A big challenge in border management is extreme poverty in border areas

The Daily Star (TDS): Bangladesh shares long contentious borders with India and Myanmar. What are the major challenges in managing the border? 

Maj Gen Aziz Ahmed (AA): Bangladesh shares 4,156 km long border with India and 271 km border with Myanmar. It includes plain land, hilly areas, and marshy land. The two borders have different characteristics as well different challenges.  

In the plain-land part of the border, we do not have border fence and link road along the border. India has already built border fence and pukka road in most of its border areas. It is crucial to have a road along the zero line. The government has recently given more than 1,600 motor cycles for border patrolling. But we cannot make best use of these motorcycles due to a lack of pukka road. On the Indian side, due to better border management, trespassers have to face the BSF and suffer casualty. 

A big challenge in border management is extreme poverty in border areas. Now, for smuggling a cow one gets Tk. 5000-10,000. So smugglers can easily allure them to cross the border, even risking their life. It is one of the main reasons behind border killings. There are also cattle smugglers from India. In the recent past, 4-5 Indian smugglers got killed by BSF. 

The zero line is an imaginary and arbitrary line. It often happens that the border cuts across families, even going through one's homestead. Crossing the zero line without any valid document is illegal crossing but they do not understand that. So we often see violence by civilians. This year, there have been five to seven cases where Bangladeshis were killed by Indian civilians. We do awareness building programmes regularly in the border area but it is not that effective. 

We had 539 km unguarded border in the hilly areas. In the last one year, we have arranged patrolling in 110 km of these areas (60 km with India and 50 km with Myanmar). There we have established new border outposts (BOPs). So at present, 429 km of the border still remains unguarded. India has better management system there with BOPs and border fencing in most of these areas. 

In the case of borders in the river area, it is difficult to monitor every bend of the river. We do not have border fencing along the river, so we cannot check trespassing there. 

Myanmar shares 184 km land border with Bangladesh and 67 km border in the Naf River. They have established BOPs, border fencing and roads along the land border. They have even set up border fencing all along the river bank of the Naf river. 

On our side, the gap between the two BOPs is 10 km. For India and Myanmar, it is 2.5 to 5 km. Recently, the government approved some more BOPs to reduce the gap between them.  It will strengthen our vigilance at the border. 

TDS: The acquittal of the alleged killer of Felani has disappointed many, both in Bangladesh and globally. How can we restrain the trigger-happy BSF from resorting to excessive use of force?  

AA: We do not know the official status of the Felani trial. When these sorts of incidents happen at the lower level, the decision is not final until it gets official approval from the top level. It is a judicial matter, so it is difficult to comment on it. We expected that the trial would be fair. So far what we know about it through media reports is unfortunate. 

When there is any border killing, we send a notice to BSF through an official channel. In every protest note, we demand trial of the guilty BSF members. In many cases, they take departmental action but it does not come out in the media. When we meet them they tell us about these punitive measures. In our meetings, we tell them to take judicial measures other than shooting. They give us various explanations and excuses. As the movement is illegal and happens on their side, we cannot put much pressure on them. 

TDS: In recent times, we see increasing tension between border forces of Bangladesh and Myanmar. Is their any gap between the two border forces? 

AA: Myanmar has problems within the country with various insurgent groups. And their army is at war with these insurgent groups.  

In the last two years, only two major events occurred at the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. In May 2014, one of our Nayeks was killed by the Border Guard Police (BGP) of Myanmar. We set up BOPs on the route of yaba smuggling to control that. The smugglers fired on our patrol killing one of our Nayeks. When our force went to recover the body, there was exchange of fire between BGB and BGP. It was reported in the media that 3-4 of their troops were killed in that fire exchange. Another incident took place in December 2014 when one of our men got injured. And in the recent past, Nayek Rajjak was captured by BGP and later handed over to Bangladesh. 

Now communication between us has improved a lot due to the internet. We are also sitting with them frequently. 

Two big challenges on the Myanmar front are infiltration of Rohingyas and yaba smuggling. We are effectively tackling Rohingya infiltration. But getting control over yaba smuggling is quite a difficult affair. We have a long coas line and it is really difficult to monitor it with the limited capacity of our Coast Guard. 

TDS: In the light of the new Land Boundary Agreement, how it will help manage the border?  

AA: Previously, it was really difficult to keep track of activities happening inside enclaves because that was not our area. Both countries suffered for that. And also the citizens cannot enjoy government facilities. The new border agreement will end their captive situation. And it will lessen the burdensome management of enclaves. 

TDS: What should be done to develop the border areas? 

AA:  I think NGOs should work there as they do elsewhere in the country to empower people and reduce extreme poverty in the border area. 

We took an initiative called Alokito Simanto in Thakurgaon to improve the livelihood of the border people. We acquired some khas land with the help of local administration and distributed them among some former smugglers. They are supported with facilities to raise cattle and apiculture. It is just a pilot project. NGOs can replicate it in all the border areas. 

We have also talked about legalising cattle trading with India. But they have told us clearly that it is not possible due to religious reasons. They have promulgated more stringent rules for preventing cattle trade. I am afraid that during Eid-ul-Azha cattle smuggling will increase and that can lead to more casualties at the border. To prevent it, we have already increased border patrollings.