The national committee to protect oil, gas, mineral resources, power and ports on Thursday rejected the signing of the deals with ConocoPhillips for oil and gas exploration and extraction in the Bay of Bengal in keeping with the model PSC 2008.
The government signed the contracts with the US oil company on the day on gas block 10 and 11, keeping the provision for export of the gas extracted.
Leaders of the organisation at a rally in front of the National Press Club with activists holding black flags termed the deal contrary to national interest. They said that Bangladesh would get only 20 per cent of the total gas extracted by way of the deals.
They called on the government to cancel the unequal deals and threatened agitation programmes, including general strike, if the government does not do so.
The organisation staged countrywide demonstrations on Thursday after the deals had been signed.
The organisation's member secretary Anu Muhammad said that the Awami League-led government had betrayed the people by signing such unequal deals.
Bangladesh will now lose the ownership of its natural resources, Anu said.
Bangladesh will get only 20 per cent of the gas extracted and it will be impossible for Bangladesh to bring the gas from the deep sea to the mainland and the US company, as a result, will export all the gas, Anu said.
The government has signed the deal hurriedly to satisfy the imperialist design, he said.
The organisation has plans to wage united movements and enforce a general strike this month in protest at the deal, Anu said.
It will announce the programmes at a press conference on Saturday, he said at the rally.
The organisation's leader Haider Akbar Khan Rano, also the acting president of the Communist Party of Bangladesh, at the rally said that the people had rejected the deal as it is contrary to national interest.
He called on the government to scrap the deal immediately and said it would otherwise be a betrayal by the government with the people.
Syed Abul Maksud,
also a leader of the organisation, said that the government had signed the deal to satisfy the imperialist America.
Tipu Biwas, the convener of the Gana Front, said that the government ignored national interest by signing the deals with ConocoPhillips.
The general secretary of the Revolutionary Workers Party of Bangladesh, Saiful Huq, said that the people will would lose their rights to natural resources by way of the deal.
Bazlur Rashid Firoz, a central leader of Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal, said that the day of the singing would be remembered as a 'black day' in history.
CPB central leader Ruhin Hossain Prince, Ganatantri Party general secretary Nurur Rahman Selim, Workers Party (Reconstituted) general secretary Abdus Satter, Gana Sanghati chief coordinator Zonayed Saki, Democratic Revolutionary Party general secretary Mushrefa Mishu and Workers Party leader Ragib Ahsan Munna, among others, spoke.
The effigy of Tawfiq-e-Elahi, the energy adviser to the prime minister, was burnt at the rally.
A procession followed the rally. Several hundred people joined the programmes.
source:NewAge
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