Wonder if the Arab world will be up in arms about this one? MSNBC – India to fence off B’desh border by March ’06 –
NEW DELHI – India has fenced nearly 40 percent of its porous border with Bangladesh and would fence the entire frontier by March 2006 to prevent movement of insurgents, illegal immigrants and smuggling, officials said on Wednesday.
Umm, wrong country to be fencing out. Let’s begin with the Rann of Kutch in the west.
To paraphrase Tom Friedman, “good fences make good neighbors but bad fences make bad neigbors”. I’m sure this fence is not going to be miles inside bangladeshi territory.
now, what we need is a fence on the mexican border.
i trust you all caught that recent cover story in Time magazine on the murder & chaos at the border…by two liberal democrats, no less…
Rann of Kutch in the west.
isn’t that a natural ‘fence.’ my mother grew up within sight of tripura in eastern india, and a lot of the locals were ‘businessmen’ who specialized in smuggling goods back and forth. not to mention that half of assam is being demographically swallowed by bangaldeshis (though west bengalis also have a strong presence there, inflating the bengali footprint in the region).
Unless it’s a real wall, fortified by gunposts and mustachioed Indian jawans, the wirecutting industry is about to take off in a big way. All walls are silly enterprises. The first step to getting the Banglas to stay put in their country is to support their economy. In other words, take away the very reason for them to jump across the border (echoes the same rationale to the situation South of the border).
No, the Rann of Kutch salt marsh is a haven for weapons and narcotics smugglers.
Speaking of marshland, this sounds like effective swamp draining 🙂