Posted on 12/16/2003 6:12:51 PM PST by forty_years
The new security fence runs 3,034 miles along a contorted path that lurches east, then west, and then doubles back - the antithesis of a straight line as it contrives to include this village and exclude that one. Many in the international community charge that in addition to being a grievous breach of human rights, the fence is part of a scheme to monopolize water resources, stealing the flow of rivers and further depriving people who already have little access to water. The course of the security fence divides families, separates herdsmen from their traditional grazing land and it can only be built by confiscating homes, farms, and property, leaving hardship and bitter resentment in its wake. When finished, the government claims that the security fence will block terrorists from access to their intended victims and staunch the flow of illegal immigrants. Large numbers of illegal immigrants have, in recent years, crossed the border and moved into crowded Muslim neighborhoods where they are difficult for the government to locate and deport, but where they place a tremendous strain on an economy already struggling with high unemployment.
The demographic threat posed by Muslim immigration, is ultimately, worse than terrorism. If allowed to continue, the illegal Muslim immigration, combined with high Muslim birthrates, will eventually produce a Muslim majority in India. Yes, India.
You have probably not heard much about the controversial security fence that India is building to wall itself off from Bangladesh. The course of the fence runs along the international border drawn by Lord Mountbatten when the British withdrew from India in 1948. It divides families, tribes, and farms not so much because Mountbatten did a poor job, as because the task he was given was impossible. Hindu and Muslim populations were distributed across the map in a patchwork that also included tribal groups that predate the advent of Hinduism to India. Any line inevitably put some Hindus in Muslim areas and some Muslims on the Hindu side, and necessarily divided families, tribal land, villages, and farms. Some of these impacts have been mitigated by the ease with which people in remote areas have crossed the border. The new fence is designed to make that border very difficult for unauthorized persons to cross.
The fence is being built in large part to stop terrorism. Most of the terrorism in question is committed not by Muslims but by over 50 armed insurgencies representing tribal, ethnic, and religious groups in the seven states of northeastern India. Some of these armed groups are small, and some are little better than bandits, but others are serious independence movements capable of large-scale violence. Being able to withdraw across the border into Bangladesh makes it easier for them to evade the Indian authorities. To take one example, the National Liberation Front of Tripura is a Christian group noted for its brutal attacks on non-Christian villages. Since 1998 it is accounted responsible for driving 59,000 people from their homes, kidnapping 1,430 and killing 900.
The Hindu – Muslim divide is more familiar to westerners. One aspect that may be unfamiliar is the fact that at independence tens of millions of Hindus lived in what are now Pakistan and Bangladesh, while tens of millions of Muslims lived in India. In a series of waves that still continues, almost all of the Hindus and Sikhs left Bangladesh and Pakistan. The Muslims of India, by contrast have largely remained. The obvious reason for the difference is that India treats its Muslims decently, for the most part, whereas Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh are subject not merely to gross forms of political and economic discrimination, but to brutal pogroms.
India treats Muslims so well that 20 million illegal Bangladeshi immigrants have entered India in recent years. The dual goals of the security fence are to stop terrorism and staunch the flow of illegal immigration.
Bangladesh denies that its citizens are entering India in huge numbers. It also denies that it harbors terrorists. And it claims that India is diverting water that legally belongs to Bangladesh. The accusation about water may have some truth to it.
You have not heard about the security wall that India is building to surround Bangladesh for two reasons. The first is that the American media hardly covers India. The second is that, despite the fact that the issue has roused substantial controversy in the subcontinent and outrage in Bangladesh, the world in general sees a wall along an international border as a matter or right. It is widely acknowledged that India has the right to control its borders, to protect its citizens from terrorism, and to stop illegal immigration. Israel, unfortunately, does not have an international border dividing it from the Palestinians because of Arab refusal to establish a Palestinian State. It is probably time to do as Lord Mountbatten did: draw a line on the map. Then Israel can build a good security fence, treat it as an international border, and wait for the Palestinian leadership conform to reality and take on the responsibilities of statehood.
But the basic principle of a secure border is sound, no matter how it is achieved. I wish we had a secure border.
India does what the RINOs claim is impossible. No wonder we're not hearing anything about it.
There's no way that 1 to 1 1/2 million illegal aliens enter our country illegally every year, like they do now, if we secure our land borders.
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