Speaking In Tongues

New Delhi has come up with an Independence Day gambit in Assam . On Sunday,August 13, 2006, central authorities suddenly suspended Army operations againstthe outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) at a time when the insurgentgroup was engaged in a routine stepping up of violence ahead of IndependenceDay. Specifically, the Sunday announcement came hours after ULFA rebels shot andkilled a petty trader in Joypur town, in the eastern district of Dibrugarh,hurled a grenade at the private residence of a senior Assam minister at Digboiin the adjacent Tinsukia district (the minister was present but there was nocasualties), and made an abortive grenade attack on the police in the westerndistrict town of Nalbari. In ten days, beginning August 4, 2006, the ULFA hadlaunched several grenade or bomb attacks, killing a dozen people, including sixsecurity personnel, five of them of the Assam Police, and injured up to 40others.

Assam Chief Secretary S. Kabilan, who also heads the policy-making StrategyGroup of the Unified Command Headquarters of the Army, Police and ParamilitaryForces in the state, was quick to confirm the central government’s decision tosuspend Army operations. "Offensive action against ULFA will remain suspendedfor 10 days in a goodwill gesture by the government," he told this writer lateSunday night. He clarified though that it cannot be called a ceasefire yet.Pressed for the immediate reasons for this go-slow order to the Army, Kabilansaid, "There may have been some positive feelers from the other side." He didnot elaborate, but his comment did indicate that the ULFA on its own or thePeople’s Consultative Group (PCG), the 11-member peace panel appointed by therebel outfit, may have succeeded in convincing New Delhi that such a gesturewould result in the insurgent group reciprocating by putting violence on hold.

There was, however, significant evidence of confusion and a wide diversity ofperceptions within the government. On the morning of August 14, the Assam ChiefMinister, Tarun Gogoi, told this writer, "This is certainly a unilateralceasefire. There can be no other meaning to a suspension of operations by the government."He added, however, that "We cannot lower our vigilance. Day to day policing willgo on," and further, "The ball is now in ULFA’s court, and it must respondpositively and come forward for talks, now that the government has taken thismajor initiative."

The government’s decision to halt Army operations before Independence Day,that too, when the ULFA has called for a boycott of the celebrations and hassought to enforce it through a 17-hour general strike beginning 1 a.m. on August15, is certainly significant. The ULFA would now be under tremendous pressure toreciprocate and enter into the process of direct talks with New Delhi. Over thepast few weeks, civil society organizations in Assam have been vocal in askingthe government to act first and take some major initiatives, like a temporaryceasefire, to break the current impasse over the holding of direct ULFA-NewDelhi talks. At a civil society Round Table last fortnight organized by GauhatiUniversity, the state’s premier institution for higher learning, a resolutionwas adopted urging the government of India to initiate immediate steps like aceasefire, that would ‘have to be reciprocated’ by the ULFA. Anotherresolution called for the release of five top ULFA leaders, all members of thegroup’s highest policy-making body, the central executive committee. ULFA hasbeen seeking their release so that it could discuss the issue of entering intodirect talks with New Delhi and take things forward.

Groups like the PCG itself have been drawing flak, just like several othercomponents of the State’s disjointed civil society, for not condemningviolence by the militants in the same way as they condemn killing of rebels bysecurity forces engaged in counter-insurgency operations. On August 13, 2006,however, the PCG issued a significant press statement where it called upon boththe ULFA and the government to maintain restraint for the sake of peace inAssam, and condemned the killing of innocent people by the two sides. "The actsof violence since the peace process started have hurt the PCG," the statementsaid. This plain and straightforward condemnation of violence and killing ofinnocent people by the PCG, whose members were hand-picked by the ULFA inSeptember 2005, and the group’s decision to meet with India’s NationalSecurity Adviser and Home Secretary in New Delhi by August 16, 2006, doesindicate that the two sides could actually be working overtime to put violenceon hold and start direct talks.

There have, however, been several roadblocks thus far, obstructing a possibleface-to-face meeting between the ULFA and the government of India:

• New Delhi has asked ULFA to name its negotiating team. ULFA says the team cannot be named unless five of its top detained leaders are freed.
• New Delhi has asked ULFA to give its consent for the talks in writing. ULFA responded by saying the government must also state in writing that it would discuss the group’s key demand of ‘sovereignty’.
• ULFA has demanded information on the whereabouts of 14 of its cadres ‘missing’ after the Bhutanese military assault in December 2003.
• Charges and counter-charges of violence and excesses by both sides.

It is possible that, over the past few days, back-channel contacts may havebeen established between the ULFA and the government, either directly orotherwise, facilitating an understanding to remove some of these bottlenecks.

Over the coming ten days, it is likely that a contact mechanism will be put inplace and New Delhi could even grant ‘safe passage’ to some ULFA leaders toemerge from hiding and meet with key government officials to prepare themodalities for talks. ULFA could also reciprocate this time round, taking thepublic mood against all forms of violence into account, and arrive at anunderstanding with the government on the crucial issue of a truce, an essentialelement to take a peace process forward.

But, once again, the government of India has goofed up things by failing tospeak in one voice on crucial issues. Till late Sunday afternoon, the Assam governmentwas not aware of New Delhi’s decision. The General Officer Commanding (GOC) ofthe Army’s Tezpur-based IV Corps, who heads the operations under the UnifiedHeadquarters, got in touch with the state police chief, but the latterapparently told him he had no instructions from the state government. Even inNew Delhi, officials of the ministry of home affairs were not forthcoming on thematter, indicating the decision was taken at some other level. By late night,however, key officials started talking on the same lines, confirming that atemporary halt to Army operations had been ordered. The need for the governmentto speak in a cohesive voice is of utmost importance to avoid confusing signalsfrom going out.

The decision to go for a ten-day halt to Army operations, which have been onalmost continuously in Assam since November 1990, with only brief breaks inbetween, has the potential to actually put the ULFA on the defensive. If therebel group does not respond positively this time around, the odds may well goagainst it as never before.

Wasbir Hussain is a Guwahati-based Political Analyst and Associate Fellow,Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi. the South Asia Intelligence Reviewof the South Asia Terrorism Portal