Take Myanmar's Military Ambition Seriously: BIPSS

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Bangladesh needs to seriously take the issue of Myanmar's reinforced military presence along the border to safeguard its national security, a Dhaka-based think-tank says.

The Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies (BIPSS), a think-tank that deals with security issues in South and Southeast Asia, in a publication has suggested that there are many contentious issues with neighbour Myanmar and those need to be resolved for the national interest.

The issues such as Rohiynga and dispute over maritime boundary have daunted the relations between the two neighbours in recent times, says an article of its publication, BIPSS FOCUS.

It says Myanmar's recent strengthening of military presence in the Rakhine state, which borders Bangladesh, is a big concern.

"Bangladesh needs to take Myanmar's recent military ambition seriously," the publication says in an article, titled "Bangladesh –Myanmar Relations: The Security Dimension".

It says Myanmar has increased movement of troops while construction of concrete pillars and barbed-wire fences along the border has been sped up.

The military junta in Myanmar has also extended the runway of Sitwee Airport enabling it for operation of MiG-29 multi-role combat aircraft and all 12 MiG-29 aircraft of Myanmar Air Force are presently deployed at Sitwee, the article says. Land has also been acquired for construction of airport at Buthidaung, it adds.

The article says massive repair and reconstruction of road, bridges and culverts are going on in Western Command area while regular disembarkation of tanks, artillery guns, Recoilles Rifles, mortars in Buthidaung river jetty is going on.

Saying that such developments are "alarming" for Bangladesh, the article further says that Myanmar has commenced barbed-wire fencing along the border with Bangladesh since March 2009, and so far approximately 38 kilometer fencing is completed till end of July this year.

Considering all these issues, the article says: "It is observed that Bangladesh-Myanmar relations have developed through phases of cooperation and conflict."

"Conflict in this case is not meant in the sense of confrontation, but only in the sense of conflict of interests and resultant diplomatic face-off," it says.

The article warns that "unfriendly relations with Myanmar can benefit small insurgent groups living in the hilly jungle areas of the southern portion of the Chittagong Hill Tract, which can cause some degree of instability in the area and become a serious concern for national security."

The article also suggests that Bangladesh can benefit in ways by maintaining a good relation with Myanmar, which has a good friendship with China.

"It (Myanmar) is the potential gateway for an alternative land route opening towards China and Southeast Asia other than the sea," it says. "Such road link has the potentiality for a greater communication network between Bangladesh and Southeast Asian countries including Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore."

Moreover, the article says, with a rich natural resource base, Myanmar is a country with considerable potential.

"Myanmar's forests and other natural resources like gas, oil, stones are enormous from which Bangladesh can be benefited enormously," it says.

The article suggests the policymakers review the existing defence priorities to suit the magnitude of threat being faced by the nation.

"The policy regarding Myanmar needs to be a careful combination of effective diplomacy while safeguarding our security interests," it says.

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Troops exit temple complex - Phnom Penh Post

Monday, 31 August 2009 15:04 Thet Sambath

Cambodia's Defence Ministry says government has halved deployed troops at Preah Vihear but warns that forces remain prepared for any future hostilities.

Photo by: Tracey Shelton

Soldiers walk down the mountain near Preah Vihear temple last month. One brigade left the area this week following Hun Sen’s promise to reduce troop numbers around the disputed temple.

Troops stationed at the Preah Vihear temple complex near the Thai border completed their redeployment over the weekend, a Royal Cambodian Armed Forces commander told the Post on Sunday.

Srey Doek, commander of RCAF Division 3, said Prime Minister Hun Sen on Saturday met soldiers from Brigade 11 during their redeployment to their base in Kampot province.

"[Hun Sen] welcomed them as they travelled near Siem Reap and offered them each 50,000 riels [US$12], and the prime minister's wife offered them gifts of fruit," Srey Doek said.

Srey Doek said the money and fruit were given to nearly 1,000 RCAF soldiers as expressions of gratitude for their service at the front line, adding that troops from other brigades from Siem Reap as well as members of Hun Sen's personal bodyguard who were also redeployed over the weekend did not meet the prime minister.

Meanwhile, an official at the Defence Ministry said Sunday that forces at the border have now been halved.

"We have pulled out 50 percent of the troops from Preah Vihear temple," said ministry spokesman Chhum Socheat.

"This shows that the situation at the border is really getting better, and that both countries have a mutual understanding of peace," he added.

Hun Sen declared last week that the 13-month standoff with Thailand over the disputed Preah Vihear temple complex, which claimed more than seven lives and left hundreds homeless, had effectively ended following a bilateral withdrawal of troops announced during a meeting on August 24 between the head of RCAF, General Pol Saroeun, and his Thai counterpart, General Songkitti Jaggabatra of the Royal Thai Armed Forces.

Troops still on guard
Despite a thaw in relations, Cambodian military officials last week were quick to point out that troops would still be necessary to guard the integrity of the border and the sovereignty of the nation.

Defence Minister Tea Banh said some troops would remain at the border.

"We do not need too many soldiers there now. We are currently adjusting the numbers to achieve the right balance for the situation," Tea Banh said last week.

Chea Dara, RCAF deputy commander in chief, echoed this sentiment Sunday, saying the border's security remained a vital concern and downplaying the impact of the withdrawal on Cambodia's ability to secure its border with Thailand.

"It is not a problem for our soldiers to defend the nation, even as their numbers have been reduced by the withdrawal," he said Sunday. "We have kept enough of our troops in place."

He said if Thailand "shows a softer manner" Cambodia could cut troop numbers further. "However, if anything happened, our troop mobility would be very swift."

Thailand in June reignited the row over the temple when it asked World Heritage body UNESCO to reconsider its decision to formally list the temple in Cambodia.

Cambodia and Thailand have been at loggerheads over the land around Preah Vihear temple for decades.

Taliban Losses Are No Sure Gain for Pakistanis

By JANE PERLEZ and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH

MARDAN, Pakistan — For the past month and a half, the Pakistani military has claimed success in retaking the Swat Valley from the Taliban, clawing back its own territory from insurgents who only a short time ago were extending their reach toward the heartland of the country.

Yet from a helicopter flying low over the valley last week, the low-rise buildings of Mingora, the largest city in Swat, now deserted and under a 24-hour curfew, appeared unscathed. In the surrounding countryside, farmers had harvested wheat and red onions on their unscarred land.

All that is testament to the fact that the Taliban mostly melted away without a major fight, possibly to return when the military withdraws or to fight elsewhere, military analysts say. About two million people have been displaced in Swat and the surrounding area as the military has carried out its campaign.

The reassertion of control over Swat has at least temporarily denied the militants a haven they coveted inside Pakistan proper. The offensive has also won strong support from the United States, which has urged Pakistan to engage the militants.

But the Taliban’s decision to scatter leaves the future of Swat, and Pakistan’s overall stability, under continued threat, military analysts and some politicians say.

The tentative results in Swat also do not bode well for the military’s new push in the far more treacherous terrain of South Waziristan, another insurgent stronghold, where officials have vowed to take on the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, who remains Pakistan’s most wanted man.

Signs abound that the military’s campaign in Swat is less than decisive. The military extended its deadline for ending the campaign. Even in the areas where progress has been made, the military controls little more than urban centers and roads, say those who have fled the areas. The military has also failed to kill or capture even one top Taliban commander.

It was “very disappointing,” said Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, a senior politician from the region, that none of the commanders had been eliminated. It turned out, he said, that early reports of the capture of Ibn Amin, a particularly brutal commander from Matta, were incorrect.

Many Taliban fighters have infiltrated the camps set up for those displaced by the fighting and are likely to return with them to Swat, said Himayatullah Mayar, the mayor of Mardan, the city where many of the refugees are staying. “Most of the Taliban shaved their beards, and they are living here with their families,” he said.

As of two weeks ago, the police had arrested 150 people in the camps suspected of being members of the Taliban, Mr. Mayar said. This figure did not include suspects arrested by the Intelligence Bureau, Pakistan’s domestic intelligence outfit, and the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, the country’s main spy agency, he said.

Meanwhile, the government, led by President Asif Ali Zardari, has yet to announce a full plan for how it will provide services like courts, policing and health care that will allow the refugees to return home and the government to fully assert control.

Those plans appear to be mired in conflict and mutual suspicion between the military and the civilian government, raising serious questions about whether the authorities can secure Swat and other areas and keep them from being taken back by the Taliban, military experts said.

“I’ve told the president and the prime minister and the chief of the army this is the time to act. Just take basic things and implement them,” said Gen. Nadeem Ahmad, the commander of the Special Support Group, an arm of the Pakistani military that is providing temporary buildings and some food for the displaced. “This is not talking rocket science.”

On a notepad, General Ahmad had drawn a chart of the four elements of what he called “lasting peace.” They were good government; improved delivery of services, including rebuilt schools; speedy justice (something the Taliban had provided); and social equity.

He appeared to be skeptical that those aspects could be delivered within what he called an essential one-year time frame. He said he had warned the leaders: “If you don’t deliver, it will be trouble. You will come back and do the operation again.”

Having witnessed past episodes of deal-making with the Taliban, the people of Swat say they want tangible proof that the military is serious this time and that they will be safe if they return home.

From the start, a rallying cry has been a demand that the army kill or capture Taliban leaders, a ruthless group of highly trained fighters, some with links to Al Qaeda. But the army has not been able to show any evidence that it killed any of the Taliban leaders.

The daily newspaper The News said in a recent editorial that unless Maulana Fazlullah, the Taliban’s main commander in Swat, and Mr. Mehsud, the country’s top enemy, were captured, “the Taliban are going to live to fight another day.”

Indeed, most of the damage from the recent fighting appears confined to small agricultural hamlets outside Mingora, according to interviews with displaced people. Some said they had heard from recent arrivals to the camps that areas 500 yards off the roads remained in control of the militants.

The “outlook was bleak” in Swat because the civilian government did not have the money or the skills to rebuild, said Shuja Nawaz, the author of a history of the Pakistani military and now the director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington.

Most of the two million displaced people are still living in tent camps and cramped quarters with relatives and even strangers, in cities as far flung as the southern port of Karachi.

Many displaced people were fed up with the cruelties inflicted under Taliban rule and have backed the military campaign. But as the fighting drags on in places, the mood among them grows increasingly despondent.

Some displaced people said that they were angry at the army for indiscriminate shelling in civilian areas. Others said they were confused about why the military operation was even necessary.

“We had no problem with the Taliban,” Umar Ali, a poultry trader from Qambar in Swat, said as he sat on the veranda of a home in Swabi, a town filled with displaced people. “We’re here because of the military shelling. I’m a trader, and the thing that affects my life is the curfew.”

Earlier Pakistani campaigns against the Taliban do not offer an encouraging precedent. In Bajaur, a part of the tribal areas, two main economic centers, the market towns of Loe Sam and Inayat Kalay, remain in ruins nearly eight months after the army smashed them in pursuit of the Taliban and claimed victory.

Russia's Maneuvers in Caucasus Highlight Volatility of Region

By Sarah Marcus
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, June 28, 2009

TBILISI, Georgia -- Military helicopters circled once again over Georgia's mountainous terrain. Amid the crackle of gunfire, soldiers ran across battlefields carrying comrades on stretchers. But this was no repeat of last summer's brief war with Russia. It was a training exercise -- and this time, NATO sent help.

The month-long exercises, which concluded June 3 and involved more than 1,000 soldiers from 14 countries, took place near Georgia's border with the breakaway territory of South Ossetia and were condemned by the Russian government as a "provocation."

Now the Kremlin is preparing to stage its own military maneuvers in the Caucasus region. Russia's top commander, Gen. Nikolai Makarov, has said the "large-scale exercises" will involve "all the brigades of the North Caucasus Military District, the Black Sea Fleet and Caspian Flotilla marine brigades."

Makarov will personally oversee the operation, dubbed Kavkaz-2009, according to Russian state media. The exercises are set to begin Monday and end July 6, just as President Obama is scheduled to arrive in Moscow on his first state visit.

The two sets of war games are a reminder of the volatility of the region more than 10 months after Russian troops routed the Georgian army in a five-day war. The Russian exercises will go forward as two international monitoring missions are withdrawing from the area and as Russian forces continue to occupy territory that a year ago was uncontested Georgian soil.

A team of observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is scheduled to leave Georgia at the end of the month at Russia's insistence, and Moscow used its veto in the U.N. Security Council last week to terminate the U.N. mission in the other breakaway Georgian territory, Abkhazia.

A third group of monitors from the European Union remains in Georgia but has been denied access to the two territories, which Russia recognized as independent countries after last year's war.

Pavel Felgengauer, a Moscow-based military analyst who writes for the opposition Novaya Gazeta newspaper, warned that Russia may be preparing for another war, in part to establish a corridor through Georgia to an important Russian base in Armenia.

He noted that similar Russian exercises in the North Caucasus preceded last year's war. "Such exercises are traditionally used as a cover under which to prepare troops for war," he said. "They could easily lead to deployment of troops."

The Georgian government's response to the Russian exercises has been muted. But Defense Minister Vasil Sikharulidze traveled to Washington this month to urge the Obama administration to strengthen military cooperation with Georgia. Speaking to the Associated Press, he warned that Russian troops were "better prepared for war than they were last year."

In a recent interview, Sikharulidze added that Georgia was working with the United States to upgrade its armed forces. "If you compare Russian and Georgian military organization, there is a huge disbalance," he said. "But the Georgian army is trained, and being trained, to deter and delay Russian aggression."

Sikharulidze said the army began a new training cycle, focused on defense, in January. But he said the United States has not supplied antitank and antiaircraft weapons that Georgia has sought.

Russian officials, meanwhile, insist that Georgia is already better armed than it was before the war. They have accused E.U. monitors of ignoring the buildup and Georgia of preparing to seize the territories by force.

About 8,500 troops will participate in the upcoming exercises, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, though statements by Makarov and others suggest much larger maneuvers. Officials have said the exercises will incorporate lessons from the Georgian war but focus on counterterrorism operations.

NATO officials said the alliance's peacekeeping and crisis-response exercises in Georgia were scheduled long before last year's war and were not targeted at Russia. But the decision to proceed despite Russian objections was seen as an achievement by the Georgian government.

"It was very important to have a message that the principle of sovereignty is an important thing for NATO and [that] no country can just veto a decision from outside," said Deputy Foreign Minister Giga Bokeria.

NATO support appears more important than ever to this former Soviet republic, yet Georgia's prospects for joining the alliance have faded amid U.S. efforts to improve relations with Russia and lingering concerns about the judgment of President Mikheil Saakashvili, whom some blame for provoking last year's war.

NATO has pledged to bring Georgia into the alliance, but it rejected Georgia's request for a clear timetable for membership and instead set up an annual process for reviewing the country's progress toward alliance requirements.

The decision, and the departure of the Bush administration, have heightened anxiety in Georgia about whether Washington will continue to back it against its powerful neighbor.

The U.S. assistant secretary of state for the region, Philip H. Gordon, traveled to Tbilisi this month and reaffirmed a partnership agreement signed by the Bush administration. And in April, Obama stood firm on Georgia in a London meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, referring to the war as "the Russian invasion of Georgia" in a news conference.

Saakashvili, a favorite of the Bush administration, said Obama's use of the phrase amounted to an endorsement of Georgia's view of the war.

Russia maintains that it invaded Georgia only after Georgian forces attacked South Ossetia, killing Russian peacekeepers and civilians. Saakashvili says he ordered the assault in response to shelling by South Ossetian rebels and an imminent Russian invasion.

Richard Giragosian, director of the Armenian Center for National and International Studies, said U.S. policy toward Georgia has shifted, official statements of support notwithstanding.

While the Pentagon is continuing to work with the Georgian army, he said, the emphasis now is on "assistance and training limited to a defense nature only."

Lincoln Mitchell, a scholar at Columbia University who studies Georgia, said the Obama administration may be reluctant to provide arms to Georgia because of Saakashvili's domestic policies. A fractured opposition has portrayed him as an autocrat and staged weeks of protests demanding he resign.

But Bokeria, the deputy foreign minister, defended Georgia's democratic credentials, calling them "an important factor" in U.S. support for the country. "This factor is not hampering the assistance," he said.