushed eminent media personalities like Anwar Hussain Manju, Atiqullah Khan Masud, Saber Chowdhury, Salman F Rahman, Nurul Islam Babul, Musaddeq Ali Falu, Enayetur Rahman Bappi and several professors of Dhaka University with various lame excuses. It is even documented that after illegal takeover of power, General Moeen was giving secret support and funds to several Islamic militancy groups like Harkatul Jihad (Huji), Hizbut Tahrir etc.

The issue of stealing the name of IFAD, a United Nations organization should be taken into serious consideration of the authorities in Dhaka . Hopefully the UN office in Bangladesh as well as its headquarters will also come up with their clarification on this matter.

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Stealing an United Nations organization

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