প্রেসিডেন্ট জিয়াউর রহমান ও তার স্বপ্নের বাংলাদেশ

e first to announce the independence of Bangladesh to the world on behalf of the national leaders. After the war, Zia was recognized as a war hero and was honored with the Bir Uttom (highest award to living soldiers for individual gallantry) in 1972. A high-ranking accomplished officer in the Bangladesh Army, he was later appointed as the Chief of Army Staff. The country immersed into chaos after the brutal assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, his family and other leaders in August of 1975, as the battles for power started. Even though Zia did not take up any role in the power struggles, he was still detained in the middle of coup and counter-coups. He was later freed through the sepoy-jonota (soldier-citizen) revolution in November 7 and was appointed the Chief Marshal Law Administrator. He soon let the political parties, who were all made illegal under the BAKSAL rule in June, to revive and reorganize again. He later founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in 1978, which popularly won the democratic civilian election. As the president of Bangladesh, Zia won widespread popular support for stabilizing the nation and leading it in a new direction. He established free-market economic policies in a 19-point program of industrialization and development. The foreign policy goals were thus devised new, and dynamic international relations were set on with a view to prevent Bangladesh from hurtling down to the abyss of dependence. At the regional level, he developed a pattern of mutuality, proposing an organization of the nations of South Asia to bolster economic and political co-operation at a regional level, which later materialized in 1985 with the creation of the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). At the global level, Bangladesh started to pick up friends from the right, center and left, including the United States, Europe, China and the Arab world. A popular and respected leader, Zia was assassinated in 1981 in an abortive military coup.