[Assam] Northeast is more dangerous than Kashmir : Sify.com

[Pradip Kumar Datta]

Northeast is more dangerous than Kashmir
   
               Activists of the All Assam Students Union protest during a bandh called in Guwahati on August 18, 2004 against the bomb blast at Dhemaji in the violence-infested State. As India prepared to celebrate its 60th anniversary last month, it was violence as usual in the Northeast. 
Image: Associated Press
   
   
          Bhaskar Roy, who retired recently as a senior government official with decades of national and international experience, is an expert on international relations and Indian strategic interests. In this exclusive article for Sify.com, he argues that 'there is an urgent need to identify which sections in Bangladesh deserve to be engaged in a bare-knuckle fist fight. If, and when the east explodes, Kashmir will seem just a bad dream
'   As India prepared to celebrate its 60th anniversary last month, it was violence as usual in the Northeast. Five women and two children were killed in an attack by the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) on Bihari and UP migrant labourers in Assam's Karbi-Along district.   New Delhi celebrated Independence Day with heavy security cover. So did cities and institutions that have traditionally been target of Pakistan-supported Kashmir terrorist organisations like Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and ISI-trained extremists like Lashkar-e-Toiba
 (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohamad (JeM), and Harkat-ul-Jehad al Islami (HUJI). But security in eastern India was largely overlooked - as it has been since Independence.   On September 1, a blast in a crowded marketplace in Assam's capital Guwahati killed two and injured over a dozen. The ULFA claimed responsibility. 
          India was born with two disturbed wings. In the west was Pakistan, born as a twin of India. In the east was East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), and Northeast India. Ethnic activism had already started in the east in the form of the Naga national independence movement led by Phizo.   But while the security threats from the east have some similarities with that from the west, there are important differences which may be more difficult to deal with in the course of time.
   
  The problem in the western wing was basically centred on Kashmir. Fighting Pakistan and PoK-based terrorists has been the focus of the Indian government, with good reasons. This is especially so because the capital, New Delhi, is situated in northern India, where partition's painful memories still linger. Eastern India, too, suffered as much if not more from partition and its aftermath, but was too distant from New Delhi to get serious attention.   It is dangerous to obsessively attend to only one region in security calculations and ignore others, wishing the problems would go away. They will not. It is our indifference to the Northeast that has allowed China to quietly encroach on territory claimed by India.   Seeds of separation were planted in Northeast before partition by Christian missionaries from the US and the UK. They spread Christianity and introduced a good education system. But strangely, people were kept out of trade, commerce and industry. While at one level
 the Nagas, Khasis, Mizos and others were taught to aspire, the opportunities to fulfil those aspirations were not introduced - a perfect recipe for frustration.   As mainland India surged ahead on the development index, the perception grew that New Delhi considered the people east of the Siliguri corridors as outsiders or second class citizens.   Thus began the search for independent identity and roots. Though the American and British intelligence organisations are blamed for starting the rebel movement in these areas, one would have to wait for declassification of US documents of that period to understand their motives. One of the aims, clearly, was to keep the region, including the Chittagong Hill Tracts, unstable and create islands of dominos against a well-identified adversary. 
   
  Next: The Bangla connection 
   
               The army patrols a Dhaka street after curfew was declared in Bangladesh on August 23 following clashes between students and the military. India accuses Bangladesh of harbouring and sheltering several insurgent groups active in northeastern India. The ULFA 'Commander-in-Chief', Paresh Barua, lives with his family in Dhaka and remains in constant touch with the Pakistan High Commissioner and Bangladesh's Military intelligence agency. 
Image: Associated Press 


        In more recent times, the Northeast region has become a fertile ground for offensive intelligence operations by Pakistan and China, assisted by Bangladesh authorities. Almost all separatists or insurgents from the Northeast have got sanctuary in Bangladeshi territory at some point of time. Pakistan's intelligence operations in the Northeast date from the days of undivided Pakistan, though we still do not know if Islamabad was working alone or in coordination with another power. Chinese support to the Naga insurgent movement started from the late 1950s and early 1960s. Beijing, under Mao Zedong, supported national liberation movements in Asia.   Today, the three important Indian Insurgent Groups (IIGs) operating from and through Bangladesh are the ULFA, National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah), and Mizo National Liberation Front. The ULFA has been working like a special force of Pakistan from Bangladesh, operating behind the lines inside India. Almost the
 entire top brass of the ULFA live in Bangladesh and run lucrative business enterprises in the transport and hotel sectors. They reportedly fund the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which was in power with the support of Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) from 2001 to 2006.    
          The ULFA 'Commander-in-Chief', Paresh Barua, lives with his family in Dhaka and remains in constant touch with the Pakistan High Commissioner and the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (Bangladesh's Military intelligence agency).   ULFA Chairman Anup Chetia was jailed in Dhaka after an accidental arrest in 1999 when the Awami League was in power. But he enjoys almost all privileges of a free man. Bangladeshi officials refuse to extradite Chetia to India, and deny the presence of Paresh Barua and ULFA camps in their territory. At every bilateral meeting on such issues the Bangladeshi delegation members wave away Indian charges almost disdainfully.
  NSCN (I-M) chief arms procurer, Rev. Brother Anthony Shimray regularly uses Bangladesh to travel to Kunming, the capital of China's Yunan province, to buy arms and ammunition and other military equipment. The cargo of arms come by sea and land in Chittagong Division at predetermined points. All these IIGs get arms through Bangladesh because the land route through Myanmar is getting difficult after increased vigilance by the Myanmar army. 
  A 2004 incident highlighted in the Bangladeshi press reveals the depth of the nexus between IIGs, Islamic extremists and politicians. 
  On the night of April 1, 2007 eight trucks leaving the Chittagong port 'Urea Fertiliser' jetty were stopped by a police officer for a routine check. What he found was astounding. The trucks were carrying 1,790 assault rifles, 2,000 grenade launchers; 150 rocket launchers; 2,50,000 grenades; 840 rockets and 16 million rounds of ammunition. 
  The cargo was brought in a ship of QC Shipping, a company owed by Salauddin Qader Choudhury, a pro-Pakistan businessman, who was then Parliamentary Advisor to Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia The 'Urea Fertiliser' jetty is controlled by the Bangladesh Ministry of Industries. The then Industries Minister was the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) Amir, Nizami, who was a prominent leader of the Razzakar (Islamist militia that aided the Pakistan Army against the Mukti Bahini during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971).
  Also present in Chittagong that night were Paresh Barua and Sarwar Komal Maroof, brother of BNP legislator Sarwar Nizam. Both left town after the consignment was seized. 
  What happened to those confiscated arms and ammunition is a mystery. Grenade launchers and rocket launchers are not used by terrorists in Bangladesh. The presence of Paresh Barua that night in Chittagong would only suggest that ULFA would have been at least a part recipient of this dangerous cargo. But they would not be able to absorb the lot in a single consignment. Nor would the other IIGs.
  Was a major part of this consignment destined for India? Quite possible. After all, several terrorist attacks in India in the last few years have a Bangladeshi component planned and implemented by Pakistani sponsored terrorism. 
  Can we still believe that soft approach will resolve the problem? No way. There is an urgent need to identify which sections in Bangladesh deserve to be engaged in a bare-knuckle fist fight. If, and when the east explodes, Kashmir will seem just a bad dream. India just cannot afford to ignore the Siliguri Corridor or Chicken Neck, a small stretch that links the rest of India with the Northeast.
  The views expressed in the article are of the author's and not of Sify.com. 
  http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14521199&vsv=SHGTpicslot
   

       
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