The price of political indifference

http://baganland.blogspot.com/2008/11/price-of-political-indifference.html

Brig Gen Shahedul Anam Khan ndc, psc (Retd)

THANKFULLY, a conflict situation with Myanmar has been avoided, for the time being at least. The incident had the making of a protracted naval deployment with the potential of a conflict. The maritime issue has unfortunately spilled over onto the land, with the BDR being now confronted by a heavily reinforced border security force of Myanmar along the Bangla-Myanmar border.

The Korean exploration rig, that encroached into our territorial waters in the area of block-13 backed up by two Myanmar man-of-war, has been withdrawn inside Myanmar waters, and whatever reason they would like to cite for doing so, undoubtedly the major motivation was the physical demonstration by the Bangladesh Navy of our resolve to protect our national interest and our territory at all cost.


But one would like to ask whether the situation should have come to such a pass at all. This, if I may make so bold as to assert, is the result of sloth and extremely lackadaisical attitude of, on the one hand, the successive governments over the years since the adoption and coming into force of UNCLOS III in 1994, and on the other, the inability of our foreign ministry to convince the political leadership of the significance of the issue, one that was of a paramount national interest, and the need to address it on an urgent basis.

That we need leaders capable of comprehending issues of long-term strategic significance is borne out by the Territorial Waters and Maritime Zone Act 1974, a very timely and appropriate move on the part of the leaders of the time, and in contrast, by the indifference with which the issue of delimitation, particularly after we had ratified UNCLOS-III in July 2001, was handled at the political level. Needless to say, in the dynamics of our bilateral relations with Myanmar the nub of the matter is the UNCLOS-III and maritime boundary delimitation.

There was very little, if any, political guidance as to how to go about handling the matter of encroachment of our territorial waters and at the same time get our two neighbours to agree on an equitable resolution of the delimitation issue before the cutoff date for Bangladesh, i.e. July 2011. It may be mentioned that the lines, that India and Myanmar are using to define their territorial waters, if accepted, would completely block Bangladesh's access to the extended continental shelf.

Bangladesh needs to lodge claims over its maritime boundary to the International Seabed Authority as per UNCLOS-III by 2011. As per the convention, Bangladesh will be required to submit necessary documents to the UN to validate its claim of territorial water, EEZ up to 200 nautical miles and continental shelf up to 350 nm from the baseline, which we had declared through the said act of 1974, or else lose the right over an area, as large if not larger, than mainland Bangladesh.

To whose failure should one ascribe the fact that since the last more than 20 years Bangladesh could not sit with either of our two neighbours for even once ? May one ask the status of the expert committee and what have its inputs been since it was formulated in 2004? And can we be fully assured by the statement of the foreign ministry, given on the eve of General Moung Mint's visit to Dhaka in September of this year as leader of the Myanmar delegation, that Bangladesh was in the final stage of preparation to put forward its claim to the United Nations?

About the recent development, it can be said with some certainty that the matter did not brew up in a day or a week. Firstly, when we delimited the gas blocks in our EEZ, both Myanmar and India protested, claiming that Bangladesh had encroached into their territory. On the contrary, one is not aware of any official protest lodged from our side when Myanmar went for production sharing contract of gas blocks, some of which were in Bangladesh claimed EEZ.

Between 2005 and now the Korean company had been conducting survey of the area, and yet there was no protest from our side. It appears as if the foreign ministry had switched off completely insofar as this issue is concerned, till November 1 happened, or that Myanmar paid little heed to our diplomatic moves thinking that we would not go so far as to precipitate a situation where, given the severe imbalance in naval strength weighted in favour of Myanmar, we would be prepared to employ force to uphold our territorial integrity, more so at a time when we are going through a political flux. The fact is, we had failed to initially deter an aggressive posture of our neighbour.

One needs to go into the reasons why Myanmar chose this moment to conduct oil and gas exploration inside our territory when only in the month of September a high level delegation from that country had been in Dhaka to discuss delimitation issues, and also appreciate the strategic and political implications of the act.

It is well to remember that 2009 is the cut off year by when Myanmar has to submit its claims to the UN under the provisions of UNCLOS-III. Apart from establishing its right by possession, planting a rig in areas claimed by Bangladesh would provide them a strong basis to register their claim on the extended continental shelf. This was perhaps also to test Bangladesh militarily in view of our less than firm diplomatic position vis a vis Myanmar that the past governments had taken. This might well have prompted India, with whom too we have unresolved maritime issues, to resort to a similar venture, taking this as a precedent. The ensuing situation would have impacted severely on our national interest.

At the end of the day a strong diplomatic posture, backed up by the Bangladesh Navy who gave the message that it meant business, saw the resolution of the issue. But I feel that it is only temporary. How can we be sure that Myanmar will desist from similar ventures in the future? We cannot guess others' intention, but what we can certainly do is to ensure at our end certain objective conditions that would deter others from harming our interest.

Firstly, we must gather all the relevant data and have them verified by international agencies. That will help us establish our right on the maritime areas that we have staked our claim on. At the same time we must register our objections to claims made by the other co-littoral countries on our EEZ. While we must never abjure the path of friendly and peaceful way of settling differences, the recent incident has reinforced the fact that our forces must not only be strong but their deterrence capability must be credible.

Needless to say, our navy lacks the resources even to maintain vigilance on our claimed EEZ, not to speak of protecting it. Time has come to seriously get down to planning the physical defence of our country. Notwithstanding the budget crunch, our military expenditure can be so rationalised, and acquisition of weapons and equipment prioritised, so as not to unnecessarily burden the soft sectors.

The author is Editor, Defence & Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.