In a social media post on Sunday, ousted Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina accused interim government chief Muhammad Yunus of “selling the country”. She was possibly speaking figuratively at one level and at another, talking about St Martin’s Island.
Hasinaspeak: “When America wanted St Martin’s Island, my father did not agree. He had to give his life. And that was my destiny. Because I never had the thought of selling the country to stay in power.”
Adrift: The island named after a Christian missionary used to be part of the Teknaf peninsula in south Bangladesh. When a portion of it was fl ooded, the southernmost tip became an island.
Strategic location: It is a dot in the Bay of Bengal to the south of Bangladesh, close to Cox Bazar. 7.3km long and at an elevation of 3.6m above mean sea level, it is close to India and right next to the northwestern corner of Myanmar. The surrounding waters are busy with maritime trading routes.
Belongs to: Bangladesh; in 2012 the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea awarded Bangladesh “a full 12 nautical miles territorial sea around St Martin’s Island”. But to date there are regular reports either of Myanmar trawlers entering the Bangladesh maritime boundary and fi ring at passenger boats or of Bangladeshi fishermen being kidnapped and detained amid escalating confl icts between Myanmar’s junta and rebels.
Population: Bangladesh’s smallest administrative unit, St Martin’s Island has a population of 8,000 to 10,000.
Eye on it: For different reasons — India and Myanmar, the US and China.
Intriguing chronology
- 2019: When Hasina came to power a third time, the US, which had been generous with aid to Bangladesh, did not seem thrilled. The US state department even raised concerns that the elections had not been free and fair.
- 2023: Some reports alleged that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party led by Khaleda Zia had planned to sell St Martin's to the US for the construction of a military base in exchange for electoral support. Hasina claimed she was offered a "hassle-free re-election" if she allowed a foreign country to build an air base inside Bangladesh. She was alluding to the US. The White House, however, has steadfastly refuted all allegations.
(The US has no base in the Bay of Bengal. St Martin's is better placed than Digeo Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean that is controlled by the US military.)
- 2023: Hasina inaugurated the China-built submarine base called BNS Sheikh Hasina at Pekua in Cox Bazar. Beijing has reportedly set up an intelligence facility on Myanmar's Coco Island near the Strait of Malacca