Even as a three-member team of US State Department officials is in Dhaka, discussing a host of political-military strategies on an impending action in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, a small revenue village on the Bay of Bengal is assuming importance as the main centre from where supplies will be transported across the border that runs through the middle of Naf river.
This revenue village, called a mouza in Bengali, is Silkhali where the Bangladesh Army also operates a field firing range for artillery pieces, chiefly Turkish-made field guns and anti-tank guided weapons, besides mortars and small arms.
Now, Silkhali, which was identified as the proposed site for supplies to a coalition of forces on the Rakhine battlefield in early February this year, has been visited upon by senior Bangladesh Army officers. Silkhali is about 30 kms north of Teknaf.
Towards the end of February, Army chief General Waker-uz-Zaman is said to have paid a quiet visit to the supply base site while on an official trip to inaugurate the Sinha Memorial Plaque (at Shaplapur near Silkhali) in honour of a slain Bangladesh Army major.
Local-level government sources Northeast News spoke with confirmed that the proposed supply base site is close to the Bangladesh Army’s Silkhali field firing range.
Locals are prohibited from entering the selected site.
Construction work on the site is yet to begin, but may soon start once the visiting US officials, including US charge d’affaires in Naypidaw, Susan Stevenson, leave Dhaka after a week.
The other two State Department officials are Nicole Ann Chulick, Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs, and Andrew R Herrup, Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
The US officials will likely be briefed on Silkhali during their sojourn in Dhaka.
Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports indicate the secret arrival in Dhaka a few days ago of at least three top Arakan Army ‘officers’, including a bespectacled major general and a brigadier, and two Chin National Front (CNF) leaders.
The Bangladesh Army had earlier had the opportunity to have “extended conversations” with some Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) cadres.
The Silkhali field firing range, sources said, is located on the coast as this facilitates the firing of artillery weapons into the sea. This ‘mouza’ is located at a depth of 30 kms from the Naf river through which runs the international border that separates Myanmar and Bangladesh.
On the other hand, the distance between Teknaf and the Naf is less than a kilometre.
The office of Bangladesh Forest Department, located at Teknaf, is barely at a distance of 20 metres from the Naf river.
Silkhali has rich forest cover, chiefly comprising garjan trees many of which line the Marine Drive.
Silkhali is dotted with tin-roofed huts and is sometimes visited upon by elephant herds. Not far away in Teknaf is a game reserve site which was established in 1983 and is spread over 11, 615 hectares covering Whykong, Silkhali and Teknaf.
A 2018 report by a USAID-supported NGO highlighted that “more than 100 villages (excluding Rohingya refugee settlements) belonging to five unions and Teknaf municipality have stakes in the forest.
A number of settlements have been established inside the forest by illegal Rohingya migrants. These are concentrated in Jahajpura, Shamlapur and Tekhnaf.
Two government recognised Rohingyaa settlements were established by UNHCR inside the forest”.
