Showing posts with label General Moeen. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Could India and Bangladesh Be Friends?
Could India and Bangladesh Be Friends?
Anand Kumar
Source: Asia Sentinel
March 12, 2008
Visit by top Bangladesh general a sign of improving relations
Driven by concerns over northeast Indian separatists operating from Bangladeshi border areas and a flood of economic migrants to India, Bangladesh's Army Chief of Staff Gen. Moeen U Ahmed recently spent a week in India to deal with a wide range of issues in arguably the closest example of cooperation between the two countries since Bangladesh's independence in 1971.
Arriving home on March 2 after a week in India, Moeen said progress was so good that rail service would soon begin between Dhaka and Kolkata. "It will be good for all if the train service between India and Bangladesh commences," Moeen told reporters, according to Bangladeshi newspapers. "I hope the train service will start as soon as possible after settling the issue of security of the two countries."
The train service is just the most visible result of the talks. Moeen held extensive discussions with Indian army chief Gen. Deepak Kapoor on ways to further cooperation between the two armed forces in rare high-level military talks. As Bangladesh has emerged as a center for terrorist organizations, many with an anti-India agenda, India hopes the visit will lead to a mechanism for information sharing.
India has been cautious in approaching Bangladesh in the wake of a January 2007 coup that ended years of squabbling between the country's two senior politicians, Begum Khaleda Zia, the last elected prime minister who headed the Bangladesh National Party, and Sheikh Hasina Wazed, who headed the Awami League. Their bitter electoral rivalry ended in chaos, spurring the coup. Both women, and scores of their supporters, remain under arrest on corruption charges. The existing caretaker government is headed by Fakhruddin Ahmad, a former World Bank official and Central Bank governor.
It is clear, however, that the army under Moeen is the spine that stiffens the caretaker government. India has chosen to do business with him as an improvement over its troublesome relationship with earlier governments.
What surprised political observers were the top Indian leaders Moeen met. The list included Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President Pratibha Patil, Defence Minister AK Antony, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and National Security Adviser M K Narayanan. India is keen to improve long-term ties in order to secure transit rights for its goods through Bangladesh to the poverty-stricken northeastern Assam region, where India is almost bisected by Bangladesh. India also hopes to gain access to the Chittagong port at the mouth of the Ganges River and a commitment on transit of natural gas from Burma and possibly, the northeastern states.
For the immediate future, India expects a commitment from the general to clamp down on anti-India militants using Bangladesh as a safe haven. India is also concerned about illegal immigration. In return, India has shown its willingness to put Pranab Mukherjee's November promise into effect to make a one-time exception and export a half million tons of rice to Bangladesh, after shortages that led to price increases and general dissatisfaction after natural disasters last year.
Moeen also met Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh and discussed various possibilities to improve trade and commerce, including the duty-free export of eight million pieces of readymade garments from Bangladesh. In the past, New Delhi has spoken of the possibility of reducing Bangladesh's adverse balance of trade with India by encouraging Indian investment.
Moeen and the caretaker government have taken a relatively friendly approach towards India since assuming power. In return, India has a positive take on the general. He is the first army officer commissioned after the 1971 split with Pakistan to be army chief, and he has solid relationships within the service. His time as Bangladesh's defence attaché to Pakistan also gives him more insight into the geopolitics of South Asia than some of his peers. among the Indian Army brass, there is a sense that Moeen is willing to crack down on the fundamentalists in his country.
Moeen earned a high domestic profile following the January 2007 coup, earning approval from a wide cross section of the country, with the exception of the diehard supporters of Khaleda and Hasina, whose acrimonious rivalry had stunted the economy, allowed Islamist groups to flourish and engendered corruption so thoroughgoing that Transparency International rated Bangladesh the most corrupt country in the world from 2001 to 2004. Despite the end of democracy, there was at least initial support from the population after the coup and subsequent corruption arrests.
Indo-Bangladesh relations have generally depended on the party in power in both countries. The worst depths of the bilateral relationship were during the period of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the 2001-2006 coalition headed by Khaleda, a time which the coalition was deaf both to Indian security concerns and economic proposals.
The caretaker government seems relatively friendly towards India. Though opinions differ in India about action taken against Islamist groups like Jamaat-ul-Muslim Bangladesh (JMB) there is a belief that that the government in Bangladesh is seeking to keep Islamists in line and out of India's hair.
India has indicated it favors a stable and friendly Bangladesh that returns to democracy. Indian President Pratibha Patil called for early elections during the joint sitting of India's Parliament, and Moeen also appears willing to follow a roadmap announced earlier for restoration of democracy. Analysts in India believe one of the objectives of his visit was to get the Indian political establishment to advise Hasina and Khaleda to stay out of national elections
The caretaker regime wants India's help to get the two political leaders bow out gracefully. Strong-arm tactics to frighten them off with corruption and murder cases have so far not been successful. Reports have also indicated that Moeen requested Indian authorities not to insist on the release of the two women before elections. India has not responded to the request.
Moeen's push for stronger bilateral relations seems to be working. India assisted in rehabilitation and reconstruction after Cyclone Sidr roared ashore in September 2007, killing 3,500 Bangladeshis. Increasing trade between the two nations has also boosted confidence that has been sorely tested for decades, especially after the assassination of the country's founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, a determined secularist, in 1975. Successive governments, whether elected or authoritarian, courted the Islamist fringe, giving India cause for worry.
Posted by Deshi Blogger at 8:29 AM 1 comments
Labels: Army, Democracy, General Moeen, Millitary Government
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Gen. Moeen as the man Delhi can trust
Media treats Gen. Moeen as the man Delhi can trust
M. Shahidul Islam
Source: Holiday
March 7, 2008
The army chief's recent visit to India has drawn mythological anecdotes of varied natures. The timing and the texture of the visit aside, this was the first time an incumbent Bangladesh army chief was accorded a very unusually high-profile reception by the Indian government.
Marked by glittering galas and grandiose receptions, General Moeen U Ahmed was afforded closed-door interactions with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Defence Minister A.K. Antony and the West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, besides the chiefs of the three services of India. Such an opportunity is usually preserved for a senior cabinet minister.
Interestingly, the visit further highlighted how the digit 'six' has become a magic number in the life of the army chief. The duration of the visit was six days long; he was gifted with six horses, and; he met six important personalities and discussed six important bilateral matters with the Indian authorities. The four-star General is also slated to be retired on the sixth day of the sixth month of this year; and he still has at least six more important things to accomplish before giving up a career that he'd successfully traversed for 33 years (3 plus 3 also equal six) to attain the pinnacle.
Despite the Indian High Commissioner Pinak Ranjan Chakrabarty's earlier comment to the media that the visit of "Bangladesh army chief was military-to-military", the itinerary of the visit belied that remark.
During the visit, the army chief has dealt with economic relations and made a fresh appeal to India to expedite the export of rice to Bangladesh and to liberalise bilateral trade. The political agenda included discussion on a plan of action for early return to democracy. The other major topic covered during the visit included bilateral security matters, joint collaboration in war on terror, prisoner extradition treaty, and Dhaka-Kolkata railway link.
The visit got catapulted into an august trajectory due partly to another reason: The President of India had greeted the arrival of Bangladesh army chief with a potent but veiled political message. No sooner the army chief landed in Delhi, President Pratibha Patil said in an address to a joint sitting of Parliament on February 25 that Bangladeshis "would be able to exercise their will through free and fair election for restoration of full democracy and liberalism in their country."
This particular signal was translated by observers as the army chief calling shots in Dhaka for all major decisions and Indian leaders and the media had reasons to treat him as the master of Bangladesh's political affairs, something the General has persistently denied. In more than one conversation with this writer, Gen. Moeen insisted he and the military were only aiding the caretaker government and he personally harbours no political intent.
However, despite all the bright side of the visit, some unwarranted display of power play by the Indian government and the media has truncated the glitters of the displayed symbolism to a great extent. At least six innocent Bangladeshis were killed by BSF in the wake of the army chief's India visit and major Indian media outlets carried an assortment of speculation-ridden stories that did not bode well with what the General's future plan is all about, at least whatever we all know. That aside, most of the Indian media also chose to present the General as the person India can trust, knowing well that a blind-pro Indianism is an anathema to the people of Bangladesh.
Reliable sources say the visit took place on the heels of an assurance from the government of Bangladesh that the army chief will get one year extension to enable him to complete a political mission which he has so enthusiastically undertaken since 1/11 to fine-tune certain fundamental pitfalls of our national polity. That is what has made him more precious to the Indian authorities who think General Moeen will roll past the electoral turmoil awaiting the nation.
Another observable factor was that astute Indian observers not paying much heed to the army chief's repeated assertion of not aiming for a political office, many of who believe the military is in power in Bangladesh.
This fabled perception was elucidated with convincing details in the Statesman newspaper of Kolkata that wrote in its post-editorial of February 29, "Having been a party, along with the USA, Britain and the EU, to giving consent to General Ahmed's takeover of power on 11 January last year so as to stall the "farcical" parliamentary poll that was scheduled for 22 January, India is now keen to know from the General how soon he plans to hold a free and fair poll and hand power back to a democratically elected government. And what plans and schedules he may have drawn up for holding such a poll, which was one of the key promises he had made when taking over. This promise was prompted by the fact that Bangladesh would have witnessed violence and chaos on an unprecedented scale. Major Western donors as well as India concurred with this view as they knew that the country's outgoing Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and her pro-Islamist four-party alliance, before
laying down office, had made elaborate arrangement to rig the poll. In fact the caretaker government, which was to oversee the exercise, had also been usurped by her with this end in view."
The Statesman's post-editorial was penned by none other than the paper's editor, Manash Ghosh, who, however, did not fail to make an insightful observation while dealing with the nuances of the prevailing political situation in Bangladesh.
Ghosh observed, "The General also realises that Khaleda Zia, who made him Army Chief, superseding four other generals, will never forgive him for his "betrayal" of putting her behind bars on "frivolous corruption charges". Khaleda's party may go for retribution. Sheikh Hasina and her party's reaction will be much the same, because he also put her behind bars on "frivolous corruption charges".
The High Court having struck down her detention as illegal has not made things any easier for the General. He is convinced that if the Hasina-led alliance wins the poll, it will wreak vengeance on him and the military. Therefore the need for him to have his own political party and secure a two-thirds majority in the poll."
In an oblique reference to the need for Indian support and the disguised political inclination of the military, at least in the author's view, Ghosh wrote, "One can well gauge the popular mood in a country where rice prices, predominantly, determine who the populace want pulling the strings in Dhaka. Perhaps this has prompted General Ahmed's government into starting a dialogue with political parties. Knowing the mind of Sheikh Hasina's alliance, it has begun to make the right noises, like calling Sheikh Mujib "father of the nation" and hinting at the process of trying war criminals of the 1971 liberation war."
The geopolitical twist of the visit came from the Indo American News Service (IANS), which has a fondness in propagating the virtues of the ongoing US-led war on terror. The IANS reported, "With a gift of six horses worth a little over $850,000), New Delhi is attempting to build bridges with Bangladesh's army chief in an attempt to persuade the eastern neighbour to cease support to anti-India insurgent groups operating from that country. The agency quoted an anonymous official for having said, "It's an attempt to build bridges, to move forward in persuading Bangladesh to stop supporting anti-India insurgent groups that are operating from its soil."
The report further said, "Even more worrisome than the anti-India groups are the operations of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJI) extremist group. India blames the HuJI that was established in 1992, reportedly with assistance from Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front, for two sets of blasts in Hyderabad last year." The report quoted the same anonymous official as saying, "The activities of the ISI and the HuJI will figure in the discussions with General Ahmed."
While we are not sure how much priority such issues were accorded during the army chief's visit, sources maintain the visit was a routine one and did not deal with pending political and economic agenda which the government is expected to conduct. It, nonetheless, cemented the ties of fraternity between the two close neighbours. "The army chief has earned respect at home and abroad by standing firm on cracking down corruption. That is what has prompted the Indian authorities to honour him in a special manner," said one of the sources.
Such a rationale does not seem to pacify a crowd of cynics who think the army chief's series of visits to USA, China and then to India was a calculated move to elicit consent from major powers in order to prepare himself for a political mission that might be necessitated if the forthcoming election does not yield a government of the military's liking, or the election efforts get jeopardised by unwarranted political turmoil of any breed. They reinforce this argument with examples of recent talks on forming a national government.
Others say the General, who spent his childhood studying in Pakistan -- and has had a stint as a defence adviser (DA) to the Bangladesh High Commission in Islamabad -- was either misunderstood, or underestimated, by the India authorities who imperfectly thought him to be pliant to the myriad of wishes presented before him for considerations.
"If the General had promised something, such promises must be materialised through the usual diplomatic channels with input from an elected government," commented an expert on Bangladesh-India relations.
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Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 2:53:56 AM
Subject: Indian Army chief to visit Bangladesh July 28-30
Thailand NewsIndian Army chief to visit Bangladesh July 28-30
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/indian-army-chief-to-visit-bangladesh-july-28-30_10075572.htmlJuly 24th, 2008 - 9:07 pm ICT by IANS - Email This Post
New Delhi, July 24 (IANS) The decision by India and Bangladesh to intensify cooperation in combating terrorism will receive a boost when Indian Army chief Gen. Deepak Kapoor visits the eastern neighbour July 28-30, an official said Thursday. Underlining India's commitment to strengthening ties with Bangladesh, Kapoor will be visiting Dhaka with Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta.
New Delhi hopes that the new dispensation in Dhaka would act on its complaints of cadres of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and other militants using Bangladesh as a staging post for raids into India's northeastern region.
Even more worrisome than the anti-India groups are the operations of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJI) extremist group. India has blamed the HuJI, established in 1992 reportedly with assistance from Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front, for two sets of blasts in Hyderabad last year.
While the official was tight lipped on the agenda for Kapoor's visit, analysts said this would include improving bilateral ties and greater military-military interactions between the Indian and Bangladeshi armed forces.
"This will essentially be a return visit for that of the Bangladesh Army chief (General Moeen U. Ahmed in February), the official added.
That visit, the first by a Bangladesh Army chief of India was considered significant as the political changes and the promulgation of an emergency in the country in January 2007 was strongly backed by the armed forces.
India has been steadily reaching out to Bangladesh and during Ahmed's visit, had gifted him six horses valued at a little over Rs.35 million ($850,000) as a token of goodwill and friendship.
Kapoor had handed over the reigns of the two stallions and four mares to Ahmed.
Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon held talks with his Bangladeshi counterpart Touhid Hossain July 17 on a wide range of bilateral, regional and global issues here in a "friendly atmosphere" aimed at building "trust and understanding" between the two countries.
Speaking to reporters after the two sides ended their annual foreign office consultations, Menon said: "We are convinced that our security is interlinked and that terrorism will have to be tackled resolutely."
"We discussed the issue of terrorism and how we both need to face it together," he said at a joint press briefing with Hossain when asked whether the issue of alleged complicity of Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (HUJI), a militant outfit which is suspected to operate from Bangladesh, was involved in recent terror attacks in India.
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