30 April, 2001
The Times Of India
Dateline Dhaka
BDR chief is not our man: BNP
By Siddharth Varadarajan
The Times of India News Service
DHAKA: For the Indian government, Maj Gen Fazlur Rahman, the Bangladesh Rifles
(BDR) chief who ordered his men into Pyrduwah/Padua on April 15, is nothing
more than a glorified agent of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, a
cipher who did what he did in order to undermine the India-friendly
government of Sheikh Hasina.
But the BNP says that far from being their hatchet man, the BDR chief is
actually related to a senior leader of Sheikh Hasina's Awami League and was
hand-picked for the job by the prime minister herself.
In a formal reaction to rumours swirling around in New Delhi linking the BNP
to the Padua action, the party strongly denied any involvement with the BDR
chief and dropped a broad hint that Sheikh Hasina had tried to stage-manage
the incidents at the border in order to derive electoral mileage.
Though BNP leader Khaleda Zia preferred not to speak about the border clashes,
party secretary-general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan told The Times of India that the
BDR's action at Padua was "almost certainly" cleared by Sheikh Hasina.
Bhuiyan also confessed that neither he nor Khaleda even knew about the fact
that a part of Padua was under Indian control until the BDR chief and the
home minister announced that it had been "liberated".
As for Fazlur Rahman, Bhuiyan said, "He is not even known to Begum Khaleda. If
anything, he may be close to the Awami League as he is the son-in-law of
Abdul Rahim, a senior League leader in Dinajpur". He added: "And all the top
people in the army are filled with people partial to the ruling party. How
could the BDR chief be someone close to us?"
Asked whether a BNP government would have done what Hasina did at Padua,
Bhuiyan said that his party stood for good relations with India and believed
in the negotiated settlement of outstanding problems. But he insisted the BDR
acted "to prevent the building of a road by India", something he claims would
have permanently compromised Bangladeshi interests.
"In any case," said Bhuiyan, "what really bothers us is the fact that Hasina
has done nothing to protest the subsequent armed Indian incursion at
Roumari".
The BNP leader said that if Hasina "has done these things consciously to stage
a drama, it has boomeranged. Things have gone against her. She could not keep
Padua, nor could she protest the Indian aggression". He said that obviously
the opposition would raise the border incidents in the upcoming elections.
"The issue is already in the field. We have been telling people the Awami
League defends Indian, not Bangladeshi, interests. They did this with both
the Ganga water agreement and the Hill Tracts agreement. What happened
recently is only one more thing".
As for his party, Bhuiyan said that when Khaleda Zia was prime minister, Dhaka
had "very good relations" with New Delhi. "If we come to power again, we will
have excellent relations. We believe India is a great neighbour and we will
try to solve the border issue through negotiations conducted on the basis of
equal respect for each other".
30 April 2001
Dateline Dhaka: Ershad takes soft line towards Hasina, India
30 April 2001
The Times Of India
Dateline Dhaka
Ershad takes soft line towards Hasina, India
By Siddharth Varadarajan
The Times of India News Service
DHAKA: While the opposition here has done its best to take the Sheikh Hasina
government to task for the recent tension and armed clashes along the
Indo-Bangladesh border, the country's former military ruler, Gen H M Ershad,
- now a major politician in his own right - has chosen to soft-pedal the
issue.
In an exclusive interview with The Times of India, Ershad described the death
of BSF and Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) soldiers at Boraibari as ``very, very sad
and unfortunate. How can we forget that 3,000 Indian soldiers died fighting
for the freedom of this country? It is terrible that this clash had to
happen.''
The former military ruler refused to attack either the Vajpayee or Hasina
government. ``I was very happy to see the very balanced statement by your
Prime Minister that there is no question of this incident hurting the close
relationship between our two countries,'' he said, adding that there had been
a little bit of a failure on both sides as neither New Delhi nor Dhaka had
anticipated that the unresolved border questions could flare up in this
manner.
As for the Indian supposition that the BDR might have acted on its own at
Padua, Ershad said that situations can always arise on the border where
commanders have to exercise judgment and initiative. ``The local commander
must have acted on his own so you can't blame the government.'' In any case,
he said, ``Our Prime Minister has said that we are sorry for what has
happened. That is enough. Everyone knows that the lives that were lost were
not because of the orders of the government.''
He also dismissed the notion that there is a faction of pro-Pakistani officers
in the Bangladeshi officers that might have acted to damage relations between
India and Bangladesh. ``I think that now, more than 95 per cent of our army
are freedom fighters. They fought for liberation. How can anyone say they are
close to some other country?''
Ershad, who was released recently after spending several years in prison for
corruption-related offences, is the head of the influential Jatiya Party.
Before it split into three, Jatiya had 32 seats in the current Parliament.
Now that he is out of prison as part of a complicated deal with the Hasina
government that is still awaiting the Supreme Courts imprimatur, Ershad is
expected to do well in the coming elections and could even emerge as a king
or rather, queen maker.
Though Jatiya had been allied with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party of Khaleda
Zia, Ershad severed his links and is now trying to lure away some of the
Islamist forces linked to the BNP as well. Fighting fit at 72, the retired
General is extremely popular in certain pockets such as the northern
districts near the border with India. He said his party would fight 300 seats
and decide about alliances depending on how well it performed.
Political analysts here are convinced, however, that Ershad has reached an
understanding with Sheikh Hasina and that there may well be some kind of ill
adjustments as well. Asked about the rumours to this effect, Ershad simply
smiled. You dont expect me to talk about such things, do you?
The Times Of India
Dateline Dhaka
Ershad takes soft line towards Hasina, India
By Siddharth Varadarajan
The Times of India News Service
DHAKA: While the opposition here has done its best to take the Sheikh Hasina
government to task for the recent tension and armed clashes along the
Indo-Bangladesh border, the country's former military ruler, Gen H M Ershad,
- now a major politician in his own right - has chosen to soft-pedal the
issue.
In an exclusive interview with The Times of India, Ershad described the death
of BSF and Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) soldiers at Boraibari as ``very, very sad
and unfortunate. How can we forget that 3,000 Indian soldiers died fighting
for the freedom of this country? It is terrible that this clash had to
happen.''
The former military ruler refused to attack either the Vajpayee or Hasina
government. ``I was very happy to see the very balanced statement by your
Prime Minister that there is no question of this incident hurting the close
relationship between our two countries,'' he said, adding that there had been
a little bit of a failure on both sides as neither New Delhi nor Dhaka had
anticipated that the unresolved border questions could flare up in this
manner.
As for the Indian supposition that the BDR might have acted on its own at
Padua, Ershad said that situations can always arise on the border where
commanders have to exercise judgment and initiative. ``The local commander
must have acted on his own so you can't blame the government.'' In any case,
he said, ``Our Prime Minister has said that we are sorry for what has
happened. That is enough. Everyone knows that the lives that were lost were
not because of the orders of the government.''
He also dismissed the notion that there is a faction of pro-Pakistani officers
in the Bangladeshi officers that might have acted to damage relations between
India and Bangladesh. ``I think that now, more than 95 per cent of our army
are freedom fighters. They fought for liberation. How can anyone say they are
close to some other country?''
Ershad, who was released recently after spending several years in prison for
corruption-related offences, is the head of the influential Jatiya Party.
Before it split into three, Jatiya had 32 seats in the current Parliament.
Now that he is out of prison as part of a complicated deal with the Hasina
government that is still awaiting the Supreme Courts imprimatur, Ershad is
expected to do well in the coming elections and could even emerge as a king
or rather, queen maker.
Though Jatiya had been allied with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party of Khaleda
Zia, Ershad severed his links and is now trying to lure away some of the
Islamist forces linked to the BNP as well. Fighting fit at 72, the retired
General is extremely popular in certain pockets such as the northern
districts near the border with India. He said his party would fight 300 seats
and decide about alliances depending on how well it performed.
Political analysts here are convinced, however, that Ershad has reached an
understanding with Sheikh Hasina and that there may well be some kind of ill
adjustments as well. Asked about the rumours to this effect, Ershad simply
smiled. You dont expect me to talk about such things, do you?
27 April 2001
Dateline Dhaka: Bangladesh blames BSF, seeks end to border row
27 April 2001
The Times of India
Bangladesh blames BSF, seeks end to border row
By Siddharth Varadarajan
The Times of India News Service
DHAKA: More than a week after the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) surrounded the BSF
post in Pyrudwah - thereby setting in motion a tragic sequence of events
leading to the death of 19 jawans - Bangladeshi officials say they are
bewildered by the fact that India allowed a ``routine boundary dispute'' on the
Meghalaya border to degenerate into a bloody battle some 300 km away.
The official line here is that all the BDR did was to gherao the BSF post in
protest at the construction of a road. The post, they say, lies wholly inside
Bangladeshi territory and that at no point did the BDR cross the border. ``I
want to emphasise that the post was surrounded only from three sides. The BSF
men continued to get supplies throughout the stand-off.'' Foreign Secretary
Syed Muazzem Ali told The Times of India. ``But what the BSF did at Roumari was
to cross the border. They were killed at least one kilometre inside territory
that even India does not dispute is Bangladeshi.''
Told the BSF disputes the claim that it was building a road, Ali said that even
if the BDR had acted wrongly by surrounding the post, ``the matter could have
been settled at either the regional commander level, DG level - or even the
political level, if the BSF felt the BDR was just not listening.'' Instead, he
said, the first formal communication from the Indian government came in the
form of an aide memoire that was handed over to the Bangladeshi high
commissioner in New Delhi on the morning of April 18, four days after the BDR
had moved. ``The BDR's bravado is one thing,'' he said, ``but why did you not
tell us right away that your men are encircled and let us end this situation
quickly?''
Ali said that what his government finds quite incomprehensible is that rather
than push for a swift, negotiated end to the Pyrduwah stand-off, India decided
to up the ante elsewhere. ``The problem was at Padua,'' he said, using the
Bangladeshi name for the village which straddles the border. ``What was the
need to open another front?''
Denying that his ministry had any prior knowledge of the action the BDR took at
Pyrduwah, Ali said: "Look, our border is more than 4,000 km long. It's a
complex, messy border, with enclaves, undemarcated stretches, changing river
courses, adverse possessions. In any given week, there are loads of small local
disputes that come up, most of which we don't even get to hear of at the
ministry because they are settled at various levels by the two border forces.
Don't forget that even Pyrduwah was settled in that way. We ended our gherao
and the BSF agreed to demolish the road. It's only the Indian intrusion at
Roumari which blew the whole matter up and led to the violence.''
Though Ali said Dhaka was investigating India's allegations that some of the
slain BSF men might have been tortured or killed in custody, ``the Indian
government should also inquire into who authorised the BSF intrusion at
Roumari''. Indeed, during her phone conversation with Prime Minister Vajpayee
on Sunday night in which she expressed her ``deep shock and grief at the
unneccessary and unavoidable loss of lives on both the sides,'' Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina also asked Vajpayee to ``investigate and find out the detailed
position about (the Roumari) incident".
Now that this very, very sad incident is over, the Foreign Secretary said, it
is essential that we get back to our excellent relations. More than anything,
he said, the previous week's events highlight the urgency of India and
Bangladesh resolving their border disputes. ``India has a border with 11
countries, so I can understand that settling the Bangladesh border is not a
priority,'' he said. ``But please remember that if you ignore the small strip
of land we share with Mynamar, our only border is with India. Naturally, we are
more interested in settling the issue quickly.''
The Times of India
Bangladesh blames BSF, seeks end to border row
By Siddharth Varadarajan
The Times of India News Service
DHAKA: More than a week after the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) surrounded the BSF
post in Pyrudwah - thereby setting in motion a tragic sequence of events
leading to the death of 19 jawans - Bangladeshi officials say they are
bewildered by the fact that India allowed a ``routine boundary dispute'' on the
Meghalaya border to degenerate into a bloody battle some 300 km away.
The official line here is that all the BDR did was to gherao the BSF post in
protest at the construction of a road. The post, they say, lies wholly inside
Bangladeshi territory and that at no point did the BDR cross the border. ``I
want to emphasise that the post was surrounded only from three sides. The BSF
men continued to get supplies throughout the stand-off.'' Foreign Secretary
Syed Muazzem Ali told The Times of India. ``But what the BSF did at Roumari was
to cross the border. They were killed at least one kilometre inside territory
that even India does not dispute is Bangladeshi.''
Told the BSF disputes the claim that it was building a road, Ali said that even
if the BDR had acted wrongly by surrounding the post, ``the matter could have
been settled at either the regional commander level, DG level - or even the
political level, if the BSF felt the BDR was just not listening.'' Instead, he
said, the first formal communication from the Indian government came in the
form of an aide memoire that was handed over to the Bangladeshi high
commissioner in New Delhi on the morning of April 18, four days after the BDR
had moved. ``The BDR's bravado is one thing,'' he said, ``but why did you not
tell us right away that your men are encircled and let us end this situation
quickly?''
Ali said that what his government finds quite incomprehensible is that rather
than push for a swift, negotiated end to the Pyrduwah stand-off, India decided
to up the ante elsewhere. ``The problem was at Padua,'' he said, using the
Bangladeshi name for the village which straddles the border. ``What was the
need to open another front?''
Denying that his ministry had any prior knowledge of the action the BDR took at
Pyrduwah, Ali said: "Look, our border is more than 4,000 km long. It's a
complex, messy border, with enclaves, undemarcated stretches, changing river
courses, adverse possessions. In any given week, there are loads of small local
disputes that come up, most of which we don't even get to hear of at the
ministry because they are settled at various levels by the two border forces.
Don't forget that even Pyrduwah was settled in that way. We ended our gherao
and the BSF agreed to demolish the road. It's only the Indian intrusion at
Roumari which blew the whole matter up and led to the violence.''
Though Ali said Dhaka was investigating India's allegations that some of the
slain BSF men might have been tortured or killed in custody, ``the Indian
government should also inquire into who authorised the BSF intrusion at
Roumari''. Indeed, during her phone conversation with Prime Minister Vajpayee
on Sunday night in which she expressed her ``deep shock and grief at the
unneccessary and unavoidable loss of lives on both the sides,'' Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina also asked Vajpayee to ``investigate and find out the detailed
position about (the Roumari) incident".
Now that this very, very sad incident is over, the Foreign Secretary said, it
is essential that we get back to our excellent relations. More than anything,
he said, the previous week's events highlight the urgency of India and
Bangladesh resolving their border disputes. ``India has a border with 11
countries, so I can understand that settling the Bangladesh border is not a
priority,'' he said. ``But please remember that if you ignore the small strip
of land we share with Mynamar, our only border is with India. Naturally, we are
more interested in settling the issue quickly.''
24 April 2001
Retaliatory intrusion led to BSF deaths
24 April 2001
The Times of India
Exclusive
Retaliatory intrusion led to BSF deaths
By Siddharth Varadarajan and Manoj Joshi
The Times of India News Service
NEW DELHI: External Affairs minister Jaswant Singh appears to have
misled Parliament Monday when he said the 16 BSF men killed by the
Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) at Boraibari last week had gone on
``aggressive patrolling'' in order to deter fresh incursions from the
Bangla side.
The Times of India has been able to establish that the men were actually
part of a retaliatory force consisting of four BSF companies that was sent
into Bangladesh-controlled territory on an ill-conceived and highly risky
mission with no clear mandate. The operation, according to BSF
sources, had been cleared ``at the highest political level'' in New Delhi.
Conceived in haste as an act of retaliation for the BDR's continuing
occupation of Pyrdiwah on the Indo-Bangladesh border which began
two nights earlier, the mission aim was to take over the BDR's border
observation post (BOP) at Boraibari/Ruimari. And destroy houses there
to avenge the BDR's destruction of Khasi dwellings at Pyrdiwah.
Senior BSF officials visiting the border later were struck by how
inappropriate the terrain was for an operation of this kind. The BDR post
was in the middle of a flooded paddy field; and Ruimari was a large,
spread-out village. One officer estimates its population at about 5,000
inhabitants. Considering that the people there were hostile -- they are
Bangladeshis living on land that India claims as its own -- the plan to
burn their huts seemed especially foolhardy.
The operation began late night April 17 when about 240 men went
across. An alert sentry spotted some movement near the BDR post
around 4 am April 18 and sounded the alarm. The men who had
surrounded the post were sitting ducks. Villagers enraged by the fact that
one of the BSF companies had managed to set some huts on fire, ran
towards the remaining BSF men with dhaos. ``They were being fired
upon so they were pinned down and couldn't flee'', said a BSF official.
And the fact that they were lying in water and mud meant their guns
jammed.
Once reports of the disaster at Boraibari reached Delhi, the Vajpayee
government became paralysed. BDR chief Maj Gen Fazlur Rahman
announced in Dhaka on April 18 that 300 BSF men had attacked
Ruimari/Boraibari and that 16 Indian and two Bangladeshi soldiers had
been killed. Though Union home secretary Kamal Pande was quoted by
PTI the same day as saying 16 jawans had been killed, the home
ministry refused formally to comment. BSF brass would only say that
18 men were missing. The external affairs ministry referred all inquiries
to home.
It was only on April 19 that the cabinet committee on security met.
Earlier in the day, Jaswant Singh told agitated Rajya Sabha MPs that
though the border situation was ``worrying'', the government was
``fully seized of it''. But he offered no details of how the BSF men had
been killed. It was finally on April 23 - nearly one week after the 16 BSF
jawans made the ultimate sacrifice - that Singh finally gave an
explanation. But it was a misleading one.
There was then little glory when the remains of two BSF jawans were
buried and 13 consigned to the flames near Tura in Meghalaya on April
21. Unlike Kargil, the government saw no purchase in sending the
remains to their hometowns or bringing their kin to participate in the last
rites. There were no ministers and politicians nor excited crowds. The
only witnesses were a clutch of top brass including BSF chief
Gurbachan Jagat and some despondent BSF jawans.
The crisis over, the government patted itself on the back. But while the
ends of statecraft may have been served, the truth about why the 16
soldiers died still needs to be told.
The Times of India
Exclusive
Retaliatory intrusion led to BSF deaths
By Siddharth Varadarajan and Manoj Joshi
The Times of India News Service
NEW DELHI: External Affairs minister Jaswant Singh appears to have
misled Parliament Monday when he said the 16 BSF men killed by the
Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) at Boraibari last week had gone on
``aggressive patrolling'' in order to deter fresh incursions from the
Bangla side.
The Times of India has been able to establish that the men were actually
part of a retaliatory force consisting of four BSF companies that was sent
into Bangladesh-controlled territory on an ill-conceived and highly risky
mission with no clear mandate. The operation, according to BSF
sources, had been cleared ``at the highest political level'' in New Delhi.
Conceived in haste as an act of retaliation for the BDR's continuing
occupation of Pyrdiwah on the Indo-Bangladesh border which began
two nights earlier, the mission aim was to take over the BDR's border
observation post (BOP) at Boraibari/Ruimari. And destroy houses there
to avenge the BDR's destruction of Khasi dwellings at Pyrdiwah.
Senior BSF officials visiting the border later were struck by how
inappropriate the terrain was for an operation of this kind. The BDR post
was in the middle of a flooded paddy field; and Ruimari was a large,
spread-out village. One officer estimates its population at about 5,000
inhabitants. Considering that the people there were hostile -- they are
Bangladeshis living on land that India claims as its own -- the plan to
burn their huts seemed especially foolhardy.
The operation began late night April 17 when about 240 men went
across. An alert sentry spotted some movement near the BDR post
around 4 am April 18 and sounded the alarm. The men who had
surrounded the post were sitting ducks. Villagers enraged by the fact that
one of the BSF companies had managed to set some huts on fire, ran
towards the remaining BSF men with dhaos. ``They were being fired
upon so they were pinned down and couldn't flee'', said a BSF official.
And the fact that they were lying in water and mud meant their guns
jammed.
Once reports of the disaster at Boraibari reached Delhi, the Vajpayee
government became paralysed. BDR chief Maj Gen Fazlur Rahman
announced in Dhaka on April 18 that 300 BSF men had attacked
Ruimari/Boraibari and that 16 Indian and two Bangladeshi soldiers had
been killed. Though Union home secretary Kamal Pande was quoted by
PTI the same day as saying 16 jawans had been killed, the home
ministry refused formally to comment. BSF brass would only say that
18 men were missing. The external affairs ministry referred all inquiries
to home.
It was only on April 19 that the cabinet committee on security met.
Earlier in the day, Jaswant Singh told agitated Rajya Sabha MPs that
though the border situation was ``worrying'', the government was
``fully seized of it''. But he offered no details of how the BSF men had
been killed. It was finally on April 23 - nearly one week after the 16 BSF
jawans made the ultimate sacrifice - that Singh finally gave an
explanation. But it was a misleading one.
There was then little glory when the remains of two BSF jawans were
buried and 13 consigned to the flames near Tura in Meghalaya on April
21. Unlike Kargil, the government saw no purchase in sending the
remains to their hometowns or bringing their kin to participate in the last
rites. There were no ministers and politicians nor excited crowds. The
only witnesses were a clutch of top brass including BSF chief
Gurbachan Jagat and some despondent BSF jawans.
The crisis over, the government patted itself on the back. But while the
ends of statecraft may have been served, the truth about why the 16
soldiers died still needs to be told.
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