Chittagong arms seizure

For Bangladesh the issue is of great significance in several ways, most of all, it is for the regional and international ramifications of the episode, that we must delve deep into the matter. The question of our security and our standing in the committee of nations is linked with it.

It is deemed necessary to go into the issue of the 'destination' or the demand side of the equation, in some more details, because of the gravity of the issue.

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First, was it meant for some groups, clandestine or overt, in Bangladesh? The contents of the arms lot suggest that these were meant for use by elements that have acquired a degree of sophistication in their training and use of very sophisticated weapons.

If we take a stock of the various underground elements, particularly those with leftist propensities, operating in Bangladesh, certain features, distinct in nature from similar groups operating around us, emerge. Those elements in Bangladesh, that swathe their activities with the name of left parties, are motivated more by economic considerations rather than any political ideology. They resort to terror tactics but do not qualify as terrorists or insurgents in the classical sense of the term, being bereft of convictions to follow or of an ideology to implement. They indulge in petty criminal activities but arrogate to themselves the name of a political party, to lend a modicum of 'credibility' and 'respectability' to their activities.

These petty thugs go about their business, in most cases, with the help of most ordinary homemade weapons. They have neither the capability nor the logistics or technical wherewithal to absorb such a huge quantity of sophisticated weapons. They are not known to have the 'real estate' to maintain the large volume of 'goods.'

The factor that militates against such fringe political elements involving in the demand of such a huge quantity is the tremendous cost of the 'lot'. The market price of the seized weapons has been estimated at around a hundred million dollars. The accretion of value of the weapons, being illicit in nature, is three to five times, depending on the number of sources and the routes they travel to get to their destination. That being so, the likelihood of the underground elements, which exist at best on the fringes of our political spectrum, of possessing the amount of cash that we are talking about, seems an improbability, if not impossibility.

It would be unwise not to take into account also those elements with radical religious leanings, who survive, reportedly on transnational patronage and who might have some use for these weapons. Going by the reports appearing in various national dailies in Bangladesh these elements are attempting a foothold in the political arena. In fact international press reports and analysis express such apprehensions, particularly of religious elements allegedly with links to the al Qaeda. Although it has been alleged that some of them have links with the International Islamic Fronts, their activities have so far remained nebulous. Their political clout remains a question, their economic clout even more so.

We are thus left only with the criminal gangs that survive on political patronages, and are festered by inter-party or group rivalries. Although some of these gangs are known to be holding the types of rifles that were recently seized, we would not be able to rationalize their need for such categories, leave alone the quantity of weapons, even if we stretched our imagination to the extreme.

Thus the possibility of Bangladesh being a destination of the seized consignment is negated by the 'demand' and 'supply' factor as well as the market's 'utilization capacity rate'.

That leaves us with the 'third country options'. So far, none of the analyses have considered the LTTE in Sri Lanka as a possible recipient of such a large quantity of arms and ammunition. In fact the LTTE have all the attributes of an organized guerilla and insurgents group, which qualify them to be the most likely user of these weapons. They had involved the Sri Lankan security forces in conventional combat in the past. However, the land route is a tortuous proposition. But, by the same token, some analysts contend the sea route to be fraught with danger, since the passage through the Bay of Bengal would confront four navies of the region. Acquiring weapons through clandestine means would create problems for the LTTE at the time of a peace negotiation, although the peace process is in a limbo at the moment.

Therefore, the other reasonable guess is that these weapons and ammunitions were meant for group or groups operating in areas contiguous to Bangladesh that are capable of undertaking classical, conventional battle with the security forces. Not less than 60 insurgent groups are active in Northeast and Jammu & Kashmir in India are known to be using such weapons, says Praveen Kumar, an analyst writing for the IPCS, New Delhi. He further states, "Various militant and leftwing extremist groups in India also have linkages with the Maoist insurgents of Nepal. Thus, Indian insurgent groups and leftwing extremist groups in the region could have been the possible end-users."

Of late, there is a demand for such weapons particularly by the ULFA in Assam following the recent ant-insurgency operations by the Indian army in Bhutan. This assumption is reinforced by the statement of the head of Indian police, appearing in the press a few days after the heist, to the effect that there was indeed a meeting of several Indian secessionist groups last month in Bangkok to arrange for weapon replenishment.

However, some experts are of the opinion that even the insurgents and the rebel elements in the 'seven sisters' would be very hard pressed to come up with that kind of cash. This is where the nexus of weapons drugs come in. Today, money is no longer the only means of exchange of goods. Drugs have also become a legal tender in the world of illegal arms trade. Those who deal in narcotics and drugs need weapons to survive and those with illegal arms have the need for drugs. This creates a 'source' and 'means' of weapons and drugs. That being so, can we discard the possibility of involvement of a resourceful organization, or even a third party, in the whole episode?

Last but not the least is the adverse impact of unhindered diffusion of illicit arms and weapons on the security scenario of Bangladesh. The impact is both regional as well as internal in context. Certain statistics would make this point clear. There are about two hundred thousand illegal arms and weapons in Bangladesh of which twenty five per cent are in Dhaka alone. According to press reports, there are eighty criminal gangs in the country, a large percent of which are in Dhaka. Of the more than three thousand violence-related deaths recorded in Bangladesh in 2001, fifty percent were weapons related. A significant number of the victims of gun related crimes are women and children.

The regional impact will be equally harmful for Bangladesh's security. India, which is currently facing insurgency in the Northeast, alleges that the rebels find sustenance through the supply channel, primarily through Bangladesh. It may consider our inability to stem the flow a cause of concern for its national security. Coupled with this is its anxiety that efforts may be underway to establish a separate Muslim homeland in the Northeast comprising of the states having predominantly Muslim population carving out a "Brihot Bangladesh (Greater Bangladesh) in the region," according to one Indian scholar. Far-fetched these assumptions may be and we may well pass them off as drivels, but such utterances are representative of the Indian psyche on this matter.

When the world is pooling efforts to circumvent the scourge of terrorism, and there can not be terrorism without small arms, we are seen as easy transit for these tools of terror. Can we afford to stand by and not act?

Let us not also placate our feelings on the grounds that these weapons were meant for a third country. While no effort should be spared to determine the source and destination of the consignment, we must initiate immediate actions to ensure that our territory is not used as transit for illicit weapons.

Brig Gen (retd) Shahedul Anam Khan is Editor, Defence and Strategic Affairs of The Daily Star.