Soros fan Muhammad Yunus eyes on poor populace in Assam

Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury
  • Update Time : Monday, March 6, 2023

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and founder of Grameen Bank, Muhammad Yunus, who also is known as a great fan of George Soros recently visited Assam and lectured on how he has shown his “miracle” in eliminating poverty in rural Bangladesh. But most of those admirers of Yunus are unaware of his ugly face behind the mask. In this article, I shall provide documentary evidences of how Yunus has not only been fooling the entire world with his bogus story of eliminating poverty, it will also be revealed how he has been repeatedly spreading his false propaganda thus deceiving the international community, including the Nobel Prize Committee.

On March 9, 2011, Rajeev Sharma, a New Delhi-based journalist-author and a strategic analyst, in an article titled ‘The Fall of Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus’ wrote:

The euphoria generated by the media after Yunus won the Nobel Prize got dissipated following reports appearing in a section of press highlighting high interest rates charged by the Grameen Bank, tough payment schedules and inhuman recovery methods leading to miseries including suicides committed by the poor loan defaulters.

Broken hut of Grameen Bank’s first borrower Sufia Begum. The adjacent white building is owned by Jabel Hussain (a person living in Dubai), which Yunus had falsely claimed to have been owned by Sufia. Photo: BLiTZ

The international community has long been made to believe that Yunus was lending money to rural poor people in Bangladesh, especially women, at a very comfortable and low interest. In fact, Grameen Bank has been receiving grants and loans from various international agencies on a regular basis for this purpose. The highest amount of annual interest on any foreign loan that Grameen Bank receives is 3 percent. Moreover, a major segment of the foreign loans or grants received by it are absolutely free of interest. But, Yunus is lending money to poor people at a rate ranging between 40-70 percent per year. Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has already termed Yunus as ‘bloodsucker of the poor’.

This bloodsucking show was revealed when the ’Weekly Blitz’, published a series of investigative reports on Yunus. A reporter Zahid Al Amin of the weekly visited the village Jobra near Chittagong. Jobra is claimed to be the model of ‘success story’ of Yunus and his Grameen Bank. He interacted with the villagers and collected information as well photographs, to verify the truth in what Yunus and his Grameen Bank were claiming as their success.

Yunus displayed a documentary on a woman’s fortune at the Nobel Prize awarding ceremony in Oslo, Norway, on October 13, 2006, putting up the success story of Grameen Bank. The documentary mainly focused on the first borrower of Grameen Bank, Sufia, showing her as owning a two storey building after rising from a miserable condition.

Though Yunus and Grameen Bank claimed to have helped Sufia in erecting her own building, in reality, she used to live in an almost broken hut, where her family members are living even now. The house, which is shown by Yunus and Grameen Bank as Sufia’s in the documentary is actually owned by one Jabel Hussain who lives in Dubai. The owner Jabel Hussain has, from Dubai, instructed his relatives in Bangladesh to sue Yunus and Grameen bank if his two storey house is again shown as Sufia’s in future. There had never been any response or comment or statement from Yunus and his Grameen Bank though the widely read ‘Weekly Blitz’ published series of reports about Sufia and ownership of the two storey house.

Nurunnahar, the youngest daughter of Sufia, told the media in 2010 that though Yunus earned name and fame worldwide, her mother being the first borrower of his micro-credit scheme could not change her life and had to lead a miserable life. She said her mother took loan to start a cane business but found her trapped in a vicious circle of loan and interest. Later, she was compelled to take loan from different sources to repay Grameen Bank.

Investigative and award-winning Danish documentary film maker Tom Heinemann’s documentary titled “Caught in Micro debt’ released in last November also dug out the harsh reality Sufia met. Sufia’s daughters Halima and Nurunnahar said that they were left absolutely pauper and have to beg for survival. On investigation, it was found that when Sufia died due to extreme poverty the local people had to collect donations for her burial.

The story of Sufia reads like this. Yunus gave TK. 20 to Sufia Begum of Jobra village years back as loan with the condition of returning in time with interest. Sufia returned that money and got second loan of Tk. 500 from Yunus. She was so excited that she spread the news in the entire village. This was the beginning of Grammen Bank concept. But, most of the borrowers, who took money from Yunus, gradually turned from poor to poorest as they were compelled to pay regular interests at high rate. In Jobra village alone, a large number of villagers have already been turned into paupers by Yunus and his Grameen Bank.

Yunus and his Grameen Bank projected Jobra village and Sufia as example of their excellent success stories to the international audience. Through such campaign, Yunus has attained tremendous attention of the international community. He has gained fame in the world as ‘pioneer’ of micro credit, for which he got Nobel Peace prize in 2006. The name of Sufia, the first borrower of loan from Yunus’s Grameen Bank, has already crossed international boundaries of many countries, as Grameen Bank proudly pronounced her name as one of the brilliant success stories of their socalled micro-credit loans. It is beyond knowledge of many that, almost one decade back, Sufia died due to extreme poverty and lack of any minimum medical treatment.

Due to continuous publication of reports in our newspaper – Blitz about Dr. Mohammad Yunus, we were contacted by many including Tom Heinemann, who made the latest documentary on Yunus and his Grameen Bank.

When the ‘Caught in Micro Credit Debt’ documentary came into focal point of many, Norwegian Minister for Environment and International Development Erik Solheim on December 8, 2010 issued a statement, which surely went in favor of Yunus. Following the publication of this statement, we contacted Norwegian journalist Tom Heinemann with several questions. Here is an excerpt:

Shoaib Choudhury: Norad’s report shows that Grameen Bank transferred a total of NOK 608.5 million to its sister company Grameen Kalyan in 1996. Norway’s share of this amount is estimated to be approximately NOK 170 million. The Norwegian Embassy in Dhaka reacted immediately when it discovered the transfer in 1997. In the embassy’s view, the transfer was not in accordance with the agreement. The matter was raised with Grameen Bank. Following negotiations, it was agreed in May 1998 that NOK 170 million was to be transferred back from Grameen Kalyan to Grameen Bank.

Mohammad Yunus with Rahul Gandhi

Now, following the latest statement from the minister, can we assume that, the Norwegian government is also trying to salvage the ‘image’ of Nobel laureate Dr. Yunus and his Grameen Bank? Or what could be the possible mystery behind this statement?

Tom Heinemann: What we do know is that around 100 million Norwegian kroner is not accounted for. And we do not know what happened with the donor money from Germany, The Netherlands and Sweden [among others].

On December 6, 2010, Parminder Bahra in an article in The Wall Street Journal wrote:

… In 1996, the Norwegians had concerns about Yunus’ handling of the aid money and wrote to him for an explanation. Yunus turned to the then director general of Norad, Ms. Tove Strand Gerhardesn, and practically begged for her help to assuage an increasingly unhappy Norweigian Embassy in Bangladesh:

Hardly the sort of letter one would write over a ‘simple’ misunderstanding. The matter did not come to light until last week.

Following the broadcast of the documentary, the story has been picked up across Scandanavia and the issue has been raised in the Norwegian parliament.

The current Norwegian International Development Minister, Erik Solheim, has called for a full report on the matter. In a statement to the BBC he said:

It is also likely that the Bangladeshi Government will investigate the matter.

There are many outstanding questions that these investigations must report:

how was the matter left between Norad and Grameen Bank

how much of the aid money was used for home loans

once the loans were repaid, how much of that money was put back into home loans (the aid was meant to be used as revolving loans)

what procedures did Norad put in place to evaluate the use and effectiveness of the aid

why did Norad let money that was explicitly for home loans be used for profit-making ventures within the broader Grameen group?

This news comes at a time when microfinance, after a decade of rapid expansion, is facing a backlash. In the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, microfinance loans have been blamed for suicides in the state as customers who fall behind on payments are threatened. Local politicians are seeking legislation to curb interest rates and bank practises.

There is increasing evidence that microfinance is causing over indebtedness and there are serious concerns that the sector is experiencing an asset bubble which is ready to burst.

There has been a collective delusion that microfinance and its link to entrepreneurial activity is a powerful tool to alleviate poverty despite little evidence to show that this model works. The research shows that borrowers do not see significant increases in income. In many instances, people are using the loans for consumption-smoothing rather than entrepreneurial activities. As they fall into debt, they take out more loans to pay back earlier ones and a vicious cycle begins.

But governments, multilateral organisations, philanthropic organisations, corporate retail banks, non-governmental organisations and charities continue to pour billions of dollars into microfinance enterprises.

Yet most of the people who have entered into contracts with the microfinance sector see little change.

Yunus, a bloodsucker of the poor

In June 2022, Professor Muhammad Yunus made a publicity stunt by hiring popular singer and actor Jennifer Lopez (also known as also known as J.Lo to her fans) as the National Ambassador of ‘Grameen America’, which drew attention of a large segment of the global print and electronic media (although most of these publications tagged this “news item” as PAID CONTENT). But, most of those news outlets are totally unaware of the real agenda of the Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus in hiring Jennifer Lopez in his high-sounding venture, which has reportedly established its office in New York City, in the United States.

People in the world know Yunus as the founder of ‘Grameen Bank’ and considers him as the ‘father of microfinance’. But in reality, Professor Muhammad Yunus is a grand scammer, who has devastated lives of hundreds and thousands of poor people in Bangladesh. For sure, Jennifer Lopez is not aware of this.

Grameen America on its website saidJennifer Lopez and Grameen America, the nation’s fastest-growing microfinance organization, are partnering to advance financial empowerment for Latina businesswomen historically excluded from the financial mainstream.

Lopez joins as Grameen America’s National Ambassador to advocate for and mentor the organization’s network of over 150,000 small businesses run by women in predominantly low-income communities across the US.

The new partnership seeks to advance Lopez’s latest philanthropic project, Limitless Labs, which aims to uplift, educate and provide essential resources to Latina entrepreneurs in underserved communities.

In a press release titled ‘Jennifer Lopez Partners with Grameen America to Accelerate its Goal to Deploy $14 Billion in Loan Capital to 600,000 Low-Income Latina Entrepreneurs by 2030’, issued by Grameen America, this organization said: Global icon Jennifer Lopez and Grameen America, the nation’s fastest-growing microfinance organization, today announce they are partnering to advance financial empowerment for Latina businesswomen historically excluded from the financial mainstream. Grameen America provides access to business capital, credit- and asset-building, financial education, and peer support to enable women living below the federal poverty level to boost their income and create jobs in their communities. The new partnership seeks to advance both Lopez’s latest philanthropic project, Limitless Labs, which aims to support Latina-owned small businesses, as well as Grameen America’s goal to empower 600,000 Latina entrepreneurs across 50 U.S. cities with $14 billion in life-changing business capital and 6 million hours of financial education and training by 2030…

The Grameen America board members are: Professor Muhammad Yunus, John F. Megrue Jr., Andrea Jung, Bob Annibale, Nandita Bakhshi, Ben Farkas, Michael D. Granoff, Antonia Hernández, Vidar Jorgensen, Abdul Hai Khan, Mahmoud Mamdani, Karen Pritzker, and Ray Dalio.

While Grameen America introduces Professor Muhammad Yunus as “father of microfinance”, people will be shocked to know, how this man has been fooling and cheating the world with series of lies and evil acts.

For years, international community has been made to believe that Mohammad Yunus was lending money to rural poor people in Bangladesh, especially woman, as a very comfortable and low interest. This was what Yunus had told everyone while receiving fund for his blood-sucking venture.

In most cases, Yunus was getting interest-free fund or fund with a very nominal annual interest. According to media reports, the highest amount of annual interest on any foreign loan that Grameen Bank had received was 3 percent. Moreover, a major segment of the foreign loans or grants received by Grameen Bank were extremely low or free from any interest. But Yunus was lending money to poor people at a rate ranging between 40~70 percent per year! For this reason, Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had rightly termed Yunus as bloodsucker of the poor.

The bloodsucking show of Dr Muhammad Yunus was exposed by BLiTZ in 2011 through a number of investigative reports. Prior to publication of the reports, our reporters were sent to Jobra village in Chattogram, which was claimed to be the model “success story” of Yunus and his Grameen Bank. Our reporters interacted with the villagers and collected information as well as photographs, to expose the lies of Yunus.

It may be mentioned here that, Mohammad Yunus projected a documentary film on woman’s fortune at the Nobel Prize awarding ceremony in Oslo, Norway on October 13, 2006, through which he had falsely claimed his success story. The documentary mainly focused on the first borrower of Grameen Bank, Sufia Begum [also spelled as Sufiya Begum], showing her as owning a two-storey building after rising from miserable condition.

But in reality,BLiTZreports had exposed the real condition of Sufia Begum. Although Yunus and Grameen Bank claimed to have helped her in erecting her own building, in reality, she was living in dire economic condition in an almost broken hut, with other members of her family. The building which Yunus and Grameen Bank was showing as Sufia’s in their documentary films was actually owned by an individual named Jabel Hussain, an expatriate Bangladeshi in Dubai.

The owner Jabel Hussain had, from Dubai, instructed his relatives in Bangladesh to sue Yunus and Grameen bank if his two-storey house is again shown as Sufia’s in future. There had never been any response or comment or statement from Yunus and his Grameen Bank though the BLiTZ report was read by hundreds and thousands of people from around the world.

Furthermore, Nurun Nahar, the youngest daughter of Sufia Begum told Blitz reporters that though Mohammad Yunus earned name, fame and even Nobel Prize, her mother being the first borrower of microcredit scheme could not change her life and had to lead a miserable life. She said, Sufia Begum took loan to start a cane business but found her trapped in a vicious circle of loan and interest. Later, she was compelled to take loan from different sources to repay Grameen Bank.

Sufia’s daughters Halima and Nurunnahar said that they were left absolutely pauper and have to beg for survival. On investigation, it was found that when Sufia died due to extreme poverty the local people had to collect donations for her burial.

The story of Sufia reads like this. Yunus gave TK. 20 [US$ 0.25] to Sufia Begum of Jobra village years back as loan with the condition of returning in time with interest. Sufia returned that money and got second loan of Tk. 500 [US$ 5.80] from Yunus. She was so excited that she spread the news in the entire village. This was the beginning of Grameen Bank concept. But, most of the borrowers, who took money from Yunus, gradually turned from poor to poorest as they were compelled to pay regular interests at high rate. In Jobra village alone, a large number of villagers have already been turned into paupers by Yunus and his Grameen Bank.

It may be mentioned here that, at personal efforts of Bill and Hillary Clinton, bloodsucker Yunus was given highest civilian medal in the US by President Barack Obama. And now, possibly Clintons are extending special favor from behind the curtain to their “loving Yunus”.

Yunus and his Grameen Bank projected Jobra village and Sufia as example of their excellent success stories to the international audience. Through such campaign, Yunus has attained tremendous attention of the international community. He has gained fame in the world as ‘pioneer’ of micro credit, for which, Bill Clinton had personally pursued and succeeded in letting Yunus receive the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. The name of Sufia Begum, the first borrower of loan from Yunus’s Grameen Bank, has already crossed international boundaries of many countries, as Grameen Bank proudly pronounced her name as one of the brilliant success stories of their so-called micro-credit loans. It is beyond knowledge of many that, almost one decade back, Sufia died due to extreme poverty and lack of any minimum medical treatment.

BLiTZ also reported that Yunus took former US first lady Hillary Clinton at Grameen Bank’s project situated at Rishi Palli at Moshihati in Bangladesh, where Yunus initiated a project named ‘Hillary Adarsha’ (Hillary Model) and started distributing loans to the locals.

Although Hillary Clinton was deeply impressed and given assurance of providing soft-term loan to the poor villagers, in reality, the villagers were made to pay 30~40 percent interest. After the visit of Hillary Clinton, the entire village turned into a land of horror. Extreme poverty due to high interest charged by the Grameen Bank pushed them towards starvation, poverty and compelling many of them to commit suicide. Child marriage is very common in that village. A large number of females from the village ended up in local and neighboring brothels, as they were virtually sold by parents due to poverty. Now, Hillary Model village has turned into a big joke to the locals. But Yunus was successful in tactfully suppressing this fact from the attention of Hillary Clinton and the international media.

Uday Kumar Barua, a resident of Jobra village told reporters that, even a single person in the Jobra village has not benefited by Yunus. Most of the borrowers turned completely pauper and they even had to sell their homes for paying the loan interest and left the village. Many of them even ended up as beggars. Even after being sacked from his position in the Grameen Bank, Yunus continues to keep virtual ownership of Grameen Bank and the entire fifty-five sister enterprises established under this umbrella, such as Grameen Phone and Grameen Kalyan.

While many people in the world know Mohammad Yunus as a noble soul and friend of the poor, in reality, he is a damn liar, a con artist, a scam cartel mafia and someone who has fooled millions of people in the world by telling false stories of his success and that of Grameen Bank. And now the same Yunus has started fresher bids of fooling people through his new venture named ‘Grameen America’.

Why Yunus visited Assam?

In addition to fooling the world with his bogus claim of improving lives of poor through his microcredit ventures, Yunus also has political ambition. Back in 2007, he tried to establish a political party in Bangladesh named ‘Nagorik Shakti’ (Citizen’s Power). One of the core principles of this party was creating platform for radical Muslims in joining country’s politics. He also was having the policy of promoting globalist’s ideology in Bangladesh and transform the country into a mere subservient nation of those globalists, including infamous George Soros. He also has been maintaining deeper relations with members of Indian National Congress and Nehru family.

I have every reason to believe – Yunus has hidden agenda behind his recent Assam tour. Indian authorities may now investigate the matter.

An internationally acclaimed multi-award-winning anti-militancy journalist, writer, research-scholar, counterterrorism specialist and editor of Blitz. He regularly writes for local and international newspapers on diversified topics, including international relations, politics, diplomacy, security and counterterrorism. Follow him on 'X' @Salah_Shoaib

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One response to “Soros fan Muhammad Yunus eyes on poor populace in Assam”

  1. Harrold Benz says:

    Why international media is totally silent on this man – Yunus?

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