Rhetoric And Denial

The foreign relations ensemble in South Asia has, for long, been dominated by the India-Pakistan scenario.Of late, however, a slanging match between India and Bangladesh over the terrorist infrastructure in thelatter has cornered significant media space. Much of this was, again, in evidence during the Fifth HomeSecretary-level biennial talks held in Dhaka on September 16-17, 2004.

The Indian delegation, led by Home Secretary Dhirendra Singh, presented a detailed list and some specificinformation relating to some 195 camps of Indian insurgents that it claimed were in Bangladesh, to Bangladeshidelegates. Unsurprisingly, Dhaka denied knowledge of any such camp but said it would 'look further into thematter'. In a tit-for-tat ploy, Dhaka sought 'immediate Indian action' against anti-Bangladesh elementscurrently alleged to be on Indian soil. In reply, India stressed the need for an extradition treaty tofacilitate the return of any such anti-Bangladeshi elements.

At the end of the talks, Bangladesh and India agreed to co-ordinate patrols in their own territories.Bangladesh also declared its readiness to sign an agreement to enhance co-operation in security issues, ifrequired, and also agreed to consider India's proposal for an extradition treaty. Bangladesh has agreed torespond to this proposal at a meeting between the two countries likely to be held in January or early February2004. India, on its part, proposed a three-point package proposal for Dhaka to notify India on the 1974 LandBoundary Agreement and agreed to work towards a more concrete solution to the problem after receiving Dhaka'sresponse to the package.

India shares a 4,095-kilometer border with Bangladesh, its longest land boundary with any of its neighbours.The States of Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Assam in India's Northeast account for 1,879 kilometers, and theeastern state of West Bengal has a border running 2,216 kilometers along Bangladesh. An area of 6.5 kilometersof this extended frontier is yet to be demarcated and two Joint Boundary Working Groups have been set up tocomplete the boundary demarcation. 

The Indian paramilitary Border Security Force (BSF) faces a surfeit of problems managing this boundary,including illegal migration from Bangladesh, trans-border movement of armed cadres belonging to a number ofinsurgent groups from India's northeastern states and West Bengal, as also widespread smuggling activities.The existing and emerging threats along this border are also conditioned, to a large extent, by the largelyinhospitable terrain.

Dhaka's claims that no terrorist group has camps on Bangladeshi soil, and that the country does not encourage any anti-India activity from within its territory, ring increasingly hollow, with frequent reports in the Bangladeshi media of the consolidation of terrorist groups in that country. 

Recently, the Dhaka-based newspaper, Prothom Alo, published a five-part article on the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-BD), a designated terrorist outfit in the United States, running camps in different parts of the country to train terrorist groups from India and Myanmar. Two Islamist organisations, including the Islami Oikyo Jote, a member of the ruling coalition, subsequently staged rallies near the Chittagong office of the Daily on August 18, 2004, protesting against what they claimed were defamatory reports (under the headline 'Militant Activities in Greater Chittagong') against unregistered seminaries. 

Scrutinizing the lengthening shadow of Islamist terror in Bangladesh, Prothom Alo reported that HuJI has established an active network through madrassas (seminaries) and local NGOs to carry out its activities. The areas, where the newspaper sent reporters to investigate the camps, are Bandarban, Naikhangchari, Ukhia, Dailpara, Chandgaon and Khatunganj, among others, in Cox's Bazaar and Chittagong district of southeastern Bangladesh. The 'central command headquarters' of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), insurgent groups active in India's Northeast, are also allegedly based in these areas.

Adding to New Delhi's woes was the BSF Director General Ajai Raj Sharma's statement on September 13 thatthere were "firm reports" that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had set up new trainingcentres for terrorists in Bangladesh. "The terrorist groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir are also beingtrained there… It [ISI] is now fully concentrating in Bangladesh," Sharma told a news conference inJammu.

Meanwhile, the World Bank Country Director, Christine I. Wallich, reportedly left Bangladesh after receiving adeath threat on September 7, 2004, an official with the multilateral lending agency said on September 10. Aletter was sent to her residence in the Gulshan area of the capital Dhaka, marking her as the next target forbomb attacks. Wallich, an American citizen, is the first foreigner known to have received a death threat sincethe August 21 grenade attack on an Awami League rally in Dhaka in which at least 20 people died. She isreported to have subsequently returned to Dhaka after the Government assured her of adequate security.

While New Delhi has, in the past, taken a firm line about the Khaleda Zia Government's involvement inpromoting separatist violence in India's northeast, the past month has been dominated by the exchange of afair quantum of shrill rhetoric. At the centre of this tirade was the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh, M.Morshed Khan, who, on September 7, speaking at the inaugural session of an 'India-Bangladesh Dialogue of YoungJournalists' organised by Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI), alleged that Delhi was restricting imports ofBangladeshi goods into India to keep the balance of trade in its favour, despite repeated calls for an'equitable bilateral trade'.

"Dhaka too is capable of taking similar restrictive steps against Indian goods to arrive at a'win-win' situation," Khan threatened. At the same time, he said: ''I do not want any more misconceptionslike what has arisen from a neighbouring country conversing with a particular party but not the nation as awhole.'' Khan was reportedly expressing his Government's annoyance over the fact that Indian Prime MinisterManmohan Singh only telephoned Awami League leader and former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after she escapedan assassination attempt on August 21.

Further, on September 16, the Foreign Minister claimed, "Bangladesh does not believe in retaliationagainst anyone, if Bangladesh wanted, it could've done so, but that does not improve relations." He saidthis when asked whether Dhaka would slap para-tariff and non-tariff barriers on Indian imports to narrow thetrade gap between the countries. On the other hand, India had not been passive in the runup to theSecretary-level talks, and Delhi has expressed the opinion that the plug could be pulled out on the TATAgroup's proposed investment of $2 billion in Bangladesh in view of the 'security situation' in that country.

Two aspects of the current reality stand out. While an increasing proportion of the recent violence inspiredand executed by Islamist extremists extends the lengthening shadow of terror in Bangladesh, the present regimein Dhaka has also sought to amplify its anti-India posture. There is fair indication that the regime findssuch rhetoric a convenient proxy for inaction in combating the growing Islamist terror within the country. Itis such inaction and indeed, the shadow of Islamist terror, which prompted Cofer Black, US State Department'sCo-ordinator for Counter-Terrorism, to say on September 13 in an interview to Outlook that, "Weare looking closely at Bangladesh".

There exists a certain spectrum of opinion within the Bangladeshi establishment which believes that, givenIndia's pre-occupation with the détente with Pakistan, New Delhi will not be in a position to take aneffective stand on issues like Dhaka's dalliance with the insurgencies in India's Northeast. Notwithstandingthe credibility of such a presumption, there is reason now to believe that India may wish to make such optionsunaffordable in the future.

Saji Cherian is Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management. Courtesy, the South AsiaIntelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal