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Dhaka’s conditions for India-Myanmar pipeline through Bangladesh |
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Taking a cue from New Delhi’s demand for transit routes through Pakistan and Iran, Dhaka has said that it will consider allowing a similar pipeline, originating from Myanmar provided India allows Bangladesh a free trade corridor to Nepal and accompanying trade benefits.
It may be recalled that India has asked Islamabad to provide transit access and MFN status if it wants New Delhi to agree to an Indo-Iranian pipeline passing through Pakistan. Also, Iran has been asked to provide transit rights to Central Asia through the Bandar Abbas corridor.
Dhaka has communicated its fresh conditions on allowing the Myanmar-India pipeline through its territory a month before India’s Petroleum Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, visits Dhaka and Yangon to get Bangladesh’s consent to the pipeline. Talks between India and Bangladesh are likely to be held around January 11-13 and the trilateral talks including Myanmar on January 17 and 18.
Sources say Dhaka has agreed, in principle, with the pipeline proposal but it wants the pipeline to be laid along the existing roads and highways and the project jointly managed by India and Bangladesh. It also wants India to allow Bangladesh to use the pipeline to export its gas to India or import it from Myanmar. India would build the $1 billion 290-km gas trunk line while Bangladesh’s State-owned Gas Transmission Co. would have responsibility for managing the stretch in its country. Bangladesh expects to earn about $125 million annually as transit fee for the pipeline that would run through Arakan [Rakhine] State in Myanmar and the Indian States of Mizoram and Tripura, before crossing Bangladesh to Kolkata. ONGC Videsh Ltd. and GAIL [India] want to build the link to carry gas from the Shwe field in Myanmar.
Joint border inspection but no joint operations
Dhaka is reluctant to accept India’s demand for joint operations to flush out terrorists from Bangladesh and stop infiltration, but it has agreed to hold a fresh inspection of the disputed areas along the international border in Assam very soon. Defence Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, speaking in Kolkata on Dec. 12 said India would continue dialogue with Bangladesh for undertaking Bhutan-like flush-out operations against North-eastern insurgents, who have set up bases in its territory.
As for joint inspection of disputed areas, it follows talks between the Home Secretaries of the two countries recently to resolve the four-decade-old border dispute that has so far eluded a settlement. The Government has asked the district authorities in Karimganj in Lower Assam to submit a report on the disputed portions of the India-Bangladesh border in the Lathitilla-Dumabari sector of the district. Official sources say that around 364 bighas of land in the Lathitilla-Dumabari sector is in the alleged possession of Bangladesh since 1971. Although the survey authorities have completed the demarcation of over 4000 km of the border, they have not been able to resolve disputes in approximately 6.5 km along the States of Assam, Tripura and West Bengal. The situation has been further aggravated in the border district of Karimganj by the fact that North-east insurgents, who have training camps in Bangladesh, use the Lathitilla-Dumarbari sector as a corridor for cross-border movement. Gun-runners operating in the area have also been using the corridor to smuggle arms.
Strained ties with Bangladesh
A major New Delhi complaint against Dhaka is that the successive Governments in Bangladesh barring that of the Awami League in the past, have never recognized the role of the Indian military in the liberation of the country and never reciprocated Indian gestures like the Ganga Waters Treaty of 1996. Instead, the Governments in Dhaka have been faithfully following the same policy towards India as was preached, pursued and practised by Pakistan. The present Khaleda Zia Government, which assumed office in October 2001, is accused of providing shelter, succour and logistical support to insurgents from India’s North-east in 200-odd camps in the country, yet denying their existence. Khaleda Zia once termed these rebels as patriots and freedom fighters trying to liberate the North-east from Indian rule. In discussions on bilateral relations, India invariably raises two issues – the existence of the North-east insurgent camps in Bangladesh and the influx of Bangladesh nationals into India who, according to current estimates, number around 20 million, mostly living in West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, Mumbai and Delhi.
Forgetting diplomatic decency and decorum, in early September, the Bangladesh Foreign Minister, while addressing the Bangladesh-India Dialogue, made an outburst against India and threatened, “Bangladesh could play havoc in the North-east as Delhi must remember that seven North-eastern States of India are Bangladesh-locked”. His statement was not only an affront to India but also an interference in its domestic affairs.
The accidental seizure of a huge cache of sophisticated arms and ammunition by security officers of Bangladesh on April 2 in Chittagong port was not only startling but a danger signal for India. The arms and ammunition were meant for onward dispatch to ULFA and other N.E. militants through North Bengal via Bogra in Bangladesh with a view to arming them for creating panic, unrest and destabilization in the North-east. Pakistan has been exporting terror through ISI and Al-Qaeda operatives in Bangladesh. It is widely believed that the ISI was involved in the serial blasts in Dhemaji [a district headquarters of Assam] and also in subsequent blasts in Nagaland and Assam killing and maiming many people including children and women.
For several years, the Government of India has been pursuing a soft policy towards Bangladesh. Even the last Vajpayee-led NDA Government was no exception. It was under an illusion that Bangladesh would oblige India by exporting natural gas and providing transit and transshipment facilities to the landlocked North-eastern States. That is why the Vajpayee Government remained silent when activists of the ruling BNP-Jamat alliance perpetrated brutalities on religious and ethnic minorities in Bangladesh. But, New Delhi now notes that Bangladesh would never agree to any scheme which would benefit India.
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