By Anis Ahmed DHAKA, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Bangladesh said on Sunday it had sent army reinforcements to the border with Myanmar as Yangon was undertaking a military build-up along the 320 km (200 mile) frontier, partly overlooking the Naf river. Senior military officials said Bangladesh sent three army brigades to its southeastern hilly border after Myanmar deployed fresh regular army contingents along with Nasaka border troops, dug bunkers and added artillery."They look like going for a massive build-up," said Lieutenant-Colonel Azam of the Bangladesh Rifles (border guards) at Naikhyangchhari, a paramilitary frontier camp. The colonel used only one name. "But we hope the build up will not escalate into a shootout," he told a Reuters reporter at Cox's Bazar border district.Intelligence officials said Manmar had already reopened a long-unused military airport at Sittowe (Akyab) near the border, and was renovating another. A leading Bangladesh daily, Jugantar, printed photographs on Sunday showing aircraft at the Sittowe base and troops in armoured vehicles moving on the border. Officials said on Sunday they were "closely monitoring" the situation on the Myanmar side of the border. "We (are) seeing some abnormal movement of troops and armour on their side but are not sure what is that for," said Colonel Didadrul Alam of the Bangladesh Army, in Chittagong port city. Security sources say Myanmar is also erecting barbed wire fences along its border with Bangladesh ostensibly to hold off an influx of Muslim refugees into Bangladesh. But military and civil officials said that did not warrant rebuilding air bases or deploying thousands of regular troops. There are more than 21,000 Muslim "Rohingya" refugees from western Myanmar in two Bangladesh camps but many more have mingled with local residents since a major influx in 1992, according to local and U.N. officials. More than 250,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh at the time to escape alleged persecution by the Myanmar military junta but most were repatriated within a year by the U.N. High Commisisoner for Refugees. The rest refused to go back. Border rumblings happen sporadically between the two countries and there are sometimes minor clashes, but they usually do not escalate beyond that. Relations between Bangladesh and Myanmar soured after Yangon started exploring for oil and gas in a disputed patch in the Bay of Bengal in October last year, despite Dhaka's objection. Both countries moved in navy ships amid rising tension that ebbed following hectic diplomacy, particularly by China, a friend of both countries. The disputed sites are also claimed by India. Bangladesh wants the ownership claims settled through U.N. arbitration. Bangladesh last month decided to award production sharing contracts to two foreign companies -- U.S.-based ConocoPhillips <COP.N> and Ireland's Tullow Oil <TLW.L> -- to explore gas and oil in three offshore blocks. (Editing by Jerry Norton)
Activists of All India Federation of Anganwadi (kindergarten) raise their hands and shout anti-government slogans during a protest rally in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh October 9, 2009. Thousands of ...
