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Bangladesh's first foreign secretary dead
Sunday December 05, 2010 01:01:25 PM,
IANS
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Dhaka:
A.F.M. Abul Fateh, Bangladesh's first foreign secretary who was
appointed after the country's liberation in 1971, has died in
London. He was 86.
Born in 1924 in Kishoreganj, Fateh joined the first batch of
Pakistan Foreign Service trainees in 1949 and was sent to Paris as
the third secretary in the Pakistani embassy. He received his
first posting as ambassador at the Pakistani embassy in Baghdad in
1970.
After the Pakistani military crackdown in March 1971, Fateh on a
request from his friend Syed Nazrul Islam, the acting president in
the Bangladesh government-in-exile, joined the liberation war.
He fled Baghdad in July 1971 and switched sides to fight for
Bangladesh's cause, being the first Pakistani ambassador to do so.
Fateh went to London, where the British government refused to
budge to Pakistani demands that he be extradited, The Daily Star
said Sunday.
He returned to Dhaka after its liberation and was the highest
Bangladeshi official till the cabinet took charge. He became
foreign secretary at the end of 1971.
In 1972, he took up the position of Bangladesh's first ambassador
to Paris where he stayed till 1976. The early part of this posting
involved extensive travels to Africa to persuade African
governments to recognise the independence of Bangladesh.
In 1975, he was appointed high commissioner to Britain, a post he
took up in 1976. The Bangladesh government also approved his dual
citizenship.
Fateh retired in 1982, and went to Dhaka where he lived for 10
more years with his wife, before they settled in London.
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