PRICE OF DISCORDANT DIPLOMACY

M. Shahidul Islam

Much of the latest diplomatic dancing of the Caretaker Government (CG) is out of tune with the music the nation wants it to follow. Dealings with the USA and India in particular have become too controversial as the government is only giving away too much without taking anything substantive in return.
   In recent months, a number of major power plant deals were contracted out to Indian companies without any scrutiny while suspected Islamic militants are being sent to gallows for reasons that remain at best obscure. The candid admission by the IGP that the charges brought against the accused of the April 2004 Chittagong port arms smuggling incident were false - and the real culprits were the HuJI- has made observers very suspicious of how the so called US-led war on terror is being conducted by the current administration.
   If the charges were falsely laid, were the inputs in the investigations made for years by the Interpol, FBI, Scotland Yard and the RAW too were misleading? Did not the same IGP work under the previous administration when the false charges were brought against innocent people many of whom have long been languishing in custody? Even the frustrated widow of former finance minister SAMS Kibria had accused the government of blaming the HuJI for all crimes in order not to get into the real facts.
   That aside, the style and the posture of diplomacy with India in particular is evoking serious concerns among experts who think, under the CG, Bangladesh is turning into a client state of our big neighbour. They say, having completed much of the border fencing, India has been aggressively pursuing to get land, air and sea transit facilities from the CG which it could not obtain from the elected governments of the past due to the entrenched geopolitical and economic implications, and the sensitivity of the issues among the estranged population of the Indian north east.
   That partly explains why the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in mid-February with respect to mutual air services has allowed India to transport by air all types of military hardware to the troubled north eastern states without Dhaka being afforded an opportunity to raise question about the contents of the consignments being transported over its sky. Sources say the MoU also agreed to allow Indian military cargo aircrafts to land and take off inside Bangladesh soil, without any prior notification. Given that India has signed a deal with the USA to procure about two squadrons of transport aircrafts that can land and take off surreptitiously and on any terrain, those experts have much to be wary of how the air service deal entailed such a clause.
   The blunder was, however, spotted belatedly by the DGFI and that is what has led to the chief of the Bangladesh delegation, secretary of civil aviation, being relegated into an Officer on Special Duty (OSD) upon his return to Dhaka from Delhi at the conclusion of the bilateral aviation meeting on February 15.
   Land transit
   Sources also say the land transit demand of India is on its way to be approved, albeit in a circuitous manner, once India is allowed to use Chittagong port facility for which a draft agreement is ready.
   The veracity of this news came from Sudhakar Dalela, the councillor for trade and commerce at the Indian High Commission in Dhaka, who was quoted by an Indian media outlet as having said on March 13 that, ?The Bangladesh government is actively considering the Indian proposal to allow Chittagong port to be used by India for easy communication with northeastern states.? Chittagong port is only 75 km from Tripura?s border town of Sabroom.
   Dalela also confirmed he and other Indian officials, accompanied by Bangladeshi officials, have recently visited India-Bangladesh land custom stations along Tripura. Of the 32 land port custom outposts along the 4,095-km border, 24 are on the Indian side; 4 of them being in Tripura, 5 in West Bengal, 8 in Meghalaya and 3 in Assam. Only Mizoram, which shares 318 km long border with Bangladesh, has no custom outpost along the border. Delhi is now pressurizing Dhaka to open Demagiri-Thegamikh and Sabroom-Ramgarh routes between Bangladesh and Mizoram. Add to this the inland water transit facility India enjoys from Bangladesh, pursuant to the IWT&T Protocol of 1972 - which is renewed at an interval of every two year. The Protocol allows India to use port of call transit inside major Bangladeshi ports at Narayanganj, Sirajganj, Khulana and Mongla.
   The demand from India for transit facilities has been one of the most persistent and controversial ones in the diplomatic history of the two neighbours. Yet, even the AL government did not concede to this sensitive issue due to fear of public anger, although everyone knows the distance between Kolkata and Agartala could be reduced from 1,500 to 350 km if Dhaka agreed to the Indian proposal.
   Another major factor is: Indian geopolitical handicap in north eastern states predates the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent country and the fault does not lie with Dhaka. That the CG has chosen to ignore that historic fact and agreed to cure that long standing Indian handicap by compromising our national security and vital economic concerns is very unfortunate. Sources say, upon assurance from Dhaka, work toward Kolkata- Agartala rail link has nearly completed and Kumarghat and Agartala will be connected via rail within months. This fact is further corroborated by the information contained in the 2008-09 Indian railway budget outlays, which has earmarked special funds for rail link between Sabroom and Agartala.
   Southeast via Ctg
   Besides, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar said in a recent interview, ?If the Indian Railways extends its line up to Sabroom, it will be very easy to connect with the Chittagong international port, which is just 75 km from the bordering town.? Sarkar added, ?After extending the railway line to Sabroom, Tripura and the entire northeast would be linked with Southeast Asia too.?
   One might be tempted to ask what the CG had received in return for fulfilling all the pending demands of India which the elected governments of the past did not dare to comply with? Records show, only US$150 million line of credit for railways development in bordering areas. Interestingly, this measly offer of credit has created so much impetus among the CG stalwarts that the Dhaka-Kolkata train service has been slated to begin soon, according to army chief General Moeen U Ahmed who has personally visited the train crossing point at the border during his recent high profile India visit.
   No one, however, cared to examine how these deals would change the entire geopolitical landscape of a region where Delhi has been fighting a series of insurgencies since the 1950s. None also bothered to ponder how the Bangladeshi producers of goods and services will compete and survive if India is given further opportunities to take over our internal market by using this cobweb of connectivity? The government also overlooked the ramifications the newly acquired land, air and sea connectivity will engender by changing the very fundamentals upon which the geopolitical and economic landscapes of the region have evolved over the ages.
   Until now, northeast India obtained its major access to Bangladesh through Dawki (India)/ Tamabil (Bangladesh) route and all freight traffic by road to and from Bangladesh needs transshipment at the border. Trucks from other neighbouring countries are not allowed to travel on the road networks of Bangladesh due to differences in the axle load limit and India do not allow Bangladeshi trucks to travel to India. Given that Bangladesh imports many time more than it exports to India, the Benapole - Petrapole route carries the heaviest traffic, accounting for about 80 per cent (in terms of value) of India?s export to Bangladesh. Currently, around 300 trucks are moving daily via Benapole ? Petrapole border point.
   With the added Tripura-bound traffic movement from Chittagong port, Bangladesh must not only cater for extra traffic and extra vigilance at the Tripura border points to guard against cross border arms smuggling of north eastern insurgents, surveillance is also needed to ensure that goods imported for Indian northeast via Chittagong port do not end up in Bangladesh markets to inflate the fortunes of Indian importers by inspiring smuggling within Bangladesh. Geopolitically, by obtaining facilities to use Chittagong port to connect Tripura - and the forthcoming Dhaka-Kolkata rail link affording transportation of Indian goods between Kolkata and the northeastern states of Assam, Meghalaya, and Arunachal Pradesh - the Indian authorities will have obtained almost everything it needed to connect Delhi with the landlocked north east. This must make Delhi happy enough to celebrate as such a feat had denied India since 1947.
   Wrath of NE insurgents
   With respect to the dividend for Bangladesh, no one needs reminding as to who will dominate that connected market while Bangladesh will earn the wrath of the northeastern insurgents for allowing Delhi such an opportunity. Militarily, the insurgents have so far proven insurmountable to the mighty military capability of India and, our own military may seem like helpless insects before them.
   These fundamental concerns aside, there is something more in the offing as Delhi?s appetite for more economic and geopolitical advantages remains insatiable. Since January 2008, India began to insist on the signing of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Bangladesh. ?India is ready to sign an FTA with Bangladesh in view of the positive outcome of a Delhi-Colombo FTA,? Indian High Commissioner Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty said in Dhaka before a delegation of the foreign and international chamber of commerce. The envoy lamented as, what he said, ?There had been no progress on FTA discussion after the latest negotiations of 2002.?
   Chakravarty might have outsmarted many of his predecessors, but he ought to have been mindful that the last elected government of the country made much of those deals contingent upon India agreeing to facilitate energy transfer from Nepal and Bhutan by allowing the intervening Indian land for such usage, among some other preconditions. Brushing aside as a ?wrong concept? the usage of Indian land as a transit route between Bangladesh and Nepal, the Indian envoy quipped, ?Both Bangladesh and Nepal are now enjoying such a facility in other ways.? Are they really?
   In that January gathering, the Indian envoy also made hints of the ongoing construction of the Agartala-Akhaura rail link and Delhi?s hoped for access to New Mooring Terminal at Chittagong Port. Thus began the hurry-scurry among the CG officials which has resulted, in weeks, Dhaka agreeing to allow India to use Chittagong port. Coincidentally perhaps, the decision came on the heel of army chief?s return from Delhi after a series of meetings with senior Indian officials and ministers.
   Now that Delhi has got in months what it could not obtain in decades, will India lift all restrictions on Bangladesh-Nepal relations; something Bangladesh can legitimately claim due to the prevalence of a number of bilateral agreements signed between Nepal and Pakistan, and, for which, Bangladesh is the lawful inheritor?
   By not allowing corridor facility to Bangladesh in the by gone years, India has obstructed the execution of many international agreements signed between Pakistan and Nepal since the two countries established full diplomatic relations in 1962. Two such agreements between Kathmandu and Karachi (then Pakistan?s capital) were signed in October 1962, calling for reciprocal most-favoured- nation treatment. And, a January 1963 agreement provided Nepal with free trade and transit facilities through the port of Chittagong. This arrangement reduced the landlocked Nepal?s dependence on India for import privileges, particularly after the establishment of an air link with East Pakistan later that year. The efforts to secure another transit route through East Pakistan were blocked by India as it contained proposal for the use of the intervening Indian territory. Bangladesh too failed to secure that accord in the last 36 years.
   Although a turning point in Nepal-Bangladesh relations arrived in April 1976 once the two countries signed four new agreements relating to trade, transit, civil aviation, and technical cooperation, Indian obduracy prevented the implementation of the commitments expressed by the two neighbours in a joint communiqu頴hat promised to maintain close cooperation in the fields of power generation and water resources development.
   All these agreements also laid out the legitimate foundation for unobstructed dealings between Bangladesh and Nepal on all bilateral matters, provided the Indian authorities facilitated the use of the land corridor to such purposes and did not create pressure on Nepal not to cooperate with Bangladesh.
   The lesson for our government is hence an instructive one: Decades of India?s highhandedness over Nepal has turned that country into a Maoist bastion. Bangladesh too is likely to be swept by radical elements if the Indian regional desires are not treated with discrimination, case by case, and without jeopardizing our vital national interests. After all, globalization is a bogey for exploitation which small and poor nations must brace with care and caution. And, pass up altogether if possible.