When you consider his background, it’s no surprise that Zahid F. Sarder Saddi turned out to be an impressive political figure and humanitarian.
Saddi comes from a family of innovators. His father started out as an Exective Magistrate, serving in a civil service cadre for those holding high-level political positions. As an ambassador to foreign nations, he served in various ministries for the Government of Bangladesh. He also participated in the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission to Cambodia in the early 1990s.
During a time when it was uncommon for women to pursue higher education at all, let alone graduate college, his mother received her degree from Eden College, University of Dhaka, in the 1960s, and went on to serve as General Secretary.
Saddi doesn’t rest on the laurels of his parents’ success, though. Instead, he’s spent a lifetime cultivating his own successful career. He grew up in Dhaka, Bangladesh, but moved to the United States to attend Penn State University, obtaining his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. When he’s not engaged in political activism, he lends his business expertise to the oil industry, and lives in Florida with his wife Lyudmila– a doctor of internal medicine– and their son William.
During his time in Bangladesh, Saddi served as a Foreign Advisor to the Honorable Begum Khaleda Zia, who was elected Prime Minister for three terms. He fondly refers to this period of time as the “golden days of Bangladesh democracy.”
He was appointed as a Special Envoy of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and nominated for the Bangladesh Parliament Pirojpur-1 constituency without even campaigning for the position due to the generally criticized 2013 and 2018 National Parliament elections, widely considered to have been rigged.
Someone with as much motivation and passion for change is the perfect fit for high-level government positions like the ones Saddi held.
He left Bangladesh due to political exile, but didn’t allow it to stall his career. In fact, living in the United States allows him to enjoy new freedoms and an enhanced ability to promote Bangladeshi democracy and human rights. Saddi is outspokenly in favor of the U.S. sanctions against Bangladesh and fiercely opposes their current oppressive regime. He personally thanked Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken for issuing sanctions against Bangladesh, in the hope that these sanctions would put pressure on the current Bangladeshi government to cease their unethical actions.
For anyone unfamiliar, the U.S. imposed sanctions due to Bangladesh’s elite paramilitary forces, otherwise known as the Rapid Action Battalion. The sanctions came about as a result of the RAB’s egregious human rights violations and their link to unlawful killings and enforced “disappearances.”
On February 12, 2022, shortly following the imposition of the U.S. sanctions, Zahid F. Sarder Saddi addressed the press in Washington D.C., noting his appreciation of the sanctions before stating:
“Since 2009, when Bangladesh’s Awami League regime came to power, enforced disappearances have become a daily occurrence. If Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is serious about ending human rights abuses by UN peacekeepers, he will ensure that units with proven records of abuse, like the Rapid Action Battalion, are excluded from deployment. The role of Bangladesh’s notorious paramilitary force, RAB, should be reviewed following the U.S. sanctions.”
Saddi’s concern about the RAB is not misplaced: the battalion is responsible for the disappearances and deaths of political activists who opposed the Awami League regime before the last two Bangladeshi general elections.
One of the driving forces in Saddi’s political and humanitarian efforts is his quest to establish a truly free and fair election in Bangladesh in order to restore democracy, reinstate the caretaker government, and elect government officials chosen by the people to represent them. The presence of a paramilitary force that violently suppresses political opponents makes a fair election an impossibility.
Saddi hopes that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party will regain power via unbiased election, under the leadership of the BNP’s Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman, allowing the 170 million people in his home country to take back Bangladesh so they can live in a country governed by officials they chose and without fear of human rights violations and genocide.
Saddi says “The fight for peace and betterment is ingrained in my blood.” It is this motivation and compassion for the people of his country that will lead Bangladesh into the bright future he envisions for it.
