India Quietly Continues Work On 2,050-Mile Fence Along Frontier With Bangladesh - Boston Globe

[hatrack]

SUJATPUR, Bangladesh --Everyone knew it was out there somewhere, an invisible line that cut through a cow pasture and, at least in theory, divided one nation from another. But no one saw it as a border -- it was just a lumpy field of grass, uneven from the hooves of generations of cattle, and villagers crossed back and forth without even thinking about it. Today, no one can ignore the line. In a construction project that will eventually reach across 2,050 miles, hundreds of rivers and long stretches of forests and fields, India has been quietly sealing itself off from Bangladesh, its much poorer neighbor. Sections totaling about 1,550 miles have been built the past seven years.

In Sujatpur, a poor farming village, the frontier is now defined by two rows of 10-foot-high barbed wire barriers, the posts studded with ugly spikes the size of a toddler's fingers. A smaller fence, and miles of barbed wire coils, fill the space in between. The expanse of steel, set into concrete, spills off toward the horizon in both directions. "Before, it was like we were one country," said Mohammed Iqbal, a Bangladeshi farmer walking near the border on a windy afternoon. "I used to go over there just to pass the time." As he spoke, a cow wandered past, brass bells jangling around its neck. "But now that's over," he said.

In the United States, the decision to fence 700 miles of the Mexican border triggered months of political debate ranging across issues from immigration reform to the environmental impact. When Israel announced it would build a 425-mile barrier around the West Bank, an international outcry erupted.

But there has been barely a ripple over India's far larger project, launched in earnest in 2000 amid growing fears in New Delhi about illegal immigration and cross-border terrorism.

EDIT

http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2007/06/25/indias_border_fence_encloses_bangladesh/

[Ian David]

1. I didn't know there were Mexicans in Bangladesh... Oh... wait... never mind. n/t

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Isn't that something.

[Chulanowa]

3. Kind of ironic...

That one of the world's most prolific CO2 emitters is walling off its borders with one of the countries that will be most affected by rising sea levels.

[NNadir]

4. This will prove interesting if Bangladesh goes under water...

...And well it might...

[PATRICK]

5. Maybe it is framework

for a dam?

The world is beginning to look like my neighborhood and the ones with the fence still traipse through my yard to pound the lawn into mud, but if I make a fence too who is going to cut the grass in the inch of No Man's Land between? Bengladesh should build a higher fence but they probably can't afford it.

Two thousand miles of cheap aluminumm or rusting barbed wire? Interesting.

[YankeyMCC]

6. When I read it that was my thought as well...

that the motivation was really about trying to control the precipitous rise in refuges as the sea level rises and Bangladesh sinks.

[Dead_Parrot]

7. That's why it's there, for a guess...

Somebody worked out it's cheaper to build a big fence now, than homes for a hundred million refugees in 20-odd years time.