The Fence

Another long break - justifiable!! We have been in Ubud, Bali, taking some much needed R&R, and very enjoyable it was too. Having been to Bali a few times I have decided that Ubud is the place for me. It is a tourist centre but with a difference - it seems to me that the Balinese actually control access to their culture and determine what happens unlike other places whose economy is so tourist dependent. And the food is fantastic!!

I took a lot of reading away with me. One piece was a recent Guardian Weekly where I came across an article by Delwar Hussain on the fence that India has built around Bangladesh to control the flow of population across the ill-defined and porous borders separating the two nations. Few people seem to know too much about this fence, which is surprising as it is more substantial and longer than any other fence built by a nation to separate people for spurious political reasons. The Berlin Wall, the Israeli wall and the US fences designed to keep the Latinos out all pale into insignificance compared to the Indian wall.

It is some 4000 kms long, 2.4 metres high, which as the Guardian points out

cuts villages in two and divides agriculture lands and markets. It separates families and communities, cutting across mangrove swamps, forests and mountains

and it clearly doesn't work! Between 2000 and 2007 over 700 Bangladeshis have been killed on the Indo-Bangladeshi border, mostly by the Indian Border security Force (BSF). This is scandalous, and its a shocking indictment of the level of disinterest in Bangladesh in the west. If such numbers were killed on the US/Mexico borders there would be outrage.

It is alleged that those killed are smugglers, or illegal immigrants. So its OK to kill smugglers? According to Hussain this is not true. Most deaths arise from genuine confusion among the people who have traditionally crossed the border in the pursuit of their livelihood or, and most likely, because the border guards feel they have been cheated in their illegal dealings with smugglers, or various groups of the BSF fail to communicated their deals with the smugglers to other BSF groups. It is not a pretty picture and something need to be done.