During the past 12 months,
beginning September 2006, Indian Army’s 2nd Mountain Division, based in
Eastern Assam, has neutralized a large number of ULFA (United Liberation
Front of Assam) militants. “We have neutralized 177 ULFA militants since
September 24, 2006 including one battalion commander (Rajiv Kalita of
the ‘27th battalion’), four company commanders, 10 action group
commanders and seven experts in improvised explosive devices (IED)”,
said an Army official. 28 Battalion the main disruptive unit of the ULFA
has taken several blows in the past few months. The casualties include
big names like Ulum Bhuyan, Rajeev Saikia and Amar Tanti. The
“commanding officer” of the battalion, Prabal Neog, was arrested along
with his wife in Tezpur recently. Pranjal Saikia, the “commander” of the
battalion’s Alpha Company, surrendered.
Yet despite these gains
the ULFA continues to survive in Assam, holding the simple and hardy
people of a state endowed with great natural resources and scenic beauty
to ransom. This is also not the first time that the ULFA has been
marginalized. In the 1990’s Operation Bajrang and Rhino ironically under
the present Governor of the state, Lt general Ajai Singh had
marginalized the militants effectively. In 2003, Operation All Clear by
the Royal Bhutan Army had achieved similar success. Both times the ULFA
rebounded. The reasons for this are not hard to seek.
Operationally the ULFA uses low cost, highly effective terror tactics of
bomb attacks using third party, thereby avoiding direct involvement of
its cadres. Thus it retains the ability to strike in any of the areas of
its choice particularly in Upper Assam. The ULFA is also highly capable
of going in for fake surrenders and thus caution is essential. The ULFA
also restricts operations in areas devoid of army presence concentrating
on urban spots, thus attrition is again limited.
The ULFA has a hierarchy in place for its structures in Assam. The 28
Battalion which is the key operating unit active in Upper Assam has had
a series of reverses but the same do not seem to have affected in
nominating successors. ULFA’s large scale extortion and kidnapping
activities have an extensive reach and are not just restricted to Upper
Assam but include Karbi Anglong, North Cachar as well as Garo hills in
Meghalaya. Arrested Ulfa commander Prabal Neog has told police that
apart from putting its money in real estate and hotels in Bangladesh and
beyond, the militant group is planning to invest in a jade stone that a
leader of the Kachin Independent Army (KIA), a Myanmarese outfit wants
to sell. This well oiled financial network is largely intact and will
continue to thrive as more and more money is pumped in for development
in the North East.
The ULFA is alleged to be having links with the Inter Service
Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan and has camps which are known to the
Director General Foreign Intelligence (DGFI) of Bangladesh. The ULFA is
thus vulnerable to being used as an instrument for fostering covert
agenda of these external intelligence agencies. Thus neutralizing the
ULFA necessitates diplomatic pressure on the governments in Dacca and
Islamabad to abandon their strategy of covert support. Till such time
this occurs, the group is likely to recoup as it did after its
successful decimation in Operation Clear in 2003.
The ULFA is also using cease fire and negotiations to advantage. “The
Army will stop operations against militant outfit ULFA in Assam if it
comes to the negotiating table without any preconditions”, Indian Chief
of Army Staff General Deepak Kapoor said on 18 October. The ULFA
carefully calibrates the strategy as in its mouthpiece 'Freedom', the
ULFA alleged that the Centre was not interested in peaceful resolution
of the 'conflicts in the state'. Thus the peace talk’s balloon comes up
in Assam from time to time. This will only succeed in case credible
communication is established with the ULFA leadership. Indira Goswami
and the PCG which led the talks last time were at the mercy of the ULFA
which had established only one way communication with the group; thereby
they could not initiate any talks with the leadership.
The ULFA also follows a carefully calibrated strategy of information and
disinformation which has to be fully understood and countered by the
Army. Media is very effectively used as a tool by the ULFA and with some
elements of the population on its side through ethnic affinity or
coercion; the ULFA is able to manipulate the information spectrum to
advantage.
The recent success achieved by the Army in Assam is primarily due to
imaginative leadership and effective operational strategy of extension
of security grid in the state which has resulted in denying space to the
militants to operate with impunity. The large expanse of the state and
poor levels of policing combined with low levels of employment has
created space for youth drawn to militant outfits thereby resulting in
insurgency in many parts which has since been difficult to control. Thus
major social transformations would be essential to control the spread
and the militancy in Assam despite considerable successes in recent
months; the ULFA is still some way off from being neutralized.
November 18, 2007
Rahul Mukand is Junior Fellow with
Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi
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