Sunday, June 3, 2012
Jamaat-Indicted
Sea Victory
Bangladesh wins sea claim battle with Myanmar
March 14, 2012 09:41 PM
By Julhas Alam
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP): Bangladesh's foreign ministry said Wednesday that the U.N.'s International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea has recognized the South Asian nation's claims to a full 200-mile (320-kilometer) Exclusive Economic Zone in the Bay of Bengal.
The verdict issued Wednesday in Hamburg, Germany, settled a long-standing dispute between Bangladesh and neighboring Myanmar.
Bangladesh, angry over Myanmar's claim of rights to the disputed sea area, filed the case with the tribunal in 2009.
Myanmar had claimed that its maritime boundary with Bangladesh cut directly across the Bangladesh coastline, severely limiting Bangladesh's maritime jurisdiction to a narrow wedge of sea extending about 130 miles (200 kilometers).
Myanmar, which shares a 170-mile (275-kilometer) of land border with Bangladesh, also claimed that the tribunal lacked jurisdiction to award continental shelf rights beyond 200 miles (321 kilometers) from either state's coast.
But the tribunal rejected both of these arguments.
"The judgment is final and without appeal," Bangladesh's foreign ministry said in a statement.
The verdict is seen as an opportunity for energy-starved Bangladesh, which is seeking new sources of gas amid a forecast that its current reserves will run out by 2014-15.
Last year, Bangladesh signed a production-sharing contract with U.S. energy giant ConocoPhillips to explore for gas in the virtually unexplored deep waters of the Bay of Bengal, but its area of exploration was limited because of the maritime dispute with Myanmar and India.
In 2008, Myanmar escorted South Korean gas exploration company Daewoo International Corp. into waters also claimed by Bangladesh. Both countries deployed their navies and ended the standoff with top-level diplomacy.
A similar case is pending with the tribunal over disputed waters with India. The verdict of that case is expected in 2014.
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Enclaves-Nowhere Land
India, Bangladesh to help people stuck in enclaves
Posted: Sep 05, 2011 1:05 PM Updated: Sep 05, 2011 5:35 PM
By JULHAS ALAM and RAVI NESSMAN
Associated Press
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) - The village of Votbari is a tiny island of India surrounded by a sea of Bangladesh.
A victim of absurd map drawing during the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent, the enclave has been all but abandoned by both nations. It has no paved roads, electricity, hospital or schools. Its destitute residents get no aid from either side. Years of regional tensions have kept it in limbo.
"There is nobody to look after us," resident Jober Ali said. "We have no country ... I do not have any identity. I am nowhere."
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan's Singh's visit to Dhaka starting Tuesday could end the suffering for tens of thousands of people trapped in dozens of such enclaves on both sides of the border.
With India's ties with rival Pakistan to the northwest frozen in enmity, it has turned its attention toward smoothing out its bumpy relationship with its northeastern neighbor.
The two nations are expected to tackle tensions over water resources, trade barriers and transit links. They also plan to resolve disputes over their 4,096-kilometer (2,545-mile) border - and with it, the enclave conundrum.
There are 111 Indian enclaves inside Bangladesh and 51 Bangladeshi ones inside India, with a combined population of 51,000, according to a recent survey jointly conducted by the two governments.
The residents of the enclaves have been compared to stateless people, without any of the services offered in either country and no one to take responsibility for them.
"We've lived here for decades. But nobody bothered about us. We are human beings, they do not keep that in mind," Ali said in an interview conducted over a borrowed cell phone from Votbari.
Bangladeshis living in enclaves surrounded by India suffer a similar fate.
Ali, 58, has no land for farming, no education and no hopes of a permanent job. His family of 13 squeezes into a single straw hut because they have no extra land to build another home. He supports them with irregular work as a day laborer.
The village of 3,000 has almost no infrastructure save for a few narrow, muddy roads - plied by bicycle rickshaws - that Bangladeshi authorities built for them as a humanitarian gesture.
Officially, Votbari residents are not allowed to leave their village and enter Bangladesh without a visa. But there is no fence and since they have never even been given Indian passports, Bangladeshi authorities look the other way and let them pass.
They do their shopping in Bangladesh, use Bangladeshi currency and rely on Bangladeshi hospitals in case of emergencies.
Asir Uddin, 60, said he often sneaks out of the village to find work as a day laborer.
"We cannot give our identity. We lie to people when someone asks where we're from," he said.
The situation is worse at the border of their own country, India, three-quarters of a mile (1.2 kilometers) away.
There, Ali said, Indian guards open fire at them if they try to cross. Human rights groups have accused Indian forces of routinely shooting those trying to enter illegally from Bangladesh.
While there are a smattering of similar enclaves scattered about Europe, central Asia and the Middle East, the Indo-Bangladesh ones are by far the most extensive, and the most convoluted, according to a 2002 paper by Brendan R. Whyte, of the University of Melbourne.
Some have small counter enclaves inside them, Whyte wrote. There is even one tiny Indian enclave inside a Bangladeshi enclave inside an Indian enclave inside Bangladesh.
According to popular legend, the enclaves were created when two chess-playing royals gambled away villages from their kingdoms. But Whyte and other historians say their creation is rooted in 18th Century fighting between the kingdom of Cooch Behar and the Mughal Empire. A treaty set boundaries, but some feudal lords in Mughal territory remained loyal to Cooch Behar and vice versa, leading to the enclaves.
When the subcontinent fell under British rule, this quirk didn't matter much. But when the region was partitioned between India and Pakistan at independence in 1947, the border kingdom of Cooch Behar joined India, leaving thousands of its now-Indian subjects trapped in East Pakistan and thousands of Pakistanis trapped in India.
After India helped Bangladesh secede from Pakistan in the 1971 war, the two nations developed close ties and signed a 1974 treaty that would have resolved the problem. But India never ratified the treaty and independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated in a 1975 military coup, torpedoing the plan and ushering in an era of icy relations.
New Delhi complained of millions of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and accused Dhaka of giving sanctuary to myriad insurgent groups leading violent rebellions against Indian rule in its northeastern states. Dhaka complained of its massive trade deficit with India and accused New Delhi of stealing its water.
Singh and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Rahman's daughter, have been working to fix this over the past two years.
Bangladesh cracked down on the Indian insurgents, a move that forced many of the groups to the negotiating table with India.
India offered Bangladesh a $1 billion loan, raised quotas on textile imports and appears ready to resolve the water dispute.
"There is a major shift in our relationship," Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai said Monday.
While India still has major border disagreements with Pakistan and China, it is hoping to resolve nearly all its issues with Bangladesh in time for Singh's two-day visit.
The plan entails each country absorbing the enclaves inside its territory and giving citizenship to the residents or allowing them to move to their home country, where they would be provided new homes, Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram told Parliament last month.
As Muslims, the villagers in Votbari feel closer to Bangladesh than Hindu-majority India, and many say they will stay right where they are.
"We are all united in wanting to be part of Bangladesh," Ali said. "We are Muslims. They are also Muslims. So they have feelings for us. They are like our brothers."
Nurul Amin, 26, who was forced to start driving a bicycle rickshaw at the age of 12 to support his family, hopes the deal will bring a brighter future for his two daughters, aged 5 and 3.
"I want to educate my two children. I don't want them to live a life like me," he said.
___
Nessman reported from New Delhi.
___
Follow Ravi Nessman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ravinessman
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
HRW-War Crimes
BOSTON.COM
Group urges Bangladesh on war crimes proceedings
By JULHAS ALAM
Associated Press
DHAKA, Bangladesh—An international rights group is urging Bangladesh to bring its proceedings related to alleged war crimes committed during the country's 1971 war for independence into compliance with international standards.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement Tuesday that the government needs to do more to make its efforts to try suspects accused of crimes against humanity during the war that gained Bangladesh independence from Pakistan internationally accepted.
The government set up a tribunal in March 2010 to prosecute those accused of collaborating with the Pakistani army in killings and other crimes during the war.
Human Rights Watch praised Bangladesh for recently amending a 1973 act outlining prosecution and punishment for people accused of genocide and other crimes under international law.
But the group said that more changes need to be made, including that an accused should be able to question the impartiality of the tribunal, which current law prohibits. It also said changes were needed regarding the enumeration of crimes to ensure that the definitions of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide conform with international standards.
"Bangladesh has promised to meet international standards in these trials, but it has some way to go to meet this commitment," Brad Adams, Human Rights Watch's Asia director, said in the statement.
The administration of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has arrested four top leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, the nation's largest Islamic party. The suspects face charges including genocide, murder, rape, torture, looting and arson related to the independence war.
Jamaat-e-Islami, which sided with Pakistan during the war, says the charges are politically motivated.
Bangladesh says Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed an estimated 3 million people, raped about 200,000 women and forced millions to flee their homes.
© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Manmohan Singh Visit
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/09/06/3123349/indias-pm-arrives-in-bangladesh.html
India, Bangladesh agreed to deeper cooperation
By JULHAS ALAM
Associated Press
DHAKA, Bangladesh _ Bangladesh and India agreed Tuesday to cooperate in trade and to resolve border disputes, but left river water sharing and transit issues for further discussions.
The two countries signed a number of agreements, including a protocol to deal with conservation of the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, and its endangered tigers. The two South Asian nations share the Sundarbans.
They also decided to demarcate disputed border areas and increase cooperation in the fields of fisheries and renewable energy.
The agreements came during a meeting of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Singh and Hasina are working to reach agreement on their disputed 2,545-mile (4,096-kilometer) border.
However, a hoped-for deal on sharing water from the River Teesta flowing between their countries was not signed because of last-minute objections from the Indian state of West Bengal.
This is an issue Bangladesh hoped to resolve during Singh's visit.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh asked for delays in dealing with transit questions.
"We want to go slow over the transit issues and take some more time as we need to solve the issue of sharing water of common rivers," a government official with the knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press.
But both the leaders were optimistic as Singh said the issue of common rivers "need not be sources of discord".
"We have decided to continue discussions to reach a mutually acceptable, fair and amicable arrangement for the sharing of the Teesta and Feni river waters," Singh said in his statement after the meeting with Hasina.
Hasina also reciprocated.
"During our discussions today we have been able to make considerable progress. I am happy to announce that we have moved closer to resolving long pending issues of common concern," Hasina said in her statement.
Singh is returning a visit by Hasina to India in January last year during which India granted Muslim-majority Bangladesh a $1 billion development loan and raised quotas on imports of textiles.
India helped Bangladesh secede from Pakistan in a 1971 war. However, relations soured after a 1975 military coup in Bangladesh when independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina's father, was assassinated and a new government took over.
The chief ministers of four Indian states bordering Bangladesh are accompanying Singh but Mamata Banerjee, the newly elected chief minister of West Bengal, canceled her trip over reported disputes with the central government over the water-sharing plan.
Posted on Tue, Sep. 06, 2011 01:27 AM
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/09/06/3123349/indias-pm-arrives-in-bangladesh.html#ixzz1XdZIiwUU
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Shattered-Life Without Future
StarTribune.com
http://www.startribune.com/templates/Print_This_Story?sid=94693049
100,000 stranded 1 year after cyclone hit Bangladesh
By JULHAS ALAM , Associated Press
May 23, 2010
CHAKBARA, Bangladesh - Jahanara, a 30-year-old mother of two, stands in front of her thatched hut on a raised embankment.
"I always dream of going back home," she said, pointing to where her family once lived, an area still under water one year after Cyclone Aila battered this remote part of southwestern Bangladesh.
As tropical storms go, the cyclone on May 25 last year was not the deadliest. About 300 people died in Bangladesh and eastern India, fewer than the 3,500 killed when Cyclone Sidr hit Bangladesh in 2007. But the destruction of 430 miles (700 kilometers) of coastline has left an estimated 100,000 people stranded, unable to return to their flooded homes and fields.
"It came as a silent disaster," Stafan Priesner, a senior U.N. official in Bangladesh, said on a visit to the area last month. "In fact many of us could not understand what was going to happen here."
From a sea plane, hundreds of inundated homes could be seen across the region. Schools, markets, farms and shrimp ponds are all under water.
International aid groups have called for the immediate repair of the heavily damaged earthen embankments, which were built to prevent storm surges from flooding coastal communities. It is a daunting task for Bangladesh, an impoverished nation of 150 million people.
As time passes, Jahanara is losing hope. She and her husband no longer have any regular income. Their 12-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son have had to stop going to school. She worries the storm has taken away their chance for a better life.
"I wanted them to study and get jobs, but now they have no schools," she said. "We did not want to see a repeat of our lives, but what will we do? Life has become very uncertain, ours and theirs."
The family is among hundreds living on what remains of a 17-mile- (28-kilometer-) long embankment that was supposed to protect Chakbara, a seaside village of 4,000 people about 110 miles (175 kilometers) from the capital, Dhaka. Part of the embankment lies tumbled into their former homes.
While some survivors have left for major cities in search of work, Jahanara is among those who are sticking it out.
With the monsoon season approaching, officials expect the situation to worsen.
"This is the urgent need to rebuild the embankment, otherwise, all efforts will fail," said Diana Dalton, deputy country representative of the British Department for International Development. "I visited this place six months ago, but I don't see any change today."
In February, 18 aid agencies including Oxfam and Care expressed their concern over the slow pace of repairs.
In March, Stefan Frowein, the head of the European Union in Bangladesh, warned in a statement of catastrophic humanitarian consequences if coastal embankments were not fixed quickly.
The government says it is trying to repair the Chakbara embankment, but it needs funds. Authorities also are struggling to provide other assistance to survivors.
"We need financial and technical support from the donors for a long-term solution," said Dileep Kumar Das, a senior official with the government's Economic Relations Department. "I am happy that the donors are taking this issue very seriously."
The United Nations is reassessing the situation.
"We again call all our development partners to realize that Bangladesh needs external help," said Priesner, the resident representative of the U.N. Development Program.
"All the donors need to come together. It needs a coordinated effort."
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Rohingya: Persecuted.
Addressing Rohingya crisis
By Samaha M Karim with Julhas Alam
FOOD and Disaster Management Minister Abdur Razzaque has said the government will take the Rohingya issue to international forum if the crisis is not resolved through bilateral negotiation with Myanmar.
“We are trying to resolve the issue bilaterally, but we won't hesitate to move to international bodies for a solution,” Razzaque told a discussion at National Press Club recently.
“We have done a lot for the Rohingya people over the years despite being a poor country, but we cannot afford it for an unlimited period,” he said.
The discussion on “Rohingya Crisis: Way Out for Bangladesh” was organised by the Centre for Education, Research and Advocacy (CERA), a Dhaka-based research and advocacy group, to highlight various aspects of decades-old crisis.
The academic nature of the discussion was focused on the origin of the crisis, its legal and humanitarian aspects, the possible role of local and international NGOs and the United Nations, options for diplomatic efforts in dealing with the crisis.
Less than 28,000 Rohingya Muslims live in two official camps run by the Food Ministry and UNHCR at Teknaf and Ukhia in Cox's Bazar, but there are 200, 000 others, some even say not less than 400,000, who are not recognised by Bangladesh as refugee. Some term them “economic migrants”, as they argue that many of the Rohingyas cross the border for better economic opportunities here in Bangladesh.
The documented Rohingya people in the camps get housing, food and healthcare in the official camps but the undocumented ones do not.
Local people say Rohingya people, who are not recognised as citizen by Myanmar, are causing many social obstacles in the coastal region.
On the other hand, human rights activists and international campaign groups demand the Bangladesh create bigger scopes for these persecuted people.
Referring to this complex context, the Food Minister said the government has no problem to document the rest, but it fears further influx from across the border where they allegedly face persecution by Myanmar's military junta.
The Food Minister also warned international NGOs for negative campaign against Bangladesh that they should be careful in the future before making any false and fabricated reports on so-called maltreatment of Rohingya people in Bangladesh.
Razzaque made the observation in the backdrop of recent campaigns by some groups that Bangladesh is cracking down on the Rohingya refugees.
“We want their support, but not any move that maligns our image abroad for something not actually happening here,” he said.
The minister argued that Bangladesh has done a lot since the 1970s when Rohingyas started coming here to flee the wraths of the Myanmar's government.
Muhammad Zamir, former Ambassador and Chief Information Commissioner, came down hard on the UNHCR for not making enough effort inside Myanmar to prevent Rohingya from crossing over to Bangladesh.
As a solution to the Rohingya setback he strongly insisted on a more proactive approach to be applied by the UNHCR and international organizations in supporting and rehabilitating Rohingyas.
Zamir said camps for Rohingyas could be set up by the UNHCR inside Myanmar territory and not in Bangladesh. He said the UNHCR should take the issue to the UNGA since Myanmar is a member state of the United Nations while there are scopes to raise the issue before ASEAN and OIC too since Myanmar is a member of ASEAN and Rohingyas are Muslims.
The former ambassador also said Bangladesh should put stricter measures in place along its border with Myanmar to prevent any further influx of Rohingya, while repatriation could be one of the major areas to deal with seriously.
'A more effective and meaningful border control mechanism should be enforced so that Rohingyas are stopped to cross over. Although it is a question of human rights, many countries have enforced a limit to the entrance of refugees,” Zamir said.
He said a proper registration system which would provide their identity with pictures and encrypted bar code could be introduced so that a more accurate number of the Rohingyas dispersed all over Bangladesh could be depicted.
Abu Murshed Chowdhury, a human rights activist from Cox's Bazar, said a huge presence of Rohingya people in Cox's Bazar and other parts of the Chittagong Hill Tract are putting extreme pressure on the resources.
“Local people are suffering a lot for their presence in huge number in the region,” he said. “They are causing deterioration of law and order in the region.”
Abu Naser Khan, Chairman of Paribesh Bachao Andolon, said Rohingyas are destroying hills and forests in Cox's Bazar and other nearby areas. “We need to deal with this very seriously to protect the special character of the region,” he said.
Dr Abu Jafar Shafiul Alam Bhuiyan of Mass Communication and Journalism at Dhaka University said the UN should work more vigorously for democratisation of Myanmar, otherwise, the situation may not remain under control regarding Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh.
He said the UN should take a proactive role shunning its current laid-back approach to resolve the issue.
CPB's Ruhin Hossain Prince said the government should look seriously into the allegations that a certain corner is using the Rohingyas for their political benefit.
He said extreme political elements are allegedly being injected to the Rohingyas taking the chance of frustration and desperation among them.
The participants suggested that a political resolution is also required and UN, International Organizations and NGOs vested in this issue should all unite to resolve this crisis upholding Bangladesh's security and sovereignty.
Representatives from some international agencies like Muslim Aid, UNHCR, IOM and the US Embassy also attended the occasion.
Julhas Alam is Correspondent of Associated Press and Samaha M Karim works with Law
http://www.thedailystar.net/law/2010/06/01/event.htm
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