India’s offer for peace talks has been spurned by ULFA
The government’s offer for peace talks with the separatist United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) has been spurned by its leaders. They say that there can be no talks with them in jail. They want the Assam government to release all their leaders from jails, including Arabinda Rajkhowa — arrested recently. But the Union and state governments are not ready to oblige them.
Rather, they have accelerated their efforts to arrest all senior ULFA leaders — creating disarray among their ranks — and then forcing them to sit for talks. However, there is one hitch: the ever evasive ‘commander in chief’ of the outfit Paresh Barua continues to control the operations of the ULFA’s armed cadres.
That is what India hopes to put an end to. It has sought help from the Myanmarese government in tracking down Barua who is believed to be operating out of somewhere in the Kachin Tracts, an area that, incidentally, is beyond the control of the Myanmar government with rebels, such as the Kachin Independent Army (KIA) holding the area. On the face of it, though, Myanmar has responded positively, putting out an assurance of coming to the aid of the Indian government at a meeting of top officials at Nay Pay Taw.
The Indian side, led by the Union Home Secretary GK Pillai has held detailed discussions with Brigadier General Phone Swe of Myanmar in this regard. In Assam, meanwhile, the reactions are mixed. “We aren’t sure of Barua’s whereabouts. He might be in Myanmar or China,” said Khagen Sharma, Additional DGP and spokesperson of the Assam Police. Adds a source close to the militant outfit: “Chances are that Barua is in China.”
Of the 19 central committee members of the ULFA, 12 are in jail, while three were, as reported by TSI earlier, killed in Bhutan. That leaves, among the top leaders, the outfit’s secretary Anup Chetia currently in Bangladeshi custody and Barua who is underground. With some top leaders behind bars in India, the government hopes to achieve what it has failed to do in the past 31 years: Bring the ULFA to the negotiating table.
The government’s offer for peace talks with the separatist United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) has been spurned by its leaders. They say that there can be no talks with them in jail. They want the Assam government to release all their leaders from jails, including Arabinda Rajkhowa — arrested recently. But the Union and state governments are not ready to oblige them.
Rather, they have accelerated their efforts to arrest all senior ULFA leaders — creating disarray among their ranks — and then forcing them to sit for talks. However, there is one hitch: the ever evasive ‘commander in chief’ of the outfit Paresh Barua continues to control the operations of the ULFA’s armed cadres.
That is what India hopes to put an end to. It has sought help from the Myanmarese government in tracking down Barua who is believed to be operating out of somewhere in the Kachin Tracts, an area that, incidentally, is beyond the control of the Myanmar government with rebels, such as the Kachin Independent Army (KIA) holding the area. On the face of it, though, Myanmar has responded positively, putting out an assurance of coming to the aid of the Indian government at a meeting of top officials at Nay Pay Taw.
The Indian side, led by the Union Home Secretary GK Pillai has held detailed discussions with Brigadier General Phone Swe of Myanmar in this regard. In Assam, meanwhile, the reactions are mixed. “We aren’t sure of Barua’s whereabouts. He might be in Myanmar or China,” said Khagen Sharma, Additional DGP and spokesperson of the Assam Police. Adds a source close to the militant outfit: “Chances are that Barua is in China.”
Of the 19 central committee members of the ULFA, 12 are in jail, while three were, as reported by TSI earlier, killed in Bhutan. That leaves, among the top leaders, the outfit’s secretary Anup Chetia currently in Bangladeshi custody and Barua who is underground. With some top leaders behind bars in India, the government hopes to achieve what it has failed to do in the past 31 years: Bring the ULFA to the negotiating table.
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