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Assam : Patil for review of Assam accord

	February 07, 2005

Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who was on a visit to the troubled region last week, has called for the strengthening of anti-infiltration measures along the India-Bangladesh border. He suggested the erection of high-quality barbed wire fences and strong vigil along the riverine areas, even as the All-Assam Students’ Union (AASU) stayed away from the scheduled tripartite meeting convened by the Ministry of Home Affairs to review the implementation of the Assam Accord.



The AASU had intimated, in writing, its decision to reject the invitation to attend the tripartite meeting. They demanded that the review meeting be chaired by the Prime Minister.



Newly-elected AASU president Shankar Prasad Rai told the media over phone from Moran in Dibrugarh district that the student body was firm in its decision as both the State and Central Governments had gone back on their assurance of holding a review meeting presided over by the Prime Minister. A new 52-member AASU central executive body was elected at a conference at Moran.

The Centre and the State Government decided to go ahead with the review meeting as scheduled with Assam Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi briefing Patil on the status of the implementation of various clauses of the Accord.

The meeting was also attended by the Union Minister for Development of the North-Eastern Region (DONER), P.R. Kyndiah, the Assam Governor, Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Ajai Singh, besides high officials of both the Central and State Governments.

The assurance to hold a review of the accord at the Prime Minister-level was given to the student body on the eve of the India-Asean car rally held last year, in lieu of the AASU withdrawing its call to boycott the rally, which was flagged off by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. However, the Ministry of Home Affairs is the nodal ministry for implementation of the Accord. Signed by the AASU, the Centre and the State Government, the accord led to the end of a six-year anti-foreigner movement spearheaded by the student body from 1979 to 1985.



Assam-Meghalaya border parleys fail

Efforts to resolve the Assam-Meghalaya boundary dispute have received a major setback with the breaking down of the fifth round of parleys by a joint committee of the two states.

The 24-member joint committee, which is trying to find a solution to the dispute, held a marathon meeting at Hamren, but failed to arrive at a consensus. It has sought the immediate intervention of the two state governments to resolve the impasse.

The committee’s brief is to ascertain the boundary between the two states in the areas categorised as Block I and Block II in Karbi Anglong district of Assam, bordering Jaintia Hills and Ri Bhoi districts of Meghalaya and submit a report to the chief ministers of the two states.

The committee comprises members of the autonomous district councils of Karbi Anglong, Jaintia Hills, local legislators and district officials.

It was set up in November 2003 after a series of official-level meetings and a round of discussions between Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and his Meghalaya counterpart D.D. Lapang.

Since then, the committee has held five meetings but has not been able to achieve a breakthrough with both sides sticking to their guns. The members of the Karbi Anglong autonomous district council insist on settling the boundary according to the 1951 survey report and not the 1957 survey as demanded by their Jaintia Hills counterparts.

Describing the committee’s failure to resolve the impasse as a “serious setback”, Karbi Anglong legislator Rupan Singh Ronghang said the matter should be taken up at the government level. But till then, the two sides agreed to maintain status quo.

Meghalaya has been claiming that over 300 square km within the two blocks have been “wrongfully demarcated and taken out of Meghalaya forcefully”.

Blocks I and II, covering over 15,000 square km, were annexed to Mikir hills from the united Khasi and Jaintia hills in 1951. The boundary row has been raging since then. The Khasi-Pnar and the Karbi population residing in these areas has been at loggerheads on the question of “identity” and “territorial integrity”.



Bhutan, Assam to join hands to tackle Nepal Maoists

After flushing out Northeast militants from its territory, Bhutan has joined hands with Assam to tackle the threat from the Maoist rebels of Nepal.

A Bhutanese delegation attended a meeting convened in Guwahati on February 4 to devise a strategy to thwart the Maoist rebels’ reported plans to foment trouble in Assam and the Himalayan kingdom last week.

A few days ago, Delhi had warned that rebels from Nepal might create disturbances in Assam.

The meeting in Guwahati was attended by Dasho Tsering Wangda, a Joint Secretary in the Bhutan home ministry, Assam Chief Secretary (in-charge) P.C. Sharma and senior police officials from both sides.

Sources said the officials contemplated ways to prevent militants of the ULFA and the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) from returning to the jungles in the southern fringes of the Himalayan Kingdom. South Bhutan borders Assam and was once a haven for militants of the Northeast.

The proposals that were taken up for discussion include border fencing and joint patrolling.

“The issues that came up for discussion at the meeting include threats from Indian insurgent groups ousted from Bhutan and the need to adopt special security measures and periodically hold coordination meetings at various levels between Royal Bhutan Police and their counterparts in the Assam districts. The threats from anti-national elements based outside Bhutan and Maoist rebels from Nepal were discussed, too,” an official spokesperson said.

The militant groups ousted from Bhutan are said to be desperately searching for new hideouts and could tie up with the Maoist rebels of Nepal, which has the potential to be their new base because of its proximity to the Northeast and the presence of the ISI there.

“If that happens, it will enable the Maoists to enter the Northeast through Bhutan,” a senior official said.

Promising to continue offering safe passage and security escorts to Bhutanese civilian convoys, the Assam Chief Secretary told the visiting delegation that Dispur was committed to ensuring the security of residents of the Himalayan kingdom during their visits to the border towns of the state.

Wangda, who led the 17-member delegation, said later that the meeting was a step towards resolving problems jointly at the grassroots level without instructions from either Thimphu or Delhi.

He said joint meetings - agreed upon in the agreement between the Bhutan and Indian governments in September 2004 - must be held biennially or whenever necessary to solve any problem that affects both countries.

On the flushout of Northeast militants from Bhutan, Wangda said that was the time when the relationship between the Himalayan kingdom and India was put to test.

H.S. Brahma, Joint Secretary of Border Management in the Union Home Ministry, stressed the need to evolve a district-level mechanism to solve any security- related problem in the event of an emergency and to build infrastructure, especially roads, along the Indo-Bhutan border. He suggested the appointment of nodal officers not below the rank of deputy commissioners and superintendents of police on both sides for information-gathering and sharing.