It is the most complex, and, indeed, the most multi-layered issue with not just two players at work. A third party, China, is equally interested in the row. Surprisingly, India, which has a maritime boundary dispute with Bangladesh, is on the margins, as a spectator.
There is a nuclear angle to the dispute.
Also hegemonistic angle, unbelievable though.
PSY WAR
The present day Arakan (locally Rakhine) province, where the junta has built major defence installations including a tunnel bunker (16km north of Ann Township), a huge cantonment (Buthidaung), naval base (Sittwe) and Western air command (at Ann), included Bandarban district of Chittagong Division in the early days of 15th century. There is no outward sign to show that Myanmar leadership has not reconciled to the losses suffered during the colonial period starting with the First Anglo-Burmese war (1824-26) that made Burma cede the Arakan coastal strip, between Chittagong and Cape Negrais, to British India.
One give away to such concern is the mobilisation just opposite Ali Kadam (last town of Bangladesh, northeast of Cox Bazar) of hundreds of Rohingyas close to the border. Bangladesh believes these Rohingyas could be pushed into its territory. Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) has close links with Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO), an insurgent group in the Arakan state. And Ali Kadam has some notoriety of its own. It remains a centre for ISI handled HUJI (Harkat-Ul-Jihad-e-Islam) activities inside India. Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) is locating one of its new battalions here as a part of it’s restructuring. Bangladesh shares a 170-miles (about 270km) land border.
As tension gripped Ali Kadam, Senior General Khin Zaw visited Buthidaung cantonment and inspected many army battalions situated along the Sittwe and Ann motor road (Oct 16) .
Arakan offshore is of great strategic and economic importance to Myanmar. It’s home to AI and A3 gas fields discovered in December 2003. The Shwe (the Burmese word for gold) project holds one of the largest gas yields in Southeast Asia (an estimated six trillion cubic feet). A 900 km long pipe line is being constructed to transport the Arakan gas from the Bay of Bengal to China
The ‘oil border’ row and even the border build up could be a part of Myanmar’s psychological war against Bangladesh. Than Shwe (76), who heads the ruling junta, is an expert in psy warfare. And the game is to brow beat Bangladesh into turning away from its claims on the Bay off Arakan shore.
N-POWER GAME
China is a friend of Myanmar and Bangladesh but it appears tilted as of now towards Myanmar whose military might is a Chinese gift (about $2 bn, more is in the pipe-line as the Junta has sought spares and replacements). That could be due to a ‘nuclear spite’ – Sheikh Hasina government has ignored the standing Chinese offer since 2006, turned to Russia and signed a deal for two 1000MW nuclear plants on Oct 28.
As the ‘border oil row’ is flaring up, a Chinese oil delegation is in Yangon and a PLA delegation is making rounds of Dhaka. The pariah state is turning nuclear with North Korea’s help. It should be able to have its first Nuke by around 2015. Reactor-grade uranium is being mined near Lashio in northern Shan State.
Abdul Hafiz, a retired Brigadier and former DG of think tank, BIISS, argues that Myanmar Junta expects to do a North Korea on the United States. Elaborating, he says, the junta believes that the US would talk to it the way it is doing with N Korea once it acquires N weapons.
Australian economist and Burma specialist Sean Turnell says China is hedging its energy bets with a move into Bangladesh as well. ‘That this is regardless of border sensibilities says much about China’s real regard to the feelings of its vassal (Myanmar)’, he told The Irrawaddy early October. Put mildly, China is not too sure of the future of Myanmar even after ‘Yangon slipped into Beijing’s political pocket’ and is providing a shorter (1200km long) inlet for transporting Middle East crude to Yunnan Province in South West China..
The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is reportedly about to sign an agreement with PetroBangla to search for oil and gas both on and offshore. The deal follows a visit by senior CNPC officials to Dhaka in early 2009. Another Chinese company offered to build a 150MW gas fired power plant. Five of the seen bidders for Khulna power plant are Chinese. China wants to be connected to Chittagong via Myanmar through a high way to boost further bilateral trade which is worth about $4.67 billion. The Chinese government has offered a $1 billion loan to the impoverished Bangladesh.
CHINA CONUNDRUM
The arrival of Chinese players on both sides of Burma’s border is a bit of a conundrum, says Collin Reynolds, the Bangkok-based industry analyst- consultant.
Bangladesh appears to toy with the idea of turning to Beijing for defusing its tensions with Yangon. The Daily Star, (leading English daily from Dhaka) quotes sources in the Foreign Office as saying the approach has been made but Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said she was not aware of any such move. Interestingly, China has counselled Yangon and Dhaka to settle their dispute through talks.
‘Disputes and disagreements between Bangladesh and Myanmar on issues like maritime boundary could be solved only by peaceful negotiation,’ Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Zhang Xianyi told a ‘Meet The Press’ programme at the National Press Club in Dhaka.
The head of Shanghai Institute for International Studies (SIIS), while on a visit to Dhaka early this year, echoed the same sentiment. In fact, Zhao Gancheng went one step ahead declaring ‘China doesn’t want conflict between Dhaka and Yangon’. He also offered China’s ‘facilitating role’ to bring down any conflict between the two neighbours.
But seasoned Bangladesh diplomat Serajul Islam has a different take.
Writing in the Daily Star (Oct 17, 2009), he opined: ‘China’s recent engagements with Myanmar that it values very much for strategic reasons have weakened Bangladesh’s bargaining position because it cannot now expect China to use its influence to back Bangladesh against Myanmar. China may have other reasons to be upset with Bangladesh, for instance, over the granting to Taiwan the permission to open a Trade Office in Dhaka unilaterally in 2004’.
FACTS ON OIL ROW
First the Genesis
The Bay of Bengal has become very important especially after India discovered 100 trillion cubic feet of gas in 2005-06 and Myanmar discovered seven cubic feet of gas during the same time. India discovered oil as well.
Bangladesh a late starter to realise the potential of its own Bay, also discovered sedimentary rock, oolite. It divided what it considers as her part into 28 blocks for exploration -10 shallow and 20 deep-sea. The deep-sea blocks are numbered from nine to twenty-eight.
Myanmar has 10 deep-sea blocks (numbered AD 1 to AD 10) off Arakan coast.
Of these AD7, AD 8, AD9 and AD10 overlap with Bangladesh blocks -13, 17, 18, 22, 23 27 and 28.
India has some problem with block 21 but it is playing safe by keeping a distance from it, though opinion is divided in this regard.
November 2008 saw the first ‘oil-gas’ flare up between Myanmar and Bangladesh. The crisis was defused within less than a week ‘through negotiations at the highest level,’ according to Dhaka and ‘as we withdrew our rigs when preliminary exploration work in block AD-7was completed’, according to Yangon. It is one of the three blocks for which Myanmar awarded exploratory rights to South Korea’s Daewoo. Drilling machinery was shifted on November 8, 2008 to another block called A-3, the state controlled Myanma Ahlin reported.
The end of tensions on the high sea did not mean end of troubles for Bangladesh. It heralded more tensions on the land border, which, like the maritime boundary, is not demarcated. On the Myanmar side, heavy mining has been reported besides heavy mobilisation of border police, and heavy restrictions on the border barter trade.
Second Genesis
The second and present crisis is a fall –out of two moves by Dhaka – one signing of deals with the US-based ConcoPhillips on two deep water offshore blocks and Ireland’s Tullow Oil on one shallow water block for exploration.
Two of these blocks – five and eleven fall within the Bay disputed by Myanmar. India lays claim to block ten.
India is keeping a low profile in the whole issue though it is also into exploration in the Bay in a big way. One reason for this, at least in the contentious block 21, according to Bangladesh expert, Cdr Md. Khurshed Alam, could be the fact that it generally maintains a 50km distance from the Bangladesh block 21, always.
The second move of Dhaka that did not go well with Yangon was reference of its maritime dispute to UN arbitration
‘When Bangladesh has decided to take the issue of delimitation of maritime boundary to arbitration at the UN, we were a little (bit) disappointed,’ Myanmar Ambassador in Dhaka, Phae Thann Oo, said on October 24.
‘But, what I mean to say, we have an open, ongoing bilateral process on the issue of delimitation–and it is progressing. We should continue it. Only when the process has been exhausted without providing a solution, should we go for arbitration,’ the diplomat said qualifying his remark as his personal opinion.
The arbitration and the second ‘face off’ don’t appear to come in the way of bilateral meetings at the technical expert level. These are slated to be held in mid-Nov in Dhaka.
Interestingly, the first ‘face off’ in Nov 2008 took place in between two rounds of technical level tasks. This experience may have prompted Bangladesh to secure its flanks by knocking at the UN doors now.
UN CONVENTION
Bangladesh, Myanmar and India are bound by the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea of 1982 (UNCLOS). Bangladesh ratified the convention in 2001 while the other two States did so in 1995 itself and presented their claims on continental shelf to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). Dhaka has not yet clearly delineated its areas though it has staked claim to a long stretch way back in 1974 itself through a law enacted by its parliament. It hopes to fulfil its ‘delimitation’ before the UN deadline ends on July 27, 2011.
Under the UN law, a coastal state can claim jurisdiction of 12-nautical miles for territorial sea, 200 miles for exclusive economic zone and an additional 150 miles of continental shelf- all this over and above the 200 mile exclusive economic zone from a baseline which could be a normal baseline.
A State exercises full sovereignty on surface water, air and seabed, except the ‘innocent passage’ of ships through territorial sea. The jurisdiction on the economic exclusive zone (EEZ) and the continental shelf (seabed) is resources-oriented.
If the area of the continental shelf is found to be more than the area of the EEZ, then the coastal state can claim an additional 150 miles of sea bed, in addition to 200 miles of economic zone (12 territorial sea + 188 miles of economic zone). That means that the continental shelf can extend to 350 miles from the baseline.
The UN convention provides for equitable distribution of sea bed resources. For this the countries concerned can adopt for base line purpose what is called equidistance method or a straight line. The States are free to choose whatever means to resolve the maritime dispute on their own. In case of disagreement, Article 15 of UNCLOS says an equidistant line from the baseline would be applicable unless special circumstances or historic title exist.
BANGLADESH CASE
India and Myanmar have opted for the equidistance principle while drawing their maritime boundaries with Bangladesh.
Dhaka’s case, according to Professor Badrul Imam of the University of Regina, Canada, is that it deserves a different treatment. It lays stress on what it calls ‘equitable principle’ to compensate it for its concavity and heavily indented coastline and natural prolongation of its land territory to continental shelf.
CHINA RESERVTIONS
China has reservations on Bangladesh move for arbitration and its case for ‘equitable principle’. It has been opposing similar demands from Vietnam. It has not been allowing even cyclone hit Vietnamese fishermen to take shelter Phu Lam Island (often referred to by Vietnamese fishermen as Tru Cau Island, in the disputed Hoang Sa (Paracel) Archipelago.
For instance, in late September, China did not allow Vietnamese fishermen from central Quang Ngai Province to enter the area during Storm Ketsana. In fact, ‘these hapless fishermen aboard 16 fishing boats were confronted by live fire from Chinese armed personnel’, Nguyen Phuong Nga, spokeswoman of the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry, said and termed the Chinese action as ‘inhumane treatment’. It appears the Vietnamese fishermen were also beaten and their belongings and equipment were confiscated prompting a formal protest from Hanoi to Beijing.
MYANMAR DOES A CHINA
Myanmar did a China on its border with B’desh very close to the Cox Bazar on Oct 15.
‘Members of Nasaka, the border security force of Myanmar, kidnapped seven Bangladeshi fishermen and took away their boat from the Naf River at Teknaf of Cox’s Bazar’, a report in local dailies. ‘They were fishing within the Bangladesh boundary on Thursday (Oct 15) at around 11:00pm. The Nasaka members by an engine boat turned up and kidnapped the fishermen at gunpoint’, the report said. Lieutenant Colonel Muzammel Hossain, commander of Teknaf 42 Rifles Battalion, shot off a letter to the Nasaka to send back the fishermen.
A trader from Teknaf said, ‘I think Nasaka is provoking Bangladesh’.
TENSE BORDER
40 artillery guns have been positioned very close to the border (five to eight km distance, according to a report) facing Ali Kadam on the Bangladesh side. 35/ 77 mm guns are on hand ‘that will bring Chittagong under their firing range’, the Daily Star reported.
Artillery has also been placed close to the border (three km away) opposite Bawli Bazar and Naikhongchari which are gripped by tension.
Nine Light Infantry Battalions (LIBs) have been shifted from Maungdaw to Paletwa border. ‘These battalions, which make up three brigades, are supported by not only organic artillery, there are reportedly heavy artillery and a regiment of tanks to boot, not to speak of two divisions that are in a state of readiness as a backup’, leading Bangladeshi Strategic expert Shahedul Anam Khan says.
MIG -29s and helicopter gun ships are ready for duty at Sittwe (formerly known as Akiab) air base. Sittwe is only 80km away from Chittagong airport. Buthidaung air strip is operationalised.
12 warships, a frigate and some gun boats are on high alert at Sittwe naval base. A newly inducted frigate, built with the Chinese help at Yangon, has arrived in the Bay of Bengal.
On the land border, Myanmar is planning to fence 63kms from main pillar number one to pillar number thirty two opposite Chittagong. Already a distance of 8.8km has been fenced. Road construction is also reported approximately, 600-1600 yards within the Myanmar border except in some areas opposite Palongkhali (here it is within 125yards of the border) and Border Out Posts (BOPs) in Ghamdung
Bangladesh has also mobilised its force. The army moved its artillery and infantry units to reinforce the deployments. The army chief visited the border area to see the state of readiness. The Bangladesh Navy and air force are also in a state of readiness.
PROGNOSIS
The Junta’s willingness to provoke Bangladesh is prompted three factors:
- – Support and help from China
- -China’s ‘open annoyance’ with Bangladesh
- -Success in asserting its hold over Arakans.
Yet, the Myanmar Junta will not risk going beyond ‘testing waters’ for the present if one goes by its repeated assertion that ‘the troop movement is only routine’. Any how it will not like to draw undue attention to itself just when the US is willing to engage with Yangon, and thus create a situation that could lead to a halt for its nuclear quest.
On its part, Bangladesh is maintaining contacts with Myanmar at the diplomatic level and at the highest political level. So, the dialogue is not broken.
That provides enough room for manoeuvres and a room for a cool off for the face off, notwithstanding the public postures on the border – on the sea and on the land.
