Bomb To Talk Peace

Improvised Explosive Devices (IED), time bombs and grenades were used withlethal willfulness to carry out close to twenty explosions between June 8 and10, 2006, in Northeast India’s most populous state, Assam, leaving sixcivilians dead and more than 70 wounded, several of them security forcepersonnel. The targets: Guwahati, the principal city and centre of power (sixdead in four separate attacks in this city), the police and the paramilitary,and, of course, railway tracks and the wide web of crude oil and natural gaspipelines that runs through the eastern oil producing districts of Dibrugarh andTinsukia. The result: general panic, disruption in oil and gas operations,including crude supply to the Digboi Refinery, the world’s oldest refinery(set up in 1889), a narrow miss for the Rajdhani Express train from Delhi, andmixed reactions among watchers of Assam’s fragile peace process.

Assam’s Director General of Police Deepak Narayan Dutt and his intelligencechief Khagen Sharma (Inspector General, Special Branch) are convinced that nonebut the United Liberation Front for Asom (ULFA)— fighting for an independent homeland since its inception on April 7, 1979— is responsible of the string of bomb and grenade strikes across central,northern, western and eastern parts of Assam. "We had information about theULFA’s decision to strike across the state for three days beginning June 9.The modus operandi of these stealthy attacks like planting a bomb at a vegetablemarket (in Guwahati where five people died on June 9) points to the ULFA’sinvolvement," Dutt told this writer on June 11.

What has foxed everyone, however, is the timing of the violence. The firstfour bombs went off in the evening of June 8 in the Districts of Nagaon, Darrangand Dhubri, a full 24-hours after New Delhi announced the date of the next roundof peace talks between the government of India and the ULFA-appointed People’sConsultative Group (PCG). On June 7, Union Home Secretary V.K. Duggal hadinformed ULFA’s peace facilitator and head of the PCG, Indira Goswami, thatthe next round of PCG-government talks has been fixed for June 22 in New Delhito be chaired by home minister Shivraj Patil. Before this announcement, both theULFA as well as the PCG had been vocal in criticising New Delhi for the ‘unduedelay’ in holding the third round of talks. Accusations flew thick and fastthat the government was not sincere in pushing peace with the ULFA. The firstround of PCG-government talks had been held on October 26, 2005 (also attendedby Prime Minister Manmohan Singh) and the second on February 7, 2006.

It is indeed puzzling that the ULFA appears, on the one hand, to be in ahurry to talk peace with New Delhi and, on the other, is unconcerned about thepotential fallout of using such purposeless violence as a weapon, targetingordinary civilians. In the past, the ULFA has succeeded in forcing the governmentto respond after stepping up violence. The last such instance was thestring of bombings on January 22, 2006, ahead of Republic Day (January 26),which hastened New Delhi’s announcement of February 7 as the date for thesecond round of PCG-government talks. Even this time round, it appears that theULFA may have decided to demonstrate its strike potential and to send out aspecific message — that its decision not to disrupt the state elections inApril 2006 should not be taken as a sign of weakness and that New Delhi shouldput the peace process on priority.

But this does not explain the violence after the date for the third round oftalks had already been announced. Authoritative sources have told this writerthat the ULFA is not really interested in a formal ceasefire until the peaceprocess takes a definite shape. The group may argue that if the security forcescan arrest its cadres (Mrinal Hazarika, ‘commander’ of the ULFA’s dreadedMyanmar-based 28th Battallion, also known as the ‘Kashmir Camp’ wasarrested by West Bengal Police on May 18, 2006, from Siliguri) and even engagethem in shootouts while the peace process is on, it can also carry on with itsarmed offensive, albeit on a ‘low scale.’ Some individuals and groups knownto be well informed about the thinking within the ULFA have pointed out that therebel group has been carefully looking into the fate of other insurgentorganizations, such as the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) that had to wait formonths after entering into a formal truce before it got a call for talks fromNew Delhi.

The civilian deaths have, however, always put the ULFA on the defensive.Assam’s Police chief and other security officials claim that this is why theULFA has come out with a statement denying its involvement in the latest spateof bombings. ULFA’s exiled ‘chief of staff’ Paresh Baruah, who is thegroup’s ‘military commander’, in a statement e-mailed to journalists onJune 10, 2006, declared, "Certain vested interests within the Assam Police arebehind these bomb attacks in order to blame us and disrupt the peace processbefore the next round of talks between the PCG and the Indian government… Weexpress our heartfelt condolences to those killed,". Significantly, however,the PCG has not taken this stand (at least in statements attributed to PCGleaders in the media) and has ‘condemned’ the death of five people at thevegetable market blast in Guwahati. "For the sake of permanent peace and thesuccess of the ongoing peace process, the PCG appeals to all concerned torestrain themselves from such acts," PCG spokesman Arup Borbora was quoted assaying.

Some security officials insist that top ULFA leaders, including Paresh Baruah,who are widely believed to be operating out of Bangladesh, are ‘in the grip’of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence and the Directorate General ofForces Intelligence, Bangladesh’s main intelligence agency. These agencies,Indian officials suspect, would not easily allow the ULFA to escape theircontrol and talk peace with New Delhi. This possibility has, however, beendenied by those in touch with the ULFA. Indira Goswami told this writer from NewDelhi, "During a telephone conversation with me some months back, PareshBaruah had categorically said that he or his group was not under anyone’s gripand that he was willing to come over to Assam or anywhere else to talk peacewith the government of India provided the modalities are acceptable."

Amid the all-pervading uncertainty, the focus is certainly on the cominground of talks on June 22. The PCG, on the ULFA’s behalf, has sought therelease of five detained rebel leaders, all members of the ULFA executivecommittee: Vice chairman Pradip Gogoi, publicity secretary Mithinga Daimari,cultural secretary Pranati Deka, Adviser Bhimkanta Buragohain and Ramu Mech. Allof them may soon walk out of the high-security Guwahati Central Jail because theAssam government, in response to a query from New Delhi, has already recommendedtheir release ‘for the sake of peace.’ At least for now, everybody wouldlike to forget the events in 1992 that had led to an ULFA delegation headed byits general secretary Anup Chetia being flown to New Delhi for a meeting withthen Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao. The meeting had led to a suspension ofthe ongoing military offensive against the group, but the ULFA team failed totake the peace move forward as a result of lack of unanimity within the outfit.

The PCG leaders would like the June 22 meet to be the last meeting betweenits members and the government. "After this, we would like the ULFA and the governmentto talk directly. We hope the modalities would be finalised at thenext meeting," Dilip Patgiri, a PCG member told this writer. At the June 22meeting the PCG will press for the following: the release of five detained ULFAleaders; information on the fate of 14 ULFA members ‘missing’ after theBhutanese military assault inside the Kingdom in 2003; the involvement ofNational Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan in the peace process till the end ofthe negotiations; that the modalities for possible direct talks between the ULFAand the government of India be worked out. After that, the PCG would like toleave it to the ULFA and the government to work out details of a possible truceahead of any direct talks through exchange of communications. The latest bout ofcarnage in Assam, however, suggests that the ceasefire in this case may proveeasier to speak of than maintain.

Wasbir Hussain is a Guwahati-based political analyst and Associate Fellow,Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal