Yet another round of border talks between India and Bangladesh ended in Dhaka on May 3, 2004, amid chargesand counter-charges by both sides that share a blow-hot-blow-cold relationship. The five-day Director General(DG)-level talks, beginning April 29, 2004 between the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR),were held less than a month after the Bangladesh Coast Guard seized as much as 10 truckloads of sophisticatedmilitary hardware from the Chittagong Port, estimated at a value of more than Rs 10 billion, that wasapparently heading for India's insurgency-wracked Northeast.
BSF Director General Ajay Raj Sharma, heading the 15-member Indian delegation, and his BDR counterpart MajorGeneral Jahangir Alam Chowdhury, leading the 19-member home team, discussed the usual border irritants betweenthe two highly populous neighbours. BDR officials bombarded the media in Dhaka with charges that includedkilling of 15 'innocent' Bangladeshi nationals by the BSF and Indian civilians between January and March 2004,push-in attempt of 'Bengali speaking Indian nationals' by the BSF, setting up of 'illegal structures' by Indiawithin 150-yard of the zero point in violation of international rules and regulations, and trafficking ofwomen and children. Besides, the BDR officials, according to Bangladeshi media reports, also raised the issueof drug and illegal arms smuggling from India.
The Indian side, on its part, sought the strengthening of BDR-BSF coordination to prevent border crimes,ensuring border security, and environmental conservation. The Indian delegation also sought details regardingthe latest position on the implementation of the 1974 Indira-Mujib Accord between the two countries.
New Delhi and Dhaka have, at fairly regular intervals, been discussing issues that are actually 'borderless'in the sense that terrorism and crime recognize no national borders. However, evidences, again coming up atregular intervals, suggest that sections within the Bangladeshi power structure could well be aiding andabetting separatist insurgencies in India's Northeast, by way of providing shelter to top militant leaders andcadres, besides extending transit facilities for illegal weapons shipments to India's troubled Northeasternfrontier. When these facts are taken into account, the stark reality of a border that exists, and which needsto be demarcated and protected, becomes impossible to ignore.
Take, for instance, the April 2, 2004, arms seizure near the Chittagong Port in southern Bangladesh. Wellplaced Indian intelligence sources disclose that the cache comprised 1,790 rifles, that included Uzisub-machine guns and those of the AK series, 150 rocket launchers, 840 rockets, 2,700 grenades and more thanone million rounds of ammunition. These weapons were being put onto ten trucks after being unloaded in theeastern bank of the Karnafully river from two trawlers that originated in Malaysia. According to local mediareports in Guwahati, capital of Northeastern India's Assam state, the trawlers are owned by the brother of aruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader. The ships he owns often use the Chittagong Urea FertilizerLimited (CUFL) jetty, near Chittagong, to unload consignments. It was at this jetty that Bangladeshiparamilitary troopers carried out the raid that was to lead to the biggest ever illegal arms haul in thecountry's history. The local police would have let the trucks roll - and there are reports that they wereactually overseeing the unloading operation - but for the arrival of Bangladesh Coast Guard personnel whoseized the cache and informed the higher authorities.
When this issue was raised at the just-concluded border talks at Dhaka, Bangladesh had already assured Indiathat it would share the findings of the probe into the huge arms haul with New Delhi. The seized weapons arecurrently in the custody of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a new security outfit created to tackle law andorder in Bangladesh. Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's ruling BNP and the opposition Awami League headed by formerPremier Sheikh Hasina are accusing each other of complicity in the arms shipment. However, the probe team,according to reports from Dhaka, has apparently already 'ruled out' any political links in the murky affair.
The seizure of such a large consignment of illegal arms is itself a highly disturbing development, and whensuch a huge quantity of lethal military hardware is destined for a foreign location, the issue becomes all themore serious. Reports indicate that at least 16 Indian insurgents have been arrested by the Bangladeshsecurity forces in this connection. Dhaka has refused to confirm these arrests, as that would go against itsstated position that no Indian insurgents were operating from the country's territory. Those arrested belongto outlawed rebel groups such as the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), People's Liberation Army (PLA) ofManipur, the Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL), also from Manipur, and the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF).
Former Bangladesh Army generals and security analysts were as shocked as security watchers in India over theweapons haul. Some former Bangladesh Army generals observed that the weapons recovered and the quantityinvolved are normally used in conventional warfare against a regular army. One former Army top gun in Dhakawent to the extent of commenting that the weapons seized were almost equivalent to those possessed by theComilla Division of the Bangladesh Army. They felt that 'well-organized syndicates' in Bangladesh could haveused the country only as a transit route and that the arms may have been heading for the Maoist rebels inNepal or the separatists in India's northeast. An English daily from Dhaka, The Daily Star, quoted'intelligence agents' as stating that the weapons could have been headed for Assam. Indian authorities insistthat the topmost military commander of the outlawed ULFA was operating his anti-India insurgency from his basein Dhaka and elsewhere in Bangladesh.
Against this backdrop, it is not surprising to find the BSF chief justifying India's move to erect a fencealong the entire 4,500 kilometer-long border with Bangladesh. Dhaka, however, has sought to impose a conditionon the issue. "Bangladesh is not against fencing. But, it wants that it should be erected 150 yards awayfrom the border," BDR Director General Chowdhury was quoted as saying.
Dhaka's attempts at deflecting attention from concerns among major western powers about Bangladesh turninginto the latest hub of terror, both Islamist and other, have failed on more occasions than one. Recentdevelopments have only further exposed the goings-on in that country. Even during the latest round of theBSF-BDR talks in Dhaka, the Bangladesh side sought to pin down the Indian officials by furnishing a list of 39camps of anti-Bangladesh insurgent groups allegedly operating from India. The Indian side had flatly rejectedthese suggestions. Dhaka's claim can be dismissed rather easily because, after the recent arms seizure inChittagong, security analysts in Bangladesh, including several former Bangladesh Army generals, have openlystated that the weapons seized could not have been used by local militants who were not sufficiently trainedto use such sophisticated military hardware. Bangladesh can hardly be serious in trying to suggest thatmilitants capable of using only homemade weapons are operating from India!
During the talks, India had once again made a case for joint patrolling of the border by the border guards ofthe two countries, a proposal Dhaka has rejected. On the face of it, the joint patrolling proposal makesexcellent sense. An estimated 6,000 people from Bangladesh cross over into India every day in search of work,many of them with the intention of settling permanently in the country. The border areas are also notoriousfor human trafficking in women and children, trans-border terrorism, and smuggling. India has repeatedlyprovided lists of terrorist camps in Bangladesh; Bangladesh has now reacted by giving its own list of allegedterrorist camps in India.
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Both countries have, individually, an insufficient force to effectively patrol the border, and jointpatrolling would help end abuses on both side. This was conceded during the March 2002 meeting between theDirectors General of the BSF and the BDR, when India had submitted the joint patrolling proposal in a list ofsix 'confidence building measures', and the then DG BDR had said that the proposals could secure somedividends, and had directed them to his Government for clearance. The issue came up again during the BSF-BDRmeeting in March 2003, following which it was agreed that joint patrolling would be implemented from July 1,2003. However, instead of responding to the BSF's draft on modalities for joint patrolling, Bangladeshrejected the proposal on August 1, 2003, with Foreign Minister Morshed Khan stating that the proposal was 'notfeasible'. Indian Foreign Secretary, Shashank, also raised the issue during his visit to Bangladesh on March10, 2004. This time the proposal was shot down by Bangladesh Home Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury on thegrounds that, since India had made specific allegations about the existence of terrorist camps in hiscountry's territory, there was 'no need for joint patrol.'
The BSF-BDR talks are intended as an exercise at smoothening out existing irritants and ensuring the securityof both nations, rather than sessions aimed at leveling charges and counter-charges. A higher degree oftransparency on Dhaka's part will be necessary before this annual exercise can serve its intended purpose.Absence of such transparency within the structure of bilateral relations, future options can only includeinternational scrutiny and investigations into developments such as the latest arms haul and Bangladesh'ssupport to terrorist and extremist groups - options that Premier Khaleda Zia would certainly prefer toexclude.
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Wasbir Hussain is Associate Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi; Consulting Editor, TheSentinel, Guwahati. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal
