NEWSLINKS
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTION 99
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

ULFA seeks East Timor-like solution

Nitin Gogoi

Paresh Baruah, chief of the United Liberation Front of Asom, a leading militant group in the north-east, has sought the intervention of US President Bill Clinton to "force the Indian government for an East Timor-like solution," in connection with the rebel group's struggle for an "independent Assam".

In a statement issued on Friday, Baruah described the visit of the US president to South Asia as an "important and significant event".

In his appeal to Clinton, Baruah said the "situation in Assam and other north-eastern states is equally dangerous and volatile as the one in Kashmir". He urged Clinton to use his influence towards finding out an East Timor-like solution to the problem.

Baruah is the self-styled commander-in-chief of the ULFA's armed wing and by far the most influential leader in the outfit.

The ULFA, which will celebrate its 21st foundation day on April 7, has been under pressure from the security forces of late with most of its cadres unable to leave the safe hideout in the jungles of neighbouring Bhutan. And those who do manage to sneak in are getting killed in encounters with the Indian Army and the police.

Indeed in the last one month at least 25 hardcore ULFA militants have been killed in a stepped up offensive by the Indian Army and the police in the wake of the brutal killing of a senior Assam minister, Nagen Sarma.

The militant group, fighting for a sovereign, independent Assam since 1979, has seen many ups and downs in its two decades of existence but it is perhaps at its weakest at the moment with two of its important leaders -- vice-president Pradip Gogoi and general secretary Anup Chetia -- under arrest and many of its middle-level cadres leaving the organisation. While Gogoi is lodged in a jail in Guwahati, Chetia is under arrest in neighbouring Bangladesh where he was caught about a year ago.

On Friday, 12 important members of the ULFA, led by Mintu Dutta, who held the post of "chief political commissioner" in the organisation and was also a member of the general council, the top-most policy-making body of the outfit, quit the organisation.

Dutta said all of them have left the outfit in protest against the "change in revolutionary character of the top leaders, their obstinacy and their lack of proper ideology and organisational acumen".

The 12-member group, which "surrendered" to the people at Nalbari about 70 kilometres from Guwahati, told media persons, "ULFA is no longer a revolutionary group. It has instead turned into a terrorist outfit. Its leaders have no ideology, no sense of direction."

Dutta said he had personally asked the leadership to declare a unilateral ceasefire with the security forces in deference to the wishes of the people of Assam but the leadership failed to heed the advice.

Another member revealed that a large number of cadres had asked the leadership not to go against the sentiments of the people of Assam and support Pakistan during the Kargil conflict.

"The leadership's open support to Pakistan during the Kargil conflict has cost us dear," Dutta said. ULFA had openly supported Pakistan in that war and had also supplied information to their mentors in the Inter-Services Intelligence about troop movement from the north-east to Kashmir. A popular upsurge of support for the Indian Army in Assam, however, completely negated the ULFA ploy during the conflict.

The outfit has made the jungles of southern Bhutan adjoining Assam as its main base for the last three years. At least 2,000 cadres, both men and women, are holed up in closely bunched camps.

It has been sending mobile and heavily armed units to infiltrate into Assam to carry out specific tasks but the Indian Army has laid a strong siege along the international border with Bhutan which makes the ULFA's task very difficult.

Invariably these mobile units run into Indian Army patrols and get killed. On March 22, a lethal group carrying five AK-56 rifles and several other small arms got killed when it walked into a trap laid by the Indian Army.

Baruah's appeal to Clinton is of course the latest step in trying to internationalise the issue. Earlier the ULFA has taken its case to the Hague-based Unrepresented Nations' Peoples Organisation.

The outfit has also refused offer from the Indian government to sit for negotiations until three of its demands are met. The three demands are a) sovereignty of Assam should be on the agenda of the talks, b) the talks should be held outside India and c) that the United Nations must be involved in the negotiations.

The Indian government has refused to accept any of these demands although Union home ministry officials say the government is not averse to holding talks with the outfit outside India as it is doing with another militant group in the north-east, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland At the moment, however, there is a deadlock.

Back to top

Tell us what you think of this report