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EDITORIAL
For equitable sharing of
maritime boundary
Usually at each other's throats when it comes to haranguing the opposition in parliament, Bangladesh's politicians are overly deft at squabbling for power and wasting much valuable time and energy lecturing and sermonising - not always in decorous words and phrases - on insubstantial flimsy issues. Such being the dispensation style, successive ruling party heavyweights took slipshod attitude towards vital national matters of far-reaching ramifications and significance, one such crucial matter being the maritime boundary issue.
This we say because four days hence, on March 17 - 18, an official level parley between Bangladesh and India is scheduled to be held in Delhi on the maritime boundary of both the countries, the second such conference with India after the first meet held in 1982. According to a Holiday report [March 6] the meeting at expert level will try to agree on certain principles how to determine the sea line. Bangladesh is for a compromise based on equitable sharing of territorial waters in the sea, while India and Myanmar are reportedly pressing for applying a principle of equidistance to fix the line.
Indeed, Bangladesh lost valuable time over the past two decades to determine its sea line for exploiting its resources. Both fishery and mineral resources including gas and oil in the country's exclusive economic zone have growing importance now with expansion of population and growing demand on resources, experts say.
In early November last year overt tension was evident when Bangladesh and Myanmar confronted each other to the extent of deploying warships and land forces along the border with Myanmar, over the latter's bid to unlawfully explore oil and gas in the disputed maritime zone in the Bay of Bengal. In reaction to an encroachment on the territory, Bangladesh deployed warships and land forces along its border with Myanmar over the latter's bid to explore oil and gas in a disputed maritime zone in the Bay of Bengal, creating the first major naval deployment in the bay over offshore oil and gas rights.
Bangladesh and India in September last resumed talks on their maritime boundary in the Bay of Bengal after a yawning gap of 28 years. Bangladesh shares the Bay with India and Myanmar but has not demarcated the sea territory with them, which is creating disputes mainly over offshore search of oil and gas. None of the countries have yet claimed their marine boundaries in the UN. Back in June, New Delhi and Yangon strongly opposed Bangladesh's offshore block bidding for exploration of oil and gas. Previously, Dhaka raised objections when India and Myanmar floated an international tender for searching offshore in 2006, accusing them of overlapping Bangladesh territory but did not get any reply from India.
In resolving the Bangladesh-India maritime boundary issue four issues have to be considered: the determination of the Hariabhanga border river boundary, especially the ownership of South Talpatty Island; secondly, the determination of boundary of territorial waters up to 12 miles; thirdly, the need for determination of the boundary of the exclusive economic zone of another 188 miles from the end of territorial waters (12 +188 miles = 200 miles economic zone). Finally, the issue of boundary demarcation of the continental shelf up to another 150 miles from the end of the exclusive economic zone (200 +150 miles = 350 miles of continental shelf).
If Bangladesh fails to resolve territorial waters issues in mutually arranged talks, then she should go to the UN arbitration. For that we must have a lot of exercise in the process. Meanwhile, Myanmar has already presented such claim to the UN agency last year while India is going to make it this year. Myanmar's claim covers much of Bangladesh's sea line. Bangladesh should lodge protest seeking the assistance of United Nations arbitration based on the International Law of the Sea against such claims to make India and Myanmar's claim at least disputed before it is filing its claim by 2011. However, we wish the ensuing Bangladesh-India maritime boundary talks a success.
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Transit: A hot political issue and
its alternative
Barrister Harun ur Rashid
India wants transit facilities through land territory of Bangladesh. The request is not new. Since 1972 India has sought for it. The successive governments of Bangladesh during the 37 years could not agree to it except granting transit through its waterways for Indian cargo vessels.
Ordinarily, transit through another country is considered necessary for economic growth and social development among states. More so in a globalised world, transit is taken for granted in many parts of the world. In recent days, Russia is ready to allow the US non-lethal cargo access through its territory for NATO supply line into Afghanistan.
The challenge is to make sure that transit facilities as a whole work for the benefit of the countries involved.
During India's External Affairs Minister's visit to Bangladesh on 9th February, the Bilateral Trade Agreement was renewed. This Trade Agreement, originally concluded in 1972, amended in 1980, continues to be renewed for three year periods under Article XXIII of the Agreement.
Article VIII of the Agreement states that the "Two governments agree to make mutually beneficial arrangements for the use of waterways, roadways and railways for commerce between the two countries for passage of goods between two places in one country through the territory of the other."
Although the both governments agree in principle to give transit access to each other through its roadways and railways, arrangements for such have to be agreed between them and there is no such agreement as of to- day.
When India seeks transit through Bangladesh land territory to seven states in its northeast, it turns into a prickly political issue in Bangladesh. Some advocate it, and some do not, for various reasons, and some of the reasons deserve mention as follows:
First, India has poor record to show on transit issue among its neighbours. For example in 1978 a Bangladesh trade delegation was scheduled to go to Bhutan through India's territory and India's permission came almost after one year (the air link between Bhutan and Bangladesh did not exist then).
Furthermore, the bilateral trade agreement between Bangladesh and Bhutan could not be signed in 1978 because India was reluctant at the time to provide transit facilities for Bangladesh and Bhutan for trade. Another instance is Bangladesh has given transit facilities to Nepal but India does not allow Nepal transit facility to use Bangladesh ports.
Second, fencing with steel and barbed wire of Bangladesh-India border is viewed as distrust on people of Bangladesh and hurts their sentiments. Against the backdrop, transit issue is perceived to be contrary to the spirit behind the sealing off border of about 4,025 kilometres with Bangladesh.
Third, Bangladesh is a much more densely populated country than India is (1045 per square kilometre in Bangladesh compared to 326 in India). Existing infrastructure for transit facilities through Bangladesh is very much inadequate. The government has to widen the highway through requisition of private lands in dense-packed populated areas. This will involve displacement of people and their re-settlement in another area and this could turn into a huge social problem for Bangladesh.
Fourth, there is a health factor involved. The highest HIV prevalence rates in India are found in the south and Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland in the northeast. It is reported that AIDS and drug addiction have been detected among a huge number of truck-drivers/helpers in India. They cannot pass through in one day (about 347 kilometres from entry to exit in Bangladesh) and have to stay overnight for rest and recreation in various places in Bangladesh. There has given an apprehension that AIDS and drug addiction may further spread in Bangladesh (about 12,000 HIV individuals already in Bangladesh) through transit facilities.
Fifth, trucks containing hazardous materials that meet with accidents in the transit may have catastrophe effects among the people who live near the transit route. Furthermore, the constant flow of hundreds of trucks and vehicles on the road will have impact on environmental degradations through emission of greenhouse gases in the country that is being seriously affected by climate change. Bangladesh is currently experiencing environmental problems which put pressure on human development and these will be further exacerbated by such environmental degradations.
Sixth, during the 37 years of Bangladesh's independence, India has little contribution to building infrastructure development in Bangladesh, although Japan and China have built eight bridges on its rivers for internal connectivity for economic and social development. India is perceived as more interested in developing itself into regional and global power. This has not gone well for image of India in Bangladesh.
Seventh and finally, bilateral issues, such as maritime boundary, land border implementation treaty and sharing of waters of trans-boundary rivers have been pending for decades and India does not seem interested to resolve these "bread and butter" issues for people of Bangladesh. Furthermore dams and barrages built on the trans-boundary rivers (Tipaimukh dam on the Barak River close to Sylhet district) without discussions with Bangladesh have regretfully created an impression that India wants to keep Bangladesh on its "toes", reflecting hardline attitude towards Bangladesh.
All these facts seemed to have created negative environment on the transit issue and provided ample fuel to make it a hot political issue.
The alternative
Experts suggest that an alternative to transit facilities is to seriously consider in setting up joint Bangladesh-India manufacturing industries in Bangladesh near the border of the northeast states so that manufactured goods and other necessities can be exported to those states. This is considered as mutually beneficial to both countries and the need for transit facilities through Bangladesh land territory may not be necessary for India.
As regards the other issue, access to Chittagong port from Agartala (Tripura state), India may create a political climate by resolving the pending core bilateral disputes what affect "bread and butter" for people and the Bangladesh government may find easier to carry people with it to grant access to the port.
The access to port must be viewed as a comprehensive package and must not be isolated from other pending bilateral issues. Trust begets trust, goodwill begets goodwill and Bangladesh-India relations must be made a "win-win" situation for all. India needs Bangladesh as Bangladesh needs India.
The writer is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.
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VIEW POINT
A view on Holiday's report
on BDR massacre
Mumtaz Iqbal
The article 'Foreign military intervention likely? Intelligence failure caused BDR disaster by Shahidul Islam (Holiday 6 March 09) is an eclectic mix of sensationalism, foreign intervention bogey, speculative assertions and pertinent questions.
Sensationalism
The sensationalism occurs right away in para 2 where Mr. Islam describes the Pilkhana killings as 'genocide.' It is not. Genocide is systematic killing over a period of time of an ethnic group with a view to exterminating it. What happened in Pilkhana was a massacre mainly of Bangladesh army officers. Its motive and modalities are the subject of probes by CID and two commissions (Anisuzzaman and Army).
Foreign intervention bogey
Immediately thereafter, in paras 3-5, the author raises the bogey of foreign-read Indian-military intervention under the subheading Threat to sovereignty.
Such a threat is certainly a matter of concern to us. Alas, Mr. Islam backs up this claim with innuendos rather than reasonable circumstantial evidence (obviously, hard evidence won't come easily).
Thus in para 3, quoting Hindustan Times he states that "crisis in Bangladesh had put on alert the armed forces of India who remain stand by for what they said 'humanitarian intervention' inside Bangladesh."
What this somewhat tortuous sentence is implying that the 1.3-million men Indian Army, 1,000-combat planes IAF and 37-warship navy is on stand-by. Since the bulk of India's armed forces are deployed against Pakistan and PRC, that is, away from Bangladesh, it doesn't make sense for India to incur the expense of putting these forces on alert/stand-by against a non-existent threat.
Quoting the same paper, the article in para 4 states that Russian-built IL-76-which dropped paratroopers in Maldives 1988 - and AN-32 transports at IAF, Jorhat were ready to conduct this 'intervention.' Presumably they could drop paratroopers, replicating Maldives. But absent ground support, they would be ineffective e.g. Arnhem 1944 (see A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan). Besides, Bangladesh is not Maldives.
Why the Hindustan Times published such amateurishly loaded news is inexplicable. Psy-war, perhaps? Or does it belong to the too clever by half section of Indian media that relishes spreading knee-jerk news about Bangladesh? In fairness, some elements of our press do reciprocate these sentiments with appropriate gusto.
In para 5, the article cites our neighbour's "readiness to intervene" by quoting DG, BSF's statement that "...all our troops and personnel deployed on Indo-Bangladesh border to remain on high alert." Isn't this a precautionary move that we would also take if trouble broke out along our Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram or West Bengal borders?
To put things in perspective, if Delhi didn't intervene in August 1975, when things were more delicate and the Indo-Bangladesh Friendship Treaty extant, why should it do so in 2009? Besides, intervention isn't always efficacious e.g. IPKF, Sri Lanka 1987-90.
Raising the bogey of Indian military intervention may sell newspapers and appeal to a section of Bangladeshis but may not help to determine the story behind Pilkhana.
Speculative assertions
In paras 14-26, the article describes 11 stages of how and by whom the mutiny was carried out. Superficially these have the ring of plausibility but in reality suffer from being speculative. Some examples follow.
First, let's take para 14. This boldly asserts that "The following facts, gathered from over a dozen of reliable sources..." As a matter of fact, the material facts such as the ringleaders, the actual killers et al are still being ascertained. So at this stage to talk about 'facts' is somewhat premature.
Similarly, who are these so-called "reliable sources." Are they neutral, non-partisan or motivated? Giving names of some sources would have helped the reader to assess their credibility and reliability.
Second, para 15 starts off "Investigators have learnt" This is revealing but who exactly are these investigators? Then the para states "...25 trained foreign commandos entered Bangladesh illegally... within 11 January." What nationality were they and where were they trained? Even more intriguing is the assertion that they were "...received and sheltered by individuals working under cover as diplomats." Here again, who were these diplomats?
Para 16 is explosive. It claims "...10-12 BDR mutineers ...recruited as moles...provide(d) precise information to foreign team via three senior political leaders of the country." Who are these senior leaders?
Equally incendiary para 19 asserts that at 10:30 pm 24 February "...a segment of the foreign killing squad...25 BDR members...plus three young leading politicians...met in a briefing" in a Dhaka house. Who are these young politicians? Are then six politicians involved, three seniors and three juniors?
Third, para 25 mentions that "...the last two foreign commandos-one male and one female-left BDR compound...afternoon...February 26." Interesting assertion but again, this seems another conjecture hiding as a 'fact.'
Pertinent questions
The article's strength lies in the pertinent questions raised about the process of the authorities' handling of the Pilkhana crisis (paras 7-12; 29-31). The inelegant NA squabbling between the AL and BNP is touched upon in para 7. Paras 8-9 outline the blame-game over lack of military action, despite call for help to the PM by the deceased BDR DG Maj. Gen. Shakeel Ahmed around 0930 or earlier.
But the real sting lies in paras 10-12. Para 10 mentions about the "...visibly uncoordinated political mission...none had a clue (about)...what had occurred...within Pilkhana compound...PM declared general amnesty...sent her political colleagues to talk to rebel soldiers inside Pilkhana...without first ensuring safety of entrapped officers...family members."
Allegations certainly deserve an answer
Para 11 questions the "...failure...launching of a rescue mission...absence of pressure for...release ... hostages as precondition to...amnesty"
These are strong allegations and certainly deserve an answer. The PM was right to seek a peaceful resolution to avoid or minimize casualties.
But whoever advised the PM over the process of negotiating with the mutineers, especially meeting them and granting amnesty in advance, did not do her or the country a service, particularly as 90 per cent of the hostages had been killed by 11:00 on 25 February (newspaper reports 10 March) Perhaps the probes will shed light on this aspect.
Ill-advised campaign logic
Para 12 draws attention to an AL "...MP...launch(ing) publicity campaign to clear three miles radius of BDR headquarters." If correct, the campaign's logic and motive appear incredible and ill-advised.
For one of the first things to do in combating mutiny is to isolate and quarantine the area with a force overwhelmingly superior to that of the mutineers. The message to the mutineers is that they have no way to escape even though they have the hostages as bargaining chips. Regrettably, this was not done or done in a half-cocked way were done at all (see newspaper reports 10 March).
Paras 29-30 reiterate the failure of intelligence. This is -self-evident and doesn't need comment.
There's plenty of blame to go around. But in para 32, the author rightly suggests that "...innocent BDR members should not face any persecutions." Revenge would be counter-productive and vitiate confidence building between officers and men, a paramount input in BDR's impending particularly after many hostages were killed by 11 AM on 25 February, restructuring.
But his suggestion to rename BDR as Border Guards Regiment (BGR) is untenable. For it were rogue members of BDR, not BDR itself, that committed the crime.
To rename BDR is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The battalion(s) involved should be disbanded while staff units e.g. RSU, may be redesignated.
Publishing a White Paper on what happened would probably bring closure to this sorry incident.
The author is a free lancer.
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LETTERS
Model schools and rural secondary schools
Dear Editor:
The 306 non-government rural secondary schools in 64 districts across the country will be model schools under a project. It is undoubtedly a good and timely initiative when the quality of education in the rural secondary schools has severely deteriorated. In 2007, no one could pass the SSC exam in 248 secondary schools -- and all are schools.
Under this project, infrastructure, teacher recruitment, modern laboratory, ICT facility and teacher training would be provided.
These will enhance quality of education in rural secondary schools.
Teacher's accountability should be ensured (at least 70 per cent students must passed, for the first year and the next year the rate of pass would be 80 per cent. If teachers fail, s/he will be face 'show cause' notice given a copy to the local education office.
At least 70 per cent students must pass in scholarship exam of grade VIII; if no one can pass in this scholarship exam, the MPO of that school should be stopped.
Md. Tofazzel Hossain
Kushtia
tofa01@yahoo.com
BDR Memorial and park
Dear Editor:
A BDR Memorial may be erected at the existing site at Peelkhana at a later stage. The BDR headquarters may be shifted elsewhere in Dhaka to a less crowded place, not in the centre of the metropolis.
It would ease the traffic jam in the area (DRA to New Market), and provide a peaceful and harmonious location/park for the people to pay their homage to the departed souls.
Md. Abad,
Dhaka.
Concept of Caretaker Government
Dear Editor,
The concept of the Caretaker Government in our country was first advanced by the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh. Later the Awami League took it up as their political issue and started hartal to establish the Caretaker Government (CG). At one stage they resigned from the Jatiya Sangsad on that issue.
After completion of a five-year term as per the Constitution, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) arranged for general election and then a parliament was formed where the bill for the CG was passed. After that Begum Khaleda Zia-led BNP Government transferred power to the CG as per the Constitution.
As the political parties did not believe each other in respect of general election the concept of the Caretaker Government was adopted. The purpose of the CG is to hold free, fair and acceptable general election within 90 days though there is an Election Commission to conduct the polls. The CG will perform office routine works only during its incumbency. But the immediate past CG had been in power for about 2 years violating the Constitution. The CG imposed Emergency rules and robbed the people of their rights and thereby made the people poorer economically. Many, mostly politicians, were affected by the emergency. Some of them were illegally arrested on graft cases and tortured physically and mentally. But ultimately the CG could not prove the so-called graft cases.
The CG passed 122 ordinances. The elected government now selected 54 ordinances to pass in the parliament as per report of the committee.
The elected grand-alliance Government now feel it necessary to amend the Constitution to approve the immediate past Army-backed undemocratic Caretaker Government that had been in power for about 2 years unconstitutionally. If the tenure of office of the CG is not approved the 29 December election would be unconstitutional. The Election Commission conducted the polls under the gaze and supervision of the CG.
If the 29 December poll is unconstitutional then the elected grand-alliance government would also be unconstitutional. Then all ordinances passed by the CG would also be unlawful. Sitting in the House would also be unconstitutional for the lawmakers. The very concept of the CG would be then unconstitutional. So, ratifying the 2 years of Emergency rules by the CG should not be opposed by the law makers.
The Constitution is the supreme document of the Republic. It is not a book that its provision will be changed on demand from any quarter at any time.
The government should take legal action against persons who were involved in running the Caretaker Government unconstitutionally for 2 years. If they are left without legal action then it will be a precedence for future governments that will come to power. They will then run unconstitutionally for 20 years to achieve their vision. The opposition lawmakers should realise it.
A.M.K. Chowdhury,
West Masdhair, Narayanganj.
Medium of instruction should be Bangla
Dear Editor:
Our mother tongue is Bangla. We should use our own language everywhere as the people of China or India are using their own mother language, even also as their medium of education. As a result, they have been able to rapidly flourish.
So, our mother language Bangla should be our medium of education. In higher studies also this needs to be given priority.
Habibur Rashid Ismail,
Jamea Fadil Madrassa,
Chittagong.
habibur.rashid.ismail@gmail.com
Digital overload: Lessons
Dear Editor:
The Internet piece published in the Holiday (Feb. 27) is good reading. There are lessons in it for the politicians, and for Bangladesh.
Digital overload reduces the communication gaps, especially in the rural area. so long isolated, physically (transport), and wirelessly.
Proof? One in three Bangladeshis has a mobile phone (50m, out of 150 million). Note, we are in LDC group. Why so popular? Social starvation! Political gift of the gab is no longer a shield. Secrecy is dangerous, as also the availability of the right information (at the right time). Complete at electronic speed.
Alif Zabr,
Dhaka.
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