India buoyed by Bangladesh's 'gift'
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - Bangladesh has handed over to India two top leaders of the banned
United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA). The move not only marks an important
turning point in India-Bangladesh relations, it opens the opportunity for the
Indian government to initiate talks with ULFA leaders, possibly paving the way
for a negotiated settlement to the three-decades-long insurgency in India's
northeast.
Among those who have been handed over to India are the ULFA chairman, Arabinda
Rajkhowa, and the "deputy commander-in-chief", Raju Baruah, and their families.
Accused in several cases, including murder, extortion and waging war against
India, Rajkhowa has an Interpol "Red Corner" notice against him. He has been
out of India since 1992 and is said to have lived in
Myanmar, Thailand and Bhutan, besides Bangladesh.
The ULFA has been fighting for an independent Assam since its founding in 1979.
It has carried out scores of violent attacks over the past three decades and is
an outlawed organization in India.
Bangladesh, which has hitherto denied the existence of anti-India militants
taking sanctuary in or operating from its soil, has finally cracked the whip on
them. The issue of action against anti-India terrorist outfits based in
Bangladesh was caught in that country's domestic politics.
The more right-wing Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) was loathe to act
against India's northeastern militant groups operating from Bangladesh soil,
given its anti-India bias, and against Islamist terror outfits, given its own
fundamentalist leanings. The secular and more pro-India Awami League (AL),
meanwhile, while expressing willingness to act against these organizations,
failed to do so, fearing criticism from the BNP and others that its leaders
were "Indian stooges".
In the process, neither party while in power heeded India's pleas to act
against anti-India militants based in Bangladesh. Delhi provided successive
Bangladeshi governments with maps and other details of terrorist training camps
in Bangladesh, but to little avail.
That has now changed. Bangladesh is acting on Indian security concerns and
there are strong signs that counter-terrorism cooperation between the two
countries is robust.
Two days after the AL's landslide victory in general elections in December last
year, party chief and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina declared that "no one will
be allowed to use this land to carry out terrorism in India". She began acting
soon after a major crackdown was launched on the ULFA. Last month, its foreign
secretary, Sashadhar Choudhury, and finance secretary, Chitraban Hazarika, were
pushed into Indian territory by Bangladeshi authorities.
Last week, Bangladesh also handed over two Lashkar-e-Toiba militants wanted in
India for their role in serial blasts in Bangalore last year.
Prime Minister Hasina will visit India in January, when she will be honored
with the Indira Gandhi Award for Peace, Disarmament and Development. She will
be hoping that India, often looked on by its neighbors as a big bully, will be
more of a gentle giant. Besides the terrorism issue, differences on transit
rights, sharing of river waters, a trade imbalance and demarcation of a
maritime boundary have dogged India-Bangladesh ties for decades. Bangladesh's
action on the ULFA leaders could see India treating Dhaka with more generosity.
Rajkhowa's arrest is the latest in a series of blows suffered by ULFA. But for
Paresh Baruah, its "commander-in-chief" who is believed to be somewhere in
Myanmar, all other members of the organization's executive council are now in
Indian custody. The "general secretary", Anup Chetia, is in jail in Dhaka and
is expected to be handed over to India soon.
In June last year, the ULFA's 28th Battalion, which is the outfit's most potent
strike force, split down the middle, with two of its three companies announcing
a unilateral ceasefire with Indian authorities.
Indian authorities believe that with Rajkhowa's arrest, a window of opportunity
has opened up to engage in talks with ULFA. "The ULFA has been seriously
weakened; its bargaining capacity is low," say officials. In earlier talks with
the ULFA, officials had to engage with the outfit's second and third rung
leaders. That has changed with Rajkhowa in their custody. Rajkhowa has for long
been regarded as the ULFA's moderate face and is believed to be pro-talks.
Rajkhowa and Paresh Baruah, who is still at large, have said that talks with
the Indian government will be possible only if the issue of Assam's sovereignty
is on the agenda.
In the past, the ULFA put forward three conditions for talks - sovereignty,
negotiations in a foreign country and mediation by the United Nations. Over the
years it has dropped the latter two conditions. But it continues to insist on
sovereignty figuring in any talks.
Indian officials have said that while the government is ready to hold talks
with the ULFA, "talks on Assam's sovereignty are ruled out".
Will the Indian government's inflexibility on the issue stand in the way of
negotiations starting?
There are instances when India has engaged in talks with insurgent groups and
not insisted on them abjuring independence explicitly ahead of talks.
This has been the case with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland
(Isak-Muivah), a Naga insurgent group. A ceasefire between security forces and
the outfit has held for about 13 years, and talks are in progress. And while
the group has not renounced independence in any statement, its position has
"diluted naturally over time on the issue in negotiations", Indian officials
who have engaged in talks with the Nagas say.
"If the government can talk to the National Socialist Council of Nagaland
(Isak-Muivah) despite its insistence on sovereignty, there's no reason [why]
the ULFA issue cannot be handled similarly," says senior advocate, Arup
Barbora, a member of the People's Consultative Group that the ULFA set up in
2005 to mediate in talks with the Indian government. "Discussing sovereignty
does not mean granting it," he points out.
While both the government and the ULFA are talking tough at the moment, it does
seem that Delhi is looking for "some way" to get the ULFA to the negotiating
table. It cannot say that sovereignty is negotiable, as that undermines its own
sovereignty and the authority of the Indian constitution.
Still, neither side mentioning the sovereignty issue, whether insisting on its
inclusion or exclusion from the talks agenda, could be a way out.
To get the Nagas to the negotiating table, for instance, the term
"unconditional talks" was used. This allowed both sides to discuss all issues
raised by the rebels as well as objections the government had to these issues.
While the Indian government is in a position of strength at the moment, given
the ULFA's much weakened current state, its bungling could see it fritter away
the advantage.
The day Rajkhowa was to be brought to court, speculation was rife that the
government would accord him political prisoner status, instead of treating him
like a terrorist or criminal, since it was keen to engage in talks with him.
But it was a handcuffed Rajkhowa that appeared in court.
"There cannot be any peace talks with the government under handcuffs, as
prisoners cannot negotiate," Rajkhowa said as he was taken to court.
"If the government was at all serious in utilizing Rajkhowa's services for
peace talks, then what was the need for bringing him to the court handcuffed,"
a human-rights activist, Lachit Borodoloi, has observed.
Initially, the government claimed that Rajkhowa surrendered. On his way to the
court, the ULFA chairman said he had "not surrendered and would never surrender
before the government and sovereignty cannot be compromised". Officials then
backtracked, and said he had been arrested.
This shoddy treatment of Rajkhowa and the claims and denials by the government
on the circumstances of his falling into India's hands have earned the ULFA
leader sympathy among sections of the Assamese people and painted the
government in a negative light.
Experts also point out that the government is wrong if it thinks it can
successfully negotiate a peace settlement without including Baruah. The arrest
of Rajkhowa no doubt is a blow to the ULFA, but Paresh Baruah is believed to be
the one who calls the shots in the organization. And he is still at large.
A hardliner, firmly opposed to talks, Baruah retains the support of a large
number of ULFA fighters. Will ULFA moderates defy his diktat and engage in
talks with the government? Following Rajkhowa's arrest, Baruah has issued
statements that there is no rift in the ULFA. Even if the moderates were to
defy him and engage in talks, he has the capacity to disrupt the peace process
through acts of violence.
As a noted Assamese litterateur and former facilitator for peace talks, Indira
Goswami, warns, "Peace talks without Baruah will be futile and
counter-productive."
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
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