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North East terrorism : US offer to help comes under attack

	October 11, 2004

Apparently moved by the bloodshed in the North East, US Ambassador to India offered his country’s services to fight terrorist violence to the state Government of Assam. Though Assam Government expressed its readiness to accept the US help, it raised a storm in New Delhi as the offer which was made direct to a State Government, violated diplomatic norms.

Senior Indian officials on October 5 expressed surprise at a US offer made directly to Assam and Nagaland governments in northeastern India to assist in combating a renewed spurt in terrorism in the region.

Shortly after Assam Chief Minister Gogoi announced that he had received a letter from US envoy David C. Mulford offering help to investigate terrorist attacks since the weekend, the US Embassy confirmed the offer.

A senior Indian official said: “We (India and US) have an understanding to assist each other in dealing with terrorism, but I don’t know if (this) is the best way to go about it.” He pointed out that such offers were generally made through the Home or External Affairs Ministries. Another official said the US had shown a singular lack of understanding of India’s politics.

The powerful Left which is supporting the Manmohan Singh Government from outside also took strong objection to the US offer.

“He has no right to write to a chief minister offering his country’s assistance,” fumed S. Ramachandra Pillai, a senior leader of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).

Mulford had written letters to the Chief Ministers of Assam and Nagaland, offering the FBI’s help to probe the blasts that killed dozens.

Gogoi went public with the letter and said his government would seek help from the US to stop a spurt in violence.

“We will be seeking the permission of the External Affairs Ministry to bring in US experts to help our security agencies in battling the rise in terrorist strikes,” Gogoi told reporters in Guwahati on Tuesday last.



ULFA, NDFB back after Bhutanese crackdown

Less than a year after a Bhutanese military offensive was thought to have punctured the ULFA and the NDFB, the two dominant rebel groups of Assam are back.

The two groups are being blamed for the string of violent incidents, including shootouts and blasts in Assam. And though the perpetrators of similar incidents in adjoining Nagaland that claimed 28 lives are not known, the two outfits could well have been responsible for them too.

The Central Government, officials said, is of the view that the ULFA and NDFB were trying to disrupt its ongoing peace process with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland.

Officials said separatists were trying to foil the Centre’s peace overtures in the region.

Home Ministry officials said the ULFA and the NDFB, which faced a major setback after the Bhutanese action, were trying to boost their cadres’ morale.

They believe that ULFA leaders, who had gone to Bangladesh and have been lying low there since December 2003, are trying to stage a comeback.

Assam Chief Minister Gogoi has already asked Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who rushed to the region on October 3 to exert pressure on Dhaka and Yangon to crack down on militants on their soil.

Though Dhaka has denied the allegations, the Home Secretaries of both countries have recently agreed to work together against the militant groups - a move New Delhi terms as “one step forward”.



Govt. offers talks with rebels

The Indian government on October 4 offered to hold talks with rebel groups responsible for a string of attacks in the northeast that have killed 69 people in three days, but that warned there would be no let-up in its “security offensive” against the militants. Home Minister Shivraj Patil said : “Our doors for talks with any militant group are open even at this critical juncture.”

But, Patil told a news conference here, “having given the offer for talks, there will be no let-up in our security offensive. “Let them come for talks and we are ready to discuss all issues.”

Patil said there would now be a coordinated approach to conducting counter-insurgency operations in the region, with greater interaction between security forces in different states.



NDFB offers talks with New Delhi

A tribal separatist group blamed for the recent spate of bloody attacks in Assam has offered to hold talks with the Indian government to end nearly two decades of insurgency.

“We are ready to hold talks with New Delhi and shall soon convey our decision (in response) to the Assam chief minister’s truce offer,” the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) said in a statement on October 5.

The outlawed NDFB, founded in October 1986, is fighting for an independent homeland for the Bodo tribe in Assam.

Chief Minister Gogoi had offered a ceasefire with the NDFB and the ULFA, asking the two outfits to respond to the truce offer by Oct 15.

“We welcome the NDFB’s offer for talks. If they are sincere we have no problems, but they should refrain from creating any violence,” Gogoi said.



ULFA rejects government’s ceasefire offer

A frontline separatist group in Assam on October 2 rejected a government ceasefire offer to end more than two decades of bloodshed.

Chief Minister Gogoi gave the rebels, who are fighting for a separate ethnic homeland, until Oct 15 to respond to his invitation for a truce.

“The chief minister has no right to offer a ceasefire and we do not believe in any conditional truce,” said Paresh Baruah, self-styled commander-in-chief of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA).

Newspapers published from Guwahati, Assam’s main city, Saturday quoted Baruah as saying that the outfit would sit for talks with New Delhi if the authorities were sincere in their approach.

The rebels have been calling for talks but want these to be with the central, and not the state, government and focussed on the issue of Assam’s independence.

“The ULFA’s decision to reject the ceasefire shows they are not interested in peace,” a dejected Chief Minister said on October 2.