Asia Times: Bangladeshi opposition to transit for India



	August 14, 1999	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Bangladeshi opposition to transit for India
By Tabibul Islam

DHAKA - Plans to provide transit facilities for India through Bangladesh have provided mainstream opposition parties with a political handle with which to beat the Awami League government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Indeed, opposition parties are now rallying for an all-out movement to dislodge the three-year-old government and force the calling of mid-term elections over the issue.

India needs to reinforce road links with its seven northeastern states and presently depends on a narrow strip of land sandwiched between northern Bangladesh and Bhutan. Ever since the government approved - in principle - a proposal for transshipment of Indian goods through existing land routes in Bangladesh, clamor to cancel the agreement has been building.

According to Hasina, Bangladesh could earn at least $400 million annually for the facility and create employment opportunities for more than 200,000 people.

But her main political rival and chairperson of the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), Begum Khaleda Zia, argues that the facility will jeopardize the country's sovereignty and security. Khaleda Zia threatened to boycott parliament and begin a non-stop countrywide general strike unless the government rescinds this ''sinister move with an ulterior motive.''

''We will not allow the Awami League government to provide transit to India until the last drop of our blood falls,'' she thundered at a political rally in eastern Comilla district on Sunday. She has support from former president and chairman of the Jatiya Party, H.M. Ershad, who holds that Bangladesh would be destroyed if India were allowed to carry goods through Bangladesh.

The fundamentalist, Jamaat-e-Islami and left-leaning parties also have joined in the chorus criticizing the government for plans to provide India with transit facilities.

On August 2, the opposition groups enforced a 30-hour general strike as a sampler of what they plan to do and have since been holding public meetings to build up popular support for their latest cause.

Arguments against the deal with India are many and start with suggestions that foreign investment in Bangladesh could dry up and that the country would be flooded with Indian manufactures. Talukder Maniruzzaman, who teaches political science at the Dhaka University and is known for his anti-India views, says the transit facilities are meant to move arms and troops to the rebellious north-eastern states. He urges people not to be fooled by ''the crafty sugar-coated illusory rhetoric of the Indian rulers . . . let the whole nation stand against the Indian design and virtual capitulation by the weak and naive rulers of present Bangladesh.''

Another opponent of the deal, MK Anwar, who was commerce minister in the previous BNP government, cites ''social and health'' reasons and says Indian truck drivers could spread HIV in Bangladesh. His colleague in the BNP government and former finance minister, Saidur Rahman has a more balanced view and suggests a mutually-beneficial package on the issue following a through public debate on the issue.

But Rahman thinks that present infrastructure in Bangladesh is insufficiently developed to handle the huge volumes of traffic which are expected and supports a railway rather than a road system.

In defense of her position, Sheikh Hasina has found that her best argument against the opposition parties is that they, and not the Awami League, initiated the transit deal. Hasina points out that General Zia ur Rahman (Khaleda Zia's assassinated husband) first signed a transit agreement with India in 1980 which allowed the neighboring country to carry its goods through Bangladesh over rail, road, water and air.

In 1993, Khaleda Zia, heading a BNP government, signed the South Asia Preferential Trade Agreement (SAPTA) which clearly mentioned transit facilities for India. ''Now they [the opposition] are opposing it to confuse the people,'' Sheikh Hasina said.

While opposition leaders campaign against the decision, business leaders like Abdul Awal Mintoo welcome it as a means of earning badly needed foreign exchange for the country, ranked among the poorest in the world. Impartial observers say issue should have been debated in parliament and other forums before the government gave it the green light.

Commerce and Industry minister Tofail Ahmed has in fact categorically stated that the issue will be discussed in parliament and if necessary cancelled. He accused the BNP leadership of double standards. ''BNP signed the agreement to give transit to India,'' he said calling on the opposition to ''shun the politics of immorality.''

The government could have used the opportunity to persuade India to grant similar facilities to Bangladesh to carry its goods to Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka through Indian land routes, other critics said.

(Inter Press Service)

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